To us Americans, Philadelphia is a pretty ancient city. But to Europeans, it's not. Its founder, William Penn, who colonized Pennsylvania in the name of religious liberty, wanted it to be an entirely new kind of place. He designed the streets to be broad (for those days) and took a great interest in city planning, ensuring that there was adequate greenery around the city. Penn was a wealthy man and absentee landlord in England and Ireland. The beauty of his country estates gave him the idea of wanting a beautiful city, trying to realistically design urban space that gave a hint of the pastoral.
You can find more information about William Penn at his website. There are now more websites devoted to Bobby Rydell than William Penn. Philadelphia continued to grow, experiencing similarities and differences with other colonies as time went by. When the situation with the British became intolerable in American eyes, patriots met in Philadelphia. As a result, two of our most famous national landmarks are located there. On July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, was signed at Independence Hall.
The Liberty Bell, which had been there since the 1750s, was rung on the occasion.
As one of the major seaports on the East Coast, Philadelphia was a major landing point for immigrants during the nineteenth and twentieth century. Around the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, Italians in search of a better life came to America and settled in Philadelphia. Bobby's ancestors came from northern Italy. South Philadelphia became a unique place where Italian-Americans clung to their ancestors' culture while immersing themselves in the American one. If you read old biographical information about Bobby, it will say that he went to Bishop Neumann High School. That's true, but later on, John Neumann was canonized (the first American saint, I think, or one of the first) and the name of the school was changed to Saint John Neumann High School. It's still an all-boys school.
Here is the school crest.
At Neumann, the teams are the Pirates. The institution also boasts a drama group and bills itself as "a leader in computer technology." You can find out quite a bit about the school by visiting the Saint John Neumann High School website.
During these years in his life, Bobby was acquainted with other guys his age from South Philadelphia, like Frankie Avalon and Fabian. The phenomenon of teen idols from Philadelphia appeared in the late fifties, during the early days of rock and roll.
Sylvester Stallone as Rocky created another popular landmark when his character, in training for his match with Apollo Creed, ran up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum.
Years before Rocky trained in the streets of South Philadelphia, Bobby moved to suburban Philadelphia. He never forgot his roots, however, and liked to return often, because, he said in an interview a few years ago, that it gave his children a greater sense of close family. Philadelphia didn't forget Bobby, either. One of the most famous things besides the Golden Boys to come out of Philadelphia was the cheese steak sandwich. Tony Luke, a sandwich shop owner, insitituted his own Walk of Fame to honor South Philadelphia celebrities.
In October, 1995, after months of work by the Fan Club, part of Eleventh Street was renamed Bobby Rydell Boulevard.
Bobby has fans everywhere who, like me, have never been to South Philadelphia. My aim is to show them a little about the history and a little bit about what Bobby and his peers experienced there. Email your South Philly stories to me.
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