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West Philly’s past and present meet in a Gold Standard Café photo show

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3 minute read
Stephen Perloff's 1971 'Four Plus One, West Philadelphia.'
Stephen Perloff's 1971 'Four Plus One, West Philadelphia.'

It’s not often that viewers can look at a photo in an exhibit and then walk down the street and see the same buildings. In Stephen Perloff’s photography exhibit, West Philly Days, people can do just that. One photo shows storefronts on the 5000 block of Baltimore Avenue in 1971. How has that street changed over time? A short walk from The Gold Standard Café, where the exhibit runs from September 8 through October 29, will reveal the answer.

Perloff hopes that people will enjoy seeing West Philly’s past in the present, in the same neighborhood. Most of the photos — 18 prints on the walls and others in bins for perusal — are portraits from 1967 through 1976, when Perloff was an undergraduate and then graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Perloff founded (in 1976) and edits The Photo Review, a critical journal of international scope. The curator and photographer’s work has appeared in numerous exhibitions and is held by museums and private collectors.

The West Philly exhibit came about over a cup of coffee. While visiting his new-to-the-area daughter, Perloff ran into Judith Lamirand, with whom he has worked previously, who coordinates the café’s exhibitions. He’s been archiving and scanning his older work for a few years and knew he had photos of the area that would work well in the space.

The Doggie Man and local artisans

“It just struck me that The Gold Standard is a great community place. All sorts of neighborhood people come in there,” he said. “If I took just the pictures that I made in West Philadelphia, it could tell a little story about that period.”

There’s range to the photos even though they’re all from the same neighborhood. One of the photos shows a basketball game between UPenn and UMass. The center for UMass? Julius Erving, better known now as Dr. J.

Another captured Charles Frank, the Doggie Man. “Anyone in that era knew him. In my photo, he’s selling ice cream, but he sold hot dogs at Franklin Field at Penn games and Eagles games, when they played there, and at Phillies games at Vet Stadium,” he said. “You could hear him from anywhere yelling ‘DOGGIE!’ He was quite a character.”

There’s a photo of Peachy, the man who sold Perloff his daily newspaper from a wooden kiosk, another of a tailor steaming clothes. “You really knew these people. You just talked to them,” he said. “Artisanal trade people are really kind of gone now.”

No big deal in Powelton

One portrait shows Perloff’s next-door neighbors in Powelton dressed and ready to head to the Easter parade in the early 1970s. It was an integrated neighborhood, and the couple was interracial with two daughters, he said. “It was no big deal in Powelton, but in 1971, it still was elsewhere in the country.”

Perloff hopes that the show will illuminate what the neighborhood was and what it has become.

“West Philly was always very diverse, and not to say that it doesn’t have problems anymore,” he said, “but really, at its best, it shows how we can all live together and respect each other and thrive and be creative.”

The opening reception for West Philly Days is 5pm to 7pm on Monday, September 8. The exhibit runs through October 29 at The Gold Standard Café, 4800 Baltimore Avenue, Philadelphia.

At right: Perloff's 1974 Louis Kahn, Philadelphia, PA.

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