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Pete Woodall discovered many things as he edited the massive photo book, “Philadelphia Color 1950-1990,” featuring 367 color photos by over 200 of the city’s professional and amateur shutterbugs.
For starters, the years 1950 to 1990 were arguably more colorful than the decades before or since.
“Cars are now basically gray, silver, black or navy blue. They used to be every color of the rainbow. They were really beautiful,” Woodall said. “Likewise, people’s clothes, especially in the ‘60s, were often very bright, very saturated in color. I feel like everything is more of a monotone now.”
“Philadelphia in Color” is produced by Hidden City, a Philly urban development blog. The city pops off the page in the book’s vintage photos: clothes, cars, hairstyles, signs painted on brick and apples being eaten by kids in tattered jeans while sitting on a stoop. In the late 1970s, about 100 students from Hallahan Catholic Girls’ School in full uniforms waded into the fountain at LOVE Park. In 1982, a punk rock band played on Kater Street in South Philadelphia as a mosh pit formed in the middle of the street.
