Vintage Philly films get new home online
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Mayor Frank Rizzo visits Germantown in a video made in the 1970s.
Movie buffs and Philadelphia history fans have a new way to see vintage films about the city.
The Department of Records’ City Archives division has been digitizing a variety of films from its collection and then posting them on its YouTube channel.
The videos range from vintage advertisements about the city, to footage of construction workers building Veterans Stadium, to shots of the late Mayor Frank Rizzo glad-handing in Germantown.
In one video, legendary city planner Ed Bacon discusses urban design in Philadelphia.
In another produced in the late 1960s, the narrator talks up the city’s efforts to promote tourism and commerce.
And, of course, no historical archive of Philadelphia would be complete without grainy footage of the Mummers on New Year’s.
The City Archives has some 150 movies, most of them on 16-mm film.
It began digitizing those films and posting them online last year, in conjunction with the documentary “Philadelphia: The Great Experiment.”
It hopes to continue the project in the future.
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