[UC] Judy Joins the Rockefella Foundation

[Benseraglio2]

In a message dated 8/30/2004 6:41:02 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > The foundation's principal domestic goal - revitalizing distressed > urban areas - also dovetails with Rodin's experience. The > redevelopment of Penn's West Philadelphia neighborhood was one of > Rodin's major accomplishments as president. You know, not to belabor the point, but I do get a little tired of hearing about all the wonderful things this benevolent and gushy dame did for my funky little hood. I say gushy advisedly:   "> The former Penn president said she "just fell in love" with the > foundation's ambitious agenda, particularly its efforts "to focus on > the root causes of social ills, on the poor and excluded people of the > world."   Again, I must emphasize that I have lived here over 19 years now, in the same location, seen em come and go, and I'm not all that ready to acknowledge that there has been that much "improvement" in my neck of the woods. There are some nice new brite lites along the block, and some lovely solid trash containers on the corner. I don't feel particularly safer than I did in 1985 -- I felt pretty safe then, having moved here from wild and wooly Manhattan, and West Philly struck me as rural and peaceful by comparison.   Basically I think that Judy's major accomplishment was to build "University Square" -- put in a nice little hotel, lots of fancy shops -- Ann Taylor is one of my faves -- and bring in a swanky Barnes and Noble. This has indeed given that corner of the varsity a little more urban flare than it had when it was a parking lot.   But here along 48th St the development was going on long before Judy hit the scene. I think particularly of the contributions of Willard Rouse, may he rest in peace, who developed Admiral Court from a delapidated slum into a fairly stable low-income apartment complex. I think also of the Koreans who bought the old hospital at 48th and Spruce and have given space to a Cambodian and an Ethiopian church over the years. Don't know who redid the NE corner of 48th and Osage; it was falling apart and used to house Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees when I first came to town, and I don't believe Penn was responsible for that one. And of course I think of the Ethiopians, Eritreans, Senegalese, Ivoiriens, Nigerians, etc. who have invested in our hood and made it exotic as well as funky. And of course there's all the folks who have just continued to live here year after year, making the hood the wonderful place it is.   Penn also had that snazzy mortgage assistance program that allowed so many struggling Penn professors to buy elegant and charming old Victorian homes long before the Rodin era. That's nice. One thing I definitely do NOT like are those huge motherfucking Penn buses that roll down 48th Street all night and wake the neighbors. If Penn had given half the money to SEPTA that they spend squiring staff and students around the hood so they won't get mugged, SEPTA would be in that much better shape. Privatizing transportation with buses and jitneys is almost as bad as doing it with automobiles. Why the hell can't they ride the public trolleys and buses? Hell, SEPTA could put in twenty extra bus lines with all that dough.   Anyhow, it sort of irks me to see the history of our little Village get written as the magical transformation of a slum into an upscale suburb by some Ivy League Mother Teresa. But I wish her well at the Rockefeller Foundation. They have done good things in the past, among them putting my Daddy through grad school at Yale many years ago. So sayonara, Babe; it was nice to have you here for ten years and all, but yo, try to ease off on the hype in your memoirs.     Ross Bender http://rossbender.org