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Fresh Air opens the window on contemporary arts and issues with guests from worlds as diverse as literature and economics. Fresh Air Weekend collects the best segments from the week's programs and crafts them together for great weekend listening.
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Fresh Air Weekend

Fresh Air opens the window on contemporary arts and issues with guests from worlds as diverse as literature and economics. Fresh Air Weekend collects the best segments from the week's programs and crafts them together for great weekend listening.

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History

Photo/Janny Scott
Radio Times
Community

Janny Scott: Secrets and stories of a prosperous family

Janny Scott grew up in a blue-blood family on the Main Line. But, as she discovered researching for The Beneficiary, her family had secrets.

Air Date: April 18, 2019

Listen 49:50
Philadelphia fire commissioner Adam Thiel at The Original Apostolic Faith Church of the Lord Jesus Christ in North Philadelphia in March of 2018, right after a fire broke out at the church. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
PlanPhilly
Urban Planning
PlanPhilly

Q&A: How Philly’s firefighters keep the city’s historic buildings safe

Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Adam Thiel explains how Philly fights blazes in historic buildings in the aftermath of the fire at Notre Dame in Paris.

8 years ago

Jewelers Row, one of the oldest diamond districts in America, is threatened by a plan to construct a 29-story residential tower. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
The Why
Urban Planning

Why so few of Philadelphia’s old buildings are historically protected

Philadelphia has many old, iconic buildings and neighborhoods. So why are so few of these sites historically preserved and protected from the wrecking ball?

Air Date: April 16, 2019

Listen 13:09
Melinda Steffy's
Arts & Entertainment

Imparting the patterns of history and disaster repeating on Ruination Day

A Philadelphia artist takes cues from Gillian Welch and folk ballads to paint historic repetition.

8 years ago

Listen 3:34
This photo shows a handwritten notification of President Abraham Lincoln's death that is being offered for sale by Raab Collection in Ardmore, Pa., Thursday, April 11, 2019. The telegram was written inside a home where Lincoln was rushed after being shot at Ford's Theater on April 14, 1865. (Matt Rourke/AP Photo)
Community

Telegram announcing Abraham Lincoln’s death is up for sale

The handwritten notification of President Abraham Lincoln's death is being offered for sale by a Philadelphia documents dealer.

8 years ago

The 2014 S.12th Street site of the former Camac Bath. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
PlanPhilly
Community

Should a former Philly bathhouse gain landmark status because of its place in LGBTQ history?

Back when homosexuality was illegal in Philadelphia, the Camac Baths offered a safe place for queer subculture to exist.

8 years ago

 A jury was unable to reach a verdict in the trial of a Delaware man who admitted he broke a thumb off a $4.5 million Chinese terra cotta statue at a Philadelphia museum. (Nathaniel Hamilton for WHYY)
Courts & Law

Mistrial declared for man who snapped $4.5M statue’s thumb at Franklin Institute

 A jury was unable to reach a verdict in the trial of a Delaware man who admitted he broke a thumb off a $4.5 million Chinese terra cotta statue at a Philadelphia museum. 

8 years ago

Central American migrants, part of the caravan hoping to reach the U.S. border, move on a road in Tapachula, Chiapas State, Mexico, Thursday, March 28, 2019. A caravan of about 2,500 Central Americans and Cubans is currently making its way through Mexico's southern state of Chiapas. (AP Photo/Isabel Mateos)
Radio Times
Politics & Policy

Immigration influx: past and present

First, President Trump is shaking up his immigration enforcement staff. Then, the history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and it's role in the immigration influx.

Air Date: April 10, 2019 10:00 am

Listen 49:30
The Wharton Centre at 22nd Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
PlanPhilly
Urban Planning
PlanPhilly

A historic haven for black Philadelphians slated for demolition

A string of buildings that once housed one of the city’s first social service providers for black Philadelphians are set to meet the wrecking ball.

8 years ago

In this photo taken Thursday, April 4, 2019, the children of genocide survivors and perpetrators play together in the reconciliation village of Mbyo, near Nyamata, in Rwanda. Twenty-five years after the genocide the country has six
Community

25 years after genocide, can Rwanda heal? 6 villages try

Twenty-five years ago, Tasian Nkundiye murdered his neighbor with a machete. Today he lives near the widow of the man he killed. And somehow they are friends.

8 years ago

The Frank Furness-designed 19th Street Baptist Church (Alex Lewis for WHYY)
PlanPhilly
Urban Planning
PlanPhilly

City taskforce unveils new approach to preservation aimed at saving unrecognized Philly history

A spate of demolitions inspired city officials to think differently about how to save Philadelphia’s historic buildings.

8 years ago

Sara's father's embroidered undershirt is one of many intimate objects and stories passed down through the generations. (Emma Lee/WHYY)
Arts & Entertainment

Airing the cleaned, pressed, and folded laundry of the American experience

The wardrobe of Maira Kalman’s mother tells the story of a 20th century American Jewish experience. You can take a peek inside.

8 years ago

Trevor William Fayle and Stephanie Hodge as siblings in the Philadelphia Artists' Collective production of
Shapiro on Theater
Arts & Entertainment
Shapiro on Theater

”Tis Pity She’s a Whore,’ controversial for almost 400 years, from Philadelphia Artists’ Collective

The play has been the object of scorn and disgust for its subject matter and even for its title. But this flawed presentation satisfies as a glimpse of theater history.

8 years ago

Workers excavate a coffin from a construction site in the Old City neighborhood, Thursday, March 9, 2017, in Philadelphia. Crews working on an apartment building in Philadelphia's historic district got a shock last month when their backhoes started hitting coffins and unearthing fully intact human remains. The site was supposed to be a former burial ground from 1707, and all remains were supposedly exhumed in the 1800s and moved to a different cemetery. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)
The Why
Urban Planning

Why there’s no system to save Philly’s hidden graves under private construction sites

Archaeologists say the remains of at least 491 people were found on a construction site in Old City. Could there be more forgotten burial grounds waiting to be unearthed?

Air Date: April 3, 2019

Listen 14:45
(Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images)
Arts & Entertainment
Marketplace

Holy franchise, Batman! You’re 80!

For eight decades, the Caped Crusader has kept watch over the streets of Gotham City and beyond. In honor of the Dark Knight, Marketplace does the numbers.

8 years ago

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