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Pole Position · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Cities often seen cramped and crowded, don't they People work
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  Speaker 1: and live in skyscrapers that soar over streets clogged with
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  Speaker 1: taxis and pedestrians. After all, in a city you can't
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  Speaker 1: build out, you build up. When you think of narrow
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  Speaker 1: alleyways and densely packed streets, we often think of places
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  Speaker 1: like New York City and Chicago. But one location that
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  Speaker 1: isn't often talked about lies roughly four thousand miles away
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  Speaker 1: the ocean, and that place is Paris, France, and back
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen nineteen, one man did the impossible. He landed
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  Speaker 1: a plane in the middle of the city of Lights.
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  Speaker 1: His name was Jules Vdrine born in France in eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty one. Vadrine was a hoodlum who spent much of
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  Speaker 1: his youth getting in fights on the streets of Paris.
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  Speaker 1: But despite his heart in nature, he also grew up
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  Speaker 1: to become a skilled mechanic. Vadrine eventually found his way
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  Speaker 1: to London when he was twenty nine to work under
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  Speaker 1: actor and aviator Robert Lorraine. After six months, the former
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  Speaker 1: street urchin earned his own pilot's license and started making
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  Speaker 1: a name for himself all over Paris. He won or
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  Speaker 1: placed in a number of air races, which eventually helped
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  Speaker 1: him launch a political career as a Socialist candidate in
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  Speaker 1: local elections. Although he was in adept pilots with numerous
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  Speaker 1: trophies on his wall, he had less luck in politics,
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  Speaker 1: but that didn't stop him from trying. He even used
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  Speaker 1: his skills as a pilot to drop propaganda over the
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  Speaker 1: Chamber of Deputies in Paris in eighteen twelve, the year
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  Speaker 1: that he ran. These skills carried him through World War One,
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  Speaker 1: where he ran secret service missions delivering troops over enemy
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  Speaker 1: lines or getting them out of harm's way. Thedrine had
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  Speaker 1: gone from fighting in the streets of Paris to saving
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  Speaker 1: the lives of his comrades and arms. Quite the journey
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  Speaker 1: for a young man, but the achievement for which he
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  Speaker 1: is best known was yet to come. Before the war
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  Speaker 1: had started, a contest had been announced, with the grand
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  Speaker 1: prize of twenty five thousand francs to be given to
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  Speaker 1: the pilot who could land his plane on the roof
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  Speaker 1: of Paris's Galery Lafayette department store. To do so was
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  Speaker 1: quite dangerous, after all, the rooftop rows only thirty meters
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  Speaker 1: above the Paris streets, with no room for a runway.
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  Speaker 1: Even the police had to step in. They saw how
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  Speaker 1: risky it was and issued in order forbidding anyone to
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  Speaker 1: try it. But Jules Vdrine wasn't exactly someone to listen
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  Speaker 1: to authority. He knew he could do it. After all,
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  Speaker 1: he'd been a World War One hero, clocking in over
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  Speaker 1: one thousand hours running airborne reconnaissance missions for the French Army.
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  Speaker 1: Landing a place lane on the roof of a department
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  Speaker 1: store would be a piece of cake. So on January
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  Speaker 1: nineteenth of nineteen nineteen, Vdrine hopped into the cockpit of
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  Speaker 1: his Quadron G point three, a single engine French plane.
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  Speaker 1: This would have been the same plane that he'd flown
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  Speaker 1: during the war. Very little about the event is known today,
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  Speaker 1: save for a few photographs that remain. But what is
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  Speaker 1: clear is that Vadrine successfully landed his plane on the
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  Speaker 1: roof of the Gallery Lafayette, and in order to make
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  Speaker 1: sure that he didn't overshoot the landing, he had a
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  Speaker 1: team of men waiting to catch the Quadron by its
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  Speaker 1: wings as it touched down, and his wild plan worked.
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  Speaker 1: Although he won the twenty five thousand francs, six francs
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  Speaker 1: were deducted for landing in a restricted area of the
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  Speaker 1: roof and for any damage caused by the stunt. He
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  Speaker 1: and the plane also suffered injuries as a result. But
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  Speaker 1: he done it. Jules Vdrine had become the first person
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  Speaker 1: to land an airplane on top of a building. His
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  Speaker 1: victory was short lived, though, a few months later, while
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  Speaker 1: piloting a Quadron C twenty three to Rome, his engine
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  Speaker 1: failed and the aviator died trying to land his aircraft. Today,
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  Speaker 1: all that remains of the event is an engraved stone
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  Speaker 1: plaque on the roof of the Gallery Lafayette, burying the
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  Speaker 1: face of Jules Vadrine and a description of what happened
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  Speaker 1: that day. And as someone who has struggled to find
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  Speaker 1: parking spots while going shopping myself, you have to admire
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  Speaker 1: how Vdrine found such a curious solution. Alvin loved getting high,
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  Speaker 1: but not in the way you might think. He was
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  Speaker 1: born Alouisious Anthony Kelly in Hell's Kitchen, New York, on
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  Speaker 1: May eleventh of eighteen ninety three. He didn't know his parents.
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  Speaker 1: His mother died during childbirth and his father passed away
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  Speaker 1: before he was born. He was adopted by a family friend,
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  Speaker 1: but it was clear from a young age that Kelly
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  Speaker 1: had his eyes on a life outside of Hell's Kitchen.
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  Speaker 1: When he was thirteen years old, Alvin ran away from
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  Speaker 1: home and signed up for work on a cargo ship.
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  Speaker 1: As he grew older, he took on a number of
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  Speaker 1: professions including steel worker, high diver, chimney and roof repairman, boxer,
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  Speaker 1: and as a stunt pilot for movies. And it was
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  Speaker 1: his work on films that helps him make a name
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  Speaker 1: for himself outside of his old neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen.
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  Speaker 1: In January of nineteen twenty four, a local movie theater
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  Speaker 1: hired Kelly for a publicity stunt to help sell tickets
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  Speaker 1: for an upcoming picture. His job climbed to the top
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  Speaker 1: of a tall pole and sit on it. It was
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  Speaker 1: apparently something that he'd been good at since he was
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  Speaker 1: a boy. Kelly had climbed to the top of a
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  Speaker 1: pole when he was only seven years old, at least
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  Speaker 1: according to one witness. Then when he was nine, he
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  Speaker 1: climbed up the side of a building all by himself.
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  Speaker 1: But in the winter of nineteen twenty four, he sat
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  Speaker 1: on top of a pole for over thirteen hours, all
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  Speaker 1: to spread word about a new movie being released. Except
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't the movie that he wound up advertising. It
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  Speaker 1: was Alvin Kelly himself. He started traveling all over the
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  Speaker 1: country just sitting on poles for money and attention, and
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  Speaker 1: the people loved him for it. Local businesses sponsored him
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  Speaker 1: and even hired him to advertise for them. He gained
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  Speaker 1: fans who would wait for him to climb down from
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  Speaker 1: his perch so that they would meet him afterward. But
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  Speaker 1: spending hours on top of a flagpole could be taxing
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  Speaker 1: for the average stuntman. So how did Kelly pull it off? Well,
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  Speaker 1: For one, he didn't eat much. He subsisted mainly on
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  Speaker 1: coffee and broth, which he had delivered to him using
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  Speaker 1: a bucket hooked to a rope and pulley. He also
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  Speaker 1: taught himself to nap. Sitting up, he would stick his
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  Speaker 1: thumbs into holes at the top of the pole, and
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  Speaker 1: when his sleeping body would list in one direction, the
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  Speaker 1: pain in his hands would snap him awake. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: staying up there for tens of hours meant that all
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  Speaker 1: those liquids had to go somewhere, and it wasn't like
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  Speaker 1: he had a porta potty on a pole next to him. Allegedly,
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  Speaker 1: Kelly had rigged up a tube system that ran the
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  Speaker 1: length of the pole to a container on the ground
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  Speaker 1: with which he would relieve himself into. This was better
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  Speaker 1: than an alternative solution that would have required spectators to
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  Speaker 1: carry umbrellas with them, and when he wasn't evacuating his bladder,
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  Speaker 1: Kelly could be seen shaving or reading the newspaper as
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  Speaker 1: though he were simply going about his normal day and
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  Speaker 1: not sitting one hundred feet in the air on a
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  Speaker 1: narrow metal pole. Kelly quickly outdid his record of thirteen
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  Speaker 1: hours and thirteen minutes. In nineteen twenty seven, he sat
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  Speaker 1: on a pole for one hundred and forty seven hours
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of February in Kansas City, Missouri. Having
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  Speaker 1: spent my youth in the Midwest, I can only imagine
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  Speaker 1: how horrible that was. He battled wind and rain and cold,
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  Speaker 1: only to go even longer in Atlantic City in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty On that occasion, he sat on top of a
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  Speaker 1: pole for nearly twelve hundred hours, that's forty nine days.
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  Speaker 1: He never let the weather or discomfort sway him, either
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  Speaker 1: whether it was ten degrees out or blistering hot. He
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  Speaker 1: would give the people what they wanted, and apparently what
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  Speaker 1: they wanted to see was a man sitting on a pole. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: his days of flagpole sitting came to an end in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five, at least profession. He was one day
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  Speaker 1: into an attempt to break his Atlantic City record when
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  Speaker 1: the police forced him to get down. After that moment,
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  Speaker 1: he went in got a regular job to make ends meet.
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  Speaker 1: A New York Dunkin Donuts hired him in nineteen thirty
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  Speaker 1: nine to do headstands on the fifty fourth floor of
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  Speaker 1: the Channon Building in Manhattan for National Donut Week. He
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  Speaker 1: performed while eating donuts and drinking coffee upside down, but
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  Speaker 1: soon after the Sea called him back for duty. He
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  Speaker 1: served during World War II as a merchant marine before
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  Speaker 1: returning to his old life without a penny to his name.
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  Speaker 1: He tried flagpole sitting again in nineteen fifty two, but
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  Speaker 1: a stunt in Orange, Texas proved to be too much
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  Speaker 1: for him. He was sixty five feet in the air
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  Speaker 1: when he suffered a series of heart attacks. They did
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  Speaker 1: not kill him, though, but they did force him to
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  Speaker 1: retire from flagpole sitting forever. Kelly went back to Hell's
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  Speaker 1: Kitchen to live out the rest of his days, and
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  Speaker 1: I do mean days. While walking down the street in
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  Speaker 1: his old neighborhood. Soon after his return, he collapsed on
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  Speaker 1: the sidewalk and died. He had no more and no
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  Speaker 1: family to claim him from the morgue. He was eventually
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  Speaker 1: laid to rest at Long Island National Cemetery Alvin Shipwreck.
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  Speaker 1: Kelly accomplished a lot during his relatively short life. He
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  Speaker 1: may not have been blind or been given superpowers in
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  Speaker 1: a freak accident, but he'll always be remembered as the
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  Speaker 1: original Daredevil of Hell's Kitchen. I hope you've enjoyed today's
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  Speaker 1: guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
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  Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
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  Speaker 1: visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me,
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until
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  Speaker 1: next time, stay curious.