Place to Live, A (1941)

what do they imagine they can make out of [Music] this [Music] la the history of Philadelphia like the history of any great city is written in stone for anyone to read each of its great Towers is a monument to the changing City tall and flashing walls rise from the center of the Town imagined and built according to a plan 3 centuries [Music] old Generations lived in the fine old buildings with their broad window looking out at the great trees their rooms full of graciousness and charm the old names and the stately homes giving way to long chains that stretch far out into the old farmlands new homes in a city of homes and even one or two giants in a place where most people live in their own [Music] houses thousands of houses surrounding an island where the towers stand together an ocean of rooftops tops under which millions of people live and work after the years of the little Pioneer Village years of growth to this Center of defense and Industry side by side the houses spread out over the flat Valley this is a city of people living in these wide miles of buildings they are the city's true resource its people and its children living here going to school and growing up that's my boy the one in the middle people tell me he looks like me he walks like his [Music] father he's like his father in a lot of ways if they've had a fine day they'll come home good and hungry it's people like them that make this town not only the buildings you get to know the place well if you come home from school the same way 10 times a week 40 times a month you may walk by the doorways without looking but you have the feel of these streets all the [Music] time I think about him in the streets growing up here I'd like things to go well for him when he comes in if I can give him something special for his lunch I like to if I could do something for all all of them just little things I wish it were all different I wish I could do something real for them you know what I'd like to do I'd like to cook you a fine big dinner I'd love to see a row of pots and pans lined up on a fine white stove I bet they don't give much eat well they're Grand stoves to heat a whole place that's not the only way to keep a place warm I bet they don't even burn when you touch him you used to be so scared not about you you could always take care of yourself he grew up fast he learned fast and when he was little we played games about things in the room there was one about the stove we're all around it keeping warm and it turns into a volcano and the fire shooting out and then we running hard and then it's all over and we' sneak back soften and you go to the top of the mountain where the fire was now I say to everybody what an awful mess there isn't much left oh that was to get us to clean up the place and sometimes it would end up with a whole new house or a whole new town even what made you look like that justess P oh nothing the [Music] red [Music] [Music] the [Music] mil guess I'll go play now EX to the wood what about the PT on the shower well that won't ever burn it's too much water down there will you get some this afternoon oh all right jeez she's lucky she's a lucky size she really fits in there it's a lucky size all right [Music] and then I hear him as he goes past the room growing up fast going out to do what he [Music] can and then the door slams he's going out hunting it's like going out in a forest if there are any trails in this Forest my boy knows them if there's a stick of wood he'll find [Music] it this is a city at peace they tell us it's just about everything a city ought to be it's growing every day getting better every day the future a city with the past erected in 1700 when our ancestors seeing the country open up before them dreamed of this city as a refuge and left to us their forward-looking courage capital of the colonies capital of the United States they proportioned their houses well they laid out plans for a straight clean City they built for as long as the walls would last they lived and died in the hope of that newest of all inventions America they meant this town for the virtues of living even as it went on outgrowing itself it cared about its homes and the good living for which they were built their candles and books and Wine fine dinners and roaring [Music] fires [Music] [Music] oh [Music] what has this planned city come to has it worked or has it lost its plan the city was built to be whatever it wished to be the red brick 19th century Town changed with the coming of concrete steel electricity a great force in the world big energetic triumphant turning out locomotives textiles tools and the Machinery of Defense the town growing all the time people moving in all the time the big city reaching out for this city can be what it wishes to be it can produce whatever it wishes to produce Riches of any kind waste of any kind beauty of any kind the heroes of the Mind were Pioneers we look at their work preserved in museums in stone as a quiet and finished past but the heroic past depended on Living Faith and a struggle which went on from day to day now the dead battles are kept forever shining fortunes have been spent on the city's distinguished landmarks and its history lives in [Music] stone but what's the real City isn't it more more than museums more than smoke out of a steel mill the city is people all the fine people you see every day the city is more than Stone a city is a mine of people like a hill that's a mine of coal they are what account the people living here my son and what we want what we try to [Music] do these people have the law in their own hands the law is on their side it says that houses and land have to be kept decent and clean the housing code has made Provisions to take care of Sanitation and repairs and the code provides penalties for violations under the law these must be wiped out broken down houses lots filled with rubbish and broken glass they are to the city what forest fires and landslides are to the mountains but these are man-made these fire breeders disease breeders crimes against human life punishable under the law crimes against [Music] people [Music] but things are happening here and there we can see signs that people are thinking about all these wasted [Music] places here and there walls are going down the shameful walls that cost a lot in suffering and heartbreak for the people who had to live in them and new walls are going up and tomorrow where the ruins were how houses will run their houses are being built and once they're built it's cheaper to keep them in shape than to pay the penalties of their collapse in terms of lives and health and [Music] money as these walls go up we begin to see the city as from the very first it was meant to be safe happy beautiful look mother this is what I wanted to find this lovely place so easy to keep clean would take a weight off my heart all the things I ever needed so easy to have it's warm here you can use every room I'd hurry on from school so much space all for us not in one room all the time I couldn't get here fast enough the whitness of the walls and the Beautiful light but but it's not so simple there just isn't room for you here every step of the way is Hardo they say you ruin a good house they say you look for other slums when you do move they say they can't solve the problem can't afford to experiment they say they don't see what they can do they say anyway you don't know what's good when you see it they call you worthless people call you poison to any neighborhood they say it's not for you what is for him then what can his life be like here what can a woman make of herself and her family what can a boy grow up to be they say they can't fix it they haven't the experience all I know is we live here these streets they're what we know somebody always playing in the street somebody always sick at home they can talk big and proud like the lessons in the school books about the city but they let it fall to pieces just the same we're live people in a place that's half dead it isn't as though we wanted the whole world all we want is a place to be [Music] in there must be other families other cities in the same thing A lot has to be torn down but right now A lot has to be fixed too we need a place for our lives a place to live in all that's been done is only a beginning we want them to go on with it for the sake of us all they've got to go on with it our children ask why why don't we have our homes how can we answer their questions those questions are our own too this place is what we are and what we are like to be I think about my boy I think about myself how much we want to help get it done how little we want a place to live in all the streets and houses a place for people's lives it's time to put things in shape isn't it don't they say it's about time