Change Comes Quickly In Philadelphia

(Deshler-Morris House, Photo - National Park Service)

Philadelphia has been repeatedly labeled as a city that can change rapidly within a few blocks. Some of Temple University’s most beautiful buildings are within 4-5 blocks of violent and impoverished neighborhoods. South Philadelphia’s lovely Italian market is within 6-7 blocks of much less scenic parts of Point Breeze. Fishtown, where murders happen about as often as presidential elections, is just south of parts of Kensington where violent crime is a major issue. The list goes on, and its hard to think of any area of Philadelphia where this formula doesn’t apply.

While the change may be rapid, the neighborhoods in Philadelphia tend to hold a somewhat unified identity concerning economic and crime status within their recognized boundaries. I have yet to encounter one as schizophrenic as Germantown.

But never has it struck me in the same way that it has in Germantown. I get off the train and I am looking at a dilapidated building that used to be a dive bar with plywood holding up the windows. A few blocks later, I’m looking at a house that George Washington used to live in.

I’m walking up and down Germantown Avenue, one of the most scenic streets I’ve seen in Philadelphia, looking at one of the most scenic parks I’ve seen in the city in Vernon Park. In the Walgreen’s on the corner, a man inside is telling me how most of the people in this neighborhood can’t afford to drive. A few blocks away from the Deshler-Morris house, I see beautiful old houses that I would expect to see on the Main Line. Also a few blocks away, a 44-year-old college graduate is explaining to me why he has to use his car as a hack cab in order to feed his family.

Which brings the question to my mind: if the historic buildings and the immediate surrounding blocks of beautiful houses have been given the resources to remain preserved, why hasn’t the same been done for the entire neighborhood? I understand that some places like the Deshler-Morris house receive resources for being a historical site, but it is clear that the surrounding blocks and buildings have some sort of leg-up as well. This is an issue I hope to understand more as we continue to spend time here.


By Steven Urgo (Group 2 - Germantown)