ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, April 26, 1997 TAG: 9704280038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA
SOURCE: RAVI NESSMAN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Philadelphia residents welcome Sunday's makeover but don't want deeper problems overlooked.
Smashed beer bottles, crushed cans and other trash litter Vernon Park's paths and lawns. Graffiti cover a monument inscribed with George Washington's words.
That is supposed to change Sunday, when 2,000 volunteers open the Presidents' Summit for America's Future by cleaning up a gritty section of the city along Germantown Avenue.
Residents look forward to the fresh paint, but some worry it will cover up but not solve the neighborhood's deeper problems.
``It's like putting a Band-Aid on major surgery,'' said Andra Jennings, a 37-year-old mental health worker. ``It will help for morale, spirits, but are you going to give somebody a job, give somebody training? Then they may not have time to make that graffiti.
``We need more than symbols.''
An area near the north end of the cleanup zone boasts a proud role in U.S. history as the site of a Revolutionary War battle and temporary U.S. capital in 1793.
Washington slept here.
Now homeless people and drug addicts do.
``They forgot this place,'' said Archie Knight, 26, who runs a butcher stall. Government officials ``don't do anything or go anywhere until it's at the boiling point.''
The volunteers, including President Clinton and three former presidents, will meet first for a pep rally. Then they'll spread out along an eight-mile stretch of the avenue to paint walls, clean vacant lots and finish large murals.
``We're not under any illusion that eliminating graffiti eliminates poverty,'' said Donna Cooper, executive director of the mayor's office of community services. ``The real problems are whether we as a nation make a commitment to find jobs for people.''
The cleanup, however, is a way of giving the residents pride in their community and showing them the city has not forgotten them, she said.
James Spivery sat on his graffiti-scarred stairs in the Nicetown-Tioga section of the road wondering if it will take five days or 10 for the graffiti to return.
Despite his pessimism, Spivery, 25, looks forward to the cleanup.
``This avenue sure does need it,'' he said.
To ensure the project has a lasting impact, the city is declaring the road a zero-tolerance zone for graffiti. That means a maintenance crew will remove new graffiti within 48 hours, Cooper said.
The trip south through the cleanup zone is a slow tumble from the heights of prosperity to the depths of urban decay.
Chestnut Hill's upscale shops, manicured greenery and free-flowing gourmet coffee at the far north end of the zone fade to the vandalized buildings and littered lots of Germantown. Kensington's burned-out, vacant homes and rubble-covered land mark the end of the zone.
The workers assigned to Chestnut Hill will be pruning and cleaning local parks, Cooper said.
Volunteers farther down the street face a far more daunting task - lots filled with piles of old clothes, bottles and discarded tires.
Margie Reese has tried to keep her Nicetown neighborhood neat, but taking pride in a block with six abandoned houses is difficult.
``There are all these [homeless] people walking the streets and all these properties they could use,'' the 38-year-old said.
Joe Johnson, a 37-year-old handyman riding a bicycle past an abandoned building in Kensington, had little hope the volunteer effort would make a difference in the neighborhood.
``It's been like this for a long time,'' he said. ``It will be like this for a long time.''
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