An Origin Story of the alley

“Let me make the newspaper and I care not who makes the religion and the laws.” .  .  .  Wendell Phillips 1811-1884

the alley’s  first issue was January 1976. Forethought and planning spanned years. The “press”  “dummy”  was cut and pasted on an improvised glass table lit by a lamp below beginning September 1975. One person led production in a living room at 25th St. & 18th Av. with several people and influenced by Phillips’ neighbors. Photographs were developed in a closet-size darkroom. 

Why? Conversations between neighbors hoped for a better way to talk with bureaucrats and politicians about changes happening to their Neighborhood; and for a means to talk with each other, 22,000 people of Phillips.

Inner city life became complicated due to Federal urban renewal after the Great Depression and FDR’s New Deal, 1933, following WWII. Maps, charts, graphs, legal language, and Robert’s Rules of Order were a foreign language to many.

People wished for transparency and for talk to be like they talked with each other over backyard fences and in the alleys as they gardened, fixed cars, shot basketballs, and set out  garbage. Frequent changes with each Administration and disruption of Interstate Highways added to the housing and downtown renewal upheavals.… Read the rest “An Origin Story of the alley”