COMING SOON TO NORTHERN LIBERTIES:
PROJECT COST TO TAXPAYERS:
ANOTHER FINE DEVELOPMENT FOR YOUR FUTURE FROM THE PHILADELPHIA ECONOMIC GENTRIFICATION INITIATIVE
A PROJECT OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA HOUSING amp; URBAN DEVELOPMENT COUNCILMAN H. RAPP BADDE, JR., CHAIRMAN
And there were a score or more smaller signs that had been made with a stencil. They had been spray-painted on the exterior doors and walls of the last five standing row houses on the block, all of which were in a group at the southwest corner of the job site.
The stencils read:
CERTIFIED UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION UNDER STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA URBAN REDEVELOPMENT LAW
Forty-five days earlier, the entire block had officially been declared a blight and then condemned.
Every owner of the individual properties had been served a notice of condemnation that week, and all-except for the five holdouts-had let expire the thirty-day period for challenging the condemnation.
They had taken their checks-most of the owners grumbling that PEGI paid them only pennies on the dollar for their properties, never mind that many of the houses had been genuine hazards and public nuisances, or damn close to it-and moved on.
They understood that they were powerless to fight the inevitable. And change was inevitable. They'd spent at least the last year looking at the looming twenty-one-story Hops Haus complex just three blocks to the south and right next to the fancy new Schmidt's Brewery development.
The five holdouts, however, were not easily persuaded. They had protested every day, marching with signs and chanting, even as Turco's crews and their heavy equipment created an intimidating environment while tearing down the rest of the block right up to their doorsteps.
The holdouts had even plastered home-printed handbills all over the neighborhood, including on the brand-new bright white signs at the four corners of the block. The handbills displayed a crude image of a black politician wearing a tiny black bow tie above the words: