Just check out these maps depicting the many conflicting and overlapping identities of  our very storied and often contested neighborhoods north of Center City:  two versions of Northern Liberties (so far); West Kensington; “Secret” Fishtown (Shadtown?); and Norris Square/”Olde” Kensington…”dark and gloomy” borders, “poverty,” and “one-stop gentrification”…mini-restaurant reviews, social commentary, and snarky in-jokes… it’s all here in these maps. Be sure to brave the resulting comments, too.

Visit Philebrity to see the rest, including Wash West, Old City, Pennsport, East Passyunk Avenue, Queen Village, and the ever-mysterious Eraserhood, courtesy of bhiladelphia :

Keep ‘em coming, Philebrity readers…Hand-drawn Philadelphia could very well become its own blog if we can continue to  map the entire city and argue about it, too.

The Library Company is working to increase public access to and intellectual engagement with this significant body of work. Digitized images of the collection are mounted on Flickr.  An online exhibition entitled Faces and Facades of Philadelphia: Three Decades of Portraits by John Frank Keith provides biographical information about Keith and situate his work in an historical context. The photographs will also be cataloged for inclusion in the Library Company’s digital collections catalog, ImPAC.

Visitors to PhilaPlace will hopefully find John Frank Keith’s photographs inspiring and thought-provoking. Perhaps they will even recognize their relatives or themselves as children and feel compelled to share their stories of South Philadelphia and Kensington!

Five children and older woman standing in front of brick building, ca. 1930. John Frank Keith, photographer. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Young man standing before a storefront, ca. 1930. John Frank Keith, photographer. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Woman holding baby, ca. 1922. John Frank Keith, photographer. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Seven men and a young boy sitting on brownstone steps, ca. 1930. John Frank Keith, photographer. Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia.

Charlene Peacock is Curatorial Assistant for the Library Company of Philadelphia, an independent research library specializing in American history and culture from the 17th through the 19th centuries (and HSP’s next-door neighbor on Locust Street). LCP is free and open to the public.

Giuseppe and Maria Innocenza Voci Pisano

Illustrated below is a copy of one of his poems, “Pascua” written in the form of a cross to celebrate Easter. This is only one of many of a vast anthology that he left among the two large boxes. In addition to the poems was a playbill from 1931 of The Filodramatic Circle Gasperinese for “The Passion Play of Christ, for Monday evening, March 30, 1931, at 7:30 p.m at the church of St. M.M. Auditorium at 7th and Christian Streets, and a photo of part of the cast. According to family history he produced and directed this play for ten years somewhere between the 1920 and 1930s.

I discovered PhilaPlace, at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, a multi-cultural project telling the story of how different immigrant groups lived in the various neighborhoods. I traveled twice to meet with staff and begin donating his original works.

I have become a member of the society. I hope to compile a complete anthology of his poems, and to use them to write his biography. To do so, I hope to continue my affiliation and interest in the PhilaPlace project and the endeavors of the staff of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

“Pascua” (Easter), by Antonio Pisano

Playbill from 1931 presentation of the “Passion Play of  Christ”

Portrait of the Filodramatic Circle Gasperinese, 1931

Editor’s note: Donna Meidt is a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania who resides in Tempe, Arizona.  A South Jersey native, she is a former Coordinator of Educational Programs for the Camden County [New Jersey] Historical Society, and is currently researching and writing about her family’s roots in Calabria, Italy, South Philadelphia, and Camden. She has recently donated many of her family’s papers, including her grandfather’s poetry and plays, to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. You can read the story of her great-grandmother’s South Philadelphia boarding house on PhilaPlace.org. Donna can be reached at wmeidt@cox.net .

]]> http://blog.philaplace.org/2010/01/antonio%e2%80%99s-anthology/feed/ 12 http://blog.philaplace.org/2009/12/home-movies-and-philadelphia-history/ http://blog.philaplace.org/2009/12/home-movies-and-philadelphia-history/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:00:06 +0000 Dwight Swanson http://blog.philaplace.org/?p=313 In 1923, the Eastman Kodak Company began marketing its Cine-Kodak movie camera and 16mm film, and just as the Kodak Brownie camera had opened the world to a flood of snapshots, 16mm movie film and later the cheaper 8mm and Super 8 formats, brought the world of moviemaking out of the theaters and into people’s ...]]> In 1923, the Eastman Kodak Company began marketing its Cine-Kodak movie camera and 16mm film, and just as the Kodak Brownie camera had opened the world to a flood of snapshots, 16mm movie film and later the cheaper 8mm and Super 8 formats, brought the world of moviemaking out of the theaters and into people’s homes.

Home movies are often thought of in terms of their technical limitations—the unsteady cameras and the overexposed films—and limited in their subject matter. These are often overstated, since over the years there have been incredibly talented home movie makers who have filmed almost every imaginable event, but what home movies do best (or at least most often) is capture peoples’ travels, celebrations, and daily lives. Because of this, scenes that never would have been shot by newsreel cameramen or professional cinematographers were captured on film, and we now can view scenes of Philadelphia life that we wouldn’t be able to see in any other way.

One of the first residents of South Philadelphia to own a 16mm camera was Dominic Lombardi, the oldest son of Joseph Lombardi, an Italian immigrant who had arrived in Philadelphia in 1896. The elder Lombardi first worked at a bakery, then became a ditch digger, then a brick layer, and eventually started the Joseph Lombardi and Sons’ construction company. By the 1920s, Joseph Lombardi was a millionaire and one of the wealthiest people in Philadelphia. Lombardi loved both Italian culture and movies, and in the 1930s he built the Dante Theater on South Broad Street, which brought some of the first Italian movies into the United States. Lombardi also maintained close ties with his ancestral home in Fornelli, Italy, and he brought his children back to his homeland for long visits every four years.

Dominic Lombardi began shooting home movies in the late 1920s and continued until after the Second World War. His films include scenes of trips back to Italy via the “Rex” and the “Roma”, Italy’s two biggest steamships; travels around Italy, idyllic scenery, and even shots of Mussolini’s youth camps. He also filmed his family at their home on the 1600 block of South Broad Street and at their summer home on the Jersey Shore, as well as Lombardi & Sons’ construction projects. After Dominic gave up filmmaking, his younger brother Robert got an 8mm camera of his own and continued filming family events in Italy, South Philadelphia and Bala Cynwyd, where he lived with his wife and their eight children.

Robert Lombardi’s films are in the process of being transferred to digital video by his daughter Dolores, who has become the family’s archivist and historian.  The excerpts of her father’s home movies that Dolores has posted on PhilaPlace are typical in that they mainly focus on happy events such as weddings, parties, trips, and spaghetti dinners, but as a result they show us a colorful and unvarnished (if occasionally out-of-focus) look at life growing up as a second-generation immigrant family in South Philadelphia.

Aunt Christina, Lombardi family home, 1627 South Broad Street

Lombardi & Sons, 1311 South Broad Street

Rudy Volpe

Spaghetti dinner at the Lombardi family home, 1627 South Broad Street

Departure for Italy

According to the Record, Bella was one of the many South Philadelphians of the era living in the unsafe, unsanitary, slum housing of Philadelphia. Bella’s hopes were to move into the city’s proposed Old Swedes/ Southwark low-rent housing project to be built in her neighborhood.  Over the next few weeks I continued searching through newspaper articles, public records, pamphlets, reports, census data, and city directories hoping to find what became of Bella and her house along Washington Avenue. In the process, I discovered a dramatic  story of  heated feuding between political factions, ethnic groups, religious organizations, and the citizens of Southwark, over what would become of the 18 acres of land bound between Catharine Street, Delaware Avenue, Washington Avenue, and 2nd Street.   You can read the full story of the Old Swedes Housing Project on PhilaPlace.org.

The following text and photos are excerpted from the Philadelphia Record’s May 23, 1939 article about the life and conditions of the Iveson family.

The Ivesons Will Soon Be Moving From Their Bandbox: Homes of 383 Families to Be Razed for 18-Acre South Philadelphia $5,500,000 Low-Rent Project

OCCUPYING the nearer of this pair of bandbox houses (three rooms, one over the other) are Mrs. Bella Iveson, 30, a recent widow; her three children and mother. The house (on Washington Ave. near Front st.) and almost 400 other structures- 335 dwellings (housing 383 families), of which 245 are unsafe and unsanitary- are to be demolished to make way for Philadelphia Housing Authority’s $5,500,00 low-rental housing project in the area bounded roughly by Catharine and 2nd sts. and Washington and Delaware aves. With most of the 1600 residents, Mrs. Iveson, who has spent most of her life in the neighborhood welcomes the project, hopes to be one of its new tenants. It is designed to furnish 950 families (3800 persons) with modern housing. It will be open, under present plans, to families with less than $1000 annual income.

BATHING in Iveson home (no bathroom and only one water tap-cold, in kitchen) calls for tin tub and bucket of water heated on gas stove or coal range (which aided by small pot-bellied stove upstairs must heat the house, there being no furnace. Joan, 5 (goes to kindergarten, had to have tonsils out), huddled in the tub on a recent chilly morning, close to the range, while ablutions are carried on under draft breaking towel. Only alternative is to get shower (cost, one cent) at nearby settlement house and run home fast to avoid possible pneumonia on wintry days.

MAN of house is Freddie, 7, first grade pupil at George Washington Public School, picks wood to take home for the range. He fathers nails, selling them for couple pennies to junk men. Plays in street or lot rather than nearby Shot Tower Playground, because older boys “won’t let you play on the things,” Goes to movies once a week (four-hour show for 10 cents).

LIVING here is “too expensive” considering lack of comforts and environmental influences, say Mrs. Iveson as she pours formula for baby (Rose Marie, 4 months old) in kitchen which serves for everything but sleeping. The house is 70 years old, built of brick, looks out on freight trains on Washington ave., on debris covered lot on which two similar dwellings were pulled down recently before they fell down, on hodge-podge of crazy board fences. Mrs. Iveson pays $10 monthly rent. Coal, gas, electricity, food, clothing and incidentals run $50 more a month.

WASH is hung in dank, checkerboard-sized yard where sun has to struggle to enter. At rear is only toilet on property. Mrs. Iveson (worked once as sales girl in 5-and-10 cent store) is keeping family on money from husband’s insurance. Husband (Fred, 44, a pipefitter who once made “good money,” late a seaman) was killed a month ago in automobile accident. Insurance was $900, of which $600 was spent for burial and lot. She has $180 left. If no income source develops she’ll have to apply for relief.

ALL FIVE sleep in the same room on the second floor. In winter, even with little stove going full blast, they shiver under the covers, They burn about half ton of coal a month. In summer ice is picked up when dumped from refrigerator cars on Delaware ave. Top room (used for storing) is tiny, frigid in winter, insufferable in summer. Children go to bed at 8 P.M., Mrs. Iveson at 11. She’s up again at 7 A.M. and the youngsters an hour later. Nights punctuated by horns shrieking from the river, puffing engines crashing freight cars against on another from the  tracks.

FOR LUNCH at kitchen table ($2.50 new, with four chairs – “you can get bargains if you look sharp”), the Ivesons and her mother, Mrs. Mary Wyruchowski, have home-made vegetable soups (25 cents for about three quarts of it), bread (day-old at 6 cents loaf), left over meat loaf. One advantage of neighborhood is food is cheap and good, says Mrs. Iveson. She shops at Dock st. (for produce and fish in large quantity) and in 4^th st, curb market below South St. Has but few recreations. Walks in nearby Old Swedes’ Church graveyard, visits next door with sister and brother-in-law, Douglas V. Howard, who just makes a living breeding pedigreed spaniels and terriers.

CLOTHING can be picked up cheap along 4^th st. But fitting and quality haphazard and Jobian patience a requisite. Mrs. Iveson paid 35 cents for the dress she has on, the same for silk slip, 69 cents for her shoes. She buys trousers for Freddie at 35 cents, shirts 25 cents, other things in proportion. Shopping’s one of her few pleasure and she has to do a lot of it, particularly for food. That’s because of Freddie’s appetite. For dinner one day he ate three boiled eggs, eight slices of bread and butter, a large meat pie and half of a 10-inch coconut pie.

Amanda Zellner has been a student historian for PhilaPlace through  Drexel University’s co-op program since June 2009.

In the fall of 2007, over seventy-five people came out to share their memories and photographs with PhilaPlace at our neighborhood events in South Philadelphia and at Northern Liberties. In search of more stories, the PhilaPlace team went out into the neighborhoods again in the spring and summer of 2008 with a team of student videographers to interview people about their neighborhoods and the places that matter to them. Others have called us after reading about PhilaPlace and generously offered to share their stories and photos, and we continue to collect from the community in anticipation of the Web launch. Once PhilaPlace.org goes live in early December, visitors will be able to contribute their written memories and stories and post their own photos and video clips directly to the site.

Myron Shegda shared stories of growing up in Northern Liberties

Cora Turpin, longtime resident of Northern Liberties

Harriet Rosenberg and her son, Murray. The Rosenbergs have roots in both South Philly and Northern Liberties

From North Marshall Street to South 9th Street, several generations of residents have shared their memories of living, working, and playing on the streets of two of Philadelphia’s oldest and fastest-changing neighborhoods. Their stories and photographs span the twentieth century, and range from national events such as the Sesquicentennial celebration on Broad Street in 1926, the Depression, and World War II, to the intensely local: New Year’s Day Mummers Parades; Sunday visits to grandparents; shopping on 9th Street; living above the family business; and working at the Navy Yard.

Below is just a sampling of the people we’ve met so far and the stories they’ve shared. Be sure to check back with us in the coming weeks as we share more of these stories on this blog as a preview of what you’ll find on the PhilaPlace Web site when it launches in December.

Charles Veasey shared stunning oversized photos of the old Schmidt’s brewing plant, rescued from the trash heap by Charles’s brother John, who was head of security for the plant.

Joe Figurski of Front and Carpenters streets shared what he called his “memories of Mummery” from a lifetime of a strutting down Broad Street on New Year’s Day.

Adab Ibrahim and Joe Brenman shared their experience of creating the Doorways to Peace community mural at the  Al-Aqsa Islamic Society mosque in Kensington.

Vince Maurelli of Colorado Street in South Philadelphia shared photos of his grandfather Vincenzo, who sold produce from his huckster’s cart in the 9th Street Market at the turn of the century. Vince also shared his memories of  attending the Sesquicentennial celebration on South Broad Street in 1926. Here’s Vince with a photograph of himself as a little boy at the Sesquicentennial:

Thoai Nguyen of 7th & Wolf shared the story of his family, who came to South Philadelphia from Vietnam in 1975 and were the first Southeast Asian family in the neighborhood.

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