"Duhhh.... I tell you evy-TING. He looka like a man!!!!"

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You can never have enough check cashing, wig shops, nail salons, hair braiding, cell phone, gold plated jewelry and sneaker stores in Philadelphia!!!

Take a stand. Today, I will do better.
http://www.hotghettomess.com/

Hmm.... I would think that operating an open corner store would be a safer prospect than say running a traditional type convenience or retail store.

Um...It's cheap?

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in the early 1970s.....We moved in 1978. We lived at 4th and Ruscomb. It was a stable, working class neighborhood until the late seventies. It was a great place.....lots of kids playing in the street. Block parties, everyone sat out on their porches in the evenings. We went to Incarnation of Our Lord Schoo, Cardinal Dougherty High Schooll. We shopped on 5th street. It was mostly white when I was growing up. I remember when the neighborhood started to integrate. When the first family of color moved on our block, they required a police car parked outside for three months.......their windows were broken, kids beaten up, etc.....Eventually all the whites left. I took a ride by there recently, on the street where I grew up, the houses are all falling down, grafitti and trash everywhere. Such a shame.

Quote: "Many of the comments posted here long before mine support something I firmly believe about Olneyites that have left the area - they loved their neighborhood more than any other people that moved out of a neighborhood. Does that make sense? People recalling Olney or longtimers still living there today, all rave about how fine a place it was to live. I regret that so many of those memories are often tied to it being all white - but I think many equate that to it having been all stably middle and working class at one time."

This is in response to the quote above:

I understand what it must sound like to you when people say things like "Olney has changed so much", or "the neighborhood's not what it used to be".

I live in a suburb just outside of Philly. This area has become more culturally diverse than it was when I first moved here in 1988. The difference between what is going on here and what went on in Olney in the late 1960's and 70's, is that people are not moving simply because people of different races and backgrounds are moving in. That's what happened in the 60's and 70's in the Olney area. It is more the 'fear of the unknown' than a prejudiced thing. Or at least they're not moving at the pace they did back then. Some still move hoping to find that 'perfect' place where everyone is the same. Good luck to them!

A woman who still lives on the block I lived on in Olney over 30 years ago, tells a story of what happened when she first moved to Olney in 1961. At the time, Olney was primarily settled by German-Americans, and I am assuming that many of those residents were also of the Jewish faith. This woman happens to be Irish-American and Catholic, and when she and many Irish-Catholic families migrated to the Olney area, the current residents complained that the neighborhood was changing. Apparently, we are stereotyped as always having tons of kids and not being the 'kind' of people you would want in your neighborhood. By the time I reached schoolage, I believe the majority of the children I played with were Irish-Catholic, which means that the German Americans and the Jewish people moved out when we moved in.

Does that make sense to you in relation to what happened when it was an all white neighborhood?

Also, I would have to say that growing up I didn't have any black friends. The reason for that was because there were no black children in my neighborhood at the time. In 1966, that changed, and black children were bussed into my elementary school. We did not know about black children, and black children did not know about us. That's okay to 'not know about other races', except that it caused the 'white flight' that you hear about so often. They were 'afraid of the unknown'. They didn't know what it would be like to live with black people, as I'm sure black people didn't know what it would be like to live with white people.

This is in sharp contrast to the way my children are growing up. They live and go to school with children of all races, and it has been this way since they were born. They don't understand when I tell them that from Kindergarten to 6th grade, there was not one black child in my school. They don't get it when I explain that the reason was that I didn't have any black children on my block or in my neighborhood. They just don't get it.

My oldest, who is now 24, watched the movie, To Kill a Mockingbird, for the first time when she was 6 years old. The "n" word is used constantly to describe one of the main characters, a black man. During the movie, my daughter turned to me and asked, "What does that word mean and why do they keep calling him that?" She never heard that word spoken by anyone and didn't know what it meant.

Also, people and children have changed more than neighborhoods. Children today, mine included, are nothing like me when I was growing up. Our world has changed, times have changed, and that makes people change, and that means that the way children are raised, changes. For the better, I hope.

I'm probably confusing you more, but to think back on the neighborhood where I grew up, I do say that it isn't the way it used to be. But where I am living now is nothing like it 'used to be'. Whether people think it's worse or better or not, It's just different, we're all different. And for the people who are saying about the trash and graffiti in the area, don't think that there isn't a lot of trash and run-down buildings, and graffiti in white neighborhoods now, because there is.

Many of the stores you hear about were the mom and pop type stores, now there are supermarkets and chains and the like.

I hope this clears it up a little for you.

I was up around Olney not to long ago. While I have no doubt that its got problems with crime, that neighborhood doesn't really look that bad at all. 5th street looks run down, but a lot of the residential blocks look nice. Fisher park is well kept. I don't think it's especially shameful.

Good post Fitz. Part of the difference is economic. Your close in suburb that's integrating is probably some place that's fairly prosperous like Elkins Park. Race always seems to be more of a factor when people aren't so well off, like in East Frankford or Summerdale.
Thoth, I agree that Olney generally looks decent as long as you stay north of Olney Ave.

Is there the prospect that the Olney neighborhood will get worse in the next 5-7 years? Things may be ok now, but they could eventually change.

It's hard to say one way or the other. I want to say no, but census data indicates that whites and middle class minorities are still trickling out. Then again, that's using comparitive data from 1990 and 2000. Things don't seem to have worsened dramatically since then. The spike in crime will likely make things worse, but I don't see any reason for the hood to deteriorate more than it already has. The factors caused its rapid decline aren't in place anymore, and baring some policy to actively make things worse (like the prison release programs in frankford) I don't see why it would suddenly worsen.
Unfortunately, it is desperately far from anywhere that large scale renewal might spring (i.e. city centers or gentrifying neighborhoods). It's not such a bad place now, people can still do their part to make it better.

One day my son was playing ball out in front of my house and he struck a car belonging to a neighbor across the street, twice. The neighbor politely asked me if I could direct my son to the playground to play ball instead. Then she said something that makes me somewhat understand what people of other races go through when they move to a neighborhood filled with people not like themselves. She said:

"In the 13 years I've lived here, I've never had my car hit by kids playing ball".

Which translated into "There hasn't been children playing on these streets for years, and now OMG here comes the families with kids".

So, it isn't just in the city. I remember old people complaining about me and my friends playing ball back in the 60's and 70's on Lawrence Street in Olney.