Cleaning Up!

Here's our 4.5 man clean-up crew working its way down Wharton Street on this past Saturday morning as part of the City-wide Philly Spring Cleanup.

These early spring days are so remarkable - the sun is a little higher in the sky, it's comfortably warm out, yet there are no leaves out yet on the trees. Wharton Street at the Square has never been cleaner. Some people even cleaned up the NW corner on 12th at Wharton, which is always a huge leaf and trash trap.

Christine Knapp of the Passyunk Square Civic Association deserves dozens of trash bags filled with thank-yous for organizing this effort throughout the neighborhood. In an email on the PSCA email list, she reported that over 65 volunteers joined the effort, along with dozens of other people who cleaned their own stoops and blocks. As she put it, "I lost track of how many bags we collected, but the real proof of our success is how clean our streets are. I hope that the connections we made among our neighbors and the positive energy that was created both continue." Amen on that, Christine!

I'll pass on Christine's invitation: anyone who wants to get further involved in combatting trash and in promoting recycling should join the Passyunk Square Civic Association Trash and Recycling Committee, which meets on the 3rd Monday of each month at the Police Station at 11th and Wharton at 7pm. The Committee's next meeting is April 21st.

DiCicco Was RIGHT!

The Rec Center under construction, April 2007.

Well over a year ago - February 13, 2007, to be precise - I noted on this blog that City Councilman Frank DiCicco had announced that the Recreation Center would be finished in March ("33 Days and Counting"). DiCicco's announcement was dutifully reported in the South Philly Review.

But March came and went, and the Center remained unfinished. It remained unfinished all the way through 2007 and into 2008. Now, however, it's been announced that the Center will officially open in less than 2 weeks - on April 12, 2008.

So it turns out that DiCicco was right after all!

Stupid, foolish me! I thought Dicicco meant March of 2007, when in fact in he must have meant March of 2008 - an entire year later.

You do have to admire such a politician. Such perspicacity! Such an uncanny ability to take the long view! So perceptive about how events will unfold in the future!

In the photo above, also from April 2007, you can see workers fabricating the sheet metal ribs that cover the roof. They came out on a Saturday to do this work, but then the completed pieces remained in the Rec Center for weeks before being installed on the roof.