October 19, 2006 Issue
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Classified Chestnut Hill Local Online Editor Don't Miss an Issue, Tell us what you see or ©2006 Chestnut Hill Local Winner of One |
From our readersBowman Properties and the CHCA It’s just so pathetic. Richard Snowden gets his knickers all in a knot about a series of articles that rightfully put him and his Bowman properties in a bad light several years ago. He has a hissy fit, demands an apology from the Local, tacks up cheap, threatening and offensive signs on all of his many vacant properties and now bullies current tenants with higher rates or eviction. Pathetic. Next we have Bob Previdi and the CHBA, who seem blind to the Bowman signs but practically apoplectic about a duck. In the meantime, Snowden’s company owes the Business Improvement District more than $36,000 in fees, and the CHBA seems unwilling to use its leverage (liens on vacant properties, etc.) to collect. Pathetic. Finally, we have Ed Feldman, the eloquent and outspoken member of the CHCA board, handcuffed to the above-mentioned duck. You have to admire the guy’s spunk and flair for the dramatic. It would be funny if the whole thing wasn’t so pathetic. Remember when Chestnut Hill used to have some dignity? Jim Dunn Editor’s Note: We understand that Bob Previdi and others involved with the Chestnut Hill Business Association and the Chestnut Hill District have met with Richard Snowden and are trying to do what they can to resolve the sign issue. Make no mistake about it. The current contretemps regarding *the signs* did not spring, unplanned and unexpected, on the day of AbZOOlutely’s unveiling. The bad words — check-cashing agencies, dollar stores, tattoo parlors — have been in the public domain for years. Massage parlors? They’re already here. While the news stories pussyfoot with words like “suggest less affluent commercial” areas, what they’re really talking about is CAMDEN! Imagining long lines of welfare clients circling the block on the first of each month is not the business community’s fondest dream - especially if they are about selling six-figure cupboards and hundred dollar facials. At least it’s clear why the public masks of the business owners are a study in casual “the show must go on” posture. But you can bet that backstage, in the orchestra pit, and behind the sound booth, the flop-sweat is flowing. The signs, and “other signs”, are dirty. The red-and-white eyesores are racist and coarse and malicious. The fact that the perpetrator is widely described as “a perfect gentleman” needs to be somewhere in the Guinness Book of World Records. Where are the blue bloods tied by generations of gentlemen’s clubs who might speak to the vulgarity of this? Where are the churches up and down the Hill that might address this petulant behavior with such ugly overtones? Where are the tenants whose very livelihood is being bartered in a “deal” in which they hold no cards? So far, only the CHCA has spoken. The near silence is deafening. Martha Haley It is obvious that the time has come for rapprochement between Richard Snowden and the Chestnut Hill Local as well as other Chestnut Hill organizations and individuals. Mr. Snowden has indicated that he wants a public apology to be printed “above the fold” on the front page of the Local. Why not give it to him – and in the process promote unity and concord at a time when these are sorely needed? I suggest that the Local sponsor an apology writing contest to be judged by an impartial board, with the winning entry printed “above the fold” and finalist entries also carried, perhaps in the same prominent location, in subsequent weeks. If this suggestion gains support, I would like to see local schools participate, perhaps in a special category. Not only would this serve the cause of writing instruction, but also vocabulary building with such Latin- and Greek-rooted words as apologia, supplicare and genuflectere used to advantage. It may not be excessive to suggest that a simple ceremony be held at the close of the contest in which Mr. Snowden would be presented with all of the apologies submitted by Hill residents, young and old, to be read at his leisure. For his part, Mr. Snowden has indicated what must be done to end the current rancor. It is time for the community to respond creatively to his challenge. William Brown My family and I moved here from University City 20 years ago and I have watched with amusement from the sidelines as the Hillers periodically work themselves into states of righteous indignation over concerns of less than cosmic significance. However, in the case of Richard Snowden and his commercial properties, the community’s concerns and his hollow threats need to be addressed in the cold light of the business world. Recognizing that Mr. Snowden, whom I have never met, must truly have ascended from the planet Zenitron if he believes the Local is going to publish a “page one, above the fold” apology for anything it has written (if he believes the articles were libelous, then, by all means, sue), let’s consider his threat to raise rents and flood the Avenue with check-cashing “dollar” stores, and the like. 1. Businesses of any kind locate where the market is. Excuse me for stating the obvious, but how many Chestnut Hillers do not have checking accounts and banking relationships — and would prefer a check-cashing service? Will the unfortunate folks who must rely on those services now travel from 27th and Girard to avail themselves of the Hill’s finest check-cashing emporium? 2. Check-cashing, dollar stores and other poor neighborhood businesses are only marginally profitable and, as such, must rely upon locations with very inexpensive rents. The good Mr. Snowden is going to significantly raise rents and attract truly marginal businesses? Not in a million years! Given the above, it’s time for the Business Improvement District and other Hill entities to take a page from the old “Best defense is a good offense” strategy: if it is legally feasible, sue Bowman properties for the $36,000 back fees; write articles describing his tax problems with the city; begin a campaign to boycott any unsuitable tenant that decides to buck the community’s will; and actively enlist the support of our politicians. The Philadelphia politician hasn’t been born who will oppose the wishes of several thousand voters in order to kowtow to one person. There is absolutely no reason to believe Mr. Snowden can make good on his threats, and were he to insist upon vacating his various properties, his income stream would cease to exist, leading to tax problems and, in all probability, forced sales of his little empire. Dr. James P. Johnston The Wall That Heals To LaSalle College High School, please accept my sincere appreciation for having “The Wall That Heals” on your grounds, Oct. 5, 6, 7 and 8. Enough cannot be said for the tremendous physical and mental effort expended by your history educator, Gerald Miller, for getting the wall at LaSalle. He and his “gang” are to be commended and a special note of appreciation goes out to students, Adam Reale and Julian Tucker. Their playing of echo taps on their bugles every day at sundown was heart rending. I understand all the following were appraised of the event; the Springfield Sun and Chestnut Hill Local newspapers were there. The Philadelphia Morning Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News, TV Channels 3, 6 and 10 were not. I must assume that covering a memorial to the 58,000-plus who died in the service of their country, was not newsworthy enough for the Inquirer, Daily News, 3, 6 and 10 to cover. In closing, I feel I may speak for all those who found the time to come and visit “The Wall That Heals” when I say … upon viewing the wall, there was not a dry eye among us. Tom Woodruff Rodeo response Re: In reply and final reply to Ms. Felcher’s “Say No to Rodeo” letter in the Local, Oct. 12, 2006. It would take me a full page of my own to point out the fallacies pertaining to rodeo in the above-mentioned letter. It will suffice to say: Ms. Felcher’s letter is so full of holes, if it were a ship, it would be keeping the Titanic company at the bottom of the ocean. For those who are “on the fence,” so to speak, about the care and treatment of rodeo stock, I invite you, as my guests, to attend the Cowtown Rodeo, Woodstown, N.J., in the spring … then feel free to make your decision about rodeo and its treatment of livestock! Tom Woodruff Neukrug’s last ditch Howard Neukrug, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Watersheds, is described in the current issue of Friends of the Wissahickon as a “visioner” and is quoted as saying that “Philadelphia’s parks are our first line of defense for drinking water.” Nonsense. Philadelphia’s first line of defense against pollution of our environmental waters is sanitary sewers that don’t leak and don’t spill into our parks and streams. Neukrug’s “visioning” has already produced Gardyloo, a sewage lagoon at the corner of Wissahickon Avenue and Rittenhouse Street. Tucking sanitary waste into this neighborhood park is hardly “a first line of defense.” Dumping sewage onto parkland is literally a last-ditch evasion of environmental responsibility. Charles Parsons, President, |
