Philadelphia neighborhoods await their renaissance

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -- When Deborah Anderson and her husband bought their two-story home in Philadelphia's Logan neighborhood for just $24,000 in 1992, they thought they were getting a real bargain.

But that was before they realized the row house on Hutchinson Street was in a 17-block area of sinking homes that the city had earmarked for demolition six years earlier.

Homes in the once vibrant working-class neighborhood known as Logan Triangle were built during the first quarter of the 20th century over an old creek bed filled with cinder and ash. Over time water mixed with the ash, making the ground unstable.

In 1986, after a gas leak caused an explosion, the city decided to relocate residents from their unstable homes and dispatch demolition crews to raze nearly 960 structures.

"It's been horrible," said Anderson, standing on a corner in the middle of her now-desolate, trash-strewn North Philadelphia neighborhood. "It's like living a nightmare. You're less than a citizen."

Philadelphia, the fifth-largest U.S. city, founded in the late 17th century, is no newcomer to blight and decay. Its urban landscape, populated by 30,000 vacant homes, has long been home to some of the most dilapidated neighborhoods in the country.

Last month more than a score of vacant residential dwellings collapsed over the course of a few days. Authorities blamed aged masonry soaked by an unusually long string of rainy days.

Left out of the renaissance

What some residents find particularly irksome is that the city has managed to engineer a well-publicized downtown renaissance with thriving restaurants, nightclubs and theaters calculated to woo visiting business executives and tourists.

Mayor John Street, hoping to add to the revitalization begun under his predecessor Edward Rendell, is pursuing an agreement to create separate new stadiums for Philadelphia's NFL Eagles football team and Phillies Major League Baseball franchise, in what has been described as a $1.2 billion project.

But critics say success downtown may mean little for some of the city's 1.4 million residents. "The city has not figured out how to transfer the benefits of downtown revitalization and tourism to the neighborhoods," said David Bartelt, geography and urban studies chair at Temple University.

Logan is only one neighborhood plagued by long-running problems that have hit residents especially hard.

Another is the Osage Avenue and Pine Street community in West Philadelphia, where police bombed the headquarters of the radical group MOVE in 1985, killing 11 people and accidentally setting fire to an entire city block.

The city replaced 60 homes destroyed in the conflagration but now wants to demolish them because of shoddy construction that has led to leaky roofs, bad plumbing and, recently, heating systems said to pose a threat of carbon monoxide poisoning.

City officials are offering Osage-Pine residents $150,000 per home, described as twice the average market value, in hopes of escaping a relentless cycle of repairs that has raised the cost of rebuilding there to an estimated $35 million.

"As sympathetic as we are to their plight, we really need to end the city's involvement," said Kenneth Trujillo, city solicitor. But many residents do not see things that way.

'They dropped a bomb on us'

"They dropped a bomb on us, then they're going to kick us out in the street?" fumed Milton Garnett, a 40-year Osage Avenue resident who refuses to consider the purchase offer. "These neighbors are just like a family. This is a nice neighborhood."

Thirty-four Osage-Pine community residents have accepted the city's offer, but 27 are fighting to keep their homes. The city backed off an initial order that residents be out of their homes by September 6 and decided to pay for heating repairs.

But the city is going ahead with condemnation proceedings, and some residents spoke of frustration and dismay with the city for seemingly blaming them for the neighborhood's problems.

Thomas Mapp, sitting with half a dozen friends on a covered stoop in front of a tidy row house, said there was "no way" he would accept the city's offer. He conceded his house has had problems including a dishwasher that leaked, a broken faucet in the bathroom and a roof that needs to be replaced.

But he only smiled when asked about the carbon monoxide threat. "Fifteen years, ain't nothing happen to us," he said.

Back in Logan, residents share the same sense of frustration as a neighborhood targeted for demolition, but for different reasons. Unlike Osage Avenue, the Logan Triangle is nearly deserted, with only an estimated 25 families still living there.

Community activists have complained that, despite the city's funneling of more than $30 million into the neighborhood for the relocation effort over the past 14 years, problems abound.

Crumbling and abandoned homes are left open to squatters and scavengers. Activists say political patronage has tainted the relocation program. And there is no long-term plan for what to do with the empty land.

While neighborhood sank, residents fled

Neighborhood advocates say that while Logan sank, nearly 250,000 residents fled the city, and now about 4,000 homes in the surrounding area are in danger of sinking as well.

The Rev. Kermit Newkirk, pastor of the Harold O. Davis Memorial Baptist Church, on one edge of the triangle, described the sinking homes as a cancer. "In 25 years we've seen this neighborhood go from a wonderful, thriving, working class community to what you see now," he said.

Newkirk is part of Philadelphia Interfaith Action, some 40 religious and community organizations that has lobbied for the triangle to be stabilized. They want Logan to be rebuilt as a mixed residential and commercial area and for the 4,000 homes in the surrounding area to be shored up.

The work would cost an estimated $60 million, according to the group. Mayor Street agreed during his election campaign last autumn to find $37 million to help fix Logan, but it still is not clear when or if the money will be forthcoming.

Philadelphia neighborhoods now suffer from fiscal restraints that preclude officials from offering the level of services once on offer. In Center City, for example, a private property owners group has organized sidewalk cleaning and graffiti removal rather than relying on the city.

The city also is much more reluctant to involve itself in capital projects beyond basic city services because of concerns about paying for and maintaining them. With a strategy of trying to get people with money to leave some in the city, officials look to stadium sky boxes and tourism to generate that money.

"The city looks at this as new money," Bartelt said. "That's why the attention's being paid to stadiums."

Meanwhile residents of the Logan Triangle and Osage-Pine communities wait to see if their neighborhoods will survive.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Philadelphia launches new campaign against crumbling buildings
August 30, 2000

Philadelphia Government
Philadelphia Housing Authority
Philadelphia Interfaith Action

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