Philadelphia Revealed

There is No Away

Stories about the stuff we collect and what happens to it after we’re gone. Neil Benson was a photographer and salvage artist who believed that “trash is simply a failure of imagination.” When he died in 2023, Benson left behind a house filled floor-to-ceiling with his collections of typewriters, Hawaiian shirts and a jacket covered with hundreds of buttons. That jacket reminded storyteller Neil Bardhan of his father’s collection of political campaign buttons and childhood trips to antique stores and a motel-room flea market.

There is No Away

Across 10 episodes, you’re going to learn Philadelphia history through 10 objects. You’ll get a tour of the Atwater Kent Collection at Drexel University, sometimes called Philadelphia’s Attic. It’s a collection that’s grown over decades, acquiring Philly’s material culture from individuals, families, institutions, sometimes literally from the trash. In every episode of this podcast you’ll learn about an object in the Atwater Kent collection and hear a story inspired by it from a First Person Arts storyteller. We think every Philadelphian will be able to see themselves in this collection and that learning about Philadelphia’s many histories can help us understand its present and future.