That's So Raven

Poe's ours.

by Duane Swierczynski

This week's cover story was pitched and accepted in something like 20 seconds. I was drinking beer with a bunch of mystery nerds at Triumph Brewery when Ed Pettit said to me, "You know, Poe wrote most of his famous works here in Philly."

"Really?" I said. "But Baltimore's all about Poe."

"Poe didn't write shit in Baltimore. It was all here. Except 'The Raven.'"

"So Poe's ours," I muttered.

"Want an essay about it? Maybe for the Book Quarterly?"

Visions of a desecrated grave were already dancing in my head.

"Absolutely," I said. "And you have to call it, 'Poe's Ours, Fuckers!'"

We didn't end up calling it that, of course; we thought a less-profane headline would make more sense. But the sentiment is still there. I'm tired of Philadelphia, the city of firsts, being kicked to the side. I feel like somewhere around 1950 — or maybe it was 1980 — that some kind of freakish cosmic storm washed over the city, leaving us with nothing but self-loathing and an inferiority complex the size of Fairmount Park.

Even the rare victory — like the Phils taking the National League East — is met with quiet shock, like a hobo who's won $20 on a Pennsylvania Lottery scratch-off he found stuck under the wheel of a broken-down boxcar.

And bit by bit, we've ceded fame and power to other parts of the country. Sure, New York and D.C., you take all of the attention; we don't mind being the backwater way station between two megacities of the Eastern Corridor. Sure, Cleveland, you can have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sure, Baltimore, take Poe.

But no more. I decree it; the line is drawn here. Baltimore, you can keep your goddamned Wire and crabs and John Waters. Poe's coming with us, dead or ... well, dead.

Then again, Ed Pettit thinks our underdog charm — which apparently was with us back in the 1840s — is part of what inspired Poe.

"It all goes back to the Rocky thing," he explains. "So much of Poe's life is a down-and-out subsistence. He tries so desperately to achieve success and ... just ... barely ... gets there every time and then it all crumbles away. That's the kind of story I've seen played out in Philly my entire life. I'd like Poe to have (at least posthumously) the Rocky success, as well. And all of this for me is not a Baltimore story, or a New York story, or, god forbid, a Richmond story. It's a very Philadelphia kind of thing."

A Man, a plan, a Landing

Last week, after I complained that the city doesn't really do big, public planning anymore ["Short Memories, Big Shovels," September 27, 2007], reader Bryan Van Lenten wrote to say that ... well, we do.

At the end of your recent article you remarked, "We should do it again." I believe that we are doing it again. At the Delaware. Penn Praxis has made a huge commitment to getting input from city residents [on] what they would like to see happen to their river ... a lot of it can be seen at planphilly.com.

You should have mentioned this planning process in your column. But then, perhaps, you were planning to dedicate an entire column to it ...

Point taken, Bryan, though I don't think the online plans are quite on the same scale as what Ed Bacon and his crew were doing back in '48. The problem might be that we've been hearing about redoing Penn's Landing since ... well, since at least 1948. Every 10 years, there seems to be a new idea about saving the waterfront, and Philadelphians are starting to kind of feel like an abused spouse — sure, this year it'll be all better. I promise. I'm sorry I hurt you, and I'll never do it again. ...

That said, I do applaud the Penn Praxis folks for taking the lead on the waterfront. And you're right — I should have mentioned them. I encourage everyone to check out the videos at planphilly.com to learn what's being kicked around. It's a bit on the egghead-y side — and nowhere near as cool as a giant model in a department store. But at least you don't have to leave home to check 'em out.

(duane@citypaper.net)