Honing housing

Michael Johnson vividly remembers a weekend he spent at the old Tasker Homes project with his son, Tyrone, five years ago.

Upon leaving the site at 30th and Morris streets, Johnson took note of peculiar markings on his burgundy Plymouth Voyager.

"I had three bullet holes on the side of my door," Johnson said. "I said to myself, ‘I will not be back.’"

Tyrone has since relocated to Southwest Philly and Johnson is elated Tasker Homes fell by the wayside. The city ordered their demolition in 2002.

"That was one of the most positive things that they could have done to the neighborhood," said Johnson, who has two children living in Tasker Homes’ successor, the Greater Grays Ferry Estates.

Seeing the site as a work in progress, Johnson formed the Greater Grays Ferry Brotherhood, which provides community children with activities.

New low- to moderate-income developments have been built upon former complexes notorious for their living conditions and violence. For example, the Tasker Homes replacement, Greater Grays Ferry Estates, is a $165 million project that includes 554 low-to-moderate-income housing units on its 40-acre site. Phase II of the project is expected for completion in 2006.

The Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) views the old projects – specifically high-rise units – as unsuitable housing options.

"They were eyesores. They were dangerous. They were basically unhealthy places to live. If we could roll back the clock, they would have never been built," said Kirk Dorn, PHA spokesperson. "If you jam too many people into a small space, it’s not going to work."

This demolish-then-rebuild tactic was the case at 13th and Fitzwater streets in 1999, when four high-rises at Martin Luther King Plaza, built in 1960, came crashing down. Rental and homeownership units now rest on the site. In January 2000, two of the Southwark towers – 26 stories high – also were demolished, making way for the Courtyard Apartments at Riverview, 470 privately managed townhouses at Fourth Street and Washington Avenue. Growing up in the area, the Rev. Cornelius Eaddy, pastor at the nearby Emanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, recalled the once-appealing apartments at the Southwark Housing Project.

"My brother and his wife lived inside the towers," he said. "They were nice looking inside, nicely arranged and constructed, but repairs were the big problem."

A feeling of apathy from some residents toward their living conditions ensued when the buildings were not kept up, which Eaddy said turned the site into a hotbed of crime during the 1970s.

"It was like a good idea gone bad," he said.

The new developments have instilled pride in their residents, Dorn said.

"When you go from living in a really bad environment to a nice environment, it entices you to take care of it," he said.

Dorn added the private sector, which has invested money in these projects, insists on strict rules and regulations, by which residents must abide.

While somewhat pleased by the Southwark towers’ destruction, Eaddy called the new development "the same product in different packaging."

"If the attitudes of people don’t change, they will be blowing up these houses here in 15 to 20 years," he said.

The pastor sees the implementation of a Southwark Development Corp.-sponsored performance troupe in his area as a start to provide children more ways to fill idle time.

"If we cannot focus our youth’s energy in a positive way, we’re not setting ourselves up for a future," said Eaddy, 43. "The community needs to take a better chance of opportunities that are given."

Johnson agreed children need more stimuli for growth – creating a positive future with warmhearted memories to match.

"Building homes was a Band-Aid, but you got to take that a step further," he said. "You can change the surface of the neighborhood, but you haven’t changed the [mentality]. In order to do that, you have to put something else there besides new homes."