Excellent letter!! City Paper readers still do not know the connection between Popkin and Lussenhop which was not disclosed as far as I can tell. I hadn't seen the Popkin piece until Melanie used it as support for her cause.
One of us needs to insist that City Paper discloses this connection even if it was 2 weeks ago! Allowing propaganda, deception, conflict of interest to flourish in corporate media unexposed is a very serious problem in our society. I believe it explains why we allowed an illegal stupid war in Iraq and is at the heart of many other problems like the outrageous support of terrorists called the war on drugs. Magali showed the nonsense of the Popkin piece. The dishonorable failure to disclose the close connection needs to be exposed too. I'm leaving town for a week. Good luck neighbors! My heart is with the 400. Beautiful response! Glenn ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [email protected] Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 11:55 AM Subject: [UC] Article by neighbor pooh-poohing Popkin's pretentious pap in the City Paper From the City Paper, March 5. A response to the pretentious pap by Nathanial Popkin hailing Lussenhop as a hero in last week's City Paper. Remember, you read it first here, on the popu-list (if you didn't already see it in the City Paper), Al Krigman ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Not NIMBYs The somnolent mutterers of Spruce Hill welcome responsible development. by Magali Sarfatti Larson Published: Mar 5, 2008 The hero of Giuseppe di Lampedusa's novel, The Leopard, invoked by Nathaniel Popkin [Slant, "Strait Talk," Feb. 28, 2008], was speaking in the 1870s, much before abusive building had choked the Greek temples near his Agrigento. Sicily today is an exemplar of how out-of-control development can spoil natural beauty and artistic treasures in a country (my native Italy) that has plenty of both, but not much clout to enforce any planning. So, indeed, Sicily is close to Philadelphia: We do not have effective planning, either, and our antiquated zoning code is adjusted and violated case by case, depending on developers' power and the depth of their pockets. This is the situation that Michael Nutter denounced as a candidate and has immediately started to correct as mayor. No one suspects our Wharton-trained mayor of being against development; and the "somnolent mutterers" of Spruce Hill, as Popkin calls us, also welcome responsible development. The hotel project at 40th and Pine is neither responsible nor reasonable. For years we hoped that the University of Pennsylvania would do something with the property it bought in March 2003, instead of wishfully thinking that neglect would take care of the dilapidated mansion. Nothing was ever discussed with the community (who knows, those NIMBYs might have had something worthwhile to say!) and nothing was proposed, for the rule is top-down. Preoccupied with its expansion east, Penn was not going to invest much in the west. The unexploited property was left to a coalition of developers, and they have been trying to cram their Hilton Homewood Suites down the neighbors' throats since October 2007. The project had emerged as a five-story building, on the premise that the mansion could surely be razed. But the city Historical Commission, disregarding the advice of its own architectural committee, traded the house's preservation for an 11-story slab, shoehorned in a most unsuitable parcel, eliminating all side, back and front yards. The property sits in the midst of two registered historic districts where the maximum height is 35 feet, while Tom Lussenhop's Hilton hotel requires 114. Developers, after all, must make the maximum amount of money. That is progress, Sicilian style. In University City, Penn has built two high-rises and a large complex of expensive apartments on commercial corridors, and new campus buildings have redesigned our streets. We have not objected to the plethora of new buildings. We object to Lussenhop's out-of-scale block. Parking is not our "ersatz barricade," but the legitimate concern of people who live here; the developers shrug it away with evasive "best scenario" answers. Popkin ignores our neighborhood's scale, the architectural monuments it contains, and the qualities we want to save. His idea of informing the public is repeating Lussenhop's self-serving point of view and then heaping contempt on "some neighbors" (more than 400 at this count) who are protesting a devastating intrusion. Popkin does the same for Tunisia, embracing the image promoted by her ambassador, whose job is to court foreign investors. He should get to know Sicily and Tunisia objectively, or at least take the trolley to West Philadelphia; we would be delighted to give him a tour of the somnolent community we are fighting for. It is not easy to fight David and Goliath battles, but we still call it democracy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Magali Sarfatti Larson is a Berkeley-trained sociologist. Before accepting a chair at the University of Urbino in Italy, she taught for 20 years at Temple University. Now retired, she is active with the Open Borders Project in North Philadelphia. She was born in Italy and lived many years in South America and France. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms and advice on AOL Money & Finance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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