In Pursuit: Philadelphia and the Making of America

Film + conversation examining how Philadelphia’s past and present continue to shape the American story. Episode 7 Overview: Renewal (1918-1962) Episode 7 of In Pursuit: Philadelphia and the Making of America examines Philadelphia in the early 20th century, as the city embarks on an ambitious plan to transform itself — demolishing industrial neighborhoods to build a grand boulevard modeled after Paris's Champs-Élysées. Amid this reinvention, Ukrainian immigrant Albert M. Greenfield rises from neighborhood real estate to become one of America's most powerful brokers, pushing into banking and finance long dominated by Protestant elites — until the 1929 crash exposes just how fragile that foothold is. The episode then turns to the Depression, which lays bare the failures of Philadelphia's corrupt Republican machine and draws Jewish, Irish, Italian, and Black Philadelphians together around Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. But the crisis hits Black residents hardest — crowded into neglected tenements, including one that collapses and kills Lucy Spease and her children. Even as WWII rekindles Philadelphia's industrial might, the city's transit workers call a wildcat strike to block the integration of Black trolley operators — a crisis Roosevelt himself is forced to end. In the years that follow, Greenfield and visionary city planner Edmund Bacon set their sights on Society Hill — the very streets where the nation was founded — launching an Urban Renewal effort that promises to rebuild Philadelphia for the modern age. In a city perpetually reimagining itself, this program asks a central question: who bears the cost of renewal, and who gets to enjoy it?