Philadelphia Archeology: The Search For Toynbee Tiles

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We spent a couple of hours yesterday hunting for Toynbee tiles. I've rambled on about this obsession before. There were four in St. Louis but two have been paved over. Philadelphia has by far the most and is thought to be the point of origin. They are apparently cut from linoleum, placed between sheets of tar paper and placed on the pavement at the beginning of hot summer days. The traffic presses them down into the warm asphalt and wears away the tar paper.

There are variations on the tile technique in Philly. We saw several of what the locals call Stickman. The bottom tile is in German. It translates as "I'm sorry" in English.

Train to New York this afternoon.