A Million Stories

[ a million stories ]

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

There are a million stories in North Philly, and Eugene Martin, film professor at Temple, has been working to capture some of them.

It began as a hobby: He was trying to tell the story of a neighborhood through landscape images — graffiti, murals, street life. Eventually it turned into an enormous collection of photos ranging from children at play to intimate images of a neighborhood grieving a suicide.

One series in Martin's collection is called "Beirut Boys." It portrays the life of a group of young men in the Fairhill area. When a friend of the group took his own life, the men called up Martin. "We need you to take pictures of this," they said.

When Martin got to Fairhill, he saw three blocks filled with graffiti. There were people sitting atop memorials for the man who passed.

Out of this series of photos, he developed a short film, The Beirut Boys, which aired on public TV in January. He's now developing a longer version of the film; this time the Boys are documenting their own stories through video diaries. They've even begun taking their own pictures, documenting "the agony and beauty of their life," as Martin says.

Martin says it's important to realize that he's not "glorify[ing] the ghetto," but telling stories. He hopes his photos can be a "document that over time will have value."

Check out Martin's Flickr stream: flickr.com/photos/eugenemartin.

—Shari Dacosta

In the Northwood section of Philadelphia, there is a pair of unlikely neighbors.

Since December 2005, the Cancer Treatment Center of America (CTCA) at Eastern Regional Medical Center has been located adjacent to the historic Knights of Pythias Greenwood Cemetery.

Now, the CTCA is expanding. The hospital is moving into the cemetery.

Unsurprisingly, the process of expanding onto almost nine acres of land with about 3,000 burial plots carries with it a number of complications. According to Pennsylvania statute, an effort must be made to contact and get permission from the next of kin before a body is disinterred. Most of the burial plots in question, however, date back to the 19th century. Greenwood Holdings LLC, the majority shareholder in the cemetery, recently sent out letters to the last known addresses of the deceased's relatives. Only five replies came back, says Mike Allietta, finance director of Greenwood Holdings. They all granted permission.

One of the respondents was Joanne Clare, the granddaughter of two cemetery occupants and the president of Friends of Greenwood Cemetery.

"You definitely don't want to see any family members moved," she says. Still, she's satisfied with the expansion because it includes an extensive three-year cemetery revitalization project. "To me," she says, "this is the solution that's available."

Before the CTCA expands its care for the living, it will spend the next nine months transplanting the dead. The hospital expects to spend about $3 million for this delicate procedure.

Says Allietta, "It's not a process where you just take a backhoe."

—Tom Dreisbach