This city mouse needed to be able to walk and bike easily to the heart of Philly. I also needed an affordable house in a place where I felt reasonably safe. My brothers did their best to convince me to move to communities outside the city, yet within city limits, like Roxborough, Wissahickon or East Falls. No way.
Jack, my husband, had died just a few months earlier, turning my life upside down. Much as I’d loved Costa Rica and our idyllic retirement there, I couldn’t stay in our big old house in the country. A female living alone in the countryside, my neighbors let me know, was a bad idea. And since I had to move, why not chose the place where my heart lived?
On a warm October day I first approached the house. The street was devoid of humankind, save two young men sitting on the steps a few doors away. That seemed a good sign. After a primary inspection of the premises, I approached the guys and said, What do you think about an old lady like me living on this street?
I repeated the question at the seventh district police station two blocks away. The step-sitters said I’d be fine, and so did the police officer. It’s a neighborhood in transition, he said.
The street was silent, albeit trash-strewn, on the frigid December day when my pets, Sweetpea, Sisypuss and I arrived after a stressful flight from Costa Rica. On the drive home, I wondered, What am earth made me think this was a good idea? I felt cold, alone and scared.
When Spring arrived, so did the miscreants in search of crack and heroine, both of which were available right in front of my house. Despite the drugs, and the thugs who peddled them, I decided to buy the house. I was quite certain that I’d found the best house for the money in a bad neighborhood with hints of change in the air. And I was already living there.
Probably because of my teaching experience in a so-called persistently dangerous school, I wasn’t afraid of my neighbors, or the entrepreneurs who didn’t necessarily live on the street, but worked there daily, selling death.
They began to call me mom, and when I scolded them, the drug dealers and hustlers obeyed sheepishly.
Point Breeze is a community where store-front churches, Chinese take-outs, fried chicken joints, check-cashing agencies, childcare establishments and laundromats are ubiquitous. Supermarkets, not so much.
The financial and cultural divide is abysmal. Most streets around here, including mine, juxtapose houses worth half a million dollars or more alongside derelict structures, or poorly maintained homes lived in by impoverished people. Signs posted around the hood announce cash for homes, and I’m afraid many succumb to the notion of quick riches.
Nonetheless, one of the things I like the most is the diversity. The folks who live in my neighborhood are cheerful and friendly. I’ve gotten to know them from walking Sweetpea every day, and they know me. When I choose a different route for a day or two, they ask where I’ve been. More than once someone has told me she has my back, and I believe it. I hope these neighbors are not chased away in the name of gentrification.
Since I moved into my place, the street has improved. A few houses have been refurbished, and some are empty, awaiting improvement. A new place is going up next door, where a trash-strewn lot existed.
Debris is still a problem on the block, as is illegal dumping, but more and more of the neighbors are working in concert to fix those problems, and it looks like the drug dealers are becoming dinosaurs. I hope so, since I’m here for the long-haul.