Behind the News Has a New Site

Behind the News of Philadelphia Neighborhoods can be seen at http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/behind-the-news/

Thank you for your support.

Walnut Hill: Code Blue Remains in Effect

As another week of frigid temperatures continue for Philadelphia, the city maintains its Code Blue status, not for the safety of its home owning citizens, but its homeless ones. Area shelters, usually only open for the nightly hours, have opened their doors almost round the clock for the health and safety of dozens of those less fortunate.

“Either that or I’ll be at Bethesda,” says Samora Keene, as the 42-year old huddles under a blanket on the corner of 49th and Walnut. “Shelters only take us after dark, at least now we have somewhere warm in the daytime.”

Keene is talking about Bethesda Project, a homeless shelter located on South St. in Center City. While she would prefer to use the People's Emergency Center on Spring Garden which is closer, Keene says that she prefers Center City because the local residents are more generous when she begs on the street corners.

Going into effect on Jan. 6, Code Blue, unlike their medical term counterpart, are declared in the city when temperatures drop below 20 degrees, that includes wind chill as a contributing factor. With this in effect the city has the power to enforce a Court Ordered Transportation to Shelter, designed to get endangered homeless people off the streets, out of the cold and safely into a warm shelter. Coupled with this any government facility maybe used, from public buildings to police stations. After one cold-related deaths this week, 50-year-old Denise O'Hara slipped in her driveway in North Haven, Connecticut and died due to the cold, city and state officials are taking the recent blast of cold from Canada very seriously.

Team 13: Irene Kipervasser and John 'Jay' Jones

Walnut Hill: Green Line Cafe hosts "All around this World"

“Take an imaginary plane to Bulgaria” says the woman at the head of the room. “ Your fingers are wings. Get ready for take off” So the group starts encircling the half room that they have been designated. A passerby stops at the window to see this strange sight.
   The Green Line Café is currently hosting a music workshop for children age 0-8 called “All around this World: presents a music workshop with Svytanya. “These kinds of workshops happen once or twice a month” says the barista at The Green Line Café “It costs five to ten dollars on a sliding scale”.
                                          This hip coffee shop has several locations in West Philadelphia including this one at 44 th and Locust and one on 42nd and Baltimore, and 36th and Lancaster. The way the coffee shop is decorated seems entirely fitting for the kind of workshop as there are different paintings hung on the walls demonstrating artists of all caliber.
  “Recently we have been focusing on different parts of Eastern Europe like Estonia, Russia, Bulgaria, and all over the place. This week were going to be focusing on Bulgaria”.  To begin the workshop a music teacher in Walnut Hill picks up a guitar and starts playing a song reminding people of how to say hello in Russian.
“Pineapple Apple Apple” says the leader of the workshop and the rest of the group follows while banging on wooden spoons. “This is a rhythm that is important to the kind of music we are learning about today” says the music teacher. “What about Apple Apple Pear” yells a little girl from the crowd “Well we can do that too” says the teachers in between chuckles and the group switches.
 People in the half of the room that is still a coffee shop turn away from their bagels and computers to see what’s going on.

Walnut Hill: Watusi Karaoke Night

“Oh we gone give you something to write about” says Pam, the bartender at the Watusi Lounge on 46th and Walnut.  For the last month this location of Watusi has been hosting a karaoke night on Mondays that has been getting people from the neighborhood and beyond out on what have started being cold Monday nights. “People come from North Philly and Germantown to come sing with us” she says

“We start really getting people in around 11”says Pam. At this point only about 9 or ten souls have braved the freezing winds of December in Philadelphia, but those few brave enough have come to sing their hearts out.  “Last week you couldn’t even get a seat in hear and it was cold then too” she says.
 The beginning notes of Santa Baby trickle out of the stereo and a woman starts singing soulfully. This was sandwiched in between some slower RnB songs. Suddenly about four people stand around the microphone to start singing the song Secret Lovers.  Pam goes up and starts singing.

As the time passes more people make their way into the lounge. On their Karaoke nights Watusi, has drink specials with some scandalous names. This is called a “Blowjob” says the other bartender as she shows me a little shot glass with a squirt of whipped cream on top of the liquor. “Who’s gonna eat the pink pussy” says Pam. Once she gets some takers she starts mixing a drink and pours out two of  them into some plastic bowls and line them up in front of the customers. These customers proceed to slurp the drink up without using their hands. Everyone in the place seems to be very friendly with each other giving it that real community feel to it.

Walnut Hill: Gardeners Brace for Winter

On the corner of 47th and Spruce streets in Walnut Hill is a tennis court with a community garden attached to it. The facilities are managed by the Garden Court Community Association and feature more than 20 10x10 plots.

I walked by to check it out and noticed a mother and her young son braving the frigid weather to work on their garden plot. Arielle Jungworth and her husband moved to Philadelphia about two and a half years ago from Seattle, Washington. “I had a nice-sized garden back home and when we moved here, we moved to an apartment so I didn’t have the space to really do anything,” said Jungworth. She said her husband first noticed the community garden more than a year ago and signed up on the waiting list for a plot. Almost a year later, they received a call that no plots were available, but someone was willing to share a plot with them. They eagerly accepted. “We’ve grown tomatoes, basil, lettuce, herbs and kale, a lot of kale. We crammed a lot into this little area,” says Jungworth.
There is a fee of $10 a year to rent space in the garden. The money goes towards general upkeep of the facility. Volunteers also meet up a few times a year to clean up the area around the garden and they work to maintain it yea round. On this bitter day, Jungworth and her 15-month old son James, stopped by their garden to touch it up by weeding and tilling the soil. The temperature was in the low 30’s with a wind chill near 29 degrees, but nothing could stop this mom and son team from doing their work.


Kristina Leon
Walnut Hill- Group 23