Temple University Libraries and Megawords Present a Screening at the PMA!

Join Temple’s archival collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art! 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway The Special Collections Research Center, Urban Archives and Megawords Magazine are partnering for a screening as part of the Zoe Strauss: Ten Years exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. All films are drawn from our television news collection and are loosely inspired by the work of Zoe Strauss, Megawords and the PMA itself. The pieces explore everyday Philadelphians, their challenges, rituals, celebrations and public spaces. Some material is entirely new and some are highlights from previous screenings. The screening is free with museum entrance fee. Sunday is pay-as-you-wish day, too!

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  •  footage that hasn’t previously been screened “Assignment: 1747 Randolph Street” (Part 1) WPVI Public Affairs- 1966 (25:00)- The first half of a sometimes challenging 1966 documentary about poverty in North Philadelphia. The documentary focuses specifically on the Ludlow neighborhood, the scene of a brutal crime a year before and eventual target for reform by civic organizations and politicians. Vivid shots of neighborhood conditions are combined with interviews with a cross section of community leaders, politicians and residents.
  •  “North Philadelphia Slums” KYW News- March 15, 1967 (2:24)- A camera sits in a car driving through North Philadelphia gazing at its bars and residents. Sometimes they look back, sometimes they hide their faces.
  • “Chinese New Year” KYW News- 1965 (5:37)- Black and white silent footage of the performers and audience in Chinatown’s 1965 New Year celebration.
  • “Ninth Street Merchants” KYW News- April 7, 1966 (5:28)- Black and white silent footage of the vendors and shoppers that made up Ninth Street in 1966. “Graffiti and Wall Mural” WPVI Public Affairs- 1972 (12:00)- Vintage shots of a graffiti covered El ride, artist Sam Maitin debating with South Philadelphia neighbors as he paints a mural on the Fleisher Art Memorial, and street interviews with Philadelphians about art and graffiti. A quirky, fun piece about the politics and opinions on graffiti and murals in the city. “Last game at Connie Mack stadium” KYW News- October 2, 1970 (8:48)- Color footage of the Phillies-Expos game morphs into footage of the confusion, chaos and detritus surrounding the last game at Connie Mack Stadium (Shibe Park). Philadelphians “celebrate” the end of the institution in their own unique way
  • “Mummers (1953) & Mummers (1966)” KYW News – (5:40)- Black and white silent footage of one of Philadelphia’s most distinct celebrations. Well composed, beautiful shots of audiences and performers just south of City Hall, 13 years apart.
  • “Be-In” (excerpts) KYW News- April 17, 1967 (2:30)- Black and white silent footage of now infamous Ira Einhorn’s first “Be-In” in Fairmount Park in 1967. Footage of some of the estimated 2,000 people gathered near Strawberry Mansion as they mill about and play music.
  • “Hippies” KYW News- April 12, 1968 (4:37)- A news story on hippies in one of their most popular spaces to congregate in the 1960s, Rittenhouse Square. Hippies and residents alike perform for the camera and make the anchor’s job difficult as he tries to report on their future in the park.
  • “Sit-In” (excerpts) KYW News- March 11, 1965 (3:00)- Students from Temple University and University of Pennsylvania stage a sit-in, inside and outside the offices of U.S. Attorney General Drew J. T. O’Keefe in the Ninth and Market federal building. They were doing so to protest the “treatment of African-Americans conducting right-to-vote demonstrations in Selma, Alabama.”
  • “Art Museum” KYW News- September 15, 1967 (6:00)- Silent black and white footage of some of the pieces and reactions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s popular but polarizing “American Sculpture of the Sixties”. This clip shows several of the 130 pieces from 80 artists in the playful 1967 exhibition.
  • “Blimp Visits City” WFIL News- November 23, 1948 (1:18)- Very short but distinct vantage of Philadelphia through a 1948 Goodyear Blimp visit to our city. The camera treats the forms of the city below as abstractions.
  • “City Snow” KYW News- November 30, 1967 (1:30) – Short black and white footage of center city braving its way through a 1967 snow storm.
  • “Visions of A New Day: Bodegas ‘Mom and Pop Stores’” WPVI Public Affairs- March 18, 1976 (10:00)- Visions of a New Day highlights an integral part of Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican neighborhoods, the bodega (corner store). We’re taken through the streets and inside homes and stores during interviews with bodega owners and shoppers.
  • “Puerto Rican Drill Team” (excerpts) WPVI Public Affairs- 1970s (5:28) Documentary on the Puerto Rican Drill Team “Los Conquistadors” based around El Centro De Oro in North Philadelphia. The children of the drill team take over a small North Philadelphia Street when practicing their drills.

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