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Caught up in the exciting skyscraping proposals along Vine Street, the Schuylkill River, and other nonsense, I completely missed Kimpton's plan to renovate Philadelphia's Family Court building as a boutique hotel, solidifying an iconic corner of our landmark Logan Square.
With plans for a highrise apartment at 1601 Vine and Chinatown's Eastern Tower nearing reality, and the LDS's Mormon Temple and Goldtext Apartments under construction, dreams of capping the Vine Street Expressway as a means to entice investors seem to be stepping aside for developers who don't see the canyon as an obstacle.
Truthfully it isn't. From Portland to New York, many cities have highway crevasses cutting through dense neighborhoods that have succeeded without a Big Dig. If skyscrapers flanked the banks of the VSE, crossing it would be akin to walking across an inner city boulevard. It's no wider than the Ben Franklin Parkway.
While Vine Street seems to be organically evolving into such a grand boulevard, one headache still stands in front of Kimpton's Hotel Family Court, right in front of it. For years, Food Not Bombs has provided free food for the homeless atop one of the VSE's caps, a should-be handsome park facing Logan Square and the Basilica of Saint Peter and Paul.
Things are about to change.
Food Not Bombs has to apply for a daily permit from the city to provide the picnics. If they've been going rogue and evading the city, Kimpton will make a case of it. If the picnics are on the up and up, permits in place, Kimpton can apply for the same permit. If they beat Food Not Bombs to the punch for a month or two they'll frustrate them into relocating.
Of course that may not even be necessary. If Kimpton invests in renovating the park, and being the hotel's "front yard" they'd be eagerly willing, the city may give them preferential treatment. That route isn't entirely ethical, but neither is Food Not Bombs' admission of using the hungry homeless to advance causes that have nothing to do with hunger or homelessness in Philadelphia.
It may seem counter-intuitive to criticize a charitable organization, particularly one aimed at feeding the city's many homeless. But that's what makes Food Not Bombs and its informal President so reprehensible. Food Not Bombs doesn't feed the homeless, but rather exploits the homeless in an effort to make loosely related political statements.
Recently the organization has been asked to discontinue its feedings in front of the Family Court Building and 20th and Vine, an action FNB immediately used to slander the city, claiming prioritizing tourism was a soulless act.
The decision had nothing to do with tourism. The truth of the matter is the city has no way of insuring that the feedings are safe because FNB refuses to get a permit, which they proudly profess on their website:
We refuse to get a permit for our servings; we believe nobody needs permission to share food with those in need.
If you're sitting in your dorm smoking pot, this premise might sound nice enough, but this permit is required for any large gatherings in a public park from protests to family reunions.
The group's motives don't sound quite as idealistic when you consider they admittedly parade the homeless in an effort to protest issues entirely unrelated to hunger, including funding for the police department.
Most recently the group, along with Occupy Philadelphia, protested the opening of the Barnes Museum. Only they weren't protesting the same drama the museum is accustomed to, they were protesting the gala itself.
Somehow philanthropy is now sinful. As those who helped bring one of the world's most astonishing museums to the Parkway dined (with the proper permits from the city), the FNB and Occupy Philadelphia illegally fed a line of homeless across the street in an attempt to gross everyone out.
Again, there isn't anything inherently wrong with feeding the homeless, if you are genuinely dedicated to helping the homeless. But 20th and Vine is only equipped to exploit the homeless and there is nothing humane about that.
There are no public facilities, it is no where near a shelter, and FNB is affiliated with no organizations that attempt to rehabilitate the homeless. FNB feeds them, makes what they perceive to be a point, and then releases them to sleep along the Vine Street Expressway, Sister Cities Park, or the steps of the library.
FNB is a Homeless Advocacy Group in every sense of the phrase, literally advocating for homelessness.
Should we just be a city of satiated homeless? Should we snub grant money and donations earmarked for museums and fountains because one group thinks it's better to spent elsewhere? Remember when volunteering or donating to a charitable organization was a good thing? Remember when it was politically correct to be happy?
We can't help everybody, and we certainly can't help them by dwelling on the fact that the most obvious improvements are going to be those that make the biggest tax payers happy to live here.
Protesting a fundraiser that helped bring priceless art into the eyes of millions of Philadelphians who would never otherwise see such a space, that is a soulless act. Using the homeless - living people - to make that point, that is barely human.
There are hundreds of charitable volunteer organizations in the city dedicated to helping the homeless, most of which not only feed them, but offer them the tools to feed themselves. FNB is associated with none of these.
