Was the Bicentennial a boon for Philly? A bust? Or something in between?

The th birthday of the United States was celebrated across the country on July In Philadelphia tens of thousands gathered on and around Independence Mall A few writers and participants declared Philadelphia s celebration was a success Others revealed it was a failure Is it achievable they re both right The Bicentennial celebration had its pluses and minuses There were the crowds at Independence Square An estimated one million people visited the city for the events which included a five-hour parade that included thousands of participants from all states Queen Elizabeth II of England visited and presented a gift for the country a larger replica of the Liberty Bell called an Independence Bell made at the same foundation that created the original Other dignitaries visiting Independence Hall included King Carl XVI of Sweden Valery Giscard d Estaing President of France Crown Prince Harold of Norway Helmut Schmidt Chancellor of West Germany and Princess Grace and Prince Rainier of Monaco Several famous structures around town were reconstructed or refurbished including the second floor of Independence Hall the Second Bank of the United States Old City Hall City Tavern The Liberty Bell was moved from Independence Hall to its own pavilion on the mall Queen Elizabeth II stands at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia as she began her visit to the United States in that city AP photo Legendary filmmaker John Houston created a movie called Independence According to Hobie Cawood s book Celebrations A Personal Memoir Commemorating America s Bicentennial Era - the film allowed viewers to examination up before coming to Philadelphia for the Bicentennial Such an introduction would allow visitors to understand how each building fit in the overall story of America s independence commented Cawood the superintendent of Independence National Historic Park for two decades The film would also allow our guests to experience a virtual th century setting set in the buildings they would soon visit The film featured actors Eli Wallach as Ben Franklin Pat Hingle as John Adams Patrick O Neil as George Washington and Ann Jackson playing Abigail Adams But it was a far cry from the plans that began to bubble up almost two decades earlier Grand plans In city planner Edmund Bacon conceived of Philadelphia hosting not only a Bicentennial celebration but also a World s Fair Grandiose plans by Bacon and his staff included festival grounds built at the railroad yards west of th Street Station They conceived of trams built stories above ground that would journey people from the station to Center City and Old City Those projects never materialized For both the th and th national celebrations the city had constructed a great number of buildings various of which are still in use nowadays Philadelphia did not build a large number of facilities for the Bicentennial Its largest major project a Living History Center at th and Race streets did not draw the expected visitors and closed after It has since become the home of WHYY Philadelphia s largest society media organization and Billy Penn s parent A presidential visit had been a staple of these previous national milestones Again the version lands somewhere between achievement and snub President Gerald R Ford was in the city on Independence Day but left for New York where he watched the historic Tall Ships enter New York Harbor judged at the time to be the highlight in the celebration President Gerald Ford at the Bicentennial celebrations on July at Independence Hall in Philadelphia Courtesy Gerald R Ford Museum So success or failure Whether the Bicentennial was a success really depends on how you define success declared Dr Seth C Bruggeman professor of History and director of the Center for Society History at Temple University Formal planning for the Bicentennial had begun under President Lyndon Johnson in under the direction of a bipartisan American Revolution Bicentennial Commission ARBC Bruggeman stated but things changed dramatically with the referendum of President Richard Nixon in November Johnson took a mostly hands-off approach preferring that a nonpartisan committee manage planning Nixon involved himself directly and chose rather to replace the planning committee with partisan supporters whose purpose was to leverage the event in aid of his own political ambition Bruggeman declared This is to say that at the federal level the Bicentennial grew up between two very different definitions of success If in hindsight we perceive the Bicentennial as a failure then it was so in no small part because Nixon s presidential worldview was deeply flawed This map of the plans for a World s Fair included exhibition grounds in Fairmount Park and multiple sites The differences in scope were jarring The Philadelphia delegation that presented to ARBC in pitched a World s Fair celebration with various venues across the city to offer innovative solutions to urban problems They anticipated million visitors and projected the budget at more than billion according to the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia That plan was rejected which led to a bitter divide in Philadelphia along racial lines over the themes and locations of events Progress stalled and Rizzo canceled the bid for a World s Fair entirely in Nationally ARBC encouraged Bicentennial celebrations all over the country not just in Philadelphia On other fronts too it s worth considering what success means with regard to Philadelphia s various centennial celebrations Bruggeman commented In my view a key point of confusion concerns the intent of centennial planners We look back at and and presume that the planners organized those events primarily as celebrations of American history Note though that the planners have never been historians at least not how we d define them the present day The planners have typically been business magnates industrialists philanthropists and others who stage the centennials by way of arguing for the centrality of private capital in American life History often bad history at that gets deployed as a vague justification for progress which is typically presented as the unfettered expansion of private enterprise at home and abroad Bruggeman noted there was an unexpected ironic upshot that sprung from the chaos of these clashing visions One success resulting from Nixon s inability to deliver the funding he had promised was a wave of grassroots history services all across the U S he disclosed Particular of it was sponsored by state and local governments Several of it was organized around protesting the Nixon administration Much of it though demonstrated that Americans can take control of their own cultural lives and organize around their own interests That in my opinion was a success a qualified success at least for citizens history one that is instructive as we approach yet another centennial celebration wherein the play of private interests is just as problematic as it was during the last three Problems at home There were other winds blowing against the centennial in Philly too The event took place during a time of frequent protests and unrest The Bicentennial included a few of that in the form of counterprogramming parades in other parts of the city that served as alternative celebrations They were peaceable and there were no arrests Mayor Rizzo apparently was unnerved by the plans for these events According to the New York Times weeks before the July observation Rizzo wrote to President Ford requesting federal troops because Philadelphia has received threats of violence and disruption Mayor Frank Rizzo was actively telling people to not come to Philly for this And out of that there was not only no coordination but there were a lot of protests that came out of it both of the national political habitat of but also of the different festivities that were popping up and people just weren t notified because ruling body wasn t supportive mentioned Matt Winberg communications director for at-large Philadelphia City Councilman Isiah Thomas who is involved in preparations for the upcoming th anniversary Mayor Frank Rizzo walks the streets of Germantown in a video from the s There were broader issues of re-making cities and who was being privileged and accommodated in those plans too So you think about where the city was in the mid- s we re at the peak of the urban renewal phase and Ed Bacon is running these major clearance redevelopment eminent domain seizure programs stated Brent Cebul a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania In University City and Society Hill those clearance projects are also engendering protests in addition to protests around police violence that genuinely explode in violence all over the city in the s And there begins to be a real concern that planners like Bacon were thinking the Bicentennial is an opportunity to extend Philadelphia s redevelopment and to get access to big federal money to redevelop the waterfront to do a whole bunch of other possible projects Cebul reported In the end that money and those projects didn t materialize and neither did the expansive reputational success of The Bicentennial was in particular procedures a confirmation of what people brought to the moment Maybe that s not so unique though the canvass on which it happened was Next up for Philadelphia Billy Penn will be reporting on the city s plans for the th over the next year and maybe writing a recap of it in years or so The post Was the Bicentennial a boon for Philly A bust Or something in between appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY