There's a new book about Kingsessing and Most Blessed Sacrament (MBS) Parish. It's called Row House Days and is available through www.bbotw.com and also www.Amazon.com. Travel back to the old neighborhood! This fictionalized memoir explores the dynamics of being raised in declining 1960s Southwest Philadelphia. Trolley cars. Halfball. Cheesesteaks. Hoagies. Rock 'n' roll. JFK. The Great Society. Vietnam. Social unrest. Mass migration to the suburbs. Bold and bittersweet. Philadelphia's answer to Angela's Ashes.

So far the book has three reviews on Amazon.com. They are all five-star reviews. The author has never met any of these reviewers in person.

For story samples from Row House Days, see www.rowhousedays.com.

Looks like a good book, but the cover is kind of dumb. The sequel looks good as well. I'll pick up a copy soon.

I have to agree about the cover. Sure a lot of the old row houses in SW Philly look pretty different from what they did in the time this book is set. That is as much a result of the popularity of vinyl siding as of blight and abandonment. But there are still a number of blocks in the area that keep up the old appearance (awnings and all), or at least historic photographs that they could have found a better cover where the buildings actually look like Philly brick row homes rather than the Cape Cod-y wood frame buildings they chose for the cover. Probably the publisher had their own issues with brick rows in say Queens and thought the wood frame houses would appeal to readers not from the East Coast.

It does look like an interesting book, though.

There are photos in the book of MBS (Most Blessed Sacrament) Church, trolley cars, row houses, Mt. Moriah Cemetery, Angelo's Steaks at 58th & Warrington, 55th just below Baltimore near Amoroso's, the works.

The photo is a 1957 family photo taken in Atlantic City. It's a mock up of a jail cell. Obviously, this is a reference to the Monopoly game. Go to jail, pay $200, do not pass Go. Kind of sums up our feelings at the end of the "row house" era when those blue collar, ethnic neighborhoods got emptied and folks headed for the suburbs. We lost the boardwalk game.

So, the reason for the photo is symbolic (as well as portarying three of the main characters in the book). We didn't realize that some folks would mistake it for a lousy photo of a row house. Sorry for the confusion.

Ah OK it all makes sense now.

I'm not sure if the history of SW Philly as an immigrant ethnic enclave is totally over. Its really early but the signs of SW coming back as an immigrant neighborhood are definitely there - its just the immigrants this time either Senegalese or Cambodian. ;-)

Here's the cover. I didn't get the metaphor, it is a tad obscure. I was wondering what a family was standing in a mock prison with the words "Atlantic City" on it had to do with Southwest Philly. I guess I was hoping for one of those wonderful row homes mentioned in the title. I really do like them.

Anyway, good luck with the book, Jack. It looks great!

The observation that Southwest was an inmmigrant community is an interesting one. Technically, it really hasn't been, except for perhaps the old Jewish population. However, psychologically, Southwest has mostly been an immigrant community. Take the Irish, for example. They've been here since 1850-1890 for the most part. So by the 1960s, the large Irish-Catholic population of Southwest was no longer "technically" an immigrant population (very few people had brogues, for example). Yet, by remaining in the Irish-Catholic "ghettoes" of MBS and Good Shepherd Parishes, the Irish-Americans there were able to keep one foot in the old country and one foot in the new country. Ditto for the Italians and Poles, each of whom had their own "national" parishes (Our Lady of Loretto and Mary of Cheztachowa).

African-Americans were also in the U.S. for generations before they came to Southwest Philly in large numbers. If they were immigrants, it was from the American South, West Philly, and North Philly, not from some foreign land. But again, it could be argued that blacks were "psychological" immigrants when arriving in Southwest.

Ironically, the older Jewish population of Southwest was the closest "technically" to being an immigrant group, since most had arrived after 1900. But psychologically the Jews were less of an immigrant group that many of the better-established Catholics with one foot in the old country and one foot in the new. Jews saw Southwest as a stepping stone to better things and were more eager to move out and assimilate into greater society (look at their influence and numbers, for example, at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania). Catholics saw Southwest as their permanent home until racial unrest befell the area in the 1960s, and the Catholics then moved to the suburbs in great numbers. So Jews assimilated more willingly, while Catholics generally did so unwillingly and only as a last resort when under pressure.

Obviously, the folks from Cambodia and Senegal are true and traditional immigrants. Their experience should differ somewhat from the Irish, African-American, Italian, Jewish, and Polish populations before them because of their status as bona fide immigrants with a unique set of challenges.

Whatever the case, Southwest always seems to be changing.