posted by Brandon Gollotti

on July 23, 2007

Continuing with the theme of Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia, many unique places of business and residential neighborhoods for Blacks were formed all over the city. African Americans started to become more and more part of the city as they started to receive the same amenities and have some of the same luxuries as the white people living in the city. In these neighborhoods, there were theaters, restaurants, churches, and sports teams whose main audience was the African American living in the city.

Some of the most famous theaters for African Americans during the twentieth century were in Philadelphia. The theaters that the film mentions are the Dunbar Theater (now the Lincoln Theater), Gibson’s Theater, and the Earl Theater. The one theater that the film went into detail about is the Uptown Theater in North Philadelphia. The Arc deco building was built in 1928 and it is located on Broad Street above right Susquehanna Avenue and was once a venue for the biggest African American entertainers of the day. Some of the more famous performers who had acts there were Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Mavin Gaye and the Temptations. Today the building is in terrible disrepair. I never realized that one of the greatest venues in Philadelphia was this rundown building in North Philadelphia that I drove by almost everyday on the way to my high school. It is a shame that this piece of cultural may left behind to rot as it is still unoccupied. Currently the city is trying to preserve this building and use it as an anchor in their re-development plans of North Broad Street.

Music also had a unique history in Philadelphia. It is home to Marian Anderson, who went to Philadelphia High School for Girls during the first part of the twentieth century. Anderson started to gain fame as in New York and is greatly remembered for her performance in front of the Lincoln Memorial in 1939 in Washington, D.C. Mitch Thomas was also a famous character in Philadelphia hosting both a radio and television show resembling a type of American Bandstand. The film shows a reunion of Thomas and several performers of the once-famous television show. Doo-wop music was also popular in the streets of Philadelphia. The film credits South Philadelphia and the Richard Allen homes in North Philadelphia as being the centers of this type of soulful music. In the film there is an interview of a doo-wop who recently reunited, creating music for a new generation of the youth of Philadelphia and the nation.

Stayed tuned to the third and final blog about the Black Philadelphia Memories tomorrow.