Larry Robin, still on 13th Street with his books | Photo: Julien Suaudeau

“I think industrialization was a mistake,” says Larry Robin, the former bookseller and co-founder of Moonstone Arts, in front of a shuttered factory near Lehigh Avenue. “They’d hire ten year olds and work ’em to death.”

But isn’t that a kind of contradiction? wonders Song of Philadelphia podcast host Julien Suaudeau. For a Philadelphian, someone so identified with the city, to look askance at the legacy of industry in the once and forever Workshop of the World means doubting the nature of the very place you love.

Robin, whose eponymous bookstore on 13th Street closed in 2012, shrugs. “Contradiction is the essence,” he says. That’s the title of this new episode of Song of Philadelphia.

Larry Robin next to a former textile mill near Lehigh Avenue | Photo: Julien Suaudeau

The man, like his city, contains multitudes. So many multitudes…which emerge in this long-form episode, as Julien follows Larry from his apartment above the old bookshop to the formerly Jewish neighborhood where he spent his earliest years near Mifflin Square to the Jewish Quarter that’s now Society Hill and ultimately to industrial North Philly, where Larry recounts his encounters with the back-to-nature philosopher Scott Nearing.

Wide-ranging—and deeply personal—describes this fifth episode of the second season of Hidden City’s podcast. Larry reflects on his own back-to-nature experiments, the creation of Moonstone Arts, the tendency to become more conservative with age, his powerful guiding principle of self-sufficiency, and how he works with writers and artists. “I see a spark and I’m going to blow on it,” he says.

Song of Philadelphia from Hidden City is available on Spotify and Apple. You can also listen to this episode right here.

Julien will be back soon with a writer’s tribute to Larry Robin, the last episode of season two. Stay tuned!