It's been a long time since I've frequented Woody's on Wed nite, but when I was in college in the 90's it was one of the few places that was fun to go to hang out when you couldn't go on other nights due to your age. I'm sure many young people (18-20ish) go there just to dance and socialize (and hook up, I'm sure), but not everyone was interested in the drugs and the trade. Perhaps better patrol of the neighborhood would help. (smarter cops, not more cops, is what one of my former students said this town needed) Where in Germantown should these "undesirables" hang out?

It's definitely true that there are drugs and debauchery in Suburbia and Mallville, but is most certainly not as in-your-face and numerous as the occurences in the crowds around Woody's and Washington West Project. I agree that the black kiddie queens you spoke of outside of Woody's need to be dealt with.

However, if you've ever braved the mess inside and upstairs, on and around Woody's dancefloor, you will also see a number of whacked-out washed up white meth heads well into their late forties or fifties. No to mention the trashy drunken screeching straight women holding court at "girls night out" or laughing at the "silly gays" during their bachelorette parties.

And Washington West Project's Monday or Tuesday evening drug-and-hollering-festival on the corner of 12th and Locust is out of control. The trannies and thugs blatantly smoke weed and exchange pills right on the sidewalk!

If we want to clean up the gayborhood and gay bars, let's focus less on the color of skin and contents of our bank accounts and more on educating the police (calling 911) and most importantly...policing ourselves.

__________________
Make a difference.

Heh... I've had to make a bathroom break at that specific Denny's when I was working in West Chester... to avoid having to go in a soda bottle while stuck on 95...

and on the inside, for what's supposed to be a wonderful area of Delaware County, the patrons sure did seem like a mini version of what Kensignton has to offer.

__________________
Buh-bye.

Really? so you want to create a gay black gayborhood separate from the already established gayborhood?


Because you can't stand black gay boys and girls? Because they all do drugs and live in filth?



And you wonder why people are calling racism?


And I understand why they hang outside Woodys. I'm there inside Woodys every week(I give out safe sex package and such) and that place is too small for the number that wants to get in on the second floor and kinda boring after the 5th Beyonce song....

I'm already trying to get my job to let us do more outside of Woodys on Wednesdays because this.


And if you really want to get them " to another area of the city" You gotta make something so they want to go there. Which means money

So I expect your donation soon.

__________________
I Rather Talk About HurricanesThen Pregnant Teens

I live directly across the street from the Wash West Project and have met one of its outreach coordinators.

A support/social group for teens meets there every Monday night. If the kids in the group are doing the stuff you describe, OzRob, then the group facilitators should say something to them and maybe lay down a rule or two.

The corner across Locust from the Wash West Project has been a longtime hangout for young prostitutes -- mostly black (and TV/TS), but some white too, and all young. (I happened to pass through this intersection last night on the way back home from a stroll through the Gayborhod as a cop car turned on its bullhorn to get about 7 people who were hanging on that corner to disperse.) It wouldn't surprise me at all if the streetwalkers and the kids mixed together.

Sometimes I too feel a little ill at ease making my way through that crowd, but most of the time it does not appear to me that they are about causing trouble.

That said, OzRob is still right about us policing ourselves.

__________________
Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden

It's not the color of the skin or the age of the criminal that matters. The folks that are crying racism and ageism should look at who is perpetuating the random acts of violence, drug use, and prostitution. Yes, it is black. And white. And Asian. And Hispanic. And Middle Eastern. And Eastern European...etc., etc.

Whatever.

I, along with my friends, collegues and neighbors have contacted the organizers and directors of Washington West and Mazzoni Center, along with the Weiss bandits to no avail. Now we just call 911. Everytime we witness something illegal. And it sometimes works for a while. I encourage everyone else to do the same.

__________________
Make a difference.

BTW, and again, not to gainsay your valid points, OzRob, but this particular district has a long history as a "sin strip."

Back in the days of Mayor Rizzo, the 1200 block of Locust was home to a string of strip clubs and rife with prostitutes. Rizzo managed to shut all the clubs down -- when I moved here in 1982, the shell of one of them, the Bag of Nails, still sat on the site of the building with the huge mural on its west wall that now houses the AIDS Fund -- but the prostitutes never completely went away. There are fewer of them -- the restrictions that forbade right turns on the block bounded by 12th, 13th, Locust and Spruce from 11 pm to 6 am vanished back in the early 1990s, but the overnight parking ban in the 200 block of South 13th Street remains -- but there remains that whiff of unsavoriness about the area. And yes, I've been approached by young men offering to sell me drugs.

__________________
Sandy Smith, Exile on Market Street, Philadelphia
“Basically I figure guns are like gays: They seem a lot more sinister and threatening until you get to know a few; and once you have one in the house, you can get downright defensive about them.” --Theresa Neilson Hayden