This was a DP reader's comment on an item in today's DP; it wasn't signed (it wasn't by me -- I always sign everything I write). Plus, I don't like the "Campus Inn" for a lot of reasons, but I don't think it will -- as the writer says -- drive homeowners out. More, it will have a negative effect on the quality of life of those who contributed to the quality of life in the neighborhood by either not joining the flight to the suburbs in the 60s and 70s, or by coming here when it wasn't at all clear that the neighborhood would evolve in the positive way it has. And by staying or moving here as they did, were at least as much a factor in its positive growth as anything the University did during that critical period. Al Krigman: ____________________________________
Base article entitled "Historical Commission committee approves hotel at 40th and Pine" The comment: More Bad Planning for 40th Street posted 12/03/08 @ 7:25 AM EST You would think that by now the officious empty drums who have been busily destroying 40th Street would hang their heads if not in shame at least with a degree of humility. The murder and critical wounding of two innocent bystanders on 40th Street a few weeks ago might be a clue that 40th Street planning has been nothing short of a disaster. Youth Gangs roam 40th Street on evenings and weekends, thanks to the crime hot spot created by people who, undoubtedly, don't show their faces on 40th during the evenings and weekends. What was supposed to be an arts film house on 40th & Walnut became instead a blockbuster movie house which is rarely attended by Penn students and infrequently attended by any other than teens from the area, creating the first ingredient of a crime hot spot. The McDonalds across the street has long been a place where teens from the area gather at night. So too the arcade on 40th and Spruce. Now we shall add an ugly hotel that upscale clients will quickly abandon when they discover that leaving the hotel means walking into drunks stumbling out of Copa Banana and troubled youths looking for, well, trouble. Like the "luxury" Bridge Cinema, this "luxury" hotel will quickly devolve from being a game preserve for muggers and drug dealers to being a blight, and along the way it will drive out homeowners not only around the hotel but for blocks around. Homeowners are what make the neighborhood stable and safe. Students make neighborhoods unstable and dangerous. Bizarre combinations of businesses in this already fragile mix will in short order return Penn to the dangerous place it once was, as homeowners (so painstakingly and expensively attracted to the neighborhood by Rodin's careful planning) shall be driven away by Gutman and company's careless lack of planning and sensitivity to a delicate and precariously balanced community. Taxes are very high in Philadelphia, and so too is crime. Schooling choices are poor. It's not easy living with student and crime culture. UCD leaders and influencers had better take heed. They've been making a bundle of mistakes of late, and it's showing in terms of crime and turnover in housing stock. You lose the homeowners, the families, and the neighborhood will revert in a heartbeat to the old days of students and faculty routinely getting raped, mugged, and murdered. **************Make your life easier with all your friends, email, and favorite sites in one place. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000010)
