Harry Kyriakodis: Generous Historian

This morning I want to—absolutely need to—stop and thank Harry Kyriakodis—lawyer, librarian, historian, writer, tour creator and giver, and owner of what he estimates is "the largest private collection of books about the City of Brotherly Love."

I knew Harry's name (I suspect that all Philadelphians researching Philadelphia do).  I had received correspondence from him during my involvement with Sam Katz on Sam's film series, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment. But I wasn't so certain that Harry would relish an email during one of the hottest weekends on record from a certain writer of Philadelphia tales.  I mean, with his own book—Philadelphia's Lost Waterfront—just now launching and a series of new Harry tours planned, would Harry really have the time to respond?

Somehow, he found or made the time.  Into my inbox came aerial views and maps, archival photography, notes from tours that Harry has given, URLS that directed me to the very things that I was seeking.  It will take me days to fully absorb the wealth of what is here.  But it took me no time at all to recognize the supreme generosity of this man.

I've just ordered Harry's new book and I'm certain that it's going to teach me many things about that other river—the Delaware.  Here's how the book is described on Amazon:

The wharves and docks of William Penn's city that helped build a nation are gone--lost to the onslaught of more than three hundred years of development. Yet the bygone streets and piers of Philadelphia's central waterfront were once part of the greatest trade center in the American colonies. Local historian Harry Kyriakodis chronicles the history of the city's original port district, from Quaker settlers who first lived in caves along the Delaware and the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1793 to its heyday as a maritime center and the twentieth century, which saw much of the historic riverfront razed. Join Kyriakodis as he strolls Front Street, Delaware Avenue and Penn's Landing to rediscover the story of Philadelphia's lost waterfront.

About the Author
Harry Kyriakodis is a staff attorney for the American Law Institute and ALI-ABA Continuing Professional Education. He is a producer of teleseminars for ALI-ABA and has been the librarian for both organizations since 1992. A historian and writer about Philadelphia, Harry has collected what is likely the largest private collection of books about the City of Brotherly Love: about two thousand titles, new and old. He is a founding/certified member of the Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides and has lived at Pier 3 Condominium at Penn's Landing since 1997, when and where his fascination with Philadelphia's waterfront district began. Harry regularly gives walking tours and presentations on this and other unique yet unappreciated parts of the city for various groups. He is a graduate of La Salle University (1986) and Temple University School of Law (1993) and was once an officer in the U.S. Army Field Artillery.

Harry, I am grateful.  Like my dear friend Adam Levine, who taught me so much about my river, the Schuylkill, you haven't simply accumulated a wealth of knowledge.  You have made it your business to share it. 

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Philadelphia 1876

This coming Thursday, I'll be down at the Constitution Center being interviewed for the still-to-be-titled Sam Katz documentary on Philadelphia. I'll be talking about one of my favorite Philadelphians of all time, the philanthropist and Public Ledger editor, George Childs, and about a period of time (the late 19th century) that has forever captured my own imagination.

Yesterday, while speaking with one of the film's producers—while trying again to conjure Philadelphia at what I feel was its most glorious—my thoughts sifted back toward this passage from my novel-in-progress:

Katherine climbs and tells no one where she is. She climbs looking for her end, her final day. She’s climbed through February and March, through April and May, through seasons that cannot decide on the weather, confusing the tulips and squirrels and Katherine as well, who nevertheless finds her way. Sometimes Katherine leaves the house in a light wool dress with a scarf looped loose around her neck and then, of a sudden, the weather will change. In will blow an infiltrating wind and there Katherine will be on Belmont Hill, all the way up, on the highest tier of the Sawyer Observatory. She’ll secure the scarf around her chin and stay. She’ll stand until the city can be seized—the coves and hollows of the Centennial park; the spire of Saint Peter and Paul; the houses, theaters, marketplaces, banks set tight upon the city’s checkerboard squares; the bulbous steam above Baldwin Locomotives. She’ll stare out onto the Renaissance pile of City Hall—like a cake, she thinks, with excess butter cream. She’ll look for a clap of bakery flour. And it won’t matter how fiercely the weather blows: Katherine stands. She stands and dares herself to the very edge, almost but not quite losing her balance. Getting ready.

“Anna,” Katherine says aloud, “how could you?”

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Remaking History

In a posting earlier this week I spoke of the gifts that the books we write can yield—gifts that fall far outside wealth or fame, and reverberate far more sweetly. I was making reference to Flow, among other things, a book which tells a river's story through her own words and which managed to fall both to the left and right of any mainstream publication category. And where were you thinking bookstores would actually shelf this book? other publishers asked. Temple University Press opted to give the book a life, regardless.

Writing Flow, and giving countless talks based on it, led me to places I'd have never traveled otherwise. Last week, it led me to the Cassatt House in Philadelphia, where I was privileged to sit with historians, authors, and the inimitable Sam Katz, a former mayoral candidate and impassioned Philadelphia citizen, who has dared to suggest and inspire a film about the making and remaking of my city for a planned 25-part series. I was (as I usually am) the least qualified person in the room, but I was there nonetheless, thinking out loud, voicing opinions about framing questions and narrative flow, the threads that might bind such a film together. It was an interesting process. It is leading to interesting places. And I wouldn't have been there without a book that the mainstream publishing world thought little of.

Here's to Temple University Press, then. Here's to Mr. Katz. And thanks to Philip Katz, who happened to snap this picture.

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