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Archive: October, 2011
Getting inside the walls of City Hall.
Remember that Hall Monitor post, a couple of weeks ago, about how Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. was reputedly considering a run for City Council president — and responded to a direct question about it with four long, slow, somewhat-tortured "no's" that sure sounded like a "maybe?" Remember?
Well guess what: Last weekend, Jones announced to a crowd of politicos that he supports Councilman Darrell Clarke for Council Prez.
CP happened to be walking through Occupy Philly this morning and came upon none other than Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, strolling leisurely through the protest and greeting ... well, just about everybody. (Asked to pose with protesters, the Commissioner cheerfully assented.)
Ramsey was busy explaining the situation to another city official — "They've got their own cleanup crews, their own security, everything!" CP overheard — as well as informing protesters of the city's desire to move the "occupation" across the street, to the Municipal Services Building plaza (the same that features, in a bit of cosmic irony, a statue of former mayor and police chief Frank Rizzo Sr.).
Dilworth Plaza, the current site of the protest, is scheduled to be closed in early November for a massive renovation project. The entire area, city officials have said, will be cordoned off and closed for any public use.
The question now, of course, is whether — and how many — of the Occupy Philly protesters will comply with the city's request.
-- Follow Isaiah Thompson on Twitter.
It may be that our streets actually are getting worse. Questioned about the badly faded bike lane markers that make cycling through the city a sometimes perilous activity, Streets Department Deputy Commissioner Stephen Buckley replied that, where the city had once resurfaced more than 100 miles of roadway a year, it now does only 30 to 50 miles — because the rest of the budget is absorbed by making improvements ADA compliant. On the plus side, the department has secured some dedicated funding for roadway improvements to begin this spring.
Occupy Philly may be grabbing all the headlines this week, but the more grassroots-focused Fight for Philly is trying to get its own slice of the action. That included a candlelight vigil on Market Street bridge to complain about our lagging infrastructure, a tent on Dilworth Plaza and, this afternoon, a garden tour of blighted properties. Stops include 63rd and Lancaster, 52nd and Market, Kensington and Tioga, and more. (Here is the full schedule.) The tour heads back to Center City, to lay the blame on the doorstep of Wells Fargo and other banks.
At a kickoff meeting last week, Fight for Philly organizer Samuel Jones said it was his own recent experience that inspired him to participate. Although he holds a master's degree from Yale, he says, "I recently became unemployed and I was unemployed for 17 months. I know that there are other people with much less education that are struggling, who are capable of working but simply can't find work."
Tyrone Wiggins, a truck driver from Southwest Philadelphia, agreed. "I joined 10,000 Men and nothing happened. I joined the Million Man March and nothing happened," he said, bemoaning the lack of police presence in the neighborhood. "I'm hoping that this changes things. The neighbors gotta stick together."
A series on under-the-radar stories worth reading.
At only 10 years old, David Guinn's "Autumn (a.k.a Your House in the Forest)” mural at Ninth and Bainbridge is too young to die — or to be covered up by a new row house, argues the Hidden City blog. Bella Vista neighbors turned out "in force" to protest the proposed project, which author Nathaniel Popkin complains amounts to "a suburban architect’s typically crass attempt to imitate the urban vernacular." Some people just don't have an appreciation for blocky bay windows and asphalt shingles.
Update: Here's the link to a petition to preserve the artwork.
Dozens of professors at the University of Pennsylvania declared their support for the Occupy Wall Street movement in a letter posted in yesterday's edition of The Daily Pennsylvanian student newspaper.
(It should perhaps be noted that they neglect to mention Occupy Philly in particular, a revolt that has broken out right down the street.) The first sentence clearly mentions the movement "underway in our city"--my bad.
**
Anarchist authors have posted an open letter to the various 'Occupy' movements on the website Crimethinc.com. It's an interesting read.
Here's a sample. Full text at Crimethinc. Follow me for more Occupy Philly here and on Twitter.
Dear Occupiers
A letter from anarchists
Support and solidarity! We’re inspired by the occupations on Wall Street and elsewhere around the country. Finally, people are taking to the streets again! The momentum around these actions has the potential to reinvigorate protest and resistance in this country. We hope these occupations will increase both in numbers and in substance, and we’ll do our best to contribute to that.
Why should you listen to us? In short, because we’ve been at this a long time already. We’ve spent decades struggling against capitalism, organizing occupations, and making decisions by consensus. If this new movement doesn’t learn from the mistakes of previous ones, we run the risk of repeating them. We’ve summarized some of our hard-won lessons here.
...
Police can’t be trusted. They may be “ordinary workers,” but their job is to protect the interests of the ruling class. As long as they remain employed as police, we can’t count on them, however friendly they might act. Occupiers who don’t know this already will learn it firsthand as soon as they threaten the imbalances of wealth and power our society is based on. Anyone who insists that the police exist to protect and serve the common people has probably lived a privileged life, and an obedient one.
...
To have a diversity of participants, a movement must make space for a diversity of tactics. It’s controlling and self-important to think you know how everyone should act in pursuit of a better world. Denouncing others only equips the authorities to delegitimize, divide, and destroy the movement as a whole. Criticism and debate propel a movement forward, but power grabs cripple it. The goal should not be to compel everyone to adopt one set of tactics, but to discover how different approaches can be mutually beneficial.
...
Don’t assume those who break the law or confront police are agents provocateurs. A lot of people have good reason to be angry. Not everyone is resigned to legalistic pacifism; some people still remember how to stand up for themselves. Police violence isn’t just meant to provoke us, it’s meant to hurt and scare us into inaction. In this context, self-defense is essential.
Assuming that those at the front of clashes with the authorities are somehow in league with the authorities is not only illogical—it delegitimizes the spirit it takes to challenge the status quo, and dismisses the courage of those who are prepared to do so. This allegation is typical of privileged people who have been taught to trust the authorities and fear everyone who disobeys them.
...
Thanks for reading and scheming and acting. May your every dream come true.
Want a brand new, LEED Gold, three bedroom home in the city? No, we're not talking Naval Square, but the city's newest affordable housing development, which could be a model for green affordable housing in the city. The Sheridan Street houses were developed by the Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha and the Community Design Collaborative, funded in part by the city, and designed by Interface Studio Architects. Solar paneling, sustainable rainwater management plans, green roofs and other energy efficient features are some of the green features. (There are also roof decks with enviable skyline views.) "This is not a fad," Mayor Nutter told the crowd at the official ribbon cutting today. "This is a movement." The 13-house development in Eastern North Philadelphia are available to households with 60 percent to 115 percent of area median income, priced at $150,000 to $165,000.
When Occupy Philly announced its intention to use City Hall's Dilworth Plaza as home base for the now week-long protest, Mayor Michael Nutter said the group was welcome to stay, and Nutter spokesman Mark McDonald indicated to the assembly that while the city requested the group obtain a permit, that permit would be renewed as necessary.
However, Dilworth Plaza is scheduled for a massive renovation project, set to begin in "early to mid November." The entire area will be cordoned off and Occupy Philly will have to leave, says McDonald.
"Occupy Philly leaders were informed of this from the get-go. So they know the deal," McDonald told CP yesterday.
The renovation project is being overseen by the Center City District, which has leased Dilworth Plaza from the city. Asked about the fate of the occupation, CCD president and CEO Paul R. Levy referred CP back to the city.
A series on under-the-radar stories worth reading.
Philadelphia's black middle class is slipping away — but they're not going far — according to the latest Census data, Tom Ferrick Jr. reported in Metropolis. Only 20 percent of black households in the city havd incomes of $60,000 or more from 2005 to 2009, down from the 26 percent reported in 1999 and 1989. Ferrick defines the phenomenon as "black suburbanization," rather than a simple decline in income levels, given that the city's total black population also declined.
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