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This photo shows the positioning of artwork undertaken at UCHS through collaborations of University of Pennsylvania undergraduate and UCHS students in 1998 & 1999.
A collaboration between University City High School and University of Pennsylvania students led to the construction of the Black Bottom Memorial Wall in 1999. The project director was Andrea Zemel, an instructor in Penn’s Graduate School of Fine Arts (now Weizmann School of Design). The deteriorating mosaic tiles were removed prior to the demolition of the UCHS building in 2015.
Completed in 1856, the stone arch Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Bridge has carried rail traffic between West and North Philadelphia for the past 150 years. The view is northeast from the west bank toward Kelly Drive.
Frances Walker and Anne Whiston Spirn at a meeting of MCC/WPLP partners
A memorial for the Black Bottom neighborhood—removed for the construction of the University City Science Center in University Redevelopment Unit 3—was displayed on a wall of the University City High School until the school was demolished in 2015. More images of and information about the mural are available on philart.net.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. arrives at Philadelphia International Airport, August 2, 1965, surrounded by security personnel and reporters. King held a mass “Freedom Now Rally” in West Philadelphia; his plans also included rallying in North Philadelphia. King’s aide in this photo is Andrew Young (upper left).
This photo from the 4100 block of Parkside Ave. captures the deterioration of the neighborhood’s Victorian houses in the three decades after World War II. Landlords willfully neglected the maintenance of these structures, which they divided and re-divided into apartments rented to African American arrivals in West Philadelphia in the postwar phase of the Great Migration.
Girls from the William Cullen Bryant School show off cloths they made in the lastest schoolgirl fashions. Note the black shoes worn by most of the girls (see girl on the left). They are high-topped shoes that buttoned up using a special button hook.
Image shows the Stormwater Best Management Practice Site, at 712 N. 48th Street. Development of this site was a summer project of Sulzberger Middle School students and Water Department staff (including a former WPLP research assistant).
Ossie Davis & his wife of 56 years Ruby Dee, distinguished screen actors and civil rights activists. They were members of the generation of Black actors/civil rights activists who were inspired by Paul Robeson. Other performers of activist ilk who credited Roberson’s inspiration were Sidney Poitier & Harry Belafonte. Unfortunately, the mainstream Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s spurned Robeson, fearing the Cold War taint of Communism.
Viewed from the south, the Mill Creek Homes tower apartments shortly before their demolition in 2003.
This photo shows the boarded-up low-rises on Aspen Street. Sulzberger Middle School (formerly Junior High School, latterly Parkway West High School) at far left.