Erie Avenue and Pink Elephants

June 13th, 2011 § 3 Comments

I caught a replay of American Routes’s Philly show while rolling down Erie Avenue this Saturday. The Philly-born jazz duo Eddie Lang and Joey Venuto’s 1927 recording of “Pink Elephants” became the appropriate soundtrack to my tour down an enduring landscape of the Roaring 1920s. The residential, commercial and industrial development patterns along Erie were a product of that bubbly time of easy money: for investments into new broad factories and thousands of quickly built rowhomes. The street that may have once bounded with the jaunty strains of “Pink Elephants” still hums with a new vitality.

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§ 3 Responses to Erie Avenue and Pink Elephants

AndyGra says:

June 13, 2011 at 3:45 am

From what I understand from my mother, as we drove around West Philadelphia in the 1960′s, my grandfather named Fallon on her side, built quite a few row-houses there. I have been in a couple that have 12 foot ceilings, at least in the front. She would point them out.

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beelove says:

June 16, 2011 at 5:21 pm

Good stuff Doc. Seems right with the passing cobblestones and the sepia tone.

Reminds me of a time I had to meet someone at 52nd & Lancaster after work, and we drove up rush hour 52nd from there while “Little Peta” by Ween was playing on the ipod.

http://grooveshark.com/#/album/B+sides+Demos+and+Rarities+Vol+1/4017652

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Steve Weinik says:

June 18, 2011 at 1:14 pm

Nice video. How about Germantown ave from Chelten to Wayne Junction with Sun Ra’s Pink Elephants on Parade:

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