To put the relationship between Penn and the problem community based groups (there are two specific ones that I am referring to, but will not name) into perspective, you must know Penn's history. Penn was originally located on 9th Street between Market and Chestnut Streets (where the Robert Nix US Courthouse is now) and moved to 34th Street and Woodland Avenue in West Philadelphia in 1873. The area was industrial to the east (where the river and railroad tracks were) and residential to the west. The campus was limited to the area around Spruce, Walnut 33rd, and 36th Streets, with offices or departments set up in exising residential or commercial buildings. Over the next 80 years, Penn built new buildings, but in the 1940s and 1950s, they worked with the City to make dramatic changes to the landscape through the use of condemnation and eminent domain. What everyone now knows as "Woodland Walk" used to be Woodland Avenue, which did not end at 38th Street, but instead continued diagonally northwest to 32nd and Market Streets. From old photos, it appeared that Woodland Ave carried a lot of vehicle traffic, and the Route 11, 13, 34, and 36 trolleys travelled Woodland to connect with the 32nd Street Station of the Market-Frankford Elevated Line, and then go into the subway in Center City. Woodland Avenue's diagonal route created a lot of triangular intersections and building lots. That's why there are a lot of older three-sided buildings at places like 34th and Walnut, and why 36th and Locust appears to start out of nowhere. Penn wanted to expand, and wanted to close Woodland Avenue to eliminate traffic through campus and to be able to replace the roadbed with buildings. So the trolleys were rerouted into a tunnel that was built under Woodland Avenue, 36th Street and Ludlow Street; Woodland Avenue was closed; and the land became available for university use. Where controversy arose came in the 1950s and 60's when the City of Philadelphia, at Penn's behest, and under the mantra of "Urban Renewal", declared large swaths of the surrounding residential area to the north and west "blighted", and used eminent domain to involuntarily relocate the residents and to transfer the land to Penn. Part of the area where the residents were relocated from was known as "The Black Bottom", and the former residents of that area and/or their children are still bitter about that, and about Penn, to this day. The whole "Black Bottom" saga was and is a public relations nightmare to Penn, where a powerful institution used their connections to the City establishment to put powerless, poor, black working people out of their homes and neighborhood against their will for the purpose of seizing their land. That's why Penn is so insistent to create the fiction of a "community partnership". But they really don't want a partnership. They still want to make imperious, unitlateral decisions over this area, but instead of exposing themselves to more bad press, they want to make it look like the community signed off on the decisions. So they make a few individuals feel important, and you know the rest...
For excellent photos, go to this link and search "University City" http://www.phillyhistory.org/PhotoArchive/Search.aspx Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 05:33:52 -0400 From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] Subject: RE: [UC] Late breaking news about the Campus Inn Right on, well said. "I was also surprised, and yet not surprised that there were also those who believed that a subcommittee of an organization can ignore the clearly stated opposition of the organization's members. Hopefully community members have learned from this that everyone has to be active in his or her community. It can't be left to a neighbor, or someone around the corner; everyone has to be active and informed, and cannot cede their involvement to someone else. Serve on the boards; go to the meetings; keep people accountable. No one person or small group should have the power to make decisions for an entire neighborhood. Otherwise other Campus Inns may be in the offing." This insight is very important and needs more public community discussion. Several years ago, some of us made a push to reform the Friends of Clark Park. The members voted to support an inclusive process to identify, work cooperatively, and honestly with all community stakeholders. The members also ordered the leaders to publish the TIMES, DATES AND LOCATIONS OF ALL MEETINGS in the community newspaper along with THE AGENDAS. The FOCP leaders openly defied their members (as SHCA did recently) and I personally was thereafter and forever silenced for defying the leaders authority. Importantly, I was a member of the organization, paid my dues, and tried for several years to treat the leadership like mature responsible adults. I wished to support my positions in open civil debate. As subscribers on the list know quite well, I have now taken the position that these local associations are entrenched, and I advocate that all governmental and political leaders shun these because they behave like insular street gangs and not like community associations "volunteering" to serve their communities. Ironically, when I still paid dues, an additional number was added to their totals, that the leaders routinely use to claim authority as community representatives. Their are many volunteers serving their communities, but these associations don't have community service as their mission. They serve the agendas of their leaders. What we all need to discuss openly is, what is to be done for real longlasting reform of these broken association processes? Our local association leaders have a long and dishonorable tendency to depend on ad hominem arguments, spreading rumors and creating straw men to silence dissent to their authority. I know that our neighbors have real and understandable fears about standing up to the bullying and rumor spreading that they may face in their home communities. I faced the power and hurt of these techniques first hand and know how terrible it feels. Nevertheless, I believe that unless a majority of neighbors are willing to risk retaliation for speaking up for appropriate processes and against the status quo tactics; these patterns are doomed to repeat again and again. What is required by the members is more than "getting a new board member" elected while giving more money to the associations and adding to their number totals. The members and outside neighbors must start demanding accountability, drafting ethics rules with the possibiility of removing leaders, and demanding transparent processes. I've watched new leaders be drafted into the ranks of the leadership and embrace the code of silence for the gang's secret processes. I've seen this repeated for 10 years and was often surprised to see respected friends become anointed. I tend to be very optimistic and I totally agree that we all need to be willing to get involved. But I also know that fundamental changes to these associations must be codified and demanded consistently by the association members, and all members of the community; or the shenanigans we saw over 40th and Pine will certainly continue to repeat, as they have been for the past decade, since Penn saw the usefullness of these broken associations and broken processes. Lets keep talking about what must be done now that the problem has been so openly exposed! We can all forgive the leaders on a personal level, but we must not let them continue as pawns for Penn allowing them to divide and destroy our community! Sincerely, Glenn -----Original Message----- From: KAREN ALLEN Sent: Jun 4, 2009 5:05 PM To: UnivCity Listserv Subject: RE: [UC] Late breaking news about the Campus Inn I'm over the moon right now! The good news for the community is that Penn's "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain"-style manipulation of community groups has been exposed. In the course of this fight it was revealed that certain persons who were associated with community-based groups were trying to manipulate the appearance of community support in favor of Penn/Campus Inn: going in front of city agencies claiming that community meetings took place that never occurred; claiming that community meetings on this topic were scheduled that in reality were routine membership meetings that made no notice, either in meeting notices or the meeting agenda, that this proposal was going to be discussed and feedback sought; and having Tom Lussenhop show up unannounced at various meetings; all done to create the appearance of community notification and involvement while blatantly trying to suppress the number of people who would otherwise turn out and possibly object. The one thing that I've heard time and time again from people who were trying to justify this behavior was that the individuals involved in this "were just volunteers" who put a lot of time into community affairs. This justification carried the implicit message that being a "volunteer" somehow gave these persons the right to manipulate the community and to make decisions totally separate from and in direct contradiction to the will of the community as a whole. I was also surprised, and yet not surprised that there were also those who believed that a subcommittee of an organization can ignore the clearly stated opposition of the organization's members. Hopefully community members have learned from this that everyone has to be active in his or her community. It can't be left to a neighbor, or someone around the corner; everyone has to be active and informed, and cannot cede their involvement to someone else. Serve on the boards; go to the meetings; keep people accountable. No one person or small group should have the power to make decisions for an entire neighborhood. Otherwise other Campus Inns may be in the offing. And maybe at some point the folks at Penn will finally wake up and learn that their so-called "community partnership" has to be a genuine partnership, and not just the sham that it's been up until now. From: [email protected] Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 13:22:04 -0400 Subject: [UC] Late breaking news about the Campus Inn To: [email protected] Late breaking news has just been posted on-line by the University City Review about the Campus Inn. It appears as though the developers have finally figured out that their plan was so outrageous and riddled with inadequacies that even Penn's money and political clout couldn't buy their way to a project with such obvious inadequacies. So... well, you'll have to read about it yourself by clicking on the link below: Click here: University City Review - West Philadelphia's Independent Community Newspaper Al Krigman Limited Time Offers: Save big on popular laptops at Dell
