Yesterday evening (9/19),
around 6 PM, the mailslots on the 4400 block of Chestnut, south side,
were stuffed with copies of a flyer which read as follows (and, yes,
this is an exact reproduction of the layout, punctuation, etc.)
Meeting
For Mural
44th & Chestnut
Ethiopian Community
Center
Thurs. Sept 20th
6:00pm
Call MAP at 215-685-0750
With further questions
There are a number of things wrong here...
1) This is barely 24 hours notice for a meeting. That's hardly what I call
a competent attempt to get community involvement and/or support.? As we
all know, everyone in West Philly has a 9-5 day job and the ability to
re-arrange their schedules on minimal notice. It sounds to me as if this is
a quick-and-dirty way to let the MAP later claim that they "tried to involve
the community...but nobody came to our meetings!"
2) Neighbors on Sansom St. tell me that they did not receive the notice.
People without mail-slots didn't receive the notice.
3) Unclear identification of the meeting's sponsor ("MAP" implies that it's
the Mural Arts Program, but only attendees will know for sure)
4) The original plan to create a mural was to cover only those portions of the
wall
(on 44th Street) that already had the brickwork painted over. My next-door
neighbor tells me that this has been revised, w/o any real notice, to putting up
a mural that will run from ground level to roof height. The building in question
is one of the two remaining corner structures from the combined Chestnut/Sansom
block that was erected by Dr. Weightman -- as in Weightman Hall at Penn, yep --
back
in 1870. The portion of the brickwork that is unpainted includes such distinct
architectural features as the use of multiple colors of bricks to clearly
define the
stringcourse and stepped/cantilevered brickwork just below the roofline. A
full-height
mural will obscure these key features...and, should a later owner want to
restore
the brickwork, will also make it much harder to do so.
5) The last anyone I know had heard -- back in the spring -- this mural project
had been shelved. Apparently, they've dosed it with zombie dust and revived it
again just in time for Hallowe'en.
6) When the folks from MAP were holding an outdoor info session at the mural
site last spring -- again, with only minimal notice to the community -- we were
told
that the mural would have Ethiopian themes and styling, since the building
houses
the Ethopian Community Center. With its usual thoroughgoing approach to
research,
MAP has failed to notice that the building has since been put up for sale,
though
the Center remains in place for now. (I've only seen it in use a few times, but
that
may be due to my own schedule, not the Center's.) They've also failed to notice
that Moya, the Ethiopian cafe that once occupied the rear of the building and
which they cited as another reason for the Ethiopian theme, has been closed
for several months now.
7) At that same outdoor info session, I pointed out to MAP director Jane Golden
that the building had been in use by the Center for only a few years, and that
it
had previously been the home of Milner's pharmacy -- a community-based,
family-owned West Philly business that had been driven into the ground by big-
box pharmacy chains. I also pointed out that Dr. Weightman, who'd erected the
building, was himself a pharmacist. I then asked why the mural wasn't going to
be about the history of pharmacy in West Philly, which is the home of USP, one
of the nation's oldest and best pharmacy colleges. The answer I got was
vague, but indicated that MAP was trolling for support among ethnic communities
in hopes of getting increased funding.
8) The layout of the flyer is a sad and depressing demonstration of how little
the MAP staff knows about rudimentary design principles. Would you trust
them with YOUR building?
9) Last, but far from least, it remains a violation of Federal law -- albeit a
seldom-
enforced one -- for anyone other than a USPS employee to put anything in a
mailbox or through a mail slot. The MAP folks used this methodology to
announce their session last spring, and I pointed this out to Ms. Golden last
spring,
too, along with the fact that her staff were also ignoring Circular-Free
Property
stickers. I was informed that it was too expensive and time-consuming to use
any other method of notification. (I'm always happy to learn that our City
agencies are not restricted by mere laws, aren't you?)
If you're not happy about any of this, please contact MAP, your block captain,
your committeeperson, etc.
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