RE: I have to say that when I lived in the the Grays Ferry neighborhood in the mid 80s it was the most intolerant place I'd ever experienced. My partner and I were harassed almost daily, mostly because we were gay but also because we were RENTERS! It was awful. > > F----
That little neighborhood's actual name is "Schuylkill", and runs east of the Schuylkill River to about 23rd Street, Pine to Christian: http://www.phila.gov/PHILS/Docs/otherinfo/pname3.htm It was an Irish-Catholic neighborhood for at least most of the 20th Century, until an aging population and gentrification brought change. The parish church was Saint Anthony of Padua at Grays Ferry Avenue and Fitzwater Street, and it's the tall church tower you can see when looking east across the river from West Philadelphia. St. Anthony's was closed in the 1990s and was sold to a Baptist church. Unfortunately, Frank, that neighborhood had a long history of intolerance: I was raised from birth by my great aunts, and from the mid-1950s until 1968 I lived with them in South Philly, first in the 2100 block of St Albans Street, where they had been raised, then in the 1900 block of Catherine Street. Both locations were a short walk from the South Street Bridge. When I was small (late 1950s thru mid 1960s) my Aunt Florence used to take me on Sunday outings, and we often walked across the South Street Bridge to go to the University Museum or the old Commercial Museum (the little building that used to be adjacent to the old Convention Hall). Aunt Florence used to say that we had to be back across the bridge before dark, because otherwise we could be harassed by the white people there. She also told me about how her brother William had gotten beaten up by white kids in that neighborhood when he was a kid, which would have been sometime during the 1920s or 30s. > From: [email protected] > Subject: [UC] UC Review > Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 12:12:11 -0400 > To: [email protected] > > "A vital chapter in the protracted saga of the South St. Bridge restoration > came to a close last week with a presentation by Penn students of their > development ideas for the Grays Ferry neighborhood at the eastern foot of the > South. St. bridge." Vital? Really? > > http://www.ucreview.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=1&twindow=&mad=&sdetail=2117&wpage=&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=2320&hn=ucreview&he=.com > > Their suggestions are preposterous. > > I have to say that when I lived in the the Grays Ferry neighborhood in the > mid 80s it was the most intolerant place I'd ever experienced. My partner and > I were harassed almost daily, mostly because we were gay but also because we > were RENTERS! It was awful. > > F---- > You are receiving this because you are subscribed to the > list named "UnivCity." To unsubscribe or for archive information, see > <http://www.purple.com/list.html>.
