What happens
Gildersleeve learns from his neighbor Mr. Bullard that a trolley car is being moved onto a vacant lot up the street to be made into a home, and Bullard argues it will ruin property values. Gildersleeve takes up the cause and begins circulating a petition among the townspeople, enlisting Leela and others while Peavey declines. Meanwhile Ben Waterford, who has just taken a job as a mechanic, and his mother face the loss of their rented house. At a council hearing, Gildersleeve is asked to reconsider, and he reflects on what the town is for, as the broadcast closes with an Easter message from James L. Kraft. The Great Gildersleeve is a comedy series on NBC, first broadcast on April 21, 1946, starring Harold Peary, Willard Waterman, Lillian Randolph and Lurene Tuttle.
Summerfield, a small town, in the spring of 1946, centered on the Gildersleeve household and the vacant lot where a trolley car is being converted into a house.
Characters: Gildersleeve, Leroy, Marjorie, Birdie, Ben Waterford, Mr. Bullard, Leela Todd, Mr. Peavey
Listen for: Gildersleeve's shift from circulating the petition to his speech at the council hearing defending Ben Waterford and the need for housing.
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.