This is an incredible video. It was produced in 1955 and shows what an economic powerhouse Philadelphia was 10 years after the end of World War II. Entrepreneurs flourished as did everyone in the area who wanted a job. This was a time before taxpayers funded stadiums for billionaire team owners, the welfare state and its myriad fiefdoms that promote it and labor’s powerful stranglehold over commerce. Indeed, the narrator goes on to describe Philadelphia’s bustling port:
“… with less man-hours lost because of labor disputes than any other port in the country.”
Philadelphia, in a time before ruthless politicians destroyed it, was truly an example of what capitalism had to offer. It’s very sad to see what it has become.
Yep. Too bad KYW-TV turned into one of many cheerleaders for the destruction.
I would like to see a graph of the growth of an aggregate we could call Gross Local Product against the growth in taxes from 1950 to 2025. Then again, it isn’t hard to imagine. Maybe it’s best left to the imagination.
Interesting….I was born in West Philly in 1926 and left the city in 1953…but still considewr myself to be a Philadelphian!!!
The schols of higher education as well as the Public school system should have received kudos..
Also, the fact that the city is or maybe was known as the cty of row houses.
The problems of the city could have been mentioned, namnely racism and prejudice against the Jewish population.
Thanks for an interesting show.
The row houses were a function of industry. F’rinstance, General Electric was a huge employer in my old neighborhood of Southwest Philly. They built those houses to house their workers and to attract new ones. The city didn’t have to do it.
I wouldn’t let the racism thing get to you personally. It was more a matter of immigrant groups that were already here feeling threatened by more recent immigrant groups. My grandfather, born in 1913, would tell me stories of how the Irish would hassle Italians in South Philly. And before that, the Germans took it out on the Irish. Right or wrong, maybe some people felt encroached upon by recent Jewish immigrants. But these things, unless propogated by the government by way of victim classifications fade away by themselves. In the early 1950s, my grandfather’s brother who was a professional boxer, took on a Jewish name (Sol Blair) in order to get more fights since Italian boxers had lost their appeal by that time.