Song of Philadelphia

How much remembering and forgetting happens in our city every day? Can you hear the past humming through the present on the streets of Philadelphia? Julien Suaudeau came over from Paris in 2006 and started to hunt for sounds and stories. Now you can listen to his audio archive, Song of Philadelphia, an exclusive podcast from Hidden City.

Andrew Simonet talks about the broken and the beautiful, voices past and present of the public transit system, a politically-charged basketball hoop, what a shaking chandelier will tell you, and the load of grief you can bring to the Schuylkill River.

Chanelle Wilson talks about the joys of a West Philly childhood, growing up in a Black city, conflicting versions of Philadelphia, the utopia of equitable real estate, and finding peace by the river.

Farah Marasigan talks about given names, code-switching, suburban loneliness, street conversations in South Philly, the aikido community, and finding your voice as an immigrant.

In the season one bonus episode, Julien Suaudeau moves Song of Philadelphia to Paris and opens the portals between the two cities. It's time to get personal – and Frenched. Author's note: This episode contains interviews of Parisians I bumped into on the street or the subway. Huge thanks to Bruno the cat, Mama Bijou, Ninon, Nourou, and to everyone at Pharmacie Vavin for giving me their time and talking with me.

This season's theme is "Hanging in there". We walk around Chinatown on Lunar New Year with young activist Kaia Chau as she reflects on the No Arena fight, North Philly with former fighter Kevin Dublin as he reminisces about Joe Frazier and tries to find a way to save Smoke's gym, and Center City with Larry Robin as he continues to support Philly poetry and seeks a way to avoid a new civil war.

In the season 2 opener, Julien Suaudeau takes a walk across Chinatown with his former Bryn Mawr College student, young activist and Ginger Arts founder Kaia Chau. Kaia talks about her formative years in the neighborhood, what is still there and what's gone, personal overlaps between Chinatown and South Philly, the commodification of Asian culture, and the relentless targeting of low-income and immigrant communities in the name of urban renewal. At home, the political and the personal merge as Kaia chats over breakfast with her mom, Debbie Wei, who co-founded the FACTS charter school and Asian Americans United.

Kaia Chau takes Julien Suaudeau around Chinatown-by-night on Lunar New Year. Against a backdrop of firecrackers and lion dance percussions, Kaia and her mom Debbie Wei explain why transgenerational activism is the only way to fight off the relentless attempts to "revitalize" the neighborhood. The secret karaoke room of the No Arena coalition is revealed, a city council citation is given to the Ginger Arts cultural center that Kaia founded, and a block party is thrown on 10th Street to celebrate the big W for the community.

With the dilapidated building of Joe Frazier's Gym and the voices of Cambria Street in the background, former light heavyweight Kevin Dublin takes Julien Suaudeau through his old neighborhood and tells him how he met "Smoke" one night in the early 1980's. Story after story, the other side of the world champion comes into focus, what happens in the ring reverberates in a young fighter's life, and much-stereotyped North Philly emerges in a new light.

Kevin Dublin and Julien Suaudeau meet up during lunch break at the Behavioral Wellness Center at Girard. Kevin's workplace is also where his mentor Joe Frazier was admitted in 1971 after the Fight of the Century and where Kevin checked himself in to quit drugs 20 years later. At the Marion Anderson Recreation Center, on 17th and Catharine, Kevin steps into the ring to coach a sparring session and share life lessons. Back in North Philly, we take a virtual tour of Joe Frazier's Gym and old voices of the neighborhood chime in on the fate of the building.

At 83, Larry Robin sees a lot of ghosts in Philadelphia. In the first part of this season's finale, the legendary bookstore owner, arts-oriented educator and anchor of the city's poetry scene drives around the neighborhoods of his life with Julien Suaudeau. As the two get lost and find their way time and time again, unsure of what they are looking for, Larry's personal and Intellectual foundations come into focus, woven into the urban fabric: a Society Hill block where a lumberyard used to sit next to a luncheonette, the row home that houses the only remaining synagogue in South Philly, a boarded up textile mill on Lehigh Avenue. Back on 13th and Sansom, the longtime headquarters of Robin's Books and Moonstone Arts Center, Larry reflects on aging, loss, political disillusions, love and death, and explains how self-sufficiency has been the driving force of his extraordinary journey.

In the season two finale, Julien spends one night at Fergie's Pub, where the legendary Larry Robin hosts the weekly Moonstone readings. Larry talks about poets and poetry, poets read their work and talk about Larry, and everyone is wondering how to make it through political violence, climate change, global surveillance, and good old heartbreaks. An oral anthology of Philadelphian voices reflecting on the end of the world as we know it, with the city as the backdrop.

This season: how David Lynch invented his cinematic language of fear and strangeness in Philadelphia. Julien Suaudeau walks around the Eraserhood and explores other Lynchian places in the city, tracking the impressions of Philly in Lynch's work, from the Twin Peaks universe to Mulholland Drive, and wondering how Lynch's art is the product of what he experienced in the city from 1965 to 1970.

David Lynch passed on January 16th, 2025. In the Song of Lynchadelphia season opener, Julien Suaudeau travels sixty years back to January 1966 on 13th and Wood, where David Lynch has just moved in with Jack Fisk. As the song of the city echoes in Lynch's films and across the Twin Peaks universe, and as other voices familiar with his work chime in, Jack Fisk recalls how his best friend dreamed up his art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition to his collaboration with Lynch (Eraserhead, The Straight Story, Mulholland Drive), Jack Fisk has worked as production designer and art director with Terence Malick (Days of Heaven, Badlands, The Thin Red Line, The New World, The Tree of Life, To the Wonder, Song to Song), Brian de Palma (Carrie, Phantom of the Paradise), Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood), Martin Scorsese (Killers of the Flower Moon), among others. His most recent collaboration is with Josh Safdie, on Marty Supreme. Photo: Jack Fisk and David Lynch standing near 19th and Chestnut in December 1967 (Credit: C.K Williams) This episode contains audio from the following sources: Carrie Rickey's interview of David Lynch at Bryn Mawr Film Institute in 2014 Twin Peaks Kim Lin Short's The End of Howard's End Wild at Heart Mulholland Drive Gerard Malanga's Screentest: A Diary Twin Peaks: The Return Josh Hitchens' interview of David Lynch in 2022 Blue Velvet Room to Dream, by Kristin McKenna and David Lynch Lost Highway