PHILADELPHIA, AMERICA'S MOST HAUNTED CITY

Academy of Music

The FISHERMAN

Location: The Water Works Philadelphia Date: 2000

Right off kelly drive behind the Art Museum and down the road from Boat House row and the worlds largest public azalea garden is a collection of Greco-Roman style buildings overlooking the Schuylkill river.

Designed by Fredrick Graff and built in 1819 these buildings are collectively known as the waterworks, their beautiful outward design hides their original use as a pump station to bring water to a reservoir that was on top of the hill where the Art museum now stands.

This area also happens to be a great place to fish, here we begin our story told to us by Mike:

As a young man I used to frequent this part of Fairmount park a lot, sometimes I would bring my girlfriend here especially in the spring, it is a very romantic place, a lot of times I would just come here to go fishing off of the balcony at the water works, it always seemed strange to me and a little peculiar that I would always see the same old fisherman standing at the same spot no matter at what time of year or how many years that had passed since I last been there, he would always be there, by himself , very silent, very still, with just a line in the water , without movement, without blinking, his eyes staring at the same spot in the water.

I made up my mind , that the next time I saw him, I would strike up a conversation with him.

Well being busy with work and with my wife having giving birth to twins, It was hard to make it out there until this past summer, it had been almost 2 years since I had last been there and had seen him, I actually felt goose bumps approaching the area where he always fished at , part of the water works is being restored behind fencing I had to climb over, I thought I would have the place to myself, ..but no, there he was, in the same spot , wearing the same clothes!

My curiosity got the best of me, I had to approach him. I got within 5 feet of him and before I could open my mouth he started speaking to me or perhaps to anyone who would listen, he said in a mono tone voice that in 1978 he had a terrible argument with his wife, she had wanted to leave him and she was having an affair with a neighbor, they had come here one evening behind the Art museum to the Water Works, but what they did not know was that this place was where he always went fishing , he caught them both along a walkway beside the Schuylkill river that is heavily shaded by trees and bushes, he surprised them both, stabbing the neighbor with his fishing knife and throwing his body into the swift currant of the river , his wife broke away and ran to this spot where he had been fishing all these years, she slipped, hitting her head on some rocks falling into the water and drowning while he watched . He then said that he was sorry that he did it.

Slowly the fisherman turned to me, his eyes were black pools and this is hard to describe but he did not have any clear discernible features except for what seemed like ugly wounds on his wrists, he then slowly faded away.

p.s. I don't fish any more.

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