Here’s the largest tile of what was once a 4 or 5 tile set spread throughout the various intersections at Broad and Erie. Here’s a shot I found in my archives of 3! tiles from at least 2 different runs at Broad and Allegheny: Recently I’ve been digging through the archives and getting back out there with a camera in hand to help fill in these gaps. My job takes me all over the city, so I’ve seen many of these tiles, but I was pretty bad about photographing them. Frankford Ave, Kensington Ave, Cottoman Ave, City Ave, 42nd Street, 52nd Street and Broad street were heavily tiled. Though he had no lack of ideas in his years of writing, precisely zero of them involved literally resurrecting the human dead on any planet, let alone the gas giant of Jupiter. From 2006-2010 the tiler shifted focus from center city Philadelphia and began heavily tiling outlying neighborhoods. Toynbee was a British historian and philosopher who died in 1975, years before the first tile was laid (so this wasn't about goosing his own royalties). There was an outlier in Connecticut and a healthy run in South Jersey, but literally hundreds have been placed in Philadelphia since 2002. In 2002, the vast majority of new tiles began appearing in Philadelphia and its near suburbs only. Let’s just say that a careful analysis of tile locations, information gleaned from Minority Association documents and close observation over a period of many years suggest that this is true.

I won’t get too deep into the evidence, because this post is oddball enough already. Of course I’ve considered that only tiles in these areas get noticed and reported, but there is some evidence that these high density areas have been the primary targets for tiling. With a few exceptions, Toynbee tiles typically appear in areas of the greatest population density… central business districts of large cities, highways and rest stops. Here’s a little Toynbee Tile theory for everyone out there.