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Hunting Park: A Town Like Your Own |
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By Jane Laychak "When you start at the bottom, you can only advance," funeral home director Andrew Compagnola says about the Hunting Park Avenue section of North Philadelphia. Compagnola Funeral Home, located on North Fifth Street and Cayuga Avenue, has been in business for over 25 years. Compagnola knows what he's talking about when it comes to the Hunting Park Area. "When we first opened up {the funeral home} about 25 years ago, there was nothing for the kids to do, but hang out on the streets. Now they have places to go after school so they can continue their education, instead of getting into trouble." Compagnola Funeral home is adjacent to ASPIRA Inc., which aims to help the community through education and leadership. It has programs geared towards school aged children and after-school care. The goal is to give parents an option as opposed to letting their children go home to an empty house. Compagnola says it's not only the after-school programs that have helped the community but the rehabilitation of some older homes and businesses as well. "In the first few years that we were here, there were a lot of abandoned buildings with graffiti on them, it really trashed up the area." He says the streets appear a lot cleaner now due to the demolition of older buildings. "They took down some empty homes that were full of rats and what not, and remodeled them for some families. That was a good start. Now we need to do something with the older warehouses that closed down about 20 years ago. Either fix them up, or take them down." Although Compagnola says the area is really thriving now, he thinks the neighbors need to continue the up keep, or it will go back to the way it was. Other than that, Compagnola thinks Hunting Park Avenue is just like the other parts of Philadelphia--full of culture and friendly neighbors with the occasional crime. As he puts it: "No worse than anywhere else. It just needs a good sprucing up." |
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Good, Bad and Worse |
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By Sae Komura The Hunting Park neighborhood in North Philadelphia has changed drastically over the decades, residents said. Whether changes are for better or worse depends on whom you ask. Hunting Park stretches along Hunting Park Avenue, and is surround by Old York Street on the west, G Street in the east, Wingohocking Street on the north and Glenwood Avenue on the south. "The area has gone from good to bad to worse," said furniture store owner Ulises Rodriguez, 56. "A combination of various factors, but mainly drugs and welfare" changed the neighborhood, Rodriguez said. "If you put welfare people next to working class people, they don't have to get up on a certain time to go to work, they just hang out all day. It doesn't work," he said. Rodriguez has been in the neighborhood for 40 years and for 20 years has owned a store in the neighborhood, Ulises Furniture, at 35 W. Hunting Park Ave. The neighborhood used to be German, Hispanic, Italian and Jewish on the north side, but many working people have moved out to suburban areas, he noted. "Business is okay, but the working people moved out and my customers come from suburban areas now," Rodriguez said. Although many people moved out of Hunting Park, some old-timers remain. Some people are proud of their neighborhood and hope it changes for the better, Rodriguez said. Rodriguez gave full credit to Vince Cunningham, a former police officer and catering business owner, with making the area look better. Cunningham painted all the walls brown that were covered by graffiti, Rodriguez said. "Others are stuck here," Rodriguez gave another reason for residents who remained in the neighborhood. "Like elders, they can't get out." The University of Pennsylvania 's Neighborhood Information System statistics indicate that Hunting Park is comprised of a large minority population. According to the Neighborhood Information System, nearly 40 percent of residents were African-American and about 57 percent were Hispanics in 2000. While some claim that "changes from the top" is necessary, as Rodriguez put it, others perceive positive change in the community. "The community is improving," said Sandra Gonzalez, a staff member at ASPIRA Inc. of Pennsylvania. ASPIRA is an organization promoting the empowerment of the Puerto Rican and Latino community. "It was a rat hole when I first came here," said Daisy Metos, a 35-year-old Hispanic resident. "Housing is improving a lot," said Metos, who moved to the neighborhood five years ago. "They are demolishing abandoned houses. I think someone from the city is doing it. They are opening new schools, both charter and public schools." Metos is a mother of two teenagers, 13 and 15, who attend ASPIRA's charter school. Residents of Hunting Park neighborhood expressed very different opinions about their community, getting worse for one, but improving for another. |
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Vince Cunningham
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| By Chris Silva Some Hunting Park residents have seen a change for the worse in their community, while other long-time resident said the neighborhood hasn't changed a bit. In the past three decades, businesses have relocated, minorities have represented a majority of the community's population, and the crime rate has risen over the past 11 years. Along the eastern side of Hunting Park Avenue, all the way down to Fifth Street, a movie theater has been replaced with a family-owned catering business, two funeral homes have relocated because of the high demand for a medical facility and more land, and a Rite Aid has replaced a supermarket. Eve Garcia, a Rite Aid employee for seven years, has seen it all. She moved to Hunting Park 10 years ago and just recently moved outside the area. The shootouts on the corner would wake her in the middle of the night. She feared for the safety of her daughter, who attends Cayuga School. The Rite Aid she works at was recently held up last fall; it wasn't the first time. Garcia doesn't feel safe in Hunting Park. "It was fine when I was younger, but now it's not as good as it used to be," she said. "It used to be cleaner, less shootouts, less hangouts on the corner, and less drugs here and there. It was a little out of control for a while. It's still not as good as it used to be." Brian Dooley, the owner of Rodriguez Funeral Homes located on West Hunting Park Avenue, said when he moved to Hunting Park 12 years ago, it was like any old neighborhood. "It was a neighborhood like any other," Dooley said. "It really welcomed us. I'm glad that the immediate area was kept clean." In a survey conducted by Pennsylvania University, there is 32.5 percent vacant land and properties in Hunting Park. Some residents felt that has led to excessive amounts of littering, abandoned houses and businesses looking to relocate. Nowadays, many businesses are family owned, from auto shops to food markets, funeral homes to restaurants. Vince Cunningham, who owns Ritz Hall, a reception hall next door to Rodriguez Funeral Homes, has seen quite a change in the community's makeup since he moved here in 1976. "In 1976, this was a white neighborhood," he said. Now, as the University of Pennsylvania survey showed, African-Americans (38 percent) and Hispanics (56 percent) have dominated the region in population, and have taken advantage of the low cost of housing that runs roughly $13,000 per unit. The rising percentage of arson and incendiary fires (43.5 percent over an 11-year period), have some residents worried about their safety. "It does have it's hot spots," Dooley said. "You might hear a fight late at night, or some gun shots. But as far as day-to-day, we've only had some problems with graffiti." Cunningham, along with his stepson, Frank Copeland, have fought graffiti for the past three decades, covering the vandalism with brown paint. Copeland said that the graffiti has died down over the years. He said that potholes in the streets have been fixed and some abandoned cars have been towed, but feels that the city can still step up its efforts in restoring Hunting Park. "It can't hurt.but I'm still going to do what I have to do to keep everything right," Copeland said. "In the wintertime I go out and clean my driveway and doorway out. [The city] doesn't have to tell me to do it - I do it all the time. A lot of people wait for the city to come help out. But you got to do your won thing. I do stuff in the front of the house, out near Ritz Hall (the family-owned business) - this is stuff you do. It's automatic really." Copeland said there will always be crime, drugs and vandalism in the neighborhood. Dooley agreed that there are some things that will never change, but that Hunting Park isn't as bad as most people make it out to be. "I know that there are bad people in the neighborhood," Dooley said. "But I really think they' don't bother their own [people]." |
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