Points to Ponder Index

A Fresh Start for Germantown?

by Jim Foster

Editor

The year is 1950.  World War II ended 5 years before, and the beginning of a major economic and social restart for America was well under way. For many older cities,  a combination of the beginning of universal ownership of the automobile and massive residential construction outside of old city limits brought commercial shopping districts face to face with a new phenomenon —remote shopping malls.

The second busiest shopping district within the borders of the City of Philadelphia was universally recognized as Germantown’s Chelten Avenue corridor, with extension on the Germantown Ave and Wayne Ave cross-streets. With open and yet undeveloped land not all that far away in nearby Cheltenham township, one might have thought that further development in what was the second oldest part of the city was over.

The opposite seemed true when brand new construction was completed that year of the multi-floor expansive Rowell’s Department Store on the corner of Chelten and Germantown Avenues.

Someone was betting on Germantown’s future, and that busy inclusive district supported the lifestyles of nearby communities as well.  Consider that in light of the fact that there was already a multi-floor first quality department store, Allen’s, one block south at Chelten Avenue and Greene Sts.  A large easy-to-access parking lot on Armat Street between Greene and Wayne made shopping access easy and adapted to changing times. The diversity of offerings and the vibrancy of the Germantown central business district cannot by overstated.

Sadly, within 15 years the downslide began, and by the mid-1970s the once-vibrant self-supporting community was experiencing problems and shrinkage of what was once a 24-hour a day commercial corridor accelerated. Today the remaining stores are in lock-down with security doors and bars in place by 6:00 p.m. and a vacant central Germantown presents a formidable and uninviting presence.  Blocks and blocks of an urban wasteland have replaced a large inviting destination.

One-by-one many of the area major employers left Germantown as a combination of increases in crime and security issues sent a message to business owners that fewer and fewer would travel here to work and/ or shop. This culminated in the unpleasant and politically-inspired departure of Asher’s Candies, once the largest single employer in the area.  After about 1973 it became a self-fulfilling prophecy and not only commercial buildings became empty and abandoned, but residential ones as well added to the “missing teeth” appearance that eventually brought about the formal designation of large portions of Germantown as “Blighted”.  Believe it or not, some were very pleased with that title.

You see a number of “inside players” with political connections made more easy money from blight than they would from the positive modernizing development that could have easily taken place. Some call it “Poverty Profiteering” and it pays well in the short term and the long term once you understand the game.  The “Blighted” designation greased the pathway for more “takings” and enhanced access to public money from the city, state and then the all important federal level. Federal funding, often through state and city strainers, went unregulated and without compliance, putting hundreds of millions in the hands of a few with no discernable results.

Depressed property values only escalate further depressed property values and soon abandoned ones are taken back by the city for another form of controlled redistribution to only the selected and connected.  Politicians then restrict who can be the recipients at tax sales and both agree to keep fresh urban private development at a minimum. That is how the largest land takeover in this area, Germantown Settlement, became the stranglehold monopoly that destroyed a community and stifled opportunity right up through 2007.  However, one should make no mistake, several other insiders with those same type connections fed at the trough of property manipulation and special access to public money that was always sold as “community revitalization”, but almost never performed.  By the way, all the public records that were supposed to accompany the distribution of that public money are impossible to access.  This includes FOIA requests.

Germantown could be, and certainly should be on the threshold of a new dawn of honest competitive development with transparency.  There are a number of serious approaches being considered by both city agencies and serious dedicated citizens who are forming to assume those roles.  The larger questions are, will the still powerful politicians who funded the projects of the last 25 years (and are still in power) adopt a reform posture or run a dog-and-pony show for the time being and keep the power and purse strings in the same hands ultimately?.

Recent high-level government decisions have not been encouraging.  Many readers know about the near-revolution between citizens and leadership over the just being completed Chelten Plaza project west of Wayne Avenue at the Chelten Avenue SEPTA station. Let me quote from the City Planning Commission study known as the Germantown and Nicetown Transit-Oriented Neighborhood Plan submitted by the city with the front page endorsement of Mayor Nutter, Exec. Director Alan Greenberger and Councilwoman Miller:

‘With 832 recorded trips on weekdays, Chelten Avenue Station serves many residents living in apartment and condominium buildings along Chelten and Wissahickon Avenues. Chelten Avenue is also served by bus routes 26, 65, J and K making the station a key intermodal location. The area surrounding the station is an active neighborhood center with two supermarkets, restaurants and several neighborhood institutions.  The existing mix of uses, high density residential housing and transit service makes Chelten Avenue Station the model transit-oriented ready station in the study area.”

Despite the fact that the well-organized community protest to the back-door publically-funded insider deal that did absolutely nothing to take advantage of the points this plan outlines and coordinate a new fresh interchange station and major development,  the Mayor, Planning Commission Chair Alan Greenberger and Councilwoman Donna Miller all worked diligently to make sure the community voice was silenced and supported major spot zoning, manipulative delaying practices at L & I, special funding endorsements to the Governor and even a special City Council bill to make sure the developer (Pat Burns) got all that he wanted, much of it outside of standing codes and city and state law as written.

It has been suggest by many that our new City Councilwoman, Cindy Bass locate her district office in Germantown so as to jump-start the process that the political focus is for a new life in this community where her predecessor ran roughshod over good government and due process for four terms.   The Commerce Department has cut off funding for the currently-defunct Germantown Special Services District and folks are waiting for new directions there.

Until Germantown is again perceived as a safe community with activity and access on a 24 hour period, it will never attract the kind of employment and retailers that will do competitive private development alongside well-spent and transparent public dollars. Security in the community is fundamental and once accomplished; all that vacant commercial space in multi-floor buildings that stands empty can be productive and provide new employment opportunities.

As a result of a recent article in this newspaper the Police Commissioner’s Office has promised to coordinate a meeting with community leaders of my choosing that will discuss not only the serious increased in both property and violent crime in the Northwest, but a possible new approach to how the 14th District deals with the needs of the future for all he communities it serves.  That is to include how a Germantown with full time business can be implemented with their help.