Tracking “gritty” Philadelphia: Better when it’s a person than a place
The first mention I could find of “gritty Philadelphia” was a June 16, 1880 article in the Boston (Daily) Globe about a walking contest known as the Sawdust Pounders.
Some more examples of gritty Philadelphia people.
A 1976 profile of Bill Green syndicated by UPI appears to be the first use of “gritty Philadelphia politics”.
By 1986, a usage familiar today—that of the gritty Philadelphia neighborhood—appears in a blurb about the novel South Street.
In 1989, NBC used the phrase to describe the lead character in a new legal drama.
The uses above seem clearly positive, evoking the Angela Duckworth sense of the word. But grit is not always a good thing. “Gritty Philadelphia” sometimes just means dirty.
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DFM’s NorCal editor David Little appeared on Reliable Sources yesterday
Digital First Media’s head editor in northern California, David Little, appeared on CNN’s Reliable Sources yesterday to talk with host Brian Stelter about the paper’s efforts covering (and recovering from) the Camp Fire disaster.
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