Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-07-17
AS ONE WOMAN SEES IT
Some Reflections on "Redeered"
Streets and Social Con.
trasts In the City
BY SARAH d. LOWRlE

twentieth. from rather down at the heels
lttle thoroughfare along which one picked
ON, one. way to the green grocers' shops on
twentieth street into spick and span mod
erniz"d little Quality street for persons of
limited incomes and unlimited G. dit
because, notwithstanding Senator Pep
per = proposed advent into the street. | ven.
tire to say that there will not be much
,,n,.r,. more money spent up and down its narrow
paVements for living than has always been
spent across its door sils. But the differ
ence is that the professional owners who will
succeed the former occupants will be at once
more saving and more sure of their incomes.
lt was a free and easy street as TO spending
or getting. | have reason to know, for I've
been its near ncghbor for more than Il
quarter of Il century. During the war SOL
venry, to judge by its garbage displays. it
took advantage of the reign of plenty. and
ITS discardings were magnificent
Very stylish garbage, indeed" as one OF
IT'S inhabitants lightly boosted, somewhat TO
the chagrin of our kitchen, only n block
away. or its other boastings or complain
ings ! for one heard little. and it used to
stand for me as symbol of how little one
knew or indeed cared for ones neighbors
IN n city such as ours. for II crepe hung on
It's doors or there was wedding or n birth
or an orgy or just n party. we nearby peo-
pie did not know the difference. Once and
so often It would trent us to fire or an
arrest. once to wholesale vaccination.
LOohlHE OOWn 1tS CROWDED ana COl0rful
length, one caught gimpses of women with
elbows out on window sills conversng, and
there was an almost continuous murmur of
sound which one translated as 'the Panama
street children playing" and dismissed 1t
at that.
One does not blame the estates that had
! harbored the houses SO long for selling out
when good offer came; but one suspects
that there are small tragedies Of a forlorn
sort wrought by even this obvious change
borhood.
is abroad redeeming tenant streets into
owner streets will turn these old tenants into
equally 'improved' environs.
60 FAR, William Penn's design for Phil
~ adelphia rs regards the little streets back
of the big streets to accommodate those en-
rloycd in the bigger houses has not worked
well. He meant it. understand. to bring
about neighboriness and sense of re-
sponsibility Of one class for the other
But as the city had grown denser and
noisicr and more complicated. this juxtapo-
sition of sharp contrasts has not added to
the pleasure or to the gain of either class.
Panama street and DE I.ancey street, just
II stones throw apart, were not neighbors,
except in matters Of nearness Of position.
What one enjoyed the other frankly dis
liked: 1t was not question OF money; 1t
was a question of what one liked and what
one disliked. Panama street tenants did not
work for De Lanccy place. except in few
cases, and De Lancey place did not feel an
interest in Panama street either benevolent
rr educational or cooperative. Panama
street bewidered or offended II.
Given the same amount of money. no
woman on one street would have spent her
money like any woman on the other or
decorated her rooms the same way. or cdu-
Gated her children or taken her ease in the
same way. Yet neither street was so for
eign to the other that thcr" was any amuse-
mpnt in satlng ones curiosity concerning the
unlikeneSs.
You might be indignant at the way the
policc made arrests on Panama street, but
Won never went next day to ask what had
harpcned to hcr man and children. You pre-
ferrcd to take it for granted that there were
no children and that the man was not ex-
octly hers" Just us you took it for granted
that the family that put the whole street
into quarantine for smallpox had been very
reprehensible.
In other words. If you are ncighbors geo.
grophically and not in word or in deed, the
relationship is apt t" be trying.
T DARE say De I.anccy place tried Panama
L street in many ways and quite ms
unconsciously. rather think Panama
street got the civilization of DE Iancey
place by the wrong end and fancied that
DE Lancry pace was lazicr and more self
indulgent and given to grinding the faces of
work people and of using motors and furs
and sill, stockings rs lay figures in shop
windows carry their price" cards to arrest
the attention of the paSS"rby.
| rather suppose that tn" real reasons for
De I.ancey place being this or that never
quite got over to Panama street. and
that with the d!sin,egrntion OF the line of
color into the network of streets south.
nothing that could be called neighborly--no
real interchange Of equal vaues-can be
carried off or will remain behind. 1t has
been Il lost opportunity for both streets and
If anything has widened rift already too
wide between the NOR" ignorant and the less
ignorant Of our citizens.
as ghettoes and did not want the scgrcga-
tion OF any race class in his new town
Of brotherly love, and so he tried this way
of making segregation or ghettoes or black
belts or (hinatowns or SlumS or palatine
Hills or Mob Hills impossible. But so far
what it has done is 10 disorganizc the look
Of the we'll do streets without appreci-
ably adding TO the ncatncss Of the little
streets.
What keeps most Of us tidy is the thought
Of some one for whom we like to look WELL
Now the people of Panama street did not
care q cent for looking we'll for De Lanccy
pacc nor did De I.ancey place spruce up
for Panama street.
Some on" asked me the other day II
did not feel sorry for the cOl0rcd families
that have had to move out of Panama street
10 make room for white families. ! do not
feel in III" least sorry for them. There was
enough money coming into Panama street
to buy it up and to fix it up to suit its
former tenants. The colorrd citizens Of that
ward are numerous. They have already Il
very good school which is mostly coOrcd,
md they have some good churches.
| NVpnlU neigh bOr
Of many Of them. to have them help all the
dwellrrs in that ward by doing for Lombard
street what the architects and builders are
about to do for little Panama street They
could turn to. buy up the old. outdated
ten"mcnts that were once good houses and
turn that big street into Quality street Of
their own that would make little Panama
with its Italianntcd fronts and garden backs
seem ike only beginning of good things.
Under the terms of bin Just intro.
in shn I uln # |