Is Chinatown Picking The Right Or Wrong Time To Assert Its NIMBY Rights?
Urban planning wonks are having a field day pondering possible outcomes for Philly’s Chinatown these days. It seems that over the past few years, everybody’s wanted a piece of it, for one project or another. For one, there’s the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which has already changed Chinatown irrevocably and, some would argue, robbed it of much of its old, weird character. (Count us in that camp.) Then there was the prospect of Foxwoods moving in, a prospect that was delightfully killed off for good last week, much to the delight of many in the city. And finally, there is the Reading Viaduct Project (which we wrote about recently), which would like to take a stretch of unused elevated railroad above Chinatown near Ninth and Vine and turn it into a park, a la NYC’s recently opened (and much lauded) High Line. Sounds fun, right? Not everybody agrees. In a Weekly Presspiece today about a movement afoot in Chinatown to tear down the “Chinese Wall” where the Reading Viaduct currently stands, John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation brings up a great point: Since forever, people who don’t live in Chinatown have been trying to tell Chinatown what to do with itself. And that’s just not right or fair. As it happens, there seems to be a split amongst Chinatown residents over the Reading Viaduct Project, and it doesn’t look like it will resolve soon. Part of us thinks there’s a peaceable solution here, where the RVP could get built and spur development in the northern direction Chin would like. But time will tell.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Ugh. Yes, please give the NIMBYs of Chinatown more power over what happens in the city. After all, their blocking the stadium at 12th and Vine was in the city’s best interest, right?
September 1st, 2009 at 4:21 pm
Yes, please raze historic, industrial structures with community and green potential so Chinatown can open more monkey meat butcher shops and open air fishmongers. Oh wait, weren’t they going to do that with the land the Phillies stadium couldn’t possibly be built on? Maybe that land’s reserved for more waving cat trinket stores…
September 1st, 2009 at 4:23 pm
“Since forever, people who don’t live in Chinatown have been trying to tell Chinatown what to do with itself.”
Hands-down, the single best quote about anything dealing with Chinatown I’ve ever seen. Bravo!
This city has been basically picking at it and picking away at it. It feels like we may lose it entirely soon, which would be a shame. It’s not even that large, thanks in no part to the Convention Center, and I say we let them do what they want with the area.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:29 pm
the chinatown i know and love exists south of vine, the RVP would be north of vine. is the neighborhood on the north side of the great highway divide the “PCDC’s” turf? they may wish it was, but i believe it very debatable.
September 1st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
“monkey meat butcher shops” is a bit racialist, no?
September 1st, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Has the ENCDC weighed in yet? After this is really the Eraserhead Neighborhood we are talking about right?
September 1st, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Link to article might be a bit iffy.
Try this: http://tiny.cc/d7zEo
September 1st, 2009 at 5:38 pm
John Chin lives in New Jersey and Andy Toy lives in the Logan Square. These Chinatown “Leaders” are frauds. The folks who actually live in Chinatown are not of the same caste and have no political clout. I lived in the Callowhill region (aka Eraserhead District) for 7 miserable years. No creativity or leadership on what to do with the trestle (ok, Viaduct) came from the Chinese “community”. The project was headed mostly by long suffering pioneers who lived north of Vine. Chinatown’s political and business leadership has no ethics and would fuck you in a minute. They’ve known about this project for a long time, and yet they feign ignorance. Their word means NOTHING.
That being said, the Convention center expansion is an absolute joke. “Gee, the convention center is losing more clients every year. Let’s pour more money into it, so it can lose bigger accounts!”
September 1st, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Please everyone forget about this Reading Viaduct crap. Let’s put our limited personnel and financial resources towards projects in areas people can, will, and do actually walk around in.
There is plenty of other things to drive envy of New York.
September 1st, 2009 at 6:36 pm
@barryg
Holy shit! You’re popping up with really shitty, poorly reasoned opinions everywhere today.
Truly genius tautologies like, “Let’s beautify the parts of the city that are already beautiful because that will attract the people that already go there to go there” don’t come around every day. Bravo!
September 2nd, 2009 at 12:09 am
Wow. And I thought I had just ended up on a philly.com comments section where the mere mention of the word Chinatown brings out posters who think anonymity gives them carte blanche to write idiotic, knee jerk and occasionally racist posts. (PS @majawat: Posting Under the Influence is usually pretty obvious too)
But for the other readers of Philebrity: the Reading Viaduct is a complicated project that entails a lot more than the rather simplistic oppositional viewpoint in the Weekly Press or John Timpane’s Inquirer op-ed from a week ago. In focusing on only two organizations seemingly at odds with their visions, both the Weekly Press and the Inky create an unbalanced portrait of a dynamic and growing community that seeks multiple options for its future.
Chinatown North is a vibrant evolving community, a far cry from the dead zone that come city leaders dismissed when they once targeted the area for a baseball stadium years ago. There is no question that Chinatown needs and seeks affordable housing, but at the same time, Chinatown clearly lacks accessible green space and healthy spaces for our children and families to congregate and play. These two visions are not mutually exclusive possibilities and they need not be oppositional.
Asian Americans United, for example, is a Chinatown organization, with a school that abuts the viaduct. We have fought for community based planning, affordable housing and greening projects for Chinatown since our inception. We also sit on the board of the Reading Viaduct Project. We’re among a number of organizations who are vested in the future of the Reading Viaduct and are working on creating solutions which seek the best interests of a broad sector of residents.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:13 am
@expat,
Get real, it makes a lot more sense to extend the Schukyll Banks Trail south, fix the multipurpose trails on W River Drive and throughout Fairmount Park, make Penn’s landing more green, put some effort into Roosevelt Park or the Horticultural Center, and so and so on. While a nice bike route from CC to NoLibs would be welcome, I’d much see the money go into something not in the middle of abandoned warehouses, ill-advised “loft” projects and electrical substations (or whatever that is). A green Reading Viaduct is not going to revitalize that neighborhood. Let’s shore up the nice things we already have before they turn into shit–the city doesn’t have enough money or manpower (and I mean community based orgs as well as the city gov) to go spreading our resources around to every God-forsaken corner of our city.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:37 am
When was the last time you were in that area? Chinatown North, as I wrote about here: http://www.youngphillypolitics.com/foxwoods_gallery_process_still_stinks, is clearly an evolving community for anyone who cares about neighborhood evolution rather than class segregation and reinforcement.
Cross Vine Street and walk the footprint of what would have been the stadium. You’ll find:
a new annex for Chinese Christian Church, to house their growing congregation;
the building headquarters of the Greater Philadelphia Fujianese Association, one of the fastest growing ethnicities in Philadelphia, whose business and community leadership has changed the face of the community;
Khmer Art Gallery, which celebrates the culture and arts of Cambodia, and Liao Collection, a gallery and store of Asian arts and antiques, whose owners relocated to this location after being active participants in the battle against the proposed baseball stadium;
New housing developments; and
Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School, an arts-based elementary charter school serving 400-some students founded by Asian Americans United and the Philadelphia Folklore Project.
You can personally determine whether or not this rises to your level of priority, but to call it “god forsaken” is just further evidence of your bizarre sort of bias.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:43 am
@barryg
It’s small minded, dogmatic cowards like you that have made Philly the envy of the world for decades now. Must feel pretty good.
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:22 am
Helen, stonewalling a project that will bring a much needed public greenspace to the area and connect it to other neighborhoods is idiotic nimby-ism to the max. North “Chinatown” has a long way to go before it can erase the bad taste it has left in many folks minds. I lived there for 7 years and witnessed the worst of it (unsanitary food warehouses, landlord neglect destroying buildings, sweatshops, trashbags busting at the seems with condoms, tranny street walkers, drug dealers, homeless encampments, and more). Sara McEneaney is right there is plenty of vacancy in that area for residential or commercial development.
So, please explain: what are the complicated issues with the viaduct project? You didn’t mention one.