A very interesting and informative summary, Karen. It certainly raises a
new question for every one it answers.
One is the practicality of the WPFHPI idea in the first place. I wasn't
close to the Cedar Park business world in 1988, but what one saw of
Baltimore Ave. then was, left to its own devices, the market would have
turned the old firehouse into something like a garage or a storefront
church, that probably would have catered more to the "west of 49th
Street" community. So that move to set up a farmers' market instead --
was that popular both east and west?
Does anybody else recall?
-- Tony West
KAREN ALLEN wrote:
Wilma is correct. I was not on the Firehouse Board, but I was on the
CPN board in 1988-1990 when this all took place. I don't have as
intricate knowledge as Wilma does of the Firehouse Board (known
officially as the West Philadelphia Firehouse Project, Inc or WPFHPI),
but I know a lot of the CPN part of it. I distinctly remember that
the late Annie Canty, who was then President of CPN, got the City,
through Councilman Lucien Blackwell's office, to deed the abandoned
firehouse to CPN for one dollar after the engine company moved to a
new firehouse at 52nd and Willows.
The plan was to make fresh fruits and vegs available to the
neighborhood becasue of the lack of grocery stores or markets in the
surrounding community. It was supposed to be a farmers market, hence
the name "Firehouse Farmers Market". The market got a grant from the
state because of the farmers market aspect of the project. There was a
requirement that the market structure be a public/private partnership,
with CPN being the steward of the public interest. But what ended up
happining was that the private partner was friends with a number of
people in the neighborhood, and those people became members of the CPN
and Firehouse boards and they tried to manipulate those boards into
giving the private partner free reign.
Two factions emerged which broke down as those who wanted to preserve
the vision of the market as being for the community, and those who
wanted to give the private owner free reign. The "community"
faction for the most part lived "west of 49th Street" [racial
code] and was black, while the "private owner" faction lived "east of
49th Street" [more racial code] and was pretty much white, so the
stage was set for a lot of hostility and tension. There were constant
accusations of undisclosed conflicts of interest and that the
Firehouse Board was not providing oversight, but was simply
rubberstamping whatever the owner wanted to do. The accusation was
also that the private partner's supporters used the black community to
get the building and create the market, but once created, did
something completely different and wanted to push that community out.
The situation on the CPN Board came to a head with the election for
President for the 1989-90 Board term. One candidate was a black
female supported by the community faction and the other was a white
male supported by the private owner faction. There was an active
election campaign, unusual by community association election
standards: There were editorial letters, fliers, community newspapers
etc, covering the issue as one of who would control the destiny of the
Firehouse Market: would it benefit the community or private interests?
The election came and something like 300 people showed up, a record
never seen before or since. The "private owner" candidate won, but
then came allegations of election fraud because someone among the
other Board candidates on the ballot helped count the votes with the
current Board President, who was a private owner supporter.
While that contorversy raged, then came a bombshell. Just before the
election, I aked my then-next door neighbor, who was white, if she was
going to come vote in the CPN election, and she made an offhand
reference that she already knew because she had gotten "the flier" at
her door from someone in the neighborhood. I thought it was odd,
because I didn't know anything about a flier and because my neighbor
got a visit and a flier and I didn't. I asked if she still had it, but
by then she had thrown it out. Once the vote controversy emerged, I
started asking around, and finally someone I was allied with spoke to
a white neighbor of hers, who did not want to be involved, but did
direct her to look in the bags of trash set out on the curb.
The flier supported the private owner candidate, and contained coded
racial language. All of the people who would admit to receiving one
were white. No one who was black knew anything about it. This led to a
big contentious meeting where everyone was in an uproar. The people
behind the fliers were identified, and our complaint was that the
flier was racist because of the language and because it was circulated
in secret to only white community members.
One of the defenders of the flier pointed out that a black person who
published his own community newspaper was openly advocating for the
community candidate, and that the defender had the same First
Amendment right to distribute the flier. I responded to her that while
she had a right to distribute a flier, why would she have it
distrtibuted selectively? Why would my neighbor get one and not me?
Why did it seem like only white people got it? I pointed out that the
publisher made his views known to all who wished to read them, and
that he didn't excercise his First Amendment rights in secret to a
select audience.
Tensions were so high that it was decided to throw out the election
results and after research done by two lawyers on the CPN Board, it
was decided that the two presidential candidates would serve as
"co-presidents".
The Firehouse Market continued to be a bone of contention right up to
when CPN ended up selling its interest to the private owner in 1998.
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