Goodisville: The Tenderloin

"They spotted him on Race Street between Ninth and Tenth. It was Chinatown in the tenderloin of Philadelphia and he stood gazing into the window of the Wong Ho restaurant and wishing he had the cash to buy himself some egg-foo-yung. The menu in the window priced egg-foo-yung at eighty cents an order and he had exactly thirty-one cents in his pocket. He shrugged and started to turn away from the window and just then he heard them coming."

From: "Black Pudding" by David Goodis (Originally published in Manhunt, December 1953; reprinted in Black Friday & Selected Stories, Serpent's Tail, 2006)

Photo: Race Street, between 9th and 10th streets, February 21, 1950.

About this series: Adrian Wootton, CEO of Film London, wrote that Philadelphia is "the hometown [David] Goodis celebrates, described with almost maniacal attention to topographical detail and re-imagined in almost all his writing." So I thought it would be fun to tour the Quaker City through Goodis's eyes, pairing selections from his novels with photos of the city as Goodis saw it. Hence, "Goodisville," which will be updated throughout the coming year.

(Photo courtesy PhillyHistory.org, a project of the Philadelphia Department of Records.)