Filed under: 4224 Baltimore Demolition, Displacement, Future Plans, Gentrification, Licenses & Inspection (L&I), Real Estate, Zoning | Tags: eviction, west philly
Pre-Civil War building at 4224 Baltimore Ave destroyed
As anyone who has passed by Clark Park recently knows, developers have destroyed the historic mansion at 4224 Baltimore Ave.
Photos of the demolition:
Flickr gallery from eye-of-thundera
A quick primer article from University City Review here.
Copy of the letter from L&I to nearby residents:
___________________________________________
City of Philadelphia
Department of Licenses & Inspections
January 28, 2009
NOTICE OF PENDING DEMOLITION FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT:
04224 BALTIMORE AVE
Pursuant to the requirements of The Philadelphia Code, Title 4, Subcode “A,”
Section A-303-2, you are being notified by this Informational Bulletin that
the structure located at the subject address is scheduled for demolition to
begin on or after July 3, 2008. (Then, that date is crossed out, and this is
handwritten:) Jan. 28, 2009
In accordance with The Philadelphia Code, this notice is provided as an
informational courtesy only and does “not create any actionable right for any
resident or owner of the subject property or any neighboring property.”
For information concerning the demolition, please contact:
CAMPANELLA JAMES & ASSOC INC
1601 S CHRIS COLUMBUS BLV
PHILADELPHIA,PA 19148-1404
Klehr Harrison Harvey Ronald J. Patterson, Esquire
Perry Cocco (this is handwritten in, above the name below which is crossed
out):
Steve Gallagher, Supervisor
West District
43rd and Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-2969
215-685-7680
________________________________________
This is the building on the south side of Baltimore which sits high up on a
hill, back from the street, and has the empty lot next to it which used to be a
community garden. The building formerly housed a women’s shelter. It’s
across Baltimore Ave. from the original Green Line, and across 43rd St. from
Clark Park.
>From the UC Historical Society website:
4224-26 Baltimore Ave
John Neil McGarvey, developer
c.1860
E.A. Wilson, architect for renovations
c.1920
Two, three-story, two-bay, brick with stone facade Second Empire, semi-detached houses. Distinguishing features include stone and iron fence around terraced yard, porch, segmentally arched windows, bracketed cornice, convex mansard roof with pedimented dormers and slate shingles, ground floor bay windows.
________________________________________
The site was purchased from developer James Campanella by Thylan Associates, a developer that has fingers in many, many pies, for a cool 3.5 million dollars. Thylan promptly demolished the residence, and one can only assume he wants to build condos overlooking the park. Thylan also owwns 4508 Chestnut, a building which is now rented out handsomely to the UPenn LIFE senior living center, as well as an abandoned warehouse at 13th and Callowhill which is planned to become luxury lofts. He also owns developments all over New York City and Putnam, Westchester, and Dutchess counties. Oh wait, I forgot, he owns 1111 Locust St and a bevy of properties in Connecticut. Lenard Thylan, the head honcho of the development company, had to go and brag about being a rich, soulless gollum to the New York Times a decade ago. What wonders Mr. Thylan must have worked since then in the lucrative field of gentrification, er real estate development.
It’s clear that to buy a property essentially just for the double lot, and tear down a giant building in livable condition worth at least $600,000 in its standing state, must require a pretty elaborate plan. I mean, how many condos do you have to sell to break even on just the land? A lot. Residents of West Philly should expect big, tall, ugly things from Thylan Associates in months to come. RIP 4224-26 Baltimore.
Filed under: Licenses & Inspection (L&I), Real Estate, University City District, Zoning | Tags: expansion, university city
Why does this man get it more than you do? BJ Widick, author of Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence, is one of the few people who fall into the category of “old white men” who get it. Before his untimely death last year at the age of 97, Widick was well known as a Columbia prof and unionist, and a good Serbian/Midwestern rabblerousing hybrid that exemplifies what makes this country great. (Or as they say in the vaporous toxic cloud of University City marketing, what makes this place so very diverse and special. Desirable diversity, the hot new fetish!)
Below is an excerpt from Detroit that was actually transcribed from a Gary Nunn radio broadcast from 1957. Behold.
“The Real Estate Board pursues–and enforces–a policy which will in time spread the ghetto, block by block, until it becomes the entire heart of the city. You can watch it happening almost day by day. As a Negro family moves a block away from the ghetto’s former boundary, real estate agents go to work on the fears of the white residents in that block. The prospect of a double sale is created; a new home to the panicked white seller, and an old one to another Negro. Block by block it works…There are no apparent legal weapons against a group of men [the Detroit Real Estate Board] who practice the most vulgar racism in their internal membership policy–whose external policy results in what we could only describe (should it happen in any other country) as a form of Fascist race segregation and economic discrimination based on race.”
Gee, radio sure was different back then. It should be noted that is not just realtors who are factors in the displacement of people of color–the State functions as an apparatus of the rich to declare buildings out of code, unsafe for habitation (thanks L&I!) and thus ripe to be picked up on the cheap by whites with cash-in-pocket. If you don’t know already, most people cannot get a loan/mortgage from a bank unless a house is in “habitable” condition, e.g. conforms to code, has working furnace and water heater, needs no major repairs. Why? Because if you default on your payments or they jack the rates, and they then repo your house, they want to be able to sell it easily for more cash money. See the cycle? In order to buy foreclosures or condemned/gutted properties, the buyer must have 100% cash, which leaves the option of a buyback out of the question.
At this point I’d like to introduce some of the great new tools of the trade that scum sucking devil worshipping money grubbing, ahem, West Philly real estate professionals, use to research which properties to buy and essentially steal based on the support of wonderful public-private partnerships like the University City District.
Number one on the list is Trulia, very popular as a way to search forclosed homes and fancy gentrified flipped homes. They won’t be honored with a link, but you can probably figure it out. See how much your neighbors are trying to flip their “gorgeous renovation” for.
Number two is Property Shark. This requires an account but it is bona-fide free. This gets you into the property history of any address, complete with zoning info, last sale price, mortgage status, and neighborhood demographics. See how little your landlord paid for the building in which you rent an apartment, or how much those yuppies on the corner paid. See how one building is against zoning code, or how every building on your block is owned by some absentee landlord from Florida.
These tools can be used for subversion or for ill. More on all this in another edition of University City.
