They're making a movie about the day the government bombed West Philadelphia

[drwex]

http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/letthefireburn/

I lived in West Philly when this happened. I could see the fires and smoke from my bedroom window. Sometimes I try to tell people about it and they don't believe me.

But yes, the then-Commissioner of Police of Philadelphia culminated a long series of mistakes by ordering a bomb dropped on a rowhouse. The resulting fire engulfed whole city blocks.

Because everything ends up on the Web eventually, there's now a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE
And that led me to a retrospective site put together by the Philadelphia Inquirer for the 20th anniversary of the disaster: http://www.religionnewsblog.com/11182/the-move-disaster-may-13-1985

I wonder how much of the story this movie will actually tell.

Comments

[sariel-t.livejournal.com]

I think it's cool the movie's coming out in the first place.

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

Huh, didn't realize you were in west philly when that all went down -- were you at penn or drexel, or just living there? My family moved from Michigan to philly two years later, and the whole thing was very much still a raw nerve: so much as mentioning MOVE was a good way to start an argument with anyone who'd lived in the city for more than a few years.

One thing that really didn't come through in the national attention about the story at the time was just how far back the animosity between MOVE and the Phila PD went -- the 1985 debacle was just the last in a series of occasionally deadly confrontations going back to the Rizzo administration and before.

Ramona Africa was an occasional visitor at the little anarchist bookstore I volunteered at circa 1989. She was, visibly, not a well woman. The burns didn't help. :(

[drwex]

i was a year past finished at Penn, working in the area while my fiance finished her undergrad.

And yes, the story goes way back, certainly to the racist police force Rizzo built and maintained. Most of the accounts I've read leave out key facts.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

You're the second friend I have that was in Philly at the time. Remind me sometime to tell you my other friend's story - it's long but it's hilarious (in a dark way).

[lachesis.livejournal.com]

wow, I remember that. And, I lived in West Philly too, albeit, two years later.

[thorn]

I remember driving by there, probably on the way to Pathmark, just before everything went down, wondering what was going on. And then I found out....

Didn't realize you were still in Philly at that point.

[sunstealer.livejournal.com]

I was unaware of this. Huh. Thanks for sharing.