Theoldest community organization in University City: Woodland TerraceHomeowners Association is 75 years old and its historical block is 150. Actually, this is not the exact truth because ourassociation, WTHA for short, was founded in 1936, which makes it 78 years old,and the first residents moved on our block in 1862, but we forgot to celebrateour 75th birthday! It may be because we have things to celebratealmost every day. Our most constant subject of celebration is that we havemanaged to keep our block so alive and so well, despite the encroachments ofabsentee landlords and transient tenants. There are reasons for this success,and they have to do with how beautiful and original Woodland Terrace still is.Paul Cret, the French architect who came from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paristo teach at Penn, loved it and he bought number 516, where he lived until hisdeath in 1945. You will see a historical plaque in front of his house, whichcommemorates both the great French architect and Samuel Sloan, the indigenousdesigner hired by Charles Leslie, the developer of this suburb, one of the veryfirst, in 1857. Each of the 22 twins was designed as half of a singlemansion, six on the West side, five on the East. With porches that wrap allaround the first floor, evenly spaced, very high windows, entrance doors nottoo visible and one pitch in the middle of the roof, the illusion is perfect:these divided houses look like stately Italianate Victorian villas and theblock looks grand, a place that in the 1860s attracted merchants, professionalsand well-to-do widows, raising their families in a calm street of elegant suburbanhomes. When I arrived to Philadelphia from San Francisco and I walked to my jobat Penn from 42d street, it was the first thing I saw that cheered me up: thetrees were tall, the cast iron fences were lovely and, above all, the largeuniform houses had an air of serenity that is rare in our cities. I could go on with the story of the first inhabitants and ofhow things changed, except that they don’t seem to have changed all that much.Our association was founded in 1936 when the Crets lived on the block, andrevived in the 1960s by the distinguished jurist Louis Schwartz (WTHA’s legalcounsel, no less!) and Drs. Neal and Mary Daniels, (Mary still lives on theblock) because it was important to save Woodland Terrace from the roominghouses that were then spreading all around Penn. Today, when many residentsseem to think that residential Spruce Hill ends at Clark Park, our street holdsits own and our association defends its turf: half of the 22 twins are occupiedby resident owners and WTHA adds to these the four families who own beautifulVictorian twins on South 41st street and live in them. Six homeownershave moved in not long ago, and we count mostly students but also youngfamilies among the renters, who, by the way, are welcome to our meetings andour association. We would like to tell you more about what we do for ourprecious blocks. We are a two-year old RCO, that is, a community organizationregistered with the City’s Planning Commission and a member of now permanent PhiladelphiaCrosstown Coalition. We are what afriend of mine once called “the most self-conscious block” he (and many of us!)had ever seen. But we believe that we use our self-consciousness in a positiveway, even though you may have heard about us only in connection with fightingdevelopers and suing to protect both what zoning laws say and the quality ofour lives. Zoning issues are one of our first concerns and being vigilant hasbeen part of our mission since the beginning. We follow zoning matters assiduously,and we fight both for and against what touches our streets closely but we alsochoose our battles. Besides zoning, one of our predominant battles is againsttrash. We keep our block very clean; we pick up after the refuse collectorsscatter mementos of what everybody eats or gets in the mail all over the place,and even when the garbage collectors do not litter, we pick up after the passers-byand the people who love to park on our block; they leave plenty of litter ontheir own! We do four annual clean-ups and bring barrels of mulch to ourcommunity garden at the corner of 41st and Woodland Avenue. Thegarden is the creation and the constant preoccupation of Lauren, our wonderfulpresident. Second, we keep our little front yards as nice-looking as wecan and we plant trees; our youngest tree is in memory of our dear friend NealDaniels --it could not be witty and wise as he was, but it is a good sturdytree that braves the city fumes. We shovel the snow, and even one of ourabsentee landlords has cleaned it with a snow-blower. More importantly, we takecare of our people: we reach out to the tenants when they come in, and we tellthem about the norms of the block, but also about their rights and what theyshould expect from their absentee landlords. We have barbecues and potlucks,yard sales and porch or indoor picnics after the clean-ups. We monitor thelevel of noise and each other’s houses, and each other’s health. We give eachother rides and often attend each other’s parties. We should do more, ofcourse, but we know that we should. It is also true that we have been busy (much too busy)fighting an eleven-story hotel in the backyard of the run-down Sloan mansion at40th and Pine. If you go see the hotel now in its appropriate newlocation at 41st and Walnut, you will understand why. And we havealso opposed lower developments because of their density and the variances theyrequire. It is not idle and obstinate opposition; we know and we hope that theowner can propose something better suited to our neighborhood, something thatpreserves it for its stable residents and, once again, prevents the spread ofpurely transient lodgings. Since 2007, we have made many attempts to convincethe owners that there were better solutions for the community. But fighting is not what we normally do. Even the retireesamong us are very busy people; we work in a variety of places, as physicians,teachers, architects, writers, translators, stage directors, federal employees,Coast Guard officers, lawyers, and many students. You should come see us. Ourmeetings are open and we announce them –we are an RCO and we follow the rules.We are proud of our block because we are proud of our city and of ourneighborhood and, of course, because we want to continue living here. We knowthat you want the same. MagaliSarfatti Larson WTHAresident
Guy Laren lom...@aol.com
