Livability Court

After Travel + Leisure added "almost trashiest" to Philadelphia's list of accomplishments, the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corp. was so offended that they pulled advertising from the magazine. Well, as unreliable as any newsstand survey may be, you don't fight back by pulling our city's presence from one of the top travel magazines in the world.

I wasn't offended by the results of the survey, I was annoyed. Not because some bias survey put us at the top of another list of broken cities, but because it's absolutely true. The only reason New Orleans bested us in filth is because America's Atlantis is still drying out. 

Philadelphia is a dump. Literally. It might be the nation's most expensive landfill. 

I know people hate to hear that but I refuse to engage in blind pride when I see uniformed police officers throw trash out of patrol car windows. We can fill the city with high tech trash cans, but no amount of technology is going to change why Philadelphia is so littered: Philadelphians. 

Yes. You.

Everything from cigarette butts to refrigerators, you, Philadelphians, seem to think that there is something acceptable about throwing your waste on the sidewalk, in the gutter, or using vacant lots as dumpsters.

Even our nation's least enlightened cities are so far beyond the anti-litter campaign of the 1970s that recycling programs dominate the civic landscape. Yet somehow thousands of our seemingly normal, law abiding - even law enforcing - citizens didn't get the memo...forty years later.

But what are you going to do? 1.5 million people have been trained to throw their hoagie wrappers on the ground. It's been so unacceptably bad for so long that it's become unacceptably acceptable.

We don't see it. I've been here for nearly a decade and I don't see it. That is until I go upstate, down south, or out west. Pick a direction.

It's just us. We're disgusting.

How do you solve an epidemic that is as Philadelphian as the Liberty Bell? I'll tell you what you do. Turn it into a way to make money.

That's right. Remind people that their slovenly behavior is illegal and make a few bucks off of it. Sure, our entire judicial process is so overworked that hundreds of outstanding warrants sit idle while violent criminals kick back and wait to be arrested.

But don't start shopping for excuses. There are none. If Gulf cities and Tornado Alley towns can clean up the trash Mother Nature dumps on them and still keep Faygo cans out of their gutters then we can keep broken toilets out of my backyard.

It's called Livability Court. Started appropriately in Charleston, S.C. in 2002, "America's Most Polite City," like Family Court, Livability Court is solely responsible for tackling one specific problem: Those citizens who are determined to make their city unlivable.

If a city as clean as Charleston, S.C. can justify the need to target litter, graffiti, vandalism, and illegal dumping, then targeting Philadelphia's cretins is well worth the investment. With our internationally renowned trash problem, we have a well stocked pool of turds that could generate more revenue for the city than any real estate tax hike.

It may sound like the pessimistic ramblings of someone who's lived in Philadelphia for a little too long, but don't confuse me with those that say we're buried too deep. Philadelphia isn't the worst place in America, so why should our citizens be allowed to treat it like it is?

Urban tumbleweeds signify a lack of respect for our own property. Clean neighborhoods are safe neighborhoods, and safe neighborhoods make safe cities.

If people aren't willing to take out their own trash, it's the city's duty to take it out for them. Cite them, fine them, and set a precedent that let's the trash know that a lot of us actually like Philadelphia.

Most importantly, lead by example. Philadelphia has developed a reputation of caring very little about Philadelphians, which is evident when you see a police officer drop a Snickers wrapper on the ground three feet from a trash can.

We'll never look like Disney World but we shouldn't want to. We have our own magic in our grit, but grit is in the rusted patina lined with street performers, eclectic architecture, and colorful characters. All of which is almost impossible to see to the unspoiled eyes of our visitors when they're knee deep in our sewage. 

Robinson's Department Store

While I'm completely in favor of illuminating Market East as a catalyst to return the corridor to its rightful place as Philadelphia's historic center of all things capitalism, I won't deny that this once fine stretch of Center City is still home to a few significant landmarks.

Unfortunately, I think activists and historians miss the mark touting it as a place of quaint Colonial charm. It never was and never will be. Additionally, the introduction of the "distraction debate" is a political tactic worthy of little discussion.

After all, one of an architect's primary goals is to make us look, and in a city like Philadelphia, to look up. Buildings are advertisements. Comcast could have easily built an office park in King of Prussia but they wanted to be seen.

A lot can and has been said about Market East's white elephant, The Gallery. It's easy to criticise and hard to avoid. It's so hard to avoid that most people don't bother to look across the street. And that isn't necessarily because The Gallery is inviting, but because the dilapidated mix of retail across the street is even less hospitable.

But look up. At first glance the south side of the 1000 block of Market Street is a mess. But a tile-clad diamond of architectural significance stands above the the weeds. Built in 1946, the former Robinson's Department Store, which I like to call The Barbarella Building, was decades ahead of its time. Like the International Style icon, the PSFS Building at 12th and Market, many don't realize just how old this bizarre building really is.

Both helped establish a trend of boring, easily built, cost effective modern architecture, but as early examples, did so with well crafted quality design.

While it's not indicative of traditional Philadelphia architecture, our building stock is far more diverse than many national historians are willing to give us credit for. I think the Colonial ideal is more accurately applied to New England cities than Philadelphia.

Internationally renowned architects repeatedly used Philadelphia as a playground for their early experiments. Considering our eclectic portfolio - Willis Hale, Frank Furness, Wilson Eyre, I.M. Pei - I find Robinson's very Philadelphian.

Whether or not it finds itself on the Historic Register, were it cleaned up I think it could establish the same cultural following as some of our other quirky landmarks like the Divine Lorraine and the Hale Building.

More information on the history of Robinson's Department Store can be found here: Unlisted: Robinson's

America's Dirtiest Cities

Travel + Leisure joined the ranks of magazines that have taken to publishing unvalidated surveys in lieu of actual articles. And typical to these sorts of surveys, instead of looking for the best in our American cities, it pits us against each other to showcase the bottom.

America's Dirtiest Cities puts Philadelphia at #2, behind New Orleans. This is probably pretty accurate. We're dirty. I've seen cops throw fast food wrappers out of patrol car windows. That is the example we set.

To their credit, Travel + Leisure does a good job of pointing out the subjectivity of the survey. Obviously, with New Orleans at the bottom of the list, America's more gritty cities seem to be the most interesting.

Unfortunately, Travel + Leisure's kudos end there. The "article" goes on to tie in another irrelevant survey, somehow making the awkward segway that our proported lack of style has something to do with absent cleanliness. Much like another survey that pegged Philadelphians as America's "ugliest", aside from New York, America's most "stylish" cities are also its least diverse.

We often equate cleanliness with clinical homogeneity, and apparently attractiveness and style. San Diego might be clean but there is visual poetry in our blight. Clean means bland. It's a dry hoagie. And I like ours smothered in dressing.

More Misleading Renderings

The Preservation Alliance has joined SCRUB in misleading the public with renderings falsely displaying an historic building shrouded in advertising. I have to give them props for using a Krispy Kreme ad in their doctored rendering right in the midst of the sugar tax fiasco.

As I understood the bill, the Lit Brothers building was exempt. However, look closely at the facade next time you walk by it and you'll see the moulding is covered in period signage.

The Preservation Alliance prepared a rendering showing a sixty year old black and white photo of Lit Brothers shrouded in color billboards, including office windows. This is a worst case scenario that will never happen. Not only is Lit Brothers a landmark loved by the city, there are many other locations on Market East more condicive to these advertising schemes, including The Gallery, The Girard Trust Block, and the Disney Hole.

Even if it's not exempt, the public outcry from someone attempting to cover this landmark in billboards would be louder than any irrational rant carried out by SCRUB.

On the roof, however, who cares? If you ask me, that block could use some height. But the Preservation Alliance would like you to believe that the facade, including the office windows, are going to be covered in Revlon ads. Really? That's just ridiculous.

This is our historic corridor of consumerism but it is not Philadelphia's historic core. While it leads tourists to our to Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, so does I-95 and Delaware Avenue. There is no endangered history on Market East. With historic churches and theaters decaying all over the city, like SCRUB, the Preservation Alliance's resources are better employed elsewhere.

Welcome to PA, that'll be 50 cents

Being from the South, it's taken me a while to adjust to taxes, tolls, and political cash grabs. It's not that Red states are any stranger to fees and corruption, but they look you in the face when they f*ck you.

A lot of people got worked up over a 2 cent per ounce tax on soda. I hate Nanny Laws, so I'm one of them. But there was a much darker demon waiting in the shadows so the quest to save my afternoon Big Gulp quickly expired. 

It's surprising how well City Hall played us this time. The soda tax was a brilliant wedge issue to throw to the dogs while the city worked on a 3.5% property tax increase that seems a lot more viable. 

If soda is that important, you can always buy your groceries in NJ. But unless you plan on living on a houseboat or parking your RV on North Broad, you're going to have a hard time avoiding property taxes.  

And with BRT in limbo deciding what to become, it's hard to say what will happen when they decide to reassess some of these homes that haven't been appraised since Truman was President. 

I like a level playing field. How about lowering taxes and reassessing the city's housing stock to their current market value? I know the home I rent is worth more than $1, but I'm pretty sure that's how it's taxed.

But that's not how we do things in PA. I remember when I lived in Portland, OR, the government had an unofficial motto: "We do things differently here." So do we, but we sure don't yield the same results. What's really amusing is while City Hall and Harrisburg screw us time and time again, they still have the courtesy to leave a note on the nightstand. Their rationale is often more amusing than the tax.

Soda tax is aimed at the "please think of the children" crowd, but isn't even remotely designed to have any affect on the consumer. If the tax isn't applied at the register it will be diluted throughout the store. Consumers won't even know they're paying the tax and obese children will still get their bottle of diabetes. 

How stupid does Mayor Nutter think we are? He's like a junkie with a sob story. I'll give a bum money if he tells me it's for weed, but if you're going to piss on my leg and tell me it's raining, screw off, I'll vote for Karen Brown.

None of this nonsense is new, and it's certainly not unique to Pennsylvania. But it brings up the classic story of the Johnstown Flood Tax. After the Johnstown Flood of 1936, the state imposed an emergency - and allegedly temporary - 10% tax on alcohol. Today, 75 years later, that tax is at 18%. 

It's not surprising that former New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, on a trip to Philadelphia following Hurricane Katrina researching ways to address flight and abandonment, commented that New Orleans was bad, but not as bad as us...after Katrina!  

It's hard to take pride in a city and state when your elected officials act like they don't want you here.

Piazza at Penn's Landing

After decades of rendering grand plans for the Delaware waterfront that we could never afford, Thomas P. Corcoran, Director of the Delaware River Waterfront Corp., has come up with a scaled back plan that actually seem doable. 

Lining the river with ten parks - green parks, not concrete - he leaves most of the river's success in the hands of private development hopefully attracted to the parks.

Penn's Landing's concrete flyovers would be removed, improving its connection with Center City in spite of I-95. 

Corcoran helped with Camden's waterfront, unarguably Camden's only living success.

This is a Tree

Throughout Callowhill, stenciled around the base of newly planted trees are messages reading "THIS IS A TREE". It seems silly, and perhaps for the more cynical Philadelphians, even annoying. But in a city in which AstroTurf is a passable substitute for grass and parents routinely employ their children to mar saplings with box cutters, it's clear that many need reminding.

As early as kindergarten, I was taught that trees breathed life into all living animals. But trees aren't just necessary for life. They cool our streets by providing shade. They absorb the water that cools the ground. In the winter they provide natural insulation both above and below ground. Basic science tells us how much plants and animals need each other, but the City of Philadelphia seems defiant in its acceptance of all things vegetative.

When South Street decided to chop down its mature trees in lieu of new ones, the temperature difference between the strip and adjacent tree lines street was at some times more than ten degrees. That's significant to both your quality of life and your electric bill. But why are cities like D.C., Atlanta, and even New York overflowing with greenery while Philadelphia's most densely populated streets are barren of any vegetative life?

Take South Philadelphia if you're familiar, and try to think of a single backyard you know of that isn't made of concrete, or even has a tree. I've seen window boxes with plastic flowers. When you do see a newly planted tree, the bark has most likely been stripped by a knife in an effort to make it die. 

Psychopaths! 

Some streets are small, yes, but where did this violent hatred of trees come from?

Like most bad ideas, it came from the 1950s, and like most of what is wrong with Philadelphia, it lingers in those who still think that way. That's why you'll find trees in University City and Society Hill, neighborhoods that aren't home to those with 60 years of mid-century baggage. 

It's no doubt that by the 1940s, Philadelphia had become a disgusting and polluted dump that probably smelled worse than a bad day in Sao Paulo. But it was the subtleties of the campaign, perhaps inadvertent, that bred a generation to look at trees and see squalor. In their minds, trees were dirty. 

I've heard the argument, irrational as it may seem, that many older Philadelphians don't like trees because "they slip on the leaves." I've never heard that anywhere else.

Take this picture of a clean-up campaign from the 1950s. In an era when many residents are fleeing the city for greener pastures, those determined to stay were looking for any reprise from the filth. I'm sure if you could smell the streets of 1949 you'd probably vote for street sweepers and concrete too, but painting trees as synonymous with blight did five decades of irreparable psychological damage.

Treeless playgrounds are paved with rubber, asphalt dog parks have only several patches of dead grass, and sweltering streets roast under an unshaded sun. As the exhaust of their air conditioners and cars make these streets boil, residents step outside to grab their mail and still have the audacity to complain about the heat, returning to their living room to turn the thermostat down below 60.