>From a local, thank goodness . . . http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/9721440.htm
A hot neighborhood with history By Murray Dubin INQUIRER STAFF WRITER When I was little, a perfect Saturday morning was watching cartoons. When I was a teen, playing ball was the best. As a young man, I needed to sleep late. And having two small children jump on me for morning hugs was the best wake-up for a young father. And now, in my 50s, perfection is a summer Saturday morning in the neighborhood: coffee, muffin and the newspaper at the Green Line Cafe with my wife, Libby. Then we go across the street, greet more neighbors, and decide what to buy among gherkin cucumbers, organic chickens, goat cheese, just-picked peaches, fresh lettuce, red lentils and flowers at the farmer's market at Clark Park. My hardest decision: buy a whoopie pie or not? Home is University City in West Philadelphia, and life is good. Here's why: Free jazz on summer Friday nights in front of the Firehouse Farmers Market, 50th and Baltimore. For lunch, chomp on the biggest and best deli sandwiches and groan at the jokes of the friendliest deli owner at Koch's, 43d and Locust. Dinner at my favorite restaurant, Nan, at 40th and Chestnut, or perhaps at the new Marathon restaurant in front of the two-year-old Bridge Cinema, 40th and Walnut. See foreign films at International House, 37th and Chestnut; art at the University City Arts League, 4200 block of Spruce, and at the Slought Foundation gallery on Walnut just west of 40th; and visit the jewel that is Natalie's, an old-time jazz and blues bar, a door off the 40th and Market corner. And if you like remnants of political and labor movements, they're here. Local offices of the Communist Party and the International Workers of the World are on Baltimore Avenue. Rowhouses replicate each other on the streets of University City, but these are not the rowhouses of South or Northeast Philadelphia or any other section of the city - these are three-story Victorians, 90-year-olds with bodacious bay windows, lovely leaded glass, back stairs for the servants you deserve, and front porches welcoming you to sit a spell. Residents seem so intertwined that there can be but one degree of separation between them - you may not know the woman on the next block of Larchwood, but you both know some of the same people. "University City still has the things that originally attracted people," says resident Mike Hardy, who's been active in the community for more than 30 years. Hardy was clearing weeds from a tree on 43d Street near Osage when he stopped to say: "It still has that neighborly quality, and it's still pedestrian oriented because you can literally walk into town if you want to. "Because of all the institutions here - educational, medical - there's always an interesting mix of people. And there's the green space, the parks, yards, gardens and streetscape." However you define the boundaries of University City, affecting it are the University of Pennsylvania, University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (formerly the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy), Drexel University, and the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College. Add six medical and medical research institutions, plus dental and veterinary schools, and there's an abundance of students seeking pizza and professors perambulating for latts. When those profs are not frenzied for French roast, they may be looking for a house. Homes sell quicker than croissants at the new Metropolitan Bakery on Walnut, even though the median sale price scampered up 204 percent from 1997 to 2003 in a wide swath of the neighborhood. It wasn't always this way. Calling the neighborhood chic or hot is relatively new. We're still getting used to it. Used to be the nicest thing anyone called you for moving here in decades past was a pioneer. And no one 10 years ago would have guessed newcomers would be flocking like seagulls to this eastern beach of West Philadelphia. Because 1994 was a bad, bad year for University City. That was when math scholar and Penn grad student Al-Moez Alimohamed was murdered at 47th and Pine in a $5 robbery. He was beaten and shot. The community was angry, sad and frightened. I was part of that community, and I walked a few evenings later to the scene of the shooting to hear Penn's newly arrived president speak. It was a hot August night. I remember. "I haven't forgotten it," says Judith Rodin, the recently retired Penn president. "I didn't know how to work the keys to my office, but I remember I went out there and said that we were all stakeholders in the community, and we just were not going to let people feel frightened. "It was awful. I didn't know him, but I felt responsible for him. It continues to haunt me. I remember promising his father and brothers that I would make Penn safe." There would be another horrific killing of a member of the Penn family in 1996 - researcher Vladimir Sled, who was stabbed to death - but the community around Penn is safer today. It would be simplistic to say that actions by the university are the reason for that, but programs initiated by Penn in the last 10 years have clearly been a boon to the neighborhood. In the 1950s and 1960s, the university bulldozed blocks of the surrounding West Philadelphia community for its own expansion. But in more recent years, Penn has helped bring the remainder of the neighborhood back - adding a mortgage program to encourage employees to buy and rehab homes in the area, helping start a neighborhood services district to help clean the community and plan for it, a street lighting and greening program, increased security, a commercial real estate effort that has added a movie theater, supermarket, restaurants and new housing, and a universitywide sense that Penn is in the community. So today the once sleepy intersection of 40th and Walnut Streets bustles with pedestrian energy. Joggers run through Woodlands Cemetery, and children of every hue giggle together at the new tot lot in Clark Park or in the playground of the new Penn Alexander school. Subway-surface trolleys on Woodland, Chester and Baltimore Avenues shuttle residents to and from Center City. And my daughter, the one who used to wake me up early on Saturday mornings? She's 23 now, out of college, has a job with health insurance and, best of all, moved to an apartment about five blocks away from me in University City. Smart kid. Contact staff writer Murray Dubin at 215-854-2797 or [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---- 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>.
