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.
--
You are absolutely correct.
But Penn has been attempting to damage our community for a long time. Because
of the great culture, Penn was never able to destroy this neighborhood and
folks like me have always wandered off campus and found out that all the
contempt was based on lies..
Just before the UCD invasion, some might not remember this important reality,
but Penn added an additional policy.
Some have discussed how Penn had been bad mouthing the neighborhood and
Philadelphia generally for some 4 decades. When center city was being marketed
as a hip destination, Penn further pushed its community to center city by
expanding the free and exclusive Penn transit services so that Penn folks could
live downtown without taking public transit used by commoners.
I saw the numbers back then and within a couple years in the mid 90's thousands
of grad students left this neighborhood for center city. They were actively
pushed in that direction while the mean spirited warnings about West Phila.
kept them scared. For a time, this transit and center city marketing caused the
streets to be more deserted in the evenings. This time encouraged me to move
back home and buy property in this neighborhood. But it probably caused
tremendous damage to some in this community.
After softening up the neighborhood, darling Judy waited for one high profile
crime to launch the invasion. An unfortunate man, Vladimir Sled, was stabbed
over a botched purse snatching. That one incident then became the catylyst to
launch all this pre-planned stuff.
I spoke with others about the Penn propaganda prior to the UCD invasion. I
worked at Penn and was up to date on the Penn message. It was clear that the
invasion had been planned all along and unfortunate Mr. Sled was being used as
the pretext for Penn Real Estate to make its moves. Levy of the center city
district let it slip out at a NID show that he and Frye were plotting the plan
to give Penn/UCD taxation authority sometime back in the mid 90's. How about
that for a revelation of the real truth?
People who want to research this really need to go back to the mid 90's, read
the Penn propaganda, and look at the softening up of the real estate market
prior to the invasion. The one good thing that came out of this was that West
Philadelphia got me back.
Of course, with the "funky vibe" that, as you pointed out, came from the
diverse people of this community whom loved the place, the neighborhood as a
whole was still great throughout all of this time. When the grad students
moved out, the place didn't collapse but formerly displaced people came back.
Now, most are gone again.
Some fools who have been approached by Penn operatives jumped at the chance and
the fool's gold of the invaders.
The fools and collaborators said: "Gee whiz, Penn is listening to me and our
stupid association of neighborhood cranks They're going to give me fool's gold
and let me bully my neighbors if I cheer their agenda as Penn turns this into
the new type of elite destination. Please UCD, I'll shut up about your
neo-feudalism if you choose me out of the three choices. Please, please, I can
be the biggest crank and bully if you just choose me!"
Ask Tony and Melani if I captured the basic idea. Those are the types of
community leaders Penn looks to use because of their personality issues and
limited intelligence. Penn would not deal with the real leaders among the
people but sought to replace these folks with the cranks.
This Judy invasion was not charity but an ugly long term policy of treating
Philadelphia and especially this neighborhood as a monopoly board rather than
as a community where citizens live. We don't need Penn's fucking charity, we
need corporate restitution! The tremendous harm they have done to our city
with their contemptuous policies and "marketing" justifies Penn hiring Mr
Fenton to clean all the city parks from Grays Ferry to North Philly and all
points in between. The entire city has been hurt by Penn's corporate spin.
If one looks at the facts with my observations in mind, one will notice that
all Philadelphia neighborhoods, like the former ghetto known as center city,
became attractive to people as soon as the bad-mouthing stopped. We don't need
'positive lies" or what is called marketing. We just need Penn to stop being a
loud mouthed mean spirited neighbor, end its UCD marketing invasion, and treat
Philadelphia as a city in which citizens live.
Glenn
----- Original Message -----
From: Ross Bender
To: Anthony West
Cc: University City List
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: [UC] Out of the Ivory Tower and Into the Streets
On 6/11/07, Anthony West <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Which of course it was. Parents who used the playground during the 1990s
often told of picking up crack vials from the playground in the mornings.
One local artist even made sculptures out of recovered crack paraphernalia.
On Town Watch patrols 1996-99, we did ample surveillance on the occupied
vans that parked beside the park into the wee hours. There was coordinated
activity between Town Watch, the 18th Police Dist. and UCD patrols for a
long time to encourage them to move on.
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.
--
Ross Bender
http://rossbender.org
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