A Brief Description of What This Blog Is About
My name is Adam Chorney. I am graduating this year with a degree in Environmental Studies from Temple University. This blog was created for a Geography and Urban Studies class called Urban Environments. I decided to focus my studies on the area of Philadelphia known as either the Art Museum Area or the Fairmount section of Philadelphia. This area has been gentrified and gives us a viewing lens of what is going to happen in other areas of Philadelphia and other major cities. The area has been stripped of its culture so the wealthy can move in to the neighborhood. Gentrification is occurring throughout the city in places like Brewery Town, Northern Liberties, and around Temple University. In my opinion there is no real way to stop it from happening, but it should be noted and understood that the significance of a culture, rich or poor, is still important and should be valued the same.
Important Links
Gus 150 Syllabus
Dr. Masucci's Home Page
Class Home Page

A Healthscape of the Fairmount Section of Philadelphia

The Fairmount Section of Philadelphia has no hospitals (but there are a few within a mile) but has only a few places someone sick might want to go to. To view the healthscape of the area I walked From Broad St. and Fairmount to 20th and Fairmount.
In between Broad St. and 15th St. there was a health center that offers a variety of services as long as you have insurance. These services include dental and primary physicians. The only other place that someone might go if they are sick is a Rite Aid at 20th and Fairmount. Here someone with no health insurance can get over the counter medicine and they might ask the pharmacist a question if they need to.
Someone trying to maneuver the neighborhood in a wheelchair or a blind person trying to get around are going to have some problems. For one, the sidewalks are for the most part in horrible condition. Next, the traffic going through the neighborhood is horrific. Nobody stops at stop signs and many drivers get mad if they have to wait for pedestrians. Thankfully the Septa buses that go screeching through the neighborhood provide wheel chair accessibility for those who have to reach doctors, hospitals, etc. that are located outside the neighborhood.
Unfortunately my neighborhood is not very well equipped for those who are physically disabled. Those who can afford it can take a taxi to wherever they need to go to seek medical attention; those who can not are forced to use Septa to go wherever they need to be. I suppose it could be worse. We are in a major city that has many hospitals and doctors, so areas without that are defiantly at a disadvantage, yet those who cannot afford to use these luxuries a large city provides mine as well be in the middle of a jungle.

Gentrification in the Fairmount Section of Philadelphia

Thirty years ago the idea of a collage student moving into the area in which I live would have been preposterous. The nicest houses in the neighborhood were twenty thousand dollars and the neighborhood was predominantly Latino. The Latino community moved into the neighborhood after World War II. There were no trees in the neighborhood and it was considered to be a slum. Today the neighborhood is lined with trees on every block. A house that is just a shell sells for over one hundred thousand dollars and many young businessmen and women live in the neighborhood. The Fairmount section provides us with a look of how gentrification works and what the outcome is. Unlike many areas of focus in Philadelphia this neighborhood has been gentrified and is on its way to being one of the nicest neighborhoods to live in Philadelphia.
To observe this I took a walk from 23rd and Mt. Vernon to 15th and Mt. Vernon. At 23rd and Mt. Vernon the houses are in magnificent shape and all the apartments on this block and blocks down to 19th street go for more then five hundred dollars for a studio apartment. Each house on these blocks have fresh coats of paint on them and the worth of a whole home is more then five hundred thousand dollars. On these blocks there is no trash on the street and the cars on these blocks range from 95 Toyota Corollas to Mercedes Benzes. The people who live on these blocks are predominantly white and this can be observed by sitting on one of the corners for more then five minutes. At 19th and Mt. Vernon you must cross through a church parking lot and playground to get to 18th and Mt. Vernon. This is where you see hints of the older neighborhood. The playground is supposedly cleaned everyday yet there is trash everywhere. There are also higher volumes of people sitting out on their porches. The houses from 18th to 15th street are in nowhere as good a shape as those previously talked about. For the most part every house needs a coat of paint on them and many need their foundations worked on. The houses on these blocks are the cheapest houses in the neighborhood and rent is also significantly cheaper than up a few blocks. However it might be a good investment, maybe in the near future the rest of the Latino community will move out and we can have a boring, cultureless suburban village in the middle of the city. These blocks consist of Latino families that have lived in the neighborhood for the past thirty plus years.
In a previous journal entry I talked about 17th and Mt. Vernon. This is where a drug corner is located. The more I think about it the more I realize why it still exists. It caters to the wealthy class in the neighborhood. They can go get their drugs there and know they won’t have a problem because who wants to scare away a rich customer?
As I said before the Fairmount section of Philadelphia provides an example of what happens when a neighborhood is gentrified. I think the biggest problem with gentrification is besides poor people being displaced for the wealthy is most people who move into this neighborhood have no idea of their neighborhood’s history and culture, and for many, it doesn’t matter.

Industrialization in the Fairmount Section of Philadelphia

The Fairmount section of Philadelphia was the suburbs of colonial Philadelphia. It served as a retreat from city life for Philadelphia’s elite. It never was overly industrialized like North Philadelphia was, but it had some stores and factories in colonial times. Carriages were made directly across the street from where I live today and the rest of my block served as carriage houses to the large mansions on Spring Garden St. Now the Fairmount section is almost all residential.
I saw all residential homes on my field walk today. The walk I took today was up Brandywine St. from 19th to 23rd St, then down 23rd St. to Wallace St. I then cut down Wallace to 19th Street and walked back towards Brandywine. I would say there was an overwhelming amount of residential homes. Along Brandywine St, it is predominantly single homes while most of the other streets had houses turned into apartments.
I only came across a few corner stores. One is located on 20th and Green and the other one is located at 20th and Wallace. There was a place to rent out plots of land to garden at 19th and Wallace. From my understanding, that land used to be an abandoned home so now it makes for a great place to see locals strut their green thumbs.
There were a few churches that I noticed along my walk. One was located at 19th and Green, and another located at 23rd and Green. The one located at 23rd and Green St, was also a monastery.
This neighborhood was never very industrialized and was always a residential neighborhood. The small amount of industrialization it had was lost more then 50 years ago, and there are few traces of it left. The industrialized buildings that were used to make carriages now look like homes and only if you look at very small details will you see signs of a once small-industrialized area.

My Neighborhood

With GIS being integrated into everything I thought it might be fitting to use it to my advantage. I did draw a map of my community and even though I used a ruler the lines still were not straight. This is why I opted to use Google map. This technology allows viewers to zero in on a location and view it as a satellite, a map or a hybrid (a mix of the two.) When looking at this map I would like you to take note of a few things. One is the large amounts of green that you see. Trees are common is my neighborhood yet if you zoom out and pan north the amount of trees lessons. This in my opinion has to deal with wealth. The more trees the more money! The second thing I would like you to notice is the dot that is supposedly over 1913 Brandywine St. is wrong. My house is 4 houses down from where they say (next to the roof with a wood deck on it.) Even though the dot is wrong it is still amazing that I can even see the wood deck on my neighbor’s roof. The last point I wanted to make about this map is that it can be integrated into other parts of Google so it can pin point a restaurant, bar, hardware store etc. to give the viewer a very visible and easy way to get to a store.
GIS technology is the future. With satellite imaging and the accessibility the public has to it we are transforming into a society that can view almost anything with the click of a button. With all of this knowledge at our fingertips we must remember to use this technology properly. This technology can easily be used to spy on people and invade their privacy and we must remember what Spider Man's Uncle Ben said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Adam Chorney
Environmental/ Ethical Dilemma
I was raised in North East Philadelphia. My Parents house sits right on the edge of Penny Pack Park and I spent a good part of my childhood playing in those woods. I fished, biked, and wandered through those woods everyday over the summer. In fact the first girl I ever kissed, I kissed in those woods. Since I was a little kid, I noticed more and more buildings being built. The population in the area I lived in was increasing and more and more fields, that I once played football in, were being converted into homes and stores. I went home to visit my family (after being away at college for a while) and a strip mall had sprung up in a dirt lot I had once raced my bike in. Now there is a deli, hair salon and various other stores there. What I had not realized at that time was with all the new development the deer who roamed the area are now having harder times finding suitable places to live, and if they do find a place to live they have to dart across roads to get to places to feed.
North East Philadelphia has many parks but all of them have roads cutting through them. Driving down these roads, which for me was essential to getting any where, was like playing Russian roulette. I had many near misses and sudden stops because of deer running across the roads. I understand that we need to be able to get to places and if that means cutting through some woods to get there, then by god we will cut through the woods to get there, but something needs to be done. I have seen many deer lying on the side of a road and heard stories from friends about hitting deer. In one instance, my friends mom hit a deer, got her car fixed, and then on the way home from the repair shop hit another deer.
I am not sure about a solution. The roads that cut through the woods are essential to the people who live in those neighborhoods and we obviously can not stop the huge growth in population, so what can be done? Should we fence off the roads and make corridors over the roads for animals to use? I don’t know what can be done, but something needs to be done!

Urban Juxtaposition
Walking through the neighborhood I live in is very interesting. The neighborhood I live in is located between Fairmont Park and Spring Garden and between the Art Museum and Broad Street. The closer to the Art Museum you get the nicer it is. Also the closer you are to Spring Garden means your house or building you live in is worth more money. This can be seen by looking at 17th and Mt. Vernon. It is in the middle of the neighborhood but leans a little closer to Broad Street. For 30 years it has been a drug corner. At any time of day you can watch as cars pull up and pick up drugs and pull away. 4 or 5 blocks up on the same street there are houses that sell for half a million dollars and constantly have police cruising down their block. Recently there has been a huge investment in the neighborhood between 16th and 17th street right next to Fairmount Ave. All the houses were demolished and these suburban homes were erected. The houses come with driveways and one street was completely fenced off to make it a private drive way to the houses on the block. Now with the new investment the Police have been cracking down on the people at 17th and Mt. Vernon. Why does it take scared rich folk to move into a neighborhood to get it cleaned up?
I feel very sick when I think that the only way the city will be cleaned up is if rich people get scared and demand that they city clean up its act. The police had to know about the drug spot, yet they did nothing until people with money told them to. These neighborhoods should have been cleaned up years ago. This would have made it better for the people in the neighborhoods who lived there for a long time. I would think it would be more important to appease the people who lived in the city for 50 years then some newbies who moved from the suburbs to live in an urban environment that makes them think they are “down.”
The block I live on is one of the nicer blocks in the neighborhood. For the most part the people on my block don’t smile at me when I walk by. The house I live in is the only one for rent on the block and the neighbors don’t seem to like that. My neighbors recently sold their house for almost half a million dollars. If you were to go 2 blocks over and 2 blocks towards Broad Street the houses are worth no more then $100,000. This division is not fair because it keeps the poor people poor while the rich people continue to make money on their investments. If the neighborhood was cared for like my block was cared for, the whole neighborhood's property values would increase. When I say cared for, I mean our street gets swept up and plowed when other streets are neglected. I guess the saying “Money Talks” is true, and I know the people who have lived at 17th and Mt. Vernon for their whole lives and watched massive amounts of drugs being sold right in front of their houses wish that they didn't have to have money in order to make the streets safe for their kids to play on.

Adam Chorney
Community Description
Fairmount/ Art Museum Area
The Fairmount/ Art Museum Area of Philadelphia were considered in the 60’s and 70’s as the Spanish part of town. There were Spanish churches, restaurants and almost the entire population in that area was Latino. Fast forward 30 years and now it is considered a hip area to live in where every house is filled with college students and young professionals. The area was once thought of as the edge of Center City, and most people who had money did not want to live there. With our city growing and the ability to get around made easier, the area became a place well sought out by Philadelphia’s finest. College students who go to school in University City only have to take a short ride down Spring Garden to get into West Philly and students who go to Temple are only a hop skip and jump away.
With the new interest in this area by Philadelphia’s elite the Spanish neighborhood soon would be no more. The house’s were all sold and turned into apartments that were too pricy for the people who lived in the neighborhood and slowly the neighborhood was gentrified. This process took 10-15 years and now only a few Latinos remain.
This really hit home for me because I was living in an apartment on Green St and a man I work with grew up in the home right next to where I lived. He would tell me stories about how his friends would run though the neighborhood raising hell and how they would go to Fairmount Park with their dates on Friday night. He reminisced about kissing girls on that Art Museum steps and getting potato balls (a Spanish food that has a fried crust with mashed potato and ground beef on the inside) at the corner store. The reason he moved from his apartment on Green St. was that the building he lived in was bought by a real estate company tho consequently raised the rent. His parents could not afford to stay there so they moved. 15 years later I am one of the college kids who are living in HIS neighborhood. I say HIS because he was raised there and I am just there for the time being, just like 90 percent of everyone else that lives in that neighborhood today!
What remained in the neighborhood, which was the staple of the whole neighborhood since the 60’s was the Huge Spanish church on 15th and Green St. The church had been the focal point of the Latino community and was the last piece of Latin culture in the neighborhood. Another co-worker of mine had attended that church for his entire life and was good friends with the pastor. Every Sunday he would go to church to pray. A few years back the people living around the church filled a grievance with the city because the people who now lived around the church did not like being woken up on Sunday morning to “crazy Latinos dancing and singing.” They also did not like all the cars that were there because of the high attendance rates of the church (congregants would not have to drive to church if they still lived in the neighborhood!) The city put pressure on the church to sell the building and so they did. The church was sold for $500,000, and now is being turned into apartments. Not only were people kicked out of a close-knit neighborhood that they had built up and lived in their whole lives, their place of worship had to make way for yet more high-end housing.

The Horse and Buggies Dilemma
In New York City a horse, who was pulling a carriage around central park, got scared and bolted through traffic. The horse ended up running into a station wagon, ejecting the driver of the horse from the carriage, injuring him and the two men in the station wagon. The horse was pinned under the car and is probably going to be euthanized. Are horse rides in New York City worth risking people’s lives; and is it fair to the horses to have to work in such conditions?
Horse accidents in New York City occur enough to warrant stricter restrictions on carriage operations. People are injured every year in horse carriage accidents and the usual cause being the horse getting spooked out and taking off. Why does the horse get spooked? Imagine being a horse and having to maneuver between SUV’S, New York City Taxi cab drivers and Transit Buses. Horses should not have to go into traffic; in fact horses should not be anywhere near cars. Not only do they have to walk though traffic but they have to breathe in the exhaust from the cars. The horse’s hoofs are also torn up because of constantly having to walk on cement. Horses that pull carriages have shorter life spans then Police Horses who work in the city because the Police horses don’t spend all day in city traffic. Is there a solution?
The horse and buggy accidents are enough to ban all horse and carriage rides in any major cities, but there are alternatives to totally getting rid of the horse and carriage. First, no horse should work more then a day or two a week. Second, horses can not walk in traffic. If there is going to be horse and buggy rides they must be in a park. The horse rides also must be at times of day when there were not a lot of people out and about, mainly at night. This compromise will not make everyone happy, but for the safety and health of both the horses and people it should seriously be considered.

Adam Chorney
3-13-06
Key Concepts

Terms from Neighborhood Maps
GIS- GIS stands for geographic information system. GIS takes the ideas of surveying and mapping to another level. It uses real world objects, like roads, elevation, and population (just to name a few) and digitizes them. This information can be viewed using many different programs and most of this data is accessible to the public. GIS begins with capturing data. You may not know it but the census data collected by the government is implemented by GIS. Data is also collected by digitizing old maps (this is strenuous work and is normally performed by grad students!) Much of the new data is collected from satellite imaging. This data is then integrated with data like census data and used together to find out information like where the highest levels of poverty in a specific area are or where the highest levels of childhood obesity may be found. To sum up GIS, you can say that GIS uses information from all aspects of geography and urban studies (this can be extended to sociology studies) to come up with answers to questions that have to deal with topography, mapping, social issues, placement of stores, usage of land and everything else that deals with how people and maps relate.
Google Map- Google map is a simplified way to view GIS data. It is a user friendly version of many GIS applications. It allows viewers with no GIS background to use GIS information to help them find locations. You can get directions, view maps and find out store locations with the click of a button. Of course the information is not as in depth as other GIS applications but it allows anyone the opportunity to use GIS information without even knowing they are using GIS.
Terms for Environmental/ Ethical Dilemma
The Edge- I am using these words to describe where the line is that separates humans and animals, or civilization and nature. The edge or line is blurred in our modern society because we keep finding ourselves intruding on nature because the space we already use (or took from nature) is running out. Many clashes occur on this line. These fights can be large and small varying from animals being endangered to entire forests being cleared for the use of timber and the need for more land to raise cattle. In my dilemma the problem is our intrusion on land that once was forest. This directly impacts many creatures but what counter impacts me is the deer. No one wants to run into a deer, one because it will destroy your car and two it will take the life of an animal that has every right to be frolicking where it wants. What needs to be discussed is the necessity to intrude into wilderness. With an ever increasing population and the need for space we are going to have to intrude into wilderness. The point I am trying to make is sustainability is out of our reach if we don’t have limitations. We must maximize the land we have and don’t take from the wilderness if it is not needed. When it is needed we must be mindful of what we are doing and make sure to only take from where we can do the least amount of damage and impact the least amount of animals no matter how big or small.
Corridors- Corridors are used in many areas to allow animals through areas with high amounts of traffic. Usually these corridors are built over highways where animals travel. If a highway is going to interrupt the migration patterns of an animal these will be built so the animals may still migrate. These corridors are costly because they need to be built frequently along the highway and must have grass along them to encourage the animals to use them. I suggested making these in areas where deer frequently cross major roads in North East Philadelphia.
Penny Pack Park- This is a park system managed by the Fairmount Park Commission. Penny Pack covers around 1600 acres of land and is composed of woodlands, meadows and wetlands.
Overpopulation- Overpopulation is the idea that our planet is not going to be able to withstand growing numbers of people. This happens when there are more people then there is food and land to withstand those people. With modern technologies people have been living longer and they have been using more resources in their older age. The main idea of population in laymen’s terms is if there are 200 people and enough food and space for 300 then there is no overpopulation. If there is 200 people and enough food and space for 150 people there is overpopulation.
Essential- Essential is defined by dictionary.com as- Basic or indispensable; necessary. I used essential in this context because the roads that cut through the woods where deer frolic are essential. The question I am concerned with is when is cutting down forests nonessential and when is it essential. It is not essential to cut down forests to allow cows to graze. It is nonessential to cut down forests to build homes when there are thousands of abandon homes in North Philadelphia. It is essential to speak out against destroying forests for no reason.
Key Terms for my Community Description
The Edge- This word has been used again but in different contexts. Here the edge or line is separating the rich and the poor. My neighborhood is where that occurs. Just beyond where I live (north of Fairmount Ave) is where poverty rates sky rocket and the worth of homes decrease. Besides small pockets of homes (mostly located around Temple University) after you get past Fairmount Ave. the apparent poverty in Philadelphia is seen.
I also find it funny that the name of the complex being erected on Cecil B. Moore Ave. is called The Edge. It truly is the edge of many things. For example the prices of living at The Edge are double and triple the amount of living only a few blocks away. Because of Temple a line is drawn with the community. Around Temple houses are very valuable and beyond that the houses are worthless. Temple in a way keeps the impoverished on their side of the line and when Temple wants to expand they invite them into their side.
Philadelphia’s Elite- Philadelphia’s elite is in a nut shell the wealthy players in Philadelphia. These are the people with lots of real estate and money and have the power to influence City Hall. They make important decisions in Philadelphia that only improve their own situations, even if it is at the expense of others. Another term for these people is Republicans!
The Spanish Section of the City- the Spanish section of Philadelphia is not located on 5th St. and is in area of Philadelphia that is unwanted by Philadelphia’s elite. This area is rich with culture and this can be seen by the art on the walls. 5th St. has very moving graffiti that depicts their heritage. In my Blog I talked of how the Spanish section used to be between Spring Garden and Fairmount Ave. This area was bought up by Philadelphia’s Elite and turned into high income homes and apartments. This pushed Latinos farther from the city and Down to 5th St.
High End Housing- High end housing is built for those who are upper middle class and the rich. This type of housing is being built though out the city in neighborhoods like mine, Northern Liberties and Brewery Town. There is a large boom in people moving from the suburbs to the city and these homes are designed with them in mind. What it does for the community is devastating. People in these neighborhoods will sell their homes for a little bit more then they are worth and then will move to another neighborhood similar to their own. They never get a chance to move up in the social ladder. These homes are either knocked down or completely rehabbed and sold for three or four times what they have been purchased for.
Focal Point- I use this term to describe a Church. It was the last piece of Spanish Heritage in a community over taken by yuppies. It at one point was the center of the community and now is being turned into apartments that are cool but not the focal point of the area. This instance shows how one group of people may hold such high standards on something then another group of people don’t care if it is used as a landfill!
Key Terms from My Urban Juxtaposition
Juxtaposition- Juxtaposition is the idea of comparing two things side by side. In my blog I compared two parts of a neighborhood. One part of the neighborhood was where the wealthy lived and the other part of the neighborhood was where the lower middle class and poor lived. With in a few block radius there is a stark contrast between the rich and poor. It can be seen by the way the houses look, the stores in those neighborhoods, and how clean the two areas are.
Drug Corner- This is a place almost always found in the city where drugs can be purchased. From weed to heroin these corners are a prime example of what is wrong in the city. The one in my neighborhood, of course, is found in the poor section and any time of day you can walk past it and see white kids buying drugs in expensive cars from Latinos and African Americans. The whole idea of a Drug Corner is propagated by the idea of white kids thinking that the only place to get drugs is in the inner city where minorities are. Then the idea of selling drugs is glamorized by musicians and movies and this only encourages and blinds the kids in the city. These children in the city think there is only one way out of the ghetto and that is by selling drugs. Rather they should be told the way out of the ghetto is a good education.
“Cared For”- When I use this phrase I am referring to the way in which the wealthy part of my neighborhood is taken care of. My block is cleaned every day by a crew of 4 people who pick up the trash and clean the leaves off my street. A few blocks away there is trash pilled in the gutter so high it looks like a third world. This can be seen in many parts of the neighborhood including North Philadelphia, and Some parts of South and West Philadelphia. Where you won’t find trash built up is Center City, University City, and any other place that brings revenue into Philadelphia.
Scared Rich Folk- The idea of scared rich folk come from me witnessing first hand what happens when people from the upper class find themselves in an urban environment. I was living at 15th and Green at the time and my neighbor’s family came to visit from the Pocono’s. They were ready to drag their child home when they saw a homeless man wondering up their son’s street with a beer in his hand.
Key Terms from Horse and Buggy Blog
Horse and Buggy- This was the main form of transportation a little over one hundred years ago. However it is not needed in this day and age. The concept of a horse and buggy has been outdated for a long time and should remain in old pictures and books, not on our streets today.
Stricter Restrictions- I use this term to talk about the horrible conditions in which the horse is in when they have to pull the buggy. If there were stricter restrictions regarding the well-being of the horse, horse and buggy rides would not have to be retired.
Exhaust from Cars- Exhaust from cars is a huge pollutant in our modern age. The CO2 emissions let out from our cars’ exhaust pipes is unbearable. You can see first hand how bad it is after it snows. All the major road ways have black snow on the sides of them due to the exhaust from the cars. Imagine what it does to horses’ lungs!
Bans and Compromises- I think banning most things is bad but compromises take a little from both sides and come to a steady middle ground. If there was a safer way to conduct the horse and buggy rides then I am all for it.