Philadelphia/Pennsylvania Experts Needed

[Tiffany3]

Originally Posted by msmeee

Quite honestly, being an attorney from Philadelphia carries a lot more weight than one from NYC. One would have to question why an up & coming "Philadelphia Lawyer" would want to commute to NYC to practice. Perhaps to represent the occasional client if he were licensed in both states. In any of the surrounding states, one can often hear a person offering this advice to a friend in need of legal services. "If I were you, I'd get myself a Philadelphia Lawyer" or, "What you need is a Philadelphia Lawyer." The term "Philadelphia Lawyer" is equivalent to "the best you can get." Many attorneys in Philadelphia are also licensed in NJ, DE, & NY.
He would live on the Main Line & have an apartment on Washington Square or Rittenhouse Square, to be near to his office, which would be in the Penn Towers, or the Bourse, or the Caldwell building. I have been away from the area for a few years so I am sure there some newer prestegious addresses that someone can suggest.
As far as neighborhoods go, the folks who suggested Port Richmond or Kensington got it right. A social climb from either of those neighborhoods to the Main Line would be the ultimate rise.
I would forget South Philly. South Phillyites don't leave South Philly. The big social climb there would be from Two Street to Queen Village, both in South Philly.
Anyway, good luck with your writing.

Thank you so much for your responses! All of you! I went out of town and came back to such a wealth of information.

For the purposes of the novel, I did change the father's profession to Banking. In your opinion, does this change the scene or the dynamic of how he would be viewed? What is the reputation of Philadelphia in the banking world? I looked online and saw some great places he could possibly work, but I am assuming he would still work in Center City and still commute between NY and Philly. Any points of views on this?

Thanks so much! Ya'll are awesome!

Tiffany

[phlydude]

If you worked at one of the big old, pre-consolidation Philadelphia banks (Girard, PSFS), there would be no need to go to NYC

One other thing I thought of was that when you went on vacation, you would "go down the shore" (to the beaches Atlantic City or below to Cape May) or "up the mountains" (to the Poconos)

[Boompa]

Newtown Square or Drexel Hill, Springfield Delaware County there's 3

[PeeAye Native]

Originally Posted by newmarlig

Amtrak has a train from Ardmore {Main Line towns as mentioned above} to NYC.

This is very accurate, more than a few lawyers do a daily 'commute' into NYC via Amtrak from this station. If you're ever at that train station in the early morning, you can clearly see them (the suits and horn rim glasses and a certain style of briefcase give 'em away). Cell phones and 110V outlets for laptops make it a working commute for them. In the evenings, you see them getting off the train or walking back to their cars are parked.

Gladwyne, near the Lower Merion towns listed above, comes to mind for social climbers. It's mostly a blue-blood bastion of old money (inside joke: How'd so-and-so make his money? Oh, he made it the old fashioned way, ... he inherted it.), but more than a few with new money (think truck loads of it) move there just for purposes of climbing the social ladder.

Over the years, there are more than a few stories in the media of poeple who do this, their stories are brought to light because of some notable event, murder, death, robbery, that is newsworthy. They'll all have some wording like this "...after establishing themselves in business doing ...., they moved to Gladwyne and became active in the social and charity circuits...".

[PeeAye Native]

Originally Posted by phlydude

One other thing I thought of was that when you went on vacation, you would "go down the shore" (to the beaches Atlantic City or below to Cape May) or "up the mountains" (to the Poconos)

If you're true to Kathryn Hepburn's line in the old movie (can't remember the name), you'd go to Union Dale and Susquehanna County, a little further north than the Poconos.

[donsabi]

There is a distinct Philadelphia accent although it is hard to describe. You can hear a good example of it if you listen to some of the candid tv shows about Philadelphia especially police shows. One feature that stands out to me is the "o" sound in words like north. It seems to be a long "o" or "oo" sound. To compound things the accent has variations throughout the city.

The neighborhoods you are looking for the father's location would be Fishtown, Port Richmond, or Flat Iron. During the 40's - 60's those neighborhoods were further divided by ethnicity. As for location during that period most people did not say they were from a particular neighborhood but instead used catholic church locations, i.e, Holy Name parish, etc. Many people from these areas were immigrants and did start from nothing. During that period there was no SEPTA, it was the PTC.

[phlydude]

Maybe in port richmond where there are 3 catholic churches all within 5 blocks of each other but in other neighborhoods, we didn't say we were from "xxx parish" like we lived in Louisiana - neighborhood or athletic clubs / rec centers were used a lot more