History & local legend
The Second Bank of the United States on Chestnut Street later served as Philadelphia’s customs house. Its stone steps provide the setting for Michael McMahon’s version of a Spring-Heeled Jack tale, bringing a figure from nineteenth-century English folklore into the city.
McMahon sets the encounter in May 1905. A cleaner named Julia McGlone rounds the west side of the building when a stranger leaps at her, scratching her face and neck. Her scream brings a police officer, who draws his pistol. The attacker breathes fire toward him, then escapes by jumping the entire flight of steps in a single bound.
The combination of claws, flames and impossible leaps identifies the stranger with Spring-Heeled Jack.
