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Change creeps up on Yorktown By Ashley Helaudais There is a small community in North Philadelphia that is close enough to see the skyscrapers of Center City, and not just a cityscape, a real view. The Yorktown community was built in sections throughout much of the 1960s, and bought up quickly by many African-American families eager for their first brand new home. The culs-de-sac in the design allowed the neighborhood to stay insulated from the rest of the city, but now, as many longtime residents age and move out of their homes, change has become inevitable for the Yorktown community. “It’s really a challenge for us to preserve that spirit of community, because new folks who come in are not assimilating,” explains Priscilla Woods, director of the Yorktown Community Development Corp. These are mostly Temple University students she’s referring to, who have been moving into these vacated homes. Woods explains that developers buy these houses and turn them into housing for students, which not only decreases the value of neighboring properties, but the students who move in show no respect for their neighbors. “The property where they were living stayed snowed in, everybody else’s had been plowed or shoveled out. The next thing you know the students are parking in the spaces that were shoveled out,” says Pam Smith, a Yorktown resident. Smith explains the students’ behavior as “a sense of entitlement with no vested interest.” The students, as Woods argues, aren’t making themselves a part of the community, and so aren’t taking care of their dwellings as homeowners in the community would. Both women say that the students throw parties with no respect for noise levels, leave garbage on the streets and take all the parking spaces. But Woods and Smith insist that it isn’t the really the students who aren’t welcome. It’s the speculators who make the homes available to the students. “They’re really exploiting elders who are in a situation like that, who need to move out. Without good guidance the residents aren’t getting fair-market value for their properties, and that’s unfair and unconscionable,” Woods says of speculators who buy from senior citizens short on money. Not everybody shares this view of Temple students. When asked if she’s ever had problems, Chanice Burke, who’s lived in Yorktown for eight years answered, “I live right here [several streets away from Temple], so there don’t be that much [Temple students] there just be a lot of church people around.” Smith and Woods both stress that they don’t mind the students if they respect their community and their neighbors, which Smith explains they don’t tend to do when there’s five or six living in a house. If they live with a resident of the community, that is another story. “Some seniors are living in houses that they raised their children in, and the children are all gone. They’re adults. They’re off on their own, so they’ve got empty space in the house. That would be perfect supplemental income for them to rent to Temple students, which a lot of them do, and we have no problem. We encourage that,” Smith explains. Though these students may be Yorktown’s most pressing issue today, they aren’t the only one. Two areas in Yorktown are currently being developed, or re-developed into shopping districts. Much of Progress Plaza, one of Yorktown’s proudest landmarks, has recently begun the first construction phase in its rebuilding. When it’s done, many shops will be rebuilt, and more will be added, including a new grocery store, a Fresh Grocer. Farther down Broad Street, Girard Avenue is going to be turned into a shopping strip--three blocks of which is Yorktown. Smith says the trolley has been up and running again along the avenue in preparation for the shopping, and there is also talk of a passport plan, so that people can get on and off the trolley at different spots without having to use a token each time. After nearly a decade without a grocery store, Yorktown will finally one and two shopping districts in walking distance. But, at the same time, the students signal the possible loss of Yorktown’s traditional sense of community. That Yorktown is changing is certain, but what that really means for the neighborhood isn’t as clear. “Change happens. How you adjust and roll with it is important,” says Woods. |