A name from the past, updating the Phila. story

Centuries ago, the Pennsylvania Evening Post was where people in Philly turned for news.

During the Revolution, an Old City printer named Benjamin Towne published it on a few pages of rag linen paper from his shop at Front and Market, near the London Coffee House.

The paper dealt with the concerns of the day. In its biggest scoop, it ran the Declaration of Independence, in its entirety, on its cover.

But it also ran advertisements for rewards for the return of runaway slaves and for the sale of a 4-year-old Negro boy who had had the measles and smallpox. If interested, inquire of the printer, the ad said.

History, as they say, can make a stone weep.

History, as everyone knows, can be messy.

The history found in the brittle pages of the Evening Post beckoned a look last week after local journalist Josh Kinney announced his plans to revive the storied paper after a two-century-plus hiatus.

An incarnation of it anyway.

Kinney, 26, is adopting the Evening Post's name for his new, vintage-style magazine dedicated to Philadelphia history and nostalgia, the Philadelphia Evening Post.

Where yesterday meets today, is how he puts it.

The magazine will be dedicated to smaller, forgotten histories of a city, he says. The stories and recollections that weave through neighborhoods and come to define a place. A magazine for and by the people, he says.

(Kinney is big on the history metaphors.)

"A keepsake," he says.

Kinney sees it as a perfect fit for the bars, boutiques, and coffee shops of places like Fishtown, Northern Liberties, and East Passyunk - neighborhoods where the nostalgia is repurposed and repackaged into millennial-friendly haunts.

Hopefully the magazine will be something more than just decorative nostalgic ephemera - the kind that's too common in our changing city.

Like bragging about living in an old sewing factory without ever stopping to think about the people who once worked there for pennies.

Kinney says his magazine will be more than just surface-level history. That it can be both fun and deep.

If that's the case, the long-shot venture will have a better chance of making it.

As its namesake showed centuries ago, history is messy, and Kinney says he won't shy away from that.

He has the first edition ready to run. It's planned for July.

Kinney has a Kickstarter account going to help cover the initial printing costs. He and his friend Juliann Gates, the magazine's designer, need to raise $8,000 for the first run.

They don't have that much yet. They're offering advertisers free space in the first issue, hoping they will stick around.

Kinney said he went with the Kickstarter account because, well, he needs the money, and because it's inclusive, just as he hopes the magazine will be.

"People can be a part of it," he said.

Kinney, who works as the editor of the magazine Ocean City Sun and splits his time between the Shore and South Philly, put the plan into motion about a year ago. So much of that magazine is dedicated to Shore nostalgia. He wanted something similar for Philly.

Researching old Pennsylvania newspapers online for inspiration, Kinney settled on the Evening Post. It was old and forgotten. He wanted to rebrand it into something new and engaging.

"The old publication," he wrote on the website, "is being revised as a vessel entirely dedicated to celebrating, chronicling, and archiving the matchless history, personal stories, memories and gentrification of Philadelphia."

The first issue will include a personal history of the Philadelphia Athletics and Shibe Park - and an essay on the Divine Lorraine. There also be smaller columns called "The Sons of Liberty," "Philly Phirsts," and "The Postcard."

The Declaration of Independence will run on the inside cover.

215-854-2759 @MikeNewall