The Philadelphia Barrio by Frederick F. Wherry

Author:Frederick F. Wherry [Wherry, Frederick F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, General, Sociology, Urban
ISBN: 9780226894461
Google: 0R6qpQL6VloC
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2011-06-01T03:58:32+00:00

Source: Philadelphia Architects Workshop Survey, 1977, found in Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Balch Collection, MSS 118, Box 1, Folder 7.

Still, by 1977 the revitalization effort seemed to be paying off in low commercial vacancy rates and a varied mix of businesses. As table 5 demonstrates, a survey conducted by the Philadelphia Architects Workshop showed that most of the properties served commercial purposes (58 percent), and a smaller number were used as residences (17 percent). The remainder were for industrial or wholesale uses (2 percent); institutional or city-owned buildings (4 percent); parking lots, gasoline stations, and auto sales shops (2 percent); and vacant buildings or lots (17 percent).

Another survey, conducted the following year by the Spanish Merchants Association, came up with somewhat different numbers.21 The biggest difference between the studies lay in the number of properties included in the count: 192 in the Spanish Merchants Association report and 130 in the Philadelphia Architects Workshop survey. This difference stems partly from the fact that the Spanish Merchants included one more city block than did the Philadelphia Architects. The greatest similarity between the two studies is the reported percentage of commercial properties (57 and 58 percent, respectively). Notably, the vacancy rate is nearly double in the Spanish Merchants report, suggesting that the last city block excluded from the Philadelphia Architects survey included a number of vacant properties, or that the architects’ survey underreported the number of properties in the corridor. These discrepancies also suggest that the Spanish Merchants may have overstated the degree of economic hardship and the size of the existing entrepreneurial drive.

MANAGING THE IMAGE OF THE STOREFRONTS

In the late 1970s the attempt to transform ethnic difference into a branded advantage was well under way. Records kept by the Fifth Street Merchants Association indicate extensive conversations with cultural brokers from city hall and with architects working to promote local economic development.22 The discussions centered on framing the impression that the neighborhood gave outsiders by making the storefronts themselves represent the neighborhood’s ethnic identity. In its 1977 survey, the Philadelphia Architects Workshop assessed characteristics of the existing commercial storefronts and found that only about half of the storefronts had projecting signs and less than one-quarter had wall signs (table 6).

In 1978, the architects developed storefront design criteria as part of the revitalization plan for the Fifth Street corridor. They noted the importance of “ethnic pride and solidarity” among shoppers and merchants in the commercial district, as well as the effect of “theming” the landscape, on the reported sales among local enterprises:

The commercial corridor addressed in this booklet is a shopping strip along Fifth Street, extending some three blocks north from Lehigh Avenue in North-Central Philadelphia. It has been described as a neighborhood commercial center, serving the largely Hispanic community of over 60,000 people which surround it. The strength of this corridor is at least in part a result of the ethnic pride and solidarity of the shoppers and merchants here. . . .

The site improvements consist of the replacement of existing sidewalks with

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