Grid Philly - March 2009 - (Page 18) North Philly changes before our eyes transitioning story by will dean with additional reporting by dana henry abandoned textile mill ↙ before winter 2003 coral street arts house fall 2005 after ↘ hen you think about a sustainable city, what does it look like? Whether it’s a futuristic, shiny sci-fi wonderland or a green treehouse-like Ewok village, you probably don’t think of North Philly. With it’s abandoned industrial buildings and bad reputation for drugs and crime, it doesn’t seem like the place where a bright new future full of efficient gadgets and green spaces will emerge. That kind of thinking is a barrier, though, because it’s exactly in those kinds of places that local sustainability can emerge, and on February 4 the Fishtown, East Kensington and Old Richmond sections of North Philly made a step towards becoming the most sustainable section of the city, and perhaps even the country. Sustainable 19125 (the zip code for the area) is a new program assisted by the New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) and the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS). The details of the program aren’t finalized, but it will probably include traditional sustainable initiatives like more urban gardening, classes on how to install rainwater barrels, the construction of a walkable greenway and incentives to encourage improvements like green roofs and solar water heaters. New Kensington and PHS are currently leading the effort after receiving grants from the William Penn Foundation of over $500,000, but they plan on getting local groups and community members to take the idea and use it in their own ways. “It’s about sustainability and investing in the earth,” says Sandy Salzman, executive director of New Kensington. The program will also invest in people with more classes for local students run by Earth Force, a Colorado group that educates school kids on environmental issues. 18 g r i d p h i l ly. c o m march 2009 18 W Although it seems ambitious, Sustainable 19125 is just one more in a series of changes the area has undergone in the last several decades, including a long decline and a recent revitalization shepherded by New Kensington and Salzman. salzman is a small, grey-haired woman with a powerful energy behind her twinkling eyes, and she has seen North Philly change. She grew up in Fishtown, as did her father and her grandfather. Her family’s home, on the 1700 block of Frankford Ave., was part of a row of storefronts with apartments above, and as a kid she played roller skates and hide-and-seek in the empty grocery store below. Today that building is a parking lot. “The neighborhood had started a descent since the ’50s,” she says. “The block I lived on was demolished… Our houses are rowhomes, so when one house goes, it takes others with it.” Most of the houses in the area were built using salmon brick,
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