"teens from the area." Oh, my!
At first I agreed with this comment even as I was offended by it. I
think Penn's strategy has changed, though. What they seem to be doing
now is building as many huge buildings as possible, as quickly as
possible, especially around 40th St., and filling them with a lot of
people not "from the area." It's a blunt instrument and it might work.
Heaven knows, all the students need to keep them happy is a CVS below
43rd St., according to the DP. http://tinyurl.com/5tm47k
Frank
On Dec 3, 2008, at 09:27 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
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.
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