Comparables:
Sitios Superfund

This is a two-page spread from the Philadelphia Daily News, Tuesday, August 20, 1996 (pages 6–7), part of a series titled "Logan: 10 Years After," by staff writer Mark McDonald. The main story runs across both pages under the headline "In a sinking triangle, desperation prevails," with a sidebar on page 7 about the relocation agency.

 

Background

The Logan "triangle" is a 17-block, 35-acre area of North Philadelphia. Its rough boundaries are Loudon Street to the north, 11th Street to the west, Wingohocking Street and Roosevelt Boulevard to the south, and Marshall Street to the east. About 1,000 houses and a number of businesses were built there more than 80 years ago on unstable fill made of ash and cinder. In 1986 a gas explosion forced the Goode administration to deal with long-standing reports that the neighborhood was sinking. Mayor Goode then pledged public money to relocate residents.

The area covers two census tracts with high poverty. Average family income was just over $20,000, and more than 90% of residents were minorities.

 

Where things stood in 1996

• Since 1987, the nonprofit Logan Assistance Corp. (LAC) had relocated 351 households at a cost of about $18.7 million. A chart breaks this down as $15.1 million in relocation costs and $3.5 million in operating budget. Relocations were heaviest in the early years: 191 households moved between 1987 and mid-1991.

• The city had spent another $2.2 million demolishing 580 buildings, which left an open, abandoned landscape.

• About 233 households and 169 vacant structures remained. Officials estimated relocation would take four or five more years. At least 50 households were ineligible for benefits, and about 25 residents refused to leave.

• The city chose voluntary relocation through LAC, at roughly $3 million a year, because it was cheaper than declaring an urban renewal area and condemning properties outright.

 

The redevelopment debate

• Rev. Kermit Newkirk of Harold O. Davis Baptist Church, a leader of Philadelphia Interfaith Action, said the city had no plan and no sense of urgency. PIA had proposed rebuilding the area with townhouses, twin homes, a small shopping center and public buildings, backed by a pledge of $5 million to $7 million in construction loans.

• John Kromer, the city's housing director, said the city couldn't afford it. Finishing relocation, demolition and acquisition would cost $31 million, and new development about $40 million more, including $18 million for streets and utilities. He also argued that the city already had more houses than people and suggested the land might stay open space. Instead, he favored repair and home-improvement loans for owners around the triangle.

• The Redevelopment Authority had talked with the Army Corps of Engineers about a soil-stabilization study. Councilwoman Marian Tasco said she would form a community task force once the study was done.

 

Life for remaining residents

The article describes the neighborhood as "Desolation Row."

• Ronald Gleaves, a retired prison cook, sees feral dogs, scavengers, prostitutes, crack users and squatters starting fires among the empty houses.

• Dolores Shine, 62, has lived on Warnock Street since 1973 and leads the Ad Hoc Committee for Logan. She describes constant break-ins, rare police patrols, and fear of a fire, a gas explosion or a child's death in a vacant house.

• Delores Moore has lived on Hutchinson Street since 1982. Her house has serious structural damage, and its sewer line is disconnected. She has health problems, and thieves broke in while she was home. She can't get relocation benefits because she can't prove she lived there before 1986.

• Rev. Mary Laney of St. Gabriel's Episcopal compared the area to Bosnia. Pharmacist Harry Lipschultz compared it to Beirut and said he fills an unusually high number of antidepressant prescriptions for residents.

 

Sidebar: "Agency begins to win respect"

LAC had nearly collapsed three years earlier. Its former director, William Miller, left under a cloud after a scandal involving misused funds. Under Miller, a small real estate agent named Milton Fisher handled 20 to 30 relocation mortgages, and some relocated families ended up in substandard homes with predatory loans. A federal grand jury was reportedly investigating the Fisher–Miller relationship. Board president John Thomas said Fisher was cooperating with prosecutors.

The city had already spent $60,000 repairing homes Fisher sold, and it was unclear how much more it would owe to people stuck with balloon or high-interest mortgages. Former director Cecily Banks, daughter of civil rights leader Cecil B. Moore, was credited with putting basic controls in place in 1994–95. City officials and even critics like Newkirk said the agency had become more competent and friendlier.

Still, Thomas warned that at the current pace, the triangle might not be cleared until around 2004, and he called that unacceptable.