A Million Stories

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The Big Chill

More than a month after a devastating, five-alarm fire destroyed the Windermere Court apartment complex in West Philadelphia, and after former residents barely fought off what they called a rushed demolition of the building, and after they spent days fighting the building's owners to allow them to retrieve pets and possessions, those residents faced yet another challenge late last week: nice weather.

As temperatures climbed, they say, the building began to melt. Former resident Theo Schall and a group of displaced residents told City Paper last week that the building had been held together partly by ice left over from the massive firefighting operation. Now that ice was melting, making it even more difficult for demolition crews, whom building owners had finally authorized to retrieve possessions for residents waiting outside, to get safely inside the building. Schall and others have formed a small guard, meanwhile, to keep an eye on the defrosting disaster and guard it from looting or, perhaps, an unexpected demolition.

Borderlines

Confusion reigned supreme at a recent neighborhood meeting in Point Breeze, organized by neighborhood activist Helen Carter, the purpose of which was "to determine the relevance of Newbold Community group in the Point Breeze neighborhood of South Philadelphia." The release went on to note that "concerns include the Newbold Group's alleged decision to rezone a portion of the Point Breeze neighborhood... [and] creating a new name for the area."

Most area residents who showed up, however, had seen a different notice — one that said the purpose of the meeting was to learn more about gentrification in the neighborhood, an issue of much local concern. No surprise, then, that a certain amount of chaos ensued.

Carter began the meeting by calling, in harsh tones, for the "Newbold Neighbors" to explain themselves: Who were they? Why had they not reached out to Point Breeze's various civic groups? Were they, in fact, trying to rename the neighborhood and expand "Newbold" into Point Breeze?

Carter's charges were answered by Jim Resta, president of the Newbold Neighbors Association, who said his group has no intention of renaming Point Breeze or expanding the boundaries of "Newbold." "We're just trying to take care of our neighborhood," he said.

That's not the end of it, though. Resta's group, it turns out, is an informal neighborhood association — it "plans to apply for 501(c)3 nonprofit status in 2008," according to its (clearly not updated) website — which operates independently of two other groups, the Newbold Civic Association and the Newbold Community Development Corporation, and which preceded his group, establishing the small boundaries of Newbold as being between Wolf and Tasker, 18th and Broad. 

The "open space plan" on the website for Newbold Neighbors, on the other hand, shows an area stretching far beyond those borders, all the way from Reed to Ellsworth — a point which infuriated Newbold CDC founding member John Longacre this week.

"That's Point Breeze! It's been Point Breeze for 50 years," says Longacre, who now sits on Newbold CDC's board. "We picked an area that specifically didn't cross over any other community associations for that very reason. ... Point Breeze residents are right to be upset."