Community Displacement

Community Displacement:

With the construction of a permanent bridge across the Schuylkill River in the early 20th Century, the population of West Philadelphia grew. Many neighborhoods became heavily occupied, as more traffic and people moved into this section of the city. The residents with greater means moved to the suburbs and left the neighborhood filled by transient individuals and black families with low incomes. Many blocks began to deteriorate from decay, neglect, and misuse. Large houses, originally built for one family, were converted into apartments and rooming houses, with owners living outside the area. And though it was made up of predominantly poor, African-American families, it was a safe, close-knit, and thriving community from the early 1900’s until its destruction as part of Philadelphia’s urban renewal efforts.

In 1872, the University of Pennsylvania moved from Center City to West Philadelphia. During World War II, massive infusions of Federal dollars made it possible for the university to be a major contributor to the war effort. Immediately afterwards, the GI Bill paid for thousands to attend the university. The size of Penn exploded after a national peacetime consensus developed during the fifties and sixties to use tax dollars to support basic research and University-based training. Around the same time, the Ivy League was established in 1954 with Penn as one of its eight founding members. With the financial backing of the government and the increasing public recognition they were receiving for both their academics and research efforts, the university was poised as a powerful authority that would have little trouble exerting their authority locally.

The first of five distinct periods of urban redevelopment and residential displacement by public action started with the initiation of the federal urban renewal program in 1949. The primary goal during the period of 1945-1954 was “slum clearance”. Urban renewal was introduced as government’s response to the impediments facing urban redevelopment. Inaugurated as federal program, states adopted corresponding legislation defining the urban renewal process for their cities. Common elements included the designation of an area as blighted, the preparation of a development plan, use of eminent domain for land assembly by the renewal agency, clearance, and marketing of the cleared land. (Koebel, 1996)

The urban renewal program was later criticized as “urban removal” and the “federal bulldozer.” By the early sixties, the civil rights movement and race riots began to call public attention to the destruction, dislocation, and broken promises of urban renewal. (Wilson et al., 1966)

Locally, the Redevelopment Authority of Philadelphia was a corporate body appointed by the major in 1945. Their task was to arrange for the elimination of blighted areas and the acquisition of property by force with eminent domain.

The Housing Act of 1949 stated that the government would pay two-thirds of the net cost uncured by the local authorities in purchasing and cleaning blighted areas. The University of Pennsylvania was able to raze West Philadelphia and displace thousands of people with the governmental financial encouragement. The University of Pennsylvania – with its abundance of resources and prestigious stature – was able to displace thousands of West Philadelphians under the pretense of “urban renewal.”

It has been estimated that 4,496 people were displaced, though some figures cite over 10,000. So close were the members of this community that despite being displaced and scattered by the so-called urban renewal (a.k.a., Negro Removal) efforts of the late 1960’s and 1970’s, they still, to this day, celebrate an annual reunion.

In 1976, six people from the neighborhood founded the Black Bottom Association. In September of that same year, the Association held a dinner party to celebrate their first “family reunion.” More than 100 people attended the affair.

The first Black Bottom Association annual picnic was held during the summer of 1984 at Belmont and Parkside Avenues. Two hundred people, contacted simply by word of mouth, attended the gathering. Many of the families had not seen each other since 1976. To this day, the Black Bottom Association has an annual picnic on the last Sunday of July.

In addition, On March 25th, 1999, the Council of the City of Philadelphia designated the last Sunday of August as Black Bottom Day in Philadelphia, “in fitting tribute to the great history and legacy of this great and historic community.”

Though the families may have been physically displaced, spiritually the former residents of the Black Bottom remain united.

Building of the University City Science Center

Perhaps the most controversial expansion that involved Penn was the building of the University City Science Center (UCSC) in the 1960′s. UCSC was conceived in 1963 by the West Philadelphia Corporation, or WPC. This corporation included the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, Presbyterian Hospital, and the College of Osteopathy (Reid, McNair, Royster, & Sisco, 1997). The WPC had three stated objectives:

1. “The preservation and attraction of educational, cultural, health and professional institutions of the highest order.”
2. “The protection and further development of residential areas enhanced by adequate schools, churches, recreational facilities and public services.”
3. “The maintenance and development of industrial and commercial enterprises and services which are compatible with residential patterns of the area” (Marks, 1971).

The WPC’s plan for the revitalization of West Philadelphia corresponded with the urban renewal programs being implemented all over the country at the time. They envisioned the Science Center as “an independent research complex, which would take advantage of the brains and talent in the area” (Focus, 1979).

It was no coincidence that the idea for the Science Center came on the heels of the addition of Section 112 to the Housing Act of 1947 (deLone, Nov. 1966). Section 112 “made funds generously available to cities whose redevelopment authorities would clear land for hospitals and universities” (1966). As a result, West Philadelphia was divided into urban renewal areas 3,4, and 5 (WPC Newsletter, 1965). The section slated for construction of the Science Center was 25 acres carved out of Area 3 (1965).

Area 3 consisted of a 105 acre tract of land running along Market Street between the University of Pennsylvania and Drexel University (1965). It encompassed the heart of the Black Bottom neighborhood. Redevelopers at the time estimated that “an investment of less than $5 million from the city to clear the land would generate more than $20 million in Federal funds and more than $300 million in private construction” (deLone, Nov. 1966). WPC believed that, with a relatively small investment, the erection of the Science Center would revitalize the surrounding neighborhood by bringing more jobs into the area, increasing city payroll taxes, and boosting real estate taxes (Reid et al, 1997).

The 20 acres designated for UCSC’s construction were described as “20 devastated acres of rundown bars and garages and warehouses” by the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1978 (Pothier, 1978). 529 families and 137 individuals still lived in these “devastated acres”, the majority of whom were elderly, poor, and black (1978). The average annual income of area residents was $4,000 (1978). This is the classic black / white scenario described by Massey and Denton (1993) that occurred all over America in the 1950′s and 1960′s – the widespread clearing of black neighborhoods that threatened white business districts and elite institutions in urban areas.

Woodland Cemetary with factories in the background (year unknown), Penn Publications.

To the residents of the black neighborhoods slated for redevelopment, “urban renewal” simply meant “Negro removal” (Massey & Denton, 1993). The citizens of the Black Bottom recognized that the promises regarding their benefit from the arrival of the Science Center rang false. The residents’ resistance against the building of the Science Center was so vehement, and their political action so effective, that full-scale construction was delayed for almost eight years. This delay almost caused the Science Center to lose its contract with the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority (Reid et al, 1997).

The first major clash between Black Bottom residents and the white institutions came in 1963, over the plans to build a science magnet high school on 7.6 acres of land in Unit 3 between 36th and 38th Streets, along Market Street (Reid et al, 1997). The blacks believed that very few of their children would gain entrance to the magnet school, which was being designed for the children of the faculty, staff, and graduate students of Penn and Drexel. Construction of the magnet school, to be called University City High School, would also displace families and individuals living in that section of Area 3. Following a sit-in held by 14 residents in the Mayor’s office in 1966, an agreement was reached between the Mayor of Philadelphia and the residents to allow a citizens’ group to redevelop the school’s 7.6 acres themselves (1997).

A group called the Citizens Development Group, lead by John H. Clay, submitted plans to build housing units on the site to the Redevelopment Authority (deLone, Nov. 1966). The Authority rejected the citizens group’s plans, claiming that the rents for the houses to be built in the plan – about $130 per month – were too high for the low-income families whom were currently living in the area (deLone, Sept. 1966). Clay believed that the Authority’s refusal of his plans was “. . . an effort to discourage grassroots participation in city planning and drive Negroes out of the area” (deLone, Nov. 1966).  In February of 1966, Clay filed a lawsuit against the Development Authority, the City Planing Commission, the Science Center, Drexel University, the Mayor, the City Council, and the WPC, “charging a conspiracy to deprive citizens of their civil rights” (deLone, Sept. 1966).

The dispute over the construction of University City High School was finally resolved in 1966 when the school board compromised its original plan to include compensation for displaced residents (Eds., 1966).  The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was withholding funds from the Science Center because of the Department’s policy that “any urban renewal project in an area of racial tension which threatens to produce violence should be submitted to Washington for review” (deLone, Sept. 1966).  In late July of that year, residents warned regional HUD director Lawrence Prattis that “bloody riots could result” if the plans for the science magnet high school went ahead as scheduled (Sept. 1966).  Although the land for the building of the actual Science Center was not involved in this dispute over the high school, the association between the two projects caused the Science Center’s construction to be delayed as well because renewal projects are approved as a whole, not “piecemeal”, as HUD specified in its policies (Sept. 1966).

Under pressure from irate residents and the WPC, who was eager to unblock progress on the adjacent University City Science Center, the school board reduced the land for the school from 16 to 14 acres (Eds., 1966).  They also stated that houses in this two acre tract “would be rehabilitated instead of destroyed, and made available as needed to residents displaced by school construction” (1966). While the residents of the Black Bottom were unable to halt the construction of the school, the concession of the 2 acres of land for rehabilitated housing was an important victory. The fact that community members were willing to actively resist the city’s redevelopment of their neighborhoods conveyed a strong message to the WPC and the other institutions involved in the urban renewal project – that the people of the Black Bottom were a force to be reckoned with.

Despite WPC’s grand designs for University City High School as a magnet school and a feeder school to the universities in the area, white residents were loathe to send their children to an urban public high school. Black residents who were relocated in neighborhoods nearby sent their children to the school. Today, University City High School has a student body that is predominantly African American.

As of September 1966, the only Science Center building standing after five years of bitter fights with local residents was the three-story former printing plant at 3401 Market Street (Reid et al, 1997). But the most intense conflict was yet to come. The friction over the University City High School sharpened the ill will the Black Bottom residents held towards the Redevelopment Authority and the WPC (1997). Many believed that these two organizations had a vested interest in letting blight pervade Area 3 so that the Authority could declare the land fit for clearance and expand their plans for construction of the Science Center (1997). Some residents also believed the Authority was in collusion with the city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections (L&I) to let the neighborhood run down so that people would move out (deLone, Nov. 1966).

Penn construction sight (year unknown), Penn Publications.

It was clear by 1968 that the injustice felt among Black Bottom residents towards the urban renewal project in Area 3 had caught the attention of sympathetic students and faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. In July of that year, construction was underway on a $1.5 million four-story building to house the University City Science Institute, and on other Science Center buildings that would span the south side of Market Street from 34`h to 36th streets (Osborn, 1968). On December 6, 1968, 200 Penn students marched through the school’s campus in protest, demanding “…that classified defense research be halted at the science center and that the center provide housing for the people whose homes were razed to provide room for science center expansion” (Daniszweski, 1973).

The student group that organized the march, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), decried the urban renewal plan for Area 3 as a means of institutionalizing West Philadelphia instead of providing affordable housing and productive jobs for the community residents (Fels, 1968). The goal of SDS in their resistance against the Science Center was to bring a more fair and equitable distribution of money and power to West Philadelphia. Following the march, SDS presented seven demands to Gaylord Harnwell, then president of the University of Pennsylvania (Harnwell, 1969).

Six of the seven demands related to the Science Center, and required:

1. “…that the University disclose all matters relating to the origin and purpose of the University City Science Center”
2. “…that decisions involving expansion of the University and the allocation of its resources be made by the University Community as a whole”
3. “…that a portion of the University budget be allocated for the pressing needs of the surrounding community for such projects as that community shall determine”
4. “…that the corporations represented on the University of Pennsylvania board of trustees provide the money necessary for the building of a significant number of low-cost housing units in Unit 3″
5. “…that the University City Science Center provide land, housing, and community services for all the people displaced by the creation of the Science Center”
6. “…that the Science Center have no classified, military related research on development contracts” (1969).

Harnwell’s replies to the students’ demands skirted the issues for the most part, as he promised to appoint “special committees”, pointed to university – community programs that were already in place, and denied responsibility for the military research contracts at the Science Center (1969).

Displeased with Harnwell’s replies to their demands, SDS organized an even bigger demonstration in 1969, consisting of about 850 students, community members, and University faculty members (Reid et al, 1997). A group of 300 people held a six-day sit-in at Penn’s College Hall, to fight for the demands that SDS had laid out the December before (1997). This time, however, the activists made significant progress towards having Penn and the Science Center agree to their demands. The trustees of the University met with the sit-in leaders, and agreed to establish a special committee to oversee the further expansion and research policies of the Science Center (Croyell, 1969).
It was called the Quadripartite Commission, and consisted of “five community members designated by Renewal Housing, Inc. [a community-based redevelopment organization], five University of Pennsylvania students designated by the community of demonstrators, five faculty members designated by the University’s Faculty Senate, all but one of whom must reside in West Philadelphia, and five University trustees” (Croyell, 1969). The Quadripartite Commission was given the following powers:

• the right to review and approve or veto the Science Center’s future land acquisitions which affect residential areas;
• the right to make certain that the University builds adequate and affordable housing for residents it displaces when it expands its campus;
• the right to establish a $10 million fund for community renewal programs through the channeling of funds from area corporations, businesses, institutions and agencies;
• the right to have the same influence on redevelopment policies as the University Council; and
• the right to be appropriated $75 thousand per year for the operation of the Commission (1969).

The Commission was also assured that the University’s Board of Trustees would publicly support the effort to have the housing units for displaced persons be funded without a wage tax increase or a lowering of the quality of life of West Philadelphia residents. In addition, the trustees requested that the Science Center “not … take on classified defense research” (Schwartz, 1969). The Science Center approved this request, and discontinued weapons contracts with the military (1969).

While the Quadripartite Commission was not able to recover land already lost to the Science Center, they worked out a deal with the Center to set aside 2.5 acres for low income housing located between 39th and 40th streets, along Market Street (Hoffman, 1969). Initially the Science Center refused to yield any of its land for this purpose (McKenna, 1970). In January 1970, the Chairman of the Science Center’s board of directors, Paul J. Cupp, stated that “giving up any part of the land being developed by the center would seriously disrupt the effectiveness if not the success of the center” (1970). The Quadripartite Commission publicly denounced the Science Center for their refusal to cooperate, and stated that the Presbyterian-University Medical Center had already agreed to yield a portion of its land on which 112 housing units could be built (1970).

In response to the public outcry, and most likely out of fear of losing their federal funding, the Science Center agreed to open negotiations with the Quadripartite Commission on January 23, 1970 (Dasco, 1970). These negotiations resulted in the Center acquiescing 2.5 acres of its land for low-income housing units (1970). The acreage was less than the 3.4 originally requested by the Commission, and the units were not completed until 1984 (Reid et al, 1997). However, the agreement signified that the Science Center was attempting to work with the community instead of against it.