When I arrived in Ye Olde UC Village in 1985, there were SE Asian refugees warehoused in buildings up and down 48th St. I taught English in Admiral Court, which at the time was half abandoned. The other wing was full of some Vietnamese but primarily Cambodians. A few years later, after I had moved on to other things, the building was totally rehabbed, as were similar buildings which had been refugee holding tanks, like the one at the NE corner of 48th and Osage.
The story I heard, which may not be accurate, was that Willard Rouse had purchased some of these properties and was responsible for the upgrading. I can't remember when this was, but it was certainly long before Judy's advent at Penn. Do any of you old real estate heads remember the facts about this? To be fair, I suppose one must admit that Penn and Judy made a difference in the hood, but to give her all the credit seems a little unrealistic and mythic, to say the least. On 6/11/07, KAREN ALLEN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Back when the John Fenton mess hit the fan, I had an offlist conversation with someone in which I said that I opposed UCD obtaining the power of taxation because it would make UCD an unelected government answerable only to the University of Pennsylvania. The other person roundly criticised my opinion, stating that it wasn't true and that they could not see where I was getting that from. This is where I'm getting that from:
-- Ross Bender http://rossbender.org
