Maurice Street
Maurice Street, also known as Ann Street, runs south from 742 Mount Vernon Street, across Chestnut Street and Sycamore Street, to 737 Kaighn Avenue. The only address on Maurice Street for much of the last 100 years has been 1130, which in 1947 was the Wesley A.M.E. Church Annex.
Possibly the most interesting thing about Maurice Street is the confusion of what the name of the street actually is. The street first appears in the 1878 Camden City Directory. It was then called Ann Street. By the time of the 1904–1905 City Directory the street had been renamed Maurice Street. Maurice Street is noted in the 1924 City Directory, however the 1947 City Directory shows it as Ann Street. Street signs since the late 1980s have been spelled both Murice and Maurice — given the level of competence in Camden’s Public Works department during this period, a misspelling is highly likely.
The Wesley A.M.E. Church, on the northeast corner of Sycamore and Maurice Streets, was originally called the Zion Wesley Church. A frame church was built in 1853. It was torn down, and the present building erected in 1880. The Church became a part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church organization between 1890 and 1906. The 1906 City Directory shows it as the Wesley A.M.E. Church.
1946 Map of Camden
1946 map of Camden. Maurice Street can be found at lower left, running vertically (south to north).
Maurice Street
Intersection of Mount Vernon Street and Maurice Street, 2006.
Intersection of Chestnut Street and Maurice Street, 2006.
1130 Maurice Street
Wesley A.M.E. Church Annex, 1130 Maurice Street, 2006. The church annex was at this address from at least 1947 through 2006.
Intersection of Sycamore Street & Maurice Street
Intersection of Sycamore Street and Maurice Street, 2006.
Hit by Thrown Brick, Camden Youth May Die
Philadelphia Inquirer —
Innocent Victim of Street Fight Taken to Cooper Hospital in Dying Condition
Struck on the head by a brick thrown in a street fight at Ann and Sycamore streets, Camden, Meyer Pinsky, 16 years old, of 1415 Kaighn avenue, received a fracture of the skull and physicians at the Cooper Hospital fear that he cannot recover. Late last night the boy was still unconscious, efforts of the physicians to revive him having been unsuccessful.
Young Pinsky was an innocent victim of a street brawl. He was passing the intersection of Ann and Sycamore streets when a number of other youths are said to have become engaged in a fight.
Several bricks are said to have been thrown before Pinsky was struck. The police are making an effort to locate the participants in the fight with the hope of arresting the youth who is responsible of Pinsky’s injuries.