West Philly

The one TRUE New Year’s Eve

~ thedailydish ~ 1 Comment

I am really truly psyched for this weekend. Not only am I feeling terrific, but my husband & I have managed to secure a babysitter – and not just for tonight – BUT FOR TOMORROW NIGHT AS WELL. I know, UNBELIEVABLE.

So all of this excitement and anticipation and giddiness has left me reeling and today I find myself feeling positively like a Russian orthodox. What? Well, you know how they celebrate Christmas roughly 2 weeks after the rest of us? Well, PREPARE YOURSELVES FOR WHAT I AM ABOUT TO SAY. I don’t know if any of you realize, or are open enough to even ponder the possibility, but this weekend may actually be the one TRUE New Year’s Eve.

You see, having spent Christmas 2007 out of town, by the time we got home the OLD Near Year’s Eve was upon us. And although we’d been invited to a kickin house party here in West Philly, scrambling for a babysitter 2 days before the big event was no picnic. Even my husband’s 86 year-old grandmother had plans. So rather than indulging in a night of wild revelry, dragging our bleary-eyed selves home at 5 am, we did what any other babysitter-less couple would do. We spent the day dragging our kids through the art museum, torturing all of the sensitive types, so I could catch the Renoir exhibit. As Aunt Esther would say:

“Take THAT, Suckas.”

Although we went Mummering New Years Day like all good Philadelphians do and of course MUST, we certainly did not celebrate NYE in quite the same manner as the rest of the world. And so we have decided, after much prolonged and brain-aching deliberation, to SCHISM from the rest of you. We will from now on (or at the very least, this year) be celebrating the one and only TRUE New Year’s Eve holiday tomorrow, January 12th. And in keeping with this Orthodoxy, we will be celebrating in a familiar, but DIFFERENT sort of way. Gone will be the masses of blithering idiots, drunken beyond speech. Public vomiting and lewdness are optional, not mandatory! No Dick Clark and his dropping ball. Our holiday – the new TRUE New Year’s Eve – will retain its preciousness like no other.

And so, I must cut this post short. Lots to squeeze in before 2008!

Happy New Year, everyone!

A resident responds to “As University City expands, paradox abounds”

~ thedailydish ~ Leave a comment

As University City expands, paradox abounds

My husband and I have lived in West Philly for almost 15 years, the last eight of which have been in Cedar Park. Over the course of our time here we’ve seen many changes, both good and bad. We’ve witnessed and been impacted by crime – which although statistically on the decline, appears ever-present. We’ve noticed young folks and families moving into the area, but seen an equal number displaced by rising rents or forced to the suburbs due to poor public schools. We live peacefully in a neighborhood with people of all colors and nationalities, yet within the past month, I’ve received my first of several tastes of reverse racism – and at a community fair in Cedar Park of all places.

Commercial investment is always a boon, and businesses – especially in the form of restaurants such as Dock Street, Dahlak, even our own mini-mart Fu Wah – have done a tremendous job of garnering interest in the neighborhood and making it a great place to live. The creation of the UCD has helped drive at least the outward perception of Cedar Park as a clean and safe community. And Penn has spent and will surely continue to spend thousands of dollars enhancing the image of its University City to the world-at-large.

What I fail to see, however, is how the Penn Alexander School has really benefited the majority of residents of Cedar Park, as such a small fraction of the population is served by the school. Most families in our neighborhood send their children to local public schools such as Alexander Wilson or Henry Lea, while a few of our (primarily white) neighbors have had their children bussed across University City to Samuel Powel near Drexel. Other Cedar Park residents send their kids to private religious schools like Spruce Hill Christian and Saint Francis De Sales, while others (as in our case), send theirs to public charter schools, such as Russell Byers, Laboratory or Independence Charter. It’s unfortunate that the true nature of the school situation in Cedar Park was not made clear in the article, and that other community resources, such as the A-Space on the 4700 block of Baltimore, which does a great deal to promote the direct interests of residents as well as others, were overlooked.

I welcome the good publicity that our neighborhood has been receiving lately, but I do question whether the public is being given the whole picture. Cedar Park is a collection of people as much as it is the buildings and businesses located herein. And unfortunately, many continue to be disenfranchised as others feel hopeful.