You Gonna Use That?A neighborhood debates how best to develop abandoned property. By Andrew Thompson

A few years ago, Tim McDonald saw the abandoned bank under the El on the corner of Front and Norris streets and thought it would make a good home

for his architectural firm, Onion Flats. The building’s owners left in 1983 and, six years later, ownership was transferred to the Norris Square Civic Association (NSCA).

“I love old buildings and thought that would be a great space to renovate for our company and other companies,” says McDonald, whose firm is head-quartered in the Norris Square neigh-borhood. “That corner is so derelict. It just breeds, breeds, breeds drugs and prostitution. I wanted to change it and help change the corner.”

McDonald approached NSCA’s exec-utive director, Patricia De Carlo. He says he offered to buy the building; De Carlo says he offered to pay what NSCA paid (which was nothing), and that she doesn’t “give away property to private business folks.” In any case, De Carlo declined, telling McDonald she was going to hold on to the property until she found a good use for it.

So far, NSCA hasn’t: The bank still sits under the El, as boarded up and unused as the day McDonald made his offer, and is being considered for demolition.

“I don’t expect them to be doing some-thing with it for some time,” McDonald says now.

De Carlo says she still has plans for the site.

Norris Square sits just west of the El between Berks Street and Lehigh Avenue, and at more than two-thirds Hispanic, is home to one of

the highest concentrations of Latinos in the city. Twenty-five years ago, a group of women formed NSCA to clean up Norris Square park — the recreational centerpiece of the neighbor-hood — which had become a haven for crime and drugs. Among the founders was De Carlo, a Puerto Rico native and longtime attorney and activist. With the assistance of the community, NSCA trans formed the park from “Needlepoint Park” into, well, the recreational centerpiece of the neighborhood.

Since then, with De Carlo at the helm, NSCA evolved into a full-blown community development corporation, taking control of dozens of properties worth millions of dol-lars. The source of this land varies: Some comes from absentee owners who choose to donate or sell their properties for bargain basement prices (to get tax write-offs) rather

than renovate them. Other land comes from the city’s chest of repossessed properties: This was particularly true when John Street, an associate of De Carlo (she served on his may-oral transition team), was council president and mayor.

But instead of allowing someone to develop the land (as CDCs often do), NSCA has held on to much of it. Sometimes it uses the land to provide community services such as child care centers and low-income housing (amenities most private developers would have ignored). And sometimes, caught in the slow process of

trying to do development on its own, it allows parcels ripe for renovation to languish.

People familiar with De Carlo typically say one of two things about her: that they love her, or that they love her but strongly dis-agree with her philosophy

of how to manage NSCA’s property. These critics would like to see her relinquish some land to those with the means (and will) to transform it.

Sitting in her office across from Norris Square park, De Carlo talks about the myriad

projects NSCA has undertaken at the com-munity’s behest. The community wanted low-income housing, so a burned-out casket factory was turned into housing units avail-able for $525 a month (and built by an ad-hoc

The murder and violent-crime rates are down this year, but are above Michael Nutter’s goals for 2008. “I just can’t stop killing,” he sighs. Plus 1 Applicants to fill the 128 teacher vacancies in the Philadelphia school district say hiring process is too slow. Also, the working process is dangerous and the payment process is inad-equate. Minus 4 Michael Nutter says his proposed parking meter hike is to decrease congestion, rather than alle-viate the city’s budget woes. “If you think a meter hike is gonna solve this budget crisis, I’ve got a bridge I want to sell you. No, really, it’s called the Tacony Bridge. You can have it for $300. Two hundred? How about you just take it, assume responsibility for cleaning up all the Shorti wrap-pers, and we’ll call it even.” Plus 2 City Council President Anna Verna says she will take a 5 percent salary cut to help address the city’s $1 billion budget deficit. Verna makes $20 billion a year. Plus 1 Joe Biden, Cole Hamels and Pat Burrell watched the Eagles game against the Giants in Jeff Lurie’s suite. “You know, boys, all three of us are on top of the world right now,” says Biden, kicking back with a beer. “Hey Cole,” whispers Burrell, “who’s that?” Plus 1 Chris May will officially replace Larry Mendte on CBS3 after taking over for him in an interim capacity. “We were very impressed with Chris’ performance,” says station exec. “He did not once violate federal espionage laws.” Even Northeast native Chris Ferguson named com-mander of the space shuttle Endeavor. At least that’s what he tells all the butterfaces and double baggers down at Fibber McGee’s. Plus 4 Total Pluses: 9Total Minuses: 4Total for the Week 5Last Week’s Total: 2,006,087

thebellcurveCP’s Quality-o-Life-o-Meter

RIPE FOR DEVELOPMENT: This abandoned building, at Front and Norris, could have been the home of an architectural firm. Will NSCA make use of it?

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ANNALS OF GENTRIF ICATION

NSCA has dozens of properties worth millions of dollars.

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A Library LegendThe Fishtown Branch was saved once before.By Isaiah Thompson

T his past Monday night, more than 100 people rallied outside the tiny Fish-town Library on Montgomery Avenue to show their support for the institu-

tion and to protest Mayor Nutter’s recent announcement that, due to a budget short-fall, it and 10 other neighborhood branches would be closed.

The library staff — clearly happy to see the support, but also rattled by the invasion — watched a little nervously as the crowd poured in and out of the small building to sign petitions.

Amid the throng sat an elderly man, plopped comfortably in a chair and chatting with peo-ple as they went by and paid polite respects.

“He’s kind of like the patriarch of Fishtown,” one woman explained to me.

The man, who is 84 years old (he adamant-ly refused to allow his name to be printed, saying he didn’t want people in Fishtown to think his head had gotten big; let’s call him Frank) had come out with his neighbors to support the library, of which he is a grate-ful patron.

“I like thrillers!” he declared. The possible closing of the library, he said, was “very dis-tressing.”

But living in the same neighborhood for more than 80 years lends a bit of perspective. And this, he explained, wasn’t the first time the library had been in trouble.

“The last time it happened, there was a lady, Mrs. Stepnowski,” Frank said, “who saved it.”

It was in the early ’80s, he said, when the library’s existence was first seriously threat-ened. Housed in an old fire station, the library was even smaller then than it is now, occupy-ing only one floor of its tiny three-floor build-ing. Still, it was utilized. When librarians held an annual party for the neighborhood kids, the place was packed.

“It would be standing-room only for the kids, from the front door to the steps at the back,” remembers Fran Stepnowski, daughter of the late Mrs. Stepnowski of library fame.

According to Fran and others who were around at the time, the Philadelphia Free Library planned to close the branch, but neighbors rallied to the cause, forming the first ever Friends of the Fishtown Library

Association. Their first president was Mrs. Stepnowski.

Born to Polish immigrant parents, Mrs. Stepnowski was her own neighborhood institution. She had given birth 16 times — almost all of them home deliveries, her daughter Fran says. She was strong-willed, civic-min ded and passionate about edu-cation and her library.

Under Mrs. Stepnowski’s leadership, the brand-new Friends association began a petition drive, a letter-writ-ing campaign, and even bus-ed children and elderly resi-dents in to speak at council meetings.

“She liked holding pub-lic office,” Fran, who also volunteered with the Friends, remembers. “She had a very strong personality to keep everybody focus-ed. There was no way we were ever going to back down.”

But Stepnowski’s most drastic measure was something she did on her own: She invited then-city managing director Wilson Goode, who would later become mayor, over to her house for a snack.

“She was just so incensed, she wrote to Goode and invited him over for tea and babka” — a Polish sweet bread — says Fran.

“He came over and then she walked him

down the street and showed him the library and lectured him thoroughly.”

“Yes she did, she certainly did,” confirms Doris Morris, former secretary of the Friends of the Fishtown Library Association. “He sat in her kitchen and they talked.”

In the end, the story in Fish-town goes, the forceful Mrs. Stepnowski got her way. The library not only remained open, but was renovated to include the third floor, where Mrs. Stepnowski’s deter-mined visage still hangs — for now.

“She was a wonderful lady,”says Morris fondly. “That’s why her picture’s in that library.”

Today, the Fishtown Library serves a small but steady patronage in the neighborhood.

“We had good patrons and good programs,” says Margaret Snow, now retired, who worked there. “I’ve seen children grow up and now they’re married. It’s definitely a community library. … I’m very sad to hear that it may close. I hope it doesn’t.”

Stepnowski’s daughter shares that feeling.“My mother really believed in libraries,” she

says. “She thought it was part of, you know, democracy. She used to say, ‘Whaddya want, a city full of dummies?’”

(isaiah.thompson@citypaper.net)

“She was just so incensed, she wrote to Goode and invited him

over for tea and babka.”

construction company employing workers from the neighborhood). When residents wanted a bilingual child-care center, they got it. When they wanted a senior center, they got that, too.

“We go to the community and the residents and say, ‘What are the next needs? What are your wants?’” she says, adding that her con-cern rests with the people who have long-term investments in the neighborhood outside of home values. “The folks who have lived here for over 20 years,” she says, “they want to make this home.”

De Carlo’s dedication to caring for long-time residents, and her understanding that community growth doesn’t just mean rising real estate prices, is widely admired in the neighborhood. But property management is another matter.

“There’s no plan,” says Victor Negron, who grew up in the area and helped start the Kensington West Neigh borhood Association to fill in the gaps he felt NSCA left open. Negron offers the typical caveat before speaking about NSCA: “[NSCA] is a staple of this community and it’s done a lot of good things,” he says. But he wonders why the organization has continued to acquire land even as properties it owns sit in disrepair.

These days, De Carlo doesn’t go without opposition from City Hall. Maria Quiñones-Sanchez, councilwoman from the 7th District,

has often butted heads with De Carlo over how to develop the neighborhood. Quiñones-Sanchez tends to argue for greater private development and efficiency, while De Carlo — with her distrust of private entities, outsiders, and her fear that increased real estate prices will drive out longtime residents — prefers to keep properties in NSCA’s name.

“The fact of the matter is that through public policy we can protect people with fixed incomes,” says Quiñones-Sanchez. “This notion of us versus them, rich versus poor, are the politics of the past. We can have this fabulous neighborhood that is properly valued and pro-tect people on fixed income. This notion of one or the other is not cool.”

De Carlo, however, believes you can provide services or usher in development, but you can’t do both. As Nathan-iel Popkin observes in The Possible City: Exercises in Dreaming Philadelphia, her opposition to gentrification is vehement.

In 2004, the School District of Philadelphia decided to break up Kensington High School into three distinct entities. One of those enti-ties was to be the Kensington High School for Creative and Performing Arts (Kensington CAPA). The school district planned to build

it in the last remaining lot in the Kensington area big enough to support the $44 million project — a 7-acre plot of land on Front and Norris Streets, just south of Norris Square.

NSCA had bought the land in 2001 for $500,000, after the previous owner decided to give the civic association a discount (the appraised value was $3 million) to receive a tax break. NSCA proceeded to pay a reduced

tax rate on the property.When the school’s develop-

ers approach ed NSCA to buy the land, however, De Carlo balked. She wanted to sell it at its new appraisal value of $3.2 million. The developers offered a lesser figure, and after years of stalemate, the lot sold for $2.3 million in September.

De Carlo defends playing hardball with the develop-ers by saying, “ [The develop-ers] are getting $43 million. Why should we give them a break?” The revenue from the

sale, she says, can go to fund (as-yet non-spe-cific) plans for the renovation of St. Boniface — a five-building property NSCA owns and has considered turning into an employment or recreation center.

But the money may not ultimately come out of the developers’ pockets. “That extra money that the developers spend is going to come out

of programming,” says Quiñones-Sanchez. Since the school district and developers signed a contract for $44 million, the developers will likely cut something else out of the project.

Days after De Carlo said she had plans to turn the bank under the El into more afford-able housing, her application for financing was denied.

“It’s a whole new world [for De Carlo],” says Quiñones-Sanchez. She says the inaugura-tion of the Nutter administration introduced a “data-driven” climate that expects plans and results, and that no CDCs — including NSCA — will be able to acquire land as eas-ily as they can write the address on a slip of paper.

“[De Carlo] sent me a letter asking me for 20 properties, and it’s a one-pager,” says Qui-ñones-Sanchez. “And I said, ‘Pat, this admin-istration now wants a justification. What’s the current value, what’s the proposal, and what’s the future value?’”

Land owned by CDCs will also no longer be allowed to violate zoning ordinances so eas-ily, she says. But while City Hall can prevent groups like NSCA from acquiring city-owned land, and make sure the properties they do own are kept in working order, it can’t do anything more — it can’t make them sell, or develop. As long as NSCA’s properties are clean and safe, they can remain under their current ownership.

(andrew.thompson@citypaper.net)

De Carlo’s dedi-cation to long-time residents

is widely admired in the neighbor-hood. Property management is another matter.

You Gonna Use That?<<< continued from page 12

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