The old Eagles bus atop the former Northeast Philly Paintarama is gone after building sale: 'That was our whole world'

Matt Breen, The Philadelphia Inquirer on Apr 22, 2025

Published in Football

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PHILADELPHIA — The bar around the corner had a bicycle on the roof and another business had a moving truck on top. So the Eagles bus atop the roof of a Wissinoming auto body shop fit in with the fabric of the Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood.

“But we did it first,” said Chaz Garuffe, whose father, Chalie, lifted the shell of a green school bus onto the roof of Paintarama at Torresdale Avenue and Brill Street a year after the bus broke down in January 1981 while carrying a gang of rowdy Birds fans to the Super Bowl in New Orleans.

The bus atop Garuffe’s auto body shop was a roadside attraction, a reminder of the group of guys from the neighborhood who tried to drive to the Super Bowl.

The Eagles went nearly 25 years without reaching the big game and the bus on the roof — “The Liberty Bell of Northeast Philly,” Chalie Garuffe once said — was a reminder for decades that the Birds actually played in the Super Bowl.

“That was our whole world,” Chaz Garuffe said. “The Eagles didn’t even win that Super Bowl. ‘Hey Dad, the Eagles lost that game.’ I don’t know. It was just a big deal.”

The Garuffes sold the building in the early 2000s and the bus was painted blue a few years ago. That made Garuffe’s stomach turn.

“There was no reason to look up anymore,” he said.

Last month, it became even worse when the bus was removed so the current owners could replace the roof before the building was sold. Garuffe figures the bus was sawed into pieces since it was just a shell without an engine or anything else inside. The current owners could not be reached for comment.

Northeast Philly lost a landmark

“No one saw it come down,” Chaz Garuffe said. “No one saw it halfway done. We got it up there with a crane. No one put a crane on the ground and blocked off the streets. No one saw it come down. Maybe it happened at nighttime.”

The building, as reported by the Philadelphia Business Journal, was sold last week for $1.04 million by Pea Vine Properties LP, a business tied to a Conshohocken address, to 5223 Torresdale LLC, which is linked to a residential address in Mayfair.

Chalie Garuffe, who died in 2022, graduated in 1957 from Father Judge’s first graduating class, and served in the Air Force before opening Paintarama. He also operated a bar in the basement of the building called “Thee Bus Stop” as a nod to the bus on the roof.

Two auto body shops occupied the building once his Paintarama closed. The bus hung around until now.

“I grew up there,” Chaz Garuffe said. “I started working there when I was 12 years old.”

Chalie Garuffe bought the 1954 Ford school bus for $225 in 1970 from a church in Huntingdon Valley. The bus was painted for the Eagles — first white with green trim and then green with white trim — and used every game to transport a group of dads from St. Timothy’s parish to the Vet.

The Eagles were terrible for most of the 1970s, but the bus still rumbled every week to South Philly. The guys sang on the way down and sang on the way home. A sign on the side of the bus said, “Either Way We Can’t Lose.”

“We always had a good time,” Chalie Garuffe said in 1983. “Even when they had terrible teams, we had fun. What’s America about if you can’t have a little fun? We had good times and good laughs in here. They’re irreplaceable. The Eagles don’t owe me a thing.”

‘It’s a generational thing’

The Eagles reached the Super Bowl in January 1981 and Garuffe decided to point the bus toward New Orleans with 13 guys inside. The gang called themselves the “Dirty Dozen Plus One” and the bus was overhauled to include a bar, tables, TVs, and even a bathroom.

But it died in South Carolina, 730 miles from the Super Bowl. A tow truck took the bus back to Northeast Philly while the “Dirty Dozen Plus One” figured out a way to get to New Orleans. Some even rented hearses. The dead bus was lifted onto the roof and Garuffe bought a new bus for Sundays.

“They started this tradition every Sunday,” said Jim Harvey, who owns the third iteration of the Northeast Philly Eagles bus and leaves for every game from Mayfair. “The fathers from the neighborhood. Mr. Brennan, Mr. Garuffe, Mr. Connors, Mr. MacNamara. Then they turned it over to the next generation, me and my friends. Now I’m taking my daughters and my grandson. It’s a generational thing.”

The bus on the roof was a thing, something that caught your eye when you were driving down Torresdale Avenue. It was part of a neighborhood that had a bar with a bike on the roof. The bike has long been gone. And now the bus is, too.

“My dad would say, ‘It’s time to move on,’ ” Garuffe said. “Let someone else have a story to tell.”