Dead End Street Read online

  “We should take a step backward and explain,” Tyrone said. “As she told you, Cherisse works for the city, in the department that is responsible for inspecting and all too often condemning buildings that are too unsafe to occupy. Ideally they would be torn down to make room for new units of affordable housing, but I’m sure you can understand that that is often impossible, given the city’s financial constraints. Which is a shame, because it means that not only homes are lost, but so are entire historic neighborhoods—the rich diversity that Philadelphia’s past offers.”

  Tyrone clearly cared about this subject, and I was beginning to see a glimmer of light. “You said you were in charge of a partnership? What does that do?”

  “The partnership is a nonprofit coalition of agencies and individuals such as real estate developers who are seeking to salvage the old neighborhoods before they are lost forever, by rehabbing whatever buildings are viable and creating new structures that emulate the styles that came before. The ones that once created a sense of community. I’m sure you know what I mean—triple-decker row houses with porches or front steps where people could sit for an evening and interact with their neighbors. Corner stores that provide the essentials. Pocket parks that offer children a safe place to play, not too far from home. Day care. Schools. Simple restaurants.”

  I realized I was confronted by a pair of zealots, but I had to admire them for trying. “I love your vision, but how do you make it happen?”

  “By using a multipronged strategy,” Cherisse took up the thread eagerly. “The city has the properties on its books and doesn’t want them. But we know the legal processes necessary to gain clear title, and we have the clout to follow through. To go after absentee landlords, or those people who have walked away, unwilling to pay taxes or maintain the buildings. Tyrone here has the vision to see the possibilities and the connections to the neighborhoods—and the charm to sell it to the people who matter.”

  “The ones who have the money, you mean.”

  Tyrone grinned, which made him look boyish. “Well, yes. It takes money to make something like this work, but not as much as you’d think. We’d love to be able to use laborers who live in those very neighborhoods, so they have a stake in the outcome. The big chain stores are scared to step up and move in, but we can recruit smaller ones, or single-shop owners—again, ones who live there, who want to raise families in a place that feels like home. Not a slum with bars on all the windows. Everyone wins.”

  His enthusiasm was infectious. “Well, I’ll tell you up front that we have no money, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

  “We know that—you’re a nonprofit, just like we are. But you have the resources to provide the history of the neighborhoods we’re targeting. And before you protest, we aren’t going to try to do this all over the city, all at once—that would be a recipe for disaster, spreading ourselves too thin. We want to start with a single showcase neighborhood and do it right. Bring it in on budget, retain the old residents, and attract new ones. Show what can be done. We’ve got some smart businessmen on board, and they’ve been crunching the numbers. We’ve got some journalists, both print and electronic, on our side, so we’ll get press attention. But what we need from you is a way to flesh out the story, to show what the place once was—which most living people never knew or have forgotten—which will show them what it could be again.”

  Without committing myself, I was already mentally reviewing what resources we had in the building, and who might have the time to commit to a project like this, even if it was only part-time, like a day a week. Lissa Penrose would be one possible choice. And when I thought of her, I realized that Eliot Miller could be a real asset (unless he hated the whole idea—I hadn’t spent enough time with him to know his philosophy of urban development or redevelopment). Eliot was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and he was seeing Marty Terwilliger, uber–board member of the Society, and a tireless cheerleader for those projects she cared about. Eliot had been nominated for a vacant seat on the Society’s board, and I thought his academic area of expertise—urban planning—would complement the roster of lawyers and business people we already had on the board, in addition to Marty, who brought an encyclopedic knowledge of Philadelphia history plus three generations of board commitment. If I could get all of them on the same page . . .

  I was already building castles in the air when I realized that Tyrone was speaking to me. “Excuse me, I got caught up by what you were planning. Could you repeat what you said?”

  “I was saying that we think North Philadelphia is the best neighborhood to start. It’s close to Center City, and there’s already some interest in turning it around, so we could see substantial results fairly quickly. And you—or, rather, the Society already has a stake in it.”

  “We do?” I said, bewildered.

  “Yes,” Cherisse said. “The Society owns a property right in the middle of the neighborhood.”

  CHAPTER 2

  I tried to maintain an intelligent expression while I processed that statement. Nope, that didn’t ring a bell.

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I said. “You’re saying that the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society owns a piece of property? I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that the Society had divested itself of all property holdings quite a few years ago. Long before my tenure here.”

  Cherisse gave me a perfunctory smile. “If you’re familiar with our office, you might be aware that things have been known to fall through the cracks. Your organization may well have sold off its holdings, but it could be that the original property transfer to the Society was not recorded correctly, so it was not included in whatever list you had. But when we began looking into this particular neighborhood in more depth, we made a thorough search, and the original record turned up.”

  “Ah,” I said. “I can understand how that might happen. But what is it you want us to do about it? Give it to the city, or to your organization? Sell it to you for a dollar?” Other, more troubling ideas came bubbling up, like whether we would be responsible for back taxes for who knew how many years, or fines. “I can assure you that we were unaware of this oversight.”

  Tyrone hurried to step in, after sending a warning glance at Cherisse. “Ms. Pratt, I’m sure we can resolve that question without any penalty. However, the process could take some time—time we don’t have. The building you own is in perilous condition, and slated for demolition, if it doesn’t fall down first. Let me explain, since you aren’t familiar with it. It’s a single row house that’s lost its row. It’s the last of its kind on an entire block, the only survivor of a once-vital part of the neighborhood. As such, it has some symbolic value, and we’re planning a couple of public events around it, once we clear up this title business—kind of a funeral for the building. Since it appears that the Society is the owner of record, you have the opportunity to step up and do some good.”

  I gathered my thoughts. “Mr. Blakeney, since this is news to me, I need some time to process this information. Before any decisions can be made, I need to inform our board of the issue and provide them with details, and I have to explore what options we have, and I should probably talk to our lawyer as well. I assume you have a timetable, but we may not be able to meet it. And I probably don’t need to tell you that we don’t exactly have a lot of money available to us, and much of what we have is restricted to specific uses, so I’m not sure what kind of help you think we can give you.”

  “Call me Tyrone, please. Like I said, we don’t expect money, and we don’t want to see you penalized for a mistake somebody made decades ago. But I want you to understand that this is a piece of Philadelphia’s history! If I understand it right, your institution is charged with preserving that history!” It was very clear that he was passionate about his cause.

  He had a point, and it hit home. But I couldn’t remember any project like this that the Society had taken part in, and I
wasn’t ready to commit to anything. “I agree in principle, Tyrone, but that doesn’t mean that I’m in a position to do anything about it, certainly not on such short notice. Surely if you’re part of a nonprofit organization you know that. Under normal circumstances there would be a procedure: we would assess the situation, and if the board approved action, we would most likely engage in a fund-raising campaign to raise money to support your efforts. I can see from your perspective that we could be a good ally.”

  Tyrone reined in his zeal. “Ms. Pratt, I do understand your position. But we don’t have that kind of time. I know that money is tight for everyone. What I’m hoping you can do is help us to generate public awareness of this situation. Your institution has the potential to do immeasurable good, with your archival resources and your membership. We’re not asking for money, and the building is beyond salvage. But if our organizations could work together, your efforts could help us to reach a wider audience than we could hope to on our own.”

  I was pretty sure that our memberships didn’t overlap. Was he asking me to share our donor list? Or was he trying to lean on the Society as an absentee landlord, even though we hadn’t been aware of it? Still, I smiled at him—he was persuasive, and he certainly seemed to be sincere. “I appreciate your faith in our clout, but you have to recognize that we’re an old organization and we simply don’t move quickly. I need to discuss what role we could play with other people before we make any decisions.”

  The poor man looked deflated. Cherisse finally spoke again. “Ms. Pratt, maybe it would help if you could come see the property, and put the problem in perspective? I understand your reservations—and as a City employee, I know that bureaucracies, large or small, can move at a glacial pace. But this particular project has a time limit that was not of our choosing.” She glanced at her companion. “Would you be willing to come with us and take a look at the site? It won’t take more than an hour of your time—it’s not far away. Then you can review our documentation and proposals with a clear eye.”

  While I was still not enthusiastic about the idea, I did see her point. “When would you want to do this?”

  “Today? This afternoon?” Tyrone had come back to life, seeing a glimmer of hope.

  “Let me check with my assistant, who keeps my calendar. I’ll be just a moment.” I stood and walked to the door, pulling it nearly shut behind me as I approached Eric’s desk. “What’s my afternoon look like?”

  Eric pulled up the calendar on his computer screen. “You don’t have anything specific scheduled. Why?”

  “Our guests have invited me to see a decrepit building that the Society owns, in an area if town I’d rather not be in.”

  “Would you like me to give you an excuse not to go?” Eric volunteered, his voice low.

  I was tempted, but I said, “No, I guess not. If they’re right and the Society actually does own it, there may be legal issues, and I might as well deal with it now rather than later. Thanks, Eric.”

  I squared my shoulders and returned to my office. “It looks as though my schedule is clear for the rest of the day. What do you suggest?”

  Cherisse and Tyrone exchanged glances. “We have a meeting at eleven,” Tyrone said. “Why don’t we stop by and pick you up at, say, two?”

  Obviously they had no plan to wine and dine me, to win me over. “That sounds fine. It will give me a chance to go through our records here and figure out what happened, if I can. Could you give me the address, so we can check our files?”

  Tyrone rattled off an address, and I jotted it down. Then he and Cherisse stood up simultaneously. “Excellent,” Tyrone said. “We will be here at two, and we’ll take you to the site. I think our plans will be much clearer to you when you can get a sense of the area.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.” Not. “See you later, then.” We all shook hands, and I escorted my guests out to Eric, who in turn led them to the elevator and downstairs.

  The whole situation troubled me—I didn’t like surprises, not if they involved money and lawyers, which it appeared this one might. I wandered down the hall to chat with my director of development, Shelby Carver. Shelby had joined the Society at about the same time as Eric—they were my first hires when I’d been bumped up to the president’s office, and she had filled my former job. Shelby was from the South, too, and had proved to be an asset as a fund-raiser. She was also smart and observant, which more than made up for her somewhat thin résumé. I often used her as a sounding board for some of my ideas.

  When I rapped on the door frame, Shelby looked up from the stack of documents she was sorting through and said, “Business or pleasure?”

  “Development business, I think. You have a moment to talk?”

  “Anything for you, Madame President,” Shelby said with a grin. “Sit.” She waved at a chair.

  I pulled the chair closer to her desk. “I just had an odd visit from two people who work for the City. Or maybe one person with the City and another with a non-City agency, but they’re working together. Anyway, I have been informed that the Society owns a building in a blighted portion of the city. I looked like an idiot because I didn’t know we owned any real estate, except for the property where we sit. Can you provide any enlightenment?”

  “Lady, if you don’t know, after you put in several years in my job, how the heck am I supposed to know?”

  “Well, I didn’t know during those years, so now we’re even. I will admit that I have some vague memory of a discussion years ago, that in the past a lot of people chose to remember the Society in their wills with real estate rather than cold cash. Could be that was their only asset, or maybe they couldn’t unload it and figured their generous gesture would look good in their obituary or whatever. Anyway, my visitors said that somehow one—at least, I hope it’s only one—transaction didn’t get filed properly, so apparently we still own it.”

  “And the problem is what?” Shelby asked. “Can’t you just sell it now and be rid of it?”

  “Nothing is ever that simple, Shelby,” I told her. “It’s located in an area where I think I’m pretty safe in saying that there is no active market for property sales. That is, a slum. Maybe if these people hadn’t tracked me down, the property would have defaulted to the city and they could do whatever they wanted. But some eagle-eyed researcher found the mix-up, so now we’re on the hook for it.”

  “What do they want you to do?”

  “That’s kind of tricky, I think. If I understand it correctly—and mind you, I’ve spent all of half an hour with these people—they kind of dangled the hope that they would work with us to expedite the legal aspects if the Society would throw its weight behind some kind of neighborhood redevelopment effort.”

  “Publicly, you mean?” Shelby asked.

  “I think so. Kind of add some prestige to their efforts, and maybe give them some historic ammunition in their efforts to rebuild what was once a fine old neighborhood.”

  “Hmm,” Shelby said thoughtfully. “Is that a bad thing? I mean, the Society would get some visibility, and it would look like we’re fulfilling our mandate to preserve local history. They didn’t ask for money, did they?”

  “I told them flat out that we don’t have that kind of money. I guess our only bargaining chip is our standing in the cultural community.”

  “What happens if we don’t play nice with them?”

  “I don’t know. Somebody may really want this property to complete a larger lot for some plan we don’t even know about, although I don’t think anyone will offer to buy it from us. We could give it away, to the city or a private developer, if there is one, or to some kind of community organization, but I don’t know how the board will feel about that. I can’t make an executive decision anyway, so I have to take it to them. If we do nothing, we might get cited and fined for neglecting it. If something were to happen to someone there, we could have some liability. Obviously I have
a lot more questions than answers.”

  “Did they tell you that?” Shelby asked. “Smells a bit like blackmail.”

  “I didn’t get that feeling from either of them. I think they really are trying to do something good.”

  “So why’d you come to me? I know diddly-squat about how Philadelphia government works.”

  Shelby hadn’t lived in Philadelphia for very long, so that wasn’t surprising. “I know. I don’t either, really, and I’ve lived here a lot longer than you. What I was thinking is that you could go through the development records and see if there is anything on the original gift. And in addition to that, you can pull what we have about North Philadelphia.”

  “I know enough to stay out of the place,” Shelby said firmly. “Apart from that, that’s a job for a researcher.”

  “I know—if we move forward with this, which I haven’t promised, I was thinking it might be a good project for Lissa. But for now, just see if you can find anything on the property in our files, will you? I’m going to go see it this afternoon, and maybe after that I’ll have a better handle on things.”

  Shelby sighed, mostly for effect. “All right, I’ll check on it. What’s the address?”

  “387 Bickley Street, in the city.”

  Shelby wrote a note on a pad. “It’s not some gorgeous decaying mansion, is it?”

  “I’m told it’s a row house, minus the rest of the row. Kind of like the last tooth in an old neighborhood’s mouth.”

  “My, you have a way with words. You want to grab lunch first?”

  “Sure. I’ll need my strength. I’ll meet you back here at noon.”

  I went back to my office and sat at my desk, thinking. I was not a native Philadelphian. Although I had lived and worked in or around the city for more than a decade, I wasn’t intimately familiar with the histories of the individual neighborhoods, though I could give a pretty fair summary of the history of the city in its earliest years. But for the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, I had little to offer. I knew vaguely that some areas had once been home to prosperous industries, and that their workers had lived nearby. I also knew that such neighborhoods, in Philadelphia and many other major cities, had their own life cycles; that the industries had become obsolete and closed, or had migrated to the suburbs during the last century, leaving behind neighborhoods that had declined slowly and inexorably. I had a feeling I was going to see one of those today.