I can't speak to how "dangerous" Clark Park was during the '90s. The neighborhood as a whole saw more scary activity then than now, I'd say. I was never afraid in the park, although I knew others were afraid of it. But I was often cautious about crossing it at night, because the after-dark set seemed to be an elevated-risk set, even though my sole low-level hassle there in that era took place around 6:00 pm. And I seldom saw, for instance, women venturing across it after dusk, which suggests about half the citizenry wasn't really getting full use of their tax dollars.
That the park was drug-infested didn't trouble me that much either, and I could hardly afford whores in that decade. Still, crack-vial litter isn't everybody's cup of tea and people have a right to find it disturbing, even if some of us found it merely outré. I don't think Judith Rodin fixed it, not all by her thumpin' self. I will be otherwise engaged on the night of her book-signing. But a large part of success in life consists of being seen standing there when the rain happens to stop. People will assume you made the rain stop and you should be able to cash in on a book deal. I don't begrudge her that. And for sure, she did far more right by our neighborhood than her odious predecessor, who really went out of his way to hurt us all. -- Tony West ----- Original Message ----- From: Ross Bender Judy's full florid quote re the park is below: >>This, in turn, led to greening projects--such as the >>planting of 450 trees and 10,000 spring bulbs and the >>creation of four public and three children's gardens--which >>set the stage for the dramatic transformation of Clark Park >>from a dangerous drug-infested space into a thriving >>recreational venue for children and the locale for a weekly >>farmer's market. Funny. Maybe my memory is giving out, but I'm almost positive that my son, born in 1987, spent a good portion of his tender years in that dangerous drug-infested space, and as I recall, really enjoyed it. Not the drugs, but the old low-rent playground in the north park, which, while certainly not as fancy as the new playgrounds they've got in the south park these days, provided lots of fun for a wee toddler. There was a low wall which he enjoyed learning to walk on, an old fashioned slide, a couple of crude dinosaurs, and the turtle. I spent about a year with him as a stay-at-home dad, and remember meeting lots of other (friendly) parents and their toddlers in Clark Park. Don't remember running into any whores, but maybe I was just too naive to recognize them. I do recall the crack vials, with their multicolored lids, but basically I remember finding them on the 4700 block of Cedar, which was almost as tony then as it is now. Crack, if y'all can think back through that cocaine haze, was not a peculiar affliction of nasty ghetto West Philly, but a national urban curse. Of course at the same time, powder cocaine was extraordinarily popular with the white upper classes (and future presidents), although they never seemed to go to jail for it. So Judy's claim to fame as the Good White Fairy or Goddess or whatever she believes herself to have been, is quite overblown on the face of it. I'm not saying she didn't do some good things in cooperation with Fast Eddie, but puh-lease!! OK, she was the first lady Ivy League prexy, and of course she was a Columbia Ph.D., which speaks volumes in her favor. But she was also the first million dollar a year Ivy League president, and thus more of a corporate CEO than an old-style academic. Her salary was umpteen bazillion times that of the humblest Penn employee; if you think that's a good trend, well, that's your opinion. IMHO it's part of the Banana Republicization of the USA. What really bugs me about her razzamatazz is the fact that while I've lived here 22 years as of June 2, I didn't notice any sudden magical transformation when she blew into town. As other long and longer-term residents have been witnessing on this list, this has always been a pretty fine place to live, and lots of people have made it that way. A million-dollar flackette waving her wand and puffing herself apparently has made a big impression on some gullible folks, but I just don't see it that way.
