About this Interview

James Martin, a former Temple University graduate and developer, begins the interview by "sketching a brief history of the Old Philadelphia Development Corporation." OPDC was founded in the late 1950s to try to involve the private business sector in the downtown development program. Working with private companies, they helped to redevelop and sell historical property. Martin became involved with the OPDC in 1968, but he began working in this field in 1963 as a trainee at the Redevelopment Authority before becoming an urban renewal technician and later a project coordinator. In 1969 Martin helped to form the Penn's Landing Corporation as a committee within OPDC to redevelop the "historic mile." At the same time there was a strong citizen's movement to get I-95 depressed and covered. Martin also worked redeveloping the Garment Center and on improving the commuter connection in the city, modernizing it and streamlining it into one system--the SEPTA system.