Noontime Nuggetz: Philadelphia Circa 1947, Complete With Old Ladies And Rats
As this film shows, even in 1947, people throughout the rest of the country regarded Philly as an unrepentant cesspool. Dig the bargain-basement James Mason narrator, too. From the utterly amazing Travel Film Archive, which also gave you yesterday’s mindblowing nugget. Dig that boy-versus-rat fight at 3:45!
November 19th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
All that slum clearing really worked out for the city, didn’t it?
November 19th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Ah, the good ole days, when PHA still bothered to produce elaborate propaganda to conceal their evil schemes.
November 21st, 2009 at 6:21 am
The Richard Allen Projects – brand spankin’ new!
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Finally got around to watching this. What’s pictured here isn’t the acres of slumland that is our national rep now. At the time, Philly was at its peak – 3rd or 4th largest city, coming out of the war with tons of industry, population growth, a huge middle class, a new political regime, and a can-do attitude. The “slums” shown here were relatively small, limited to the oldest parts of town, which had been abandoned for years to the poorest people: Queen Village (shown in the film), Society Hill, NoLibs, lower North Philly, Grays Ferry.
What this film shows is our high-water mark, the moment before our country began the historic experiment in happy motoring. Within a few years, we abandonded the ancient urban model for highways, cheap gasoline, sprawling tracks of cookie cutter homes, shopping centers and malls, office and industrial parks, global trade, and global entertainment via tvs and computers.
Amazing to think that 20 years after this film was made, the hope embodied here was completly gone, and the majority of Philadelphia looked like the small slum areas shown here. PHA didn’t stand a chance.