neighbors
The Industrial Past
Posted July 18th, 2008 by TeishanCardinal Bevilacqua Community Center with Scribe Video Center
This video is available for purchase as part of a Precious Places Community History Project Vol. 3 compilation DVD
Kensington may be Philadelphia's quintessential post-industrial neighborhood. Once a teeming textile hub of the city and indeed the region, Kensington's wealth and quality of life declined in the 1950s and 1960s as factories moved elsewhere. While the neighborhood has developed a reputation as one of Philadelphia's most neglected areas, residents tell of a different Kensington. Recently, the neighborhood has also been experiencing something of a rebirth. The Cardinal Bevilacqua Community Center epitomizes this trend.
The Taking of South Central…Philadelphia
Posted December 11th, 2007 by InternOdunde with Scribe Video Center
Videomaking Consultant - Tina Morton; Humanities Consultant - Jeff Maskovsky, Post Production - Tina Morton
This video is available for purchase as part of a Precious Places Community History Project Vol.1 compilation DVD.
Once “South Philly,” the area along South Street is now “Center City.” As longtime residents around the 2100 block can attest, gentrification has besieged this close-knit neighborhood that is regionally famous for Odunde, an annual African street festival. South Street is located just blocks from Center City's skyscrapers, and with real estate values rising, longtime residents in this neighborhood increasingly face displacement as the borders of Center City march ever southward.
Center Focused
Posted July 18th, 2007 by GretjenDiSilvestro Advisory Council and Town Watch
Ellen Reynolds
Just blocks from the Avenue of the Arts lies this culturally diverse South Philadelphia neighborhood of residents working gamely to peacefully coexist despite their differences. With a little help from a jaunty soundtrack and members of the DiSilvestro Advisory Council and Town Watch, neighbors chat about the history of the neighborhood's Italian, Vietnamese, Cambodian, German, Irish, African American and Polish residents and how, with the help of the Town Watch and the DiSilvestro Playground, they make their melting pot into a tasty stew.
The DiSilvestro Advisory Council and Town Watch operates from its home at the DiSilvestro Playground and Recreation Center located at 1701 S. 15th Street. The Center offers basketball leagues, summer camp programs, and gardening, dance, ceramics and other arts and craft classes to interested neighborhood residents of all ages. The Center has often allowed Scribe to program Street Movies screenings on its playground, widely known to area children as a Bully-Free Zone.
Ellen Reynolds is an editor, cinematographer and documentary producer. Recent documentary works include Race Talk and The Way of the Elephant. She is Post-Production Supervisor at the Graduate School of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania.
January 7, 2004 - Film: Reperatory, Philadelphia Weekly (brief mention)
August 12-18, 2004 - Reperatory Film, Philadelphia City Paper (brief mention)
January 8, 2004 - Part of Community Visions Premiere at Prince Music Theater (Philadelphia, PA)
June 8, 2004 - DUTV Broadcast Screening (Philadelphia, PA)
July 6, 2004 - DUTV Broadcast Screening (Philadelphia, PA)
August 10, 2004 - DUTV Broadcast Screening (Philadelphia, PA)
August 11, 2004 - Part of Street Movies! screening at DiSilvestro Playground
(Philadelphia, PA)
The Bombing of Osage Avenue
Posted May 8th, 2007 by Gretjen
Produced & Directed by Louis Massiah for WHYY-TV 12, Written & Narrated by Toni Cade Bambara
On Mother's Day, 1985, a virtual army of city and state police converged on a quiet block in historic Cobb's Creek, a blossoming neighborhood of parks and children, aluminum siding and basketball stars nestled in the heart of Philadelphia's African American community. By the next day, 61 homes were destroyed and 11 people were dead, all members of the communitarian MOVE organization. In this, the winner of 1987's Global Village Best Documentary Award, Massiah establishes the setting for the tragedy early on, and Toni Cade Bambara's poetic narration draws us deeper into the drama.
"...an excellent film which explores the social and politcal context in which the confrontation between MOVE and the City of Philadelphia developed." -- Bettye Collier-Thomas, Director, Center for African American History and Culture
"This extraordinary documentary is an intricately woven story of government overkill and its impact on the innocent." -- Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Women's Resource and Research Center, Spelman College
Louis Massiah is the founder and executive director of Scribe. He also produced and directed the documentary works Louise Thompson Patterson: In Her Own Words, two films for the Eyes on the Prize II series, and W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices.
Toni Cade Bambara wrote several books of fiction, including The Salt Eaters, The Sea Birds Are Still Alive, Gorilla, My Love, and Those Bones are Not My Child: A Novel, and taught writing workshops at Scribe for many years and collaborated on numerous productions. She died in 1995.
