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From: <>
Subject: Re: Kensington Bibliography
Date: Thu, 02 Apr 98 09:49:01 -0500

1. When did the Badlands become part of Kensington? We always
considered Front St. as the boundary, at most, 2nd St.
2. Steve Lopez never did understand Philadelphia or Philadelphians.
3. I, and some of my friends, voted for Wallace as a write in. I don't
know how the old people voted. I know that he got quite a few votes in
Philadelphia.
4. I work with people who live in the Badlands. They aren't as upset
as everyone else is.

Gene

______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Kensington Bibliography
Author: < > at INTERNET
Date: 4/2/98 6:23 AM

Lynn et al,

The following are about the only volumes published on the Kensington
section of Philadelphia. I've given alittle review for you all...

I had the opportunity to talk with Peter Binzen the author of
"Whitetown,USA." He use to be a customer of ours at the bookshop where I
worked. He has academic creditals alright, but he's basically a newspaper
reporter who's long on opinion and short on analysis. It would have been a
better book had it been written by someone who could gather data and be
capable of analysis, such as a sociologist or someone better suited for the
social sciences. He spent a whole three months talking to folks and formed
an opinion and a book based on that, which the gist of it seems to be that
the neighborhood was full of hard headed blue collar white guys, who voted
for George Wallace. I don't recall anybody voting for George Wallace, we
were always strict Democrats like the rest of the neighborhood. Binzen's
still plugging away at the Inquirer as a business writer, and by reading a
column or two you can guess his slant...

"Voices of Kensington," on the other hand does give a better portrait. The
author, Jean Seder's family worked in the area for many years, and she
allowed the good and the bad, and it's much more balanced, and hence a
better book.

Besides these two books, the other books published on Kensington were a
business type directory entitled, "Kensington, City within a City,"
published back around 1890. It's quite scare, and if anybody ever turns up
a copy I'd purchase it in a minute. Our group has a copy and hopes to put
this whole volume online with a searchable index, but we are still scanning
it in for now, a slow process. There is also the book our group was
involved in publishing, "Kensington History; stories and memories," which
presents the community, warts and all. It is hoped that the Kensington
History Project will publish other volumes in the upcoming years.

Another reporter who use to work at the Inquirer, Steve Lopez, wrote a
silly little book entitled,"Third & Indiana." It's a novel based in
Kensington. It's not very good, not very well developed, and it furthers
the sterotypes. For all attempts to be a "man of the street," Lopez is
pretty lame. Even my ABE & GED students who live in the "Badlands," had a
hard to believing it.

There are other bits and bobs, articles, social science studies, etc... At
some point we will gather them and put together a really good bibliography
on our website, which we hope to have up within this year.

KEN

Kensington History Project
2313 E. York Street
Phila.,Pa. 19125
(215) 426-2019

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