Saturday marks the return of the Army-Navy football game — an annual tradition dating back to 1890. Eighty-six of the contests have taken place in Philadelphia, including the old Municipal/JFK and Veterans Stadiums, and more recently, Lincoln Financial Field. Despite West Point, N.Y., being less than 150 miles away, the City of Philadelphia has not spread much of its much talked about Brotherly Love the Black Knights’ way as the service academy enters this year’s game seeking its first win in Philly since 2001.
For those heading to the game, 3 p.m. kickoff on Dec. 9, imagine if all of the traffic along South Broad Street heading toward the sports complex went one way. That’s right — four lanes of traffic all heading south. Today, the scenario would never work as hundreds of people head into Center City to do their much-needed holiday shopping.
Believe it or not, back in 1947, the scenario really did happen. See for yourself in this old image from Nov. 29, 1947, in which all of the traffic is heading toward Municipal Stadium. By the way, if you are wondering who won that year, the final score was Army 21, Navy 0.
