University City, that artificially created place on the
west bank of the Schuylkill, has suddenly become Philadelphia's most vital
neighborhood. You can see it in the luxury high-rises, office towers, and dorms
now coalescing into a glittering second skyline. Just last week, Penn and
Drexel held a party to celebrate their economic contribution to the city, which
is indeed substantial. Today, Penn reigns supreme as Philadelphia's largest
private employer, with nearly 16,000 full-timers on its payroll.
Victorian brownstones adjacent to Van Pelt Library
(left), as seen from the intersection of 36th and Walnut streets, circa 1961 or
1962. At right, the Van Pelt Library and Dietrich Graduate Library in 2015.
Penn effectively cordoned off its campus by erecting buildings that faced
inward, such as putting the Van Pelt loading dock facing Walnut Street.
How did this neighborhood of porch-fronted homes and
cheap student eateries - a sleepy suburb of mighty Center City - evolve into
such a powerhouse? The answer can be found in a provocative new book, Becoming
Penn: The Pragmatic American University, 1950-2000, cowritten by a longtime
professor and the university archivist. The story is not pretty.
Using the polite language of the academy, you might say
the book is an account of how Penn exploited the urban-renewal policies of the
1950s and '60s to create a gorgeous, landscaped campus and turn itself into one
of the country's top research institutions.
The larger narrative, however, is much less becoming to
the authors' employer. Becoming Penn details how the Ivy League university
systematically executed a series of ruthless real estate grabs that destroyed
distinctive neighborhoods, drove out small businesses, and displaced thousands
of Philadelphians, mainly African Americans.
By the end, it's not clear whether we should think of
Penn as a great center of learning and a crucial jobs engine - or as a
lucrative corporate enterprise that has wired Philadelphia's planning process
for its own interests.
The authors, professor John L. Puckett and archivist Mark
Frazier Lloyd, are lifers who clearly adore Penn, warts and all. They tell the
history of America's first university in a matter-of-fact tone, pausing only
rarely to pass critical judgments.
Though the general outline of their narrative, bravely
published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, is known, the abundant
details are what give the story new meaning.
Since Penn's founding in 1755 by Ben Franklin at the
corner of Ninth and Chestnut, it has continually sought to carve out a serene
island for itself in the midst of the chaotic city, hoping to emulate America's
more bucolic campuses, such as Thomas Jefferson's University of Virginia.
When Center City became too dense and industrial, the
authors explain, Penn fled in 1872 for the rural precinct of West Philadelphia.
And when the area around its serpentine green College Hall began to experience
similar urbanization, Penn threatened to decamp to the Chester County
countryside.
From the beginning, Philadelphia recognized the
importance of Penn to its economy and identity and went out of its way to accommodate
its needs, especially for land. College Hall was built on what had been the
grounds of the city's poorhouse, after Philadelphia sold the property to Penn
at a bargain price.
But it wasn't until after World War II, when Penn was
seriously contemplating a move to the suburbs, that Philadelphia struck the
deal that would cede Penn (and Drexel) huge tracts of West Philadelphia. With
the money and power provided by federal urban-renewal programs, city officials
went on a shopping spree for the two universities, using eminent domain to
acquire everything (roughly speaking) between Lancaster and University Avenues,
the Schuylkill and 40th Street.
At the time, the area north of Market was populated
mostly by working-class blacks, and the blocks to the south were largely
Italian. Their neighborhoods, like others in Philadelphia, were looking pretty
shabby, and Penn was alarmed that the creeping blight would turn off students
and faculty.
But, as Puckett and Lloyd point out, the word blight was
a coded term, and many of the eminent-domain takings were clearly racially
motivated. Even the placement of the monolithic University City Science Center
along Market Street, they say, was intended as a cordon sanitaire against the
black neighborhoods.
The land seizures were by no means unique to Penn. Across
the country, cities were using urban renewal to transfer property from small
private owners to big universities - think: NYU, Columbia, and the University
of Chicago, as well as Temple. But, the authors write, no university
"achieved a greater expansion of its campus core or made more use of
urban-renewal tools than Penn."
Penn didn't just use its power to acquire land. It also
persuaded officials to bury the elevated train line and trolleys that traversed
its newly greened campus. (Too bad nobody lobbied the city to bury those lines
west of Penn.) Meanwhile, the state footed the bill for libraries and research
buildings.
Perhaps the most shocking aspect of the land grab is that
Penn ended up sitting on its acquisitions for decades, using the leveled tracts
as parking lots. The block at 34th and Chestnut is only now being developed for
dorms, almost 60 years after its occupants were driven out. Those parking lots
were just as blighting as rundown housing.
As Penn's campus grew more splendid, it became an island
of privilege in a sea of poverty. Penn effectively cordoned off its campus by
erecting buildings that faced inward, going so far as to put the loading dock
of Van Pelt library on once-gracious Walnut Street. But that fortress wall
couldn't keep out the neighborhood's desperation, or rising crime. Armed
holdups, and even homicides, became regular occurrences on Penn's outskirts.
It wasn't until Judith Rodin took over as president in
1994 that Penn began to make some amends. Neighborhood outreach improved.
Buildings on Walnut were given front doors. Ironically, Penn is now intensely
focused on re-creating the kind of nonacademic activities that urban renewal
destroyed: off-campus apartments, shops, restaurants, a movie theater, even a
public school. University City is being remade, though for a more affluent
population.
And that brings us to University City's current boom. Was
the success of Penn, and the huge economic value it brings to Philadelphia,
worth the terrible destruction? Could the revival have happened without
leveling neighborhoods? Are these schools so important to Philadelphia's
survival in this postindustrial age that they deserve carte blanche?
The authors, unfortunately, never grapple with these
questions. Nor do they touch on the sensitive topic of PILOTs - payments in
lieu of taxes - that many think universities should pay. Knowing the huge
benefit they've received and how much they operate like businesses, it's hard
to believe there is even a debate.
Source: Philly.com
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