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Serving Our Communities
Major Developments
As your State
Representative, I will be involved in every part of the community. There
is, however, one area to which I want to give some special attention,
because it has the potential to benefit all of us. The 198th
district has a potential gold mine in it, if only we had leadership that
could see it. There are empty, dilapidated factory building on both
sides of Wissahickon Avenue at Hunting Park Avenue as well as a
great deal of vacant land. Right now, this is a decaying area. But think
about it: Where else in the city is there so much potentially
developable property that is close to two major highways—the Roosevelt
Boulevard and the Schuylkill Expressways—and is also on a train line,
the R-8. Imagine some of these old factory buildings—perhaps the ones
right on the train line— redeveloped as urban malls complete with movie
theaters and recreation centers. This area would be accessible to the
Center City, the Northeast, and Center City as well as to our own
neighborhoods in Northwest Philadelphia.
Development of this kind would spur the conversion of other old factory
buildings to housing and would lead to the redevelopment of the existing
housing stock. It would create thousands of jobs that would even give
people with limited education the chance for real careers.
Conversion of
factories to commercial and residential buildings is happening
everywhere in this country—I have been looking for those sites when I
travel to different parts of the country. Why can’t it happen here? One
thing I have learned is that projects like this don’t just happen.
Federal and state money will be needed to create a new train station and
a new exit ramp from the Roosevelt Boulevard and perhaps for other
purposes as well. And people in the business community will have to be
convinced of the opportunities to be found here.
Is this a sure
thing? No. But I have already begun talks with people who might help
push a development like this along. With the right kind of leadership
tremendous things might happen in our communities. We won’t know if they
are possible if no one tries to bring them about. One job of our State
Representative is to dream about what Northwest Philadelphia can be, and then work to realize that dream.
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