Philadelphians, especially South Philadelphians don’t view time the way the rest of the world does. You know the “Slowskys” the two turtles from the TV ad, that don’t like anything fast, who refer to their dinner-guests as new neighbors even though the couple states they have lived nearby for over eight years? Though I’m not very fond of the company that runs them, I thought what a great commercial, clearly these tortoises are REAL Philadelphians!
Speaking as a life-long resident I consider anyone who wasn’t born here a new neighbor and I’m not alone. Whenever I speak to many of my other “landed-gentry”friends I hear the same time-related terms. “Oh! They have a new pastor at that church!” even though he has been there 15 years. Or “The kids who just bought, ‘such and such’ a store.” although they have owned it for 11 years. We South Philly folk don’t move fast and don’t like newbies telling us what’s what. However perhaps you can teach a mature canine a few au current moves, so to speak.
Two years ago a few new neighbors, some who have lived here for twenty years, some for twenty months, started putting up flyers wanting to form a civic association in the heart of South Philly. I had just returned from a month in Italy and my eighty year-old neighbors wanted me to check-out these “upstarts!” I went to a meeting at the Viking’s New Year club’s hall and it has been an extremely productive exchange of ideas ever since.
The East Passyunk Crossing Civic Association and Town Watch, Inc. (EPX) was formed in those summer months of 2006. EPX spans incorporated boundaries of Broad Street to 9th Street, Tasker Street to Synder Avenue where “Passyunk Avenue crosses the heart of this historic South Philadelphia neighborhood.”
EPX aims to provide a venue for our neighborhood, old and new, to have voice and visibility in how the community develops, to bring folks together who have an interest in improving the quality of life in our public spaces, while celebrating the diverse and vibrant character of this historic neighborhood. We hope to provide a forum to share information about services, events and news of interest that effect our neighborhood.
The mission of the Board of Directors of EPX is to uphold the goals of the Association. These goals, as stated in the Articles of Incorporation, are to “advance the civic pride and preserve the historic integrity of the incorporated boundaries of the 'East Passyunk Crossing' neighborhood through charitable purposes within the meaning of Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986." Much of the organizations business is conducted through a formal committee structure.
The five standing committees of the Board of Directors are Beatification (Clean and Green), Public Safety/Town Watch, Zoning/Planning, Community Relations (Marketing and Events) and Membership. In our first two years of incorporation EPX has seen the volunteer member driven committees accomplish remarkable feats. Some examples, of our efforts, are as follows.
“Clean and Green” sees monthly street clean-ups with thirty plus members in attendance and the greening of a local “community center” and the placing of planters at the gateway to the E. Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District.
Community Relations hosted a neighborhood fair in spring where hundreds learned tree planting tips, recycling ideas, area history and children’s crafts and is planning another for May 10th of this year at Neumann-Goretti High School.
Membership sold tickets to the student scholarship concert at N-G High School and held several restaurant sponsored “meet and greets” last summer.
Public Safety holds weekly Town Watch patrols and received an award form the local police district and plans a Phillies baseball night in June 2008.
Zoning and Planning has routinely sent members to Zoning Board Commission hearings and sponsored a children’s “Book Swap”through a grant from Scholastic Incorporated.
EPX remains a grassroots association of neighbors striving to compensate for shortages in the city’s budget by providing free services to our area. We succeed in meeting these needs while complying with our tax except status as an educational and charitable organization.
Our success is all contingent on volunteering! Philadelphians have always been wonderful volunteers at area hospitals, local schools, and churches. Now we need to step-up and volunteer to turn our great city around, again! Mayor Nutter has told us many times that what will bring our city fully into a renaissance are volunteers. So whether new neighbors start and long-term neighbors follow or vice-versa; pick-up your brooms and start sweeping, pick up your phones and start organizing, put some plants on your pavements or simply get involved with any of the wonderful civic associations, old and new, that already exist throughout our fair city.
Naturally EPX was a perfect fit for the Philadelphia Next Great City initiative. Many of EPX’s strongest volunteers and a feeder group to our Board have been the “Clean and Green” committees members. Next Great City is all about recycling and greening our city! In addition, many of the 10 points in the NGC agenda are high priorities form every civic association. Safer streets, better zoning and city planning, finer public transportation and parking accommodations are concerns every Philadelphian shares. But quite simply GETTING INVOLVED, with any and all the aspects of Next Great City, puts us all new and not-so-new residents together volunteering to turn our favorite home town around.
Learn a lesson from EPX! Those of us born and raised in South Philly are teaching the new kids what it’s like to truly love your neighborhood and appreciate having a vested interest in your environs beyond property-values. The new neighbors are starting to get us “lifers” up off our stoops and helping us to bring back some of the semi-faded glory from decades ago that we remember... “like it was yesterday!”
