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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 562
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, September 06, 2006 - 11:36 pm: | 
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WEST PHILLY
Revisiting the neighborhood that Penn and Drexel gobbled up.
by Jeffrey Barg
Don't think for a second it hasn't all come at a very hefty, very human price.
University City's surge in retail and construction has been a boon for the neighborhood's institutions of higher learning, and for longtime residents who've seen the values of their homes rise. But some old-timers still fondly remember the Black Bottom: a tight-knit working-class neighborhood obliterated in the decades following World War II by the expansion of Penn and Drexel, which were aided and abetted by the city.
“The Black Bottom is a textbook example of institutional racist development policies,” says Billy Yalowitz, a Temple assistant professor and director of community arts who's created performance pieces about the neighborhood's history. “There's still enormous resentment among the thousands of people exiled from the destruction of that neighborhood in the '50s and '60s, and that resentment is palpable in the community surrounding the university.”
The Black Bottom, named for its largely African-American population and for its socioeconomic location at the “bottom” of West Philly, stretched from 32nd Street to 40th Street, and from University Avenue to Lancaster Avenue—encompassing most of the present-day campuses of Penn and Drexel. As Penn grew, the university bought up and leveled entire blocks, often through shady legislation and business deals, displacing an estimated 5,000 residents.
“They started buying up properties and not doing anything with them,” says Walter Palmer, a Penn professor who teaches about the destruction of the Black Bottom. “They just let those properties sit there deteriorating, creating an eyesore, and then people were pressured to sell. They had the use of eminent domain to hang over the homeowners' heads, so they could drive the prices down to where they wanted them.”
“We came across very clear documentation of practices including land banking, redlining, coercion to move under false pretenses, unscrupulous real estate practices,” says Yalowitz, “all the mechanisms of urban renewal practiced all over the country, and especially targeting poor communities of color.”
Much is made today of the acrimonious relationship pitting Penn and Drexel against the surrounding community. But former Bottom residents say it wasn't always that way.
“It was a neighborhood of very active people, people who had very high standards for themselves and their families,” says Pearl Simpson, 79, who grew up in the Black Bottom on a street that no longer exists. “Most people worked at the hospitals, on the railroad. Some people had their own businesses, like dressmakers, tailor shops, doctors, little stores and whatnot. They were very into culture and having a good neighborhood.”
“Education was important, work was important and protecting each other was important,” says Palmer, 72, who moved to the neighborhood as a child in the early '40s. “It was so secure for families. People talk about leaving doors and windows open at night—I lived that experience as a child. My mother was safe at 3 in the morning, walking home from my aunt's house three or four blocks away, where tough guys on the corner tipped their hat and said, ‘Good evening.'”
That's difficult to imagine now, when incoming students are taught, both implicitly and explicitly, that beyond campus borders is a fine place to go if you want to get shot.
“If you look at any specifics in terms of crime on Penn's campus,” Palmer says, “it's almost nonexistent all the way up to the 1970s, when the Black Bottom no longer existed as a neighborhood. Penn's crime statistics won't really start taking off until after the 1970s, when it no longer has a buffer or community neighbors.”
Pearl Simpson, former Black Bottom resident.
Though little exists anymore beyond the stories and memories of the Black Bottom, the neighborhood didn't go without a fight.
“By 1968 we went to 38th Street and dug in,” says Palmer. “We said, ‘That's it. Over our dead bodies.'” Neighborhood residents built a tent city and trenches, with barbed wire lining 40th Street. “Cars were turned over, cars were set on fire, places were firebomed,” he says. “It really became urban warfare out there.”
But by that point, the damage to the Bottom was pretty much irreversible.
“It started long before people knew about it,” says former resident Simpson. “When you live anywhere, and you're going on about your business and raising your family and whatnot, you don't always know the underpinnings of what's going on with the higher-ups. People weren't privy to all that information. Some people didn't know almost till the last minute that they really had to move.”
It's an open question whether the universities have turned over a new leaf by now.
“In the old days people said, ‘University expansion, they wanna take my area, they want gentrification, they wanna kick everybody out'—all those negative things,” says City Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, whose district includes the former Bottom. “Now it's different. You don't hear those kinds of statements you used to.”
“Nothing that Penn's done in the last 20 or 30 years has changed people's minds and attitudes about Penn,” counters Palmer. “It's not about blame—it's about ownership. It's disingenuous to have these kids come from all over the world and not know. It's not sour grapes. It's just corrective history, getting them to understand and to want to make a difference.”
Jeffrey Barg (jbarg@philadelphiaweekly.com) is PW's associate editor.
http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=12924 |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2702
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 11:03 am: |
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Tonya:
You are really on the case with this one.
People who wonder what happened to our stable neighborhoods ignore this--
And this has been going on for many years and black people are not its only victims.
Anybody buying a house from here on out better try to find out what plans these huge institutions have for the neighborhood--and don't buy one near a mall or business district or university, because unless your homes are upscale, they will expand (and take them with the eminent domain) |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6409
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 11:47 am: |
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To be HONEST, I was hoping that this thread was dedicated to the splendid a$$es of sistahs.
But I guess what Tonya's presented here is important, too.
Hahahahaha!!!
But seriously: Most state and municipalities must provide public information of their planning +5 years in advance. And all the letting and vetting of contracts related to those activities must be made available for public consumption and scrutiny.
Foks who REALLY want to preserve their communities MUST become much more prescient of and vocal and active about asserting their rights and interests. Otherwise, when such is in the interests of the wealthy/powerful, THEY will go the way of West Philly.
But having said even that, any family and community is only as effete or potent is its PEOPLE choose for it to be.
And if West Philly truly WERE a community that prize what it was and represented, it's people and institution could replicate elsewhere what they valued at the "Black Bottom". |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2705
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 12:01 pm: |
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Here in St. Louis back in the 70's they created what they called the "Team Four Plan" for rejuvenation of the Northside of St. Louis which is predominantly African American.
You cannot find any copies of that plan today.
This plan was whispered about in the community. Activists put out the word even then 20-30 years ago that it was in the works.
Of course they are all wild eyed conspiracy theorists and nobody believed them, besides they had no documentation.
I saw a map of the plan years ago in a lawyers office.
According to the plan gray shaded areas were to be blighted and destroyed and turned over for light industry and warehouses.
The whole North side was shaded in, even the nice parts.
I don't know how it is where you live, but in this town most of those you would list as community leaders--black politicians, preachers, businessmen--are on the payroll. And they live in the county anyway. So they ain't going to tell anybody nothing until it is too late and the bulldozers are out there.
In that way a lot of the debate about leaders here has a point--when those who are supposed to be your leaders are controlled by those outside the community and you do not recognize or support those inside because they aren't wearing nice suits and driving nice cars and live in the community what chance have you? |
Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 6414
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 12:29 pm: |
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Chris,
Sadly. What you're describing seems akin to what's happening in Chicago.
Well, hey. When our most talented and powerful people SELLOUT the people and interests they're SUPPOSE to represent, it's the job of the PEOPLE to make them PAY for such.
Black foks have really gottah begin to BELIEVE the can do for their own: feed, educate, clothe, house, heat & power. Othewise, we will ALWAYS be on the a$$end of some slimshady dealings. And their perpetrators will be White, Black, Brown AND Yellow. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 5110
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 12:56 pm: |
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Screw Dat. Talk about a real problem; like raccoons and skunks and deer and possum and coyotes who are invading the neighborhoods of suburbia because they are being flushed out of their natural habitats by contractors who are erecting houses on every parcel of available land. This is also having an ecological effect by increasing flooding in residental areas because there is no run-off for the rain water. And tornados that would ordinarily touch down in the wilderness are now tearing through the towns and villages that have filled in the spaces. People are buying pit bulls to thin out the varmint population invasion cuz not on do these killing machines relish maiming little kids, but they also love coon meat - both the 4-legged and 2-legged variety. |
Schakspir
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Schakspir
Post Number: 594
Registered: 12-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, September 07, 2006 - 01:11 pm: |
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Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide--not even in exclusive suburbs. Undocumented workers often have those areas to themselves, thanks to blockbusting. |
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