Book Review: 'Legendary Locals of Center City Philadelphia'
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
"Plenty of people who have spent time in Philly could be called 'legendary.'"
Just before the turn of the 20th century, Philly writer Agnes Repplier observed that this city “lacks that discriminating enthusiasm for her own children.” Situated in the shadows of New York and Washington D.C., Philadelphians, though passionate about their city, are surprisingly self-deprecating.
More than 100 years after Repplier wrote these words, Thom Nickels is attempting to show some of that “discriminating enthusiasm” for the people who have contributed to this city’s culture and society in his new book, Legendary Locals of Center City Philadelphia. 
Selecting Nickels to pen the Philadelphia installment of the Legendary Locals series was an obvious move for Arcadia Publishing. Nickels has been a Philly-based journalist for more than 25 years, has written several other books about the city, and actively contributes to the River Wards’ The Spirit newspaper.
So, who qualifies as a “legendary” Philadelphian? Nickels establishes at the offset that his standards are high: “Gone are the days when celebrity was more often than not viewed as something acquired through great effort, talent, and skill. Legendary Locals, hopefully, breaks this mold.”
Even according to this standard, plenty of people who have spent time in Philly could be called “legendary.” But Nickels skips the obvious choices of people whose faces are on currency and have streets and bridges named after them. He features priests alongside politicians, activists alongside athletes, and many people in between.
Finally, although the individual descriptions of these locals and their work are quite succinct, they are thoroughly researched. In writing this book, Nickels turned to newspaper archives, various area libraries, notes that he’s compiled over the years, and also conducted several original interviews with subjects. The photographs accompanying each description have interesting sources as well, with many coming from Nickels’ personal collection and those of the subjects that he covers.
There are many ways to build Philly pride, and while hitting the books is certainly a less conventional way to do this, Legendary Locals does just that.
Legendary Locals of Center City Philadelphia, by Thom Nickels, Arcadia Publishing, 2014, 127 pp.
