"The southern end of Powelton Village includes property owned by Drexel University. Many students from Drexel live off-campus in Powelton's urban-structured row-house apartments because of the short walk to campus. The Powelton community has had a love-hate relationship with Drexel University. The Powelton Village Civic Association voices its members' concerns to local authorities. One of the members' concerns included the loss of their view of Center City, prompting Drexel University to limit the height of their new buildings."
I have always found that when when someone tells me that I should avoid a place because they had a horrible experience I find my way there to discover for myself and more often than not I have an amazing time. With that being said I went and explored our neighborhood with an emphasis on the Belmont section. I should state that it is an interesting neighborhood but should be approached with extreme caution, especially with the time of the day. Avoid visiting in the afternoon and definitely avoid sunset or after dark. My first visit was during the mid day last Wednesday and my most recent was Friday morning. All was good until I passed 42nd street on Lancaster, for the most part all was safe and I was able to engage some people in limited conversation but it was mostly about what I was doing in the neighborhood, some negative, some positive. Unfortunately, as I moved into Belmont the encounters were strictly visual with some rather interesting looks; nobody approached me except a young lady who appeared to be mentally disturbed but very sweet. For the most part the neighborhood was run down but did hold some surprising finds such as a beautiful neighborhood park,large Victorian style stone school, new modern section 8 housing and, for the most part, well kept lawns especially with the city owned areas and vacant lots, however some streets appeared to be abandoned and boarded up, until that is when some one stepped outside to sit on the stoop or porch. The neighborhood dramatically improves as you move east towards Mantua where everyone was friendly and didn't seem concerned I was wondering around. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ushuaia-x/ the url should send you my flicker page with pictures. The photos focus on Lancaster between Drexel and Belmont, The first picture is from Drexel looking west and the last picture is Belmont looking east towards Drexel. The idea was as you follow the photos you see how the street changes from trendy bars to vacant lots and appliance shops indicative to a neighborhood vastly different from Drexel.
ALeiser - I really enjoyed looking at your pictures on flickr. I liked the idea of staying on Lancaster and taking new pictures block by block. It was very interesting to see the changes in your surroundings and how quickly things changed once you moved away from Drexel's campus. I especially liked how you included captions stating specifically where you were. I am familiar with the area but there were a lot of pictures of areas I did not recognize, and it was engaging to go through.
"The southern end of Powelton Village includes property owned by Drexel University. Many students from Drexel live off-campus in Powelton's urban-structured row-house apartments because of the short walk to campus. The Powelton community has had a love-hate relationship with Drexel University. The Powelton Village Civic Association voices its members' concerns to local authorities. One of the members' concerns included the loss of their view of Center City, prompting Drexel University to limit the height of their new buildings."
ReplyDeleteI have always found that when when someone tells me that I should avoid a place because they had a horrible experience I find my way there to discover for myself and more often than not I have an amazing time. With that being said I went and explored our neighborhood with an emphasis on the Belmont section. I should state that it is an interesting neighborhood but should be approached with extreme caution, especially with the time of the day. Avoid visiting in the afternoon and definitely avoid sunset or after dark. My first visit was during the mid day last Wednesday and my most recent was Friday morning. All was good until I passed 42nd street on Lancaster, for the most part all was safe and I was able to engage some people in limited conversation but it was mostly about what I was doing in the neighborhood, some negative, some positive. Unfortunately, as I moved into Belmont the encounters were strictly visual with some rather interesting looks; nobody approached me except a young lady who appeared to be mentally disturbed but very sweet. For the most part the neighborhood was run down but did hold some surprising finds such as a beautiful neighborhood park,large Victorian style stone school, new modern section 8 housing and, for the most part, well kept lawns especially with the city owned areas and vacant lots, however some streets appeared to be abandoned and boarded up, until that is when some one stepped outside to sit on the stoop or porch. The neighborhood dramatically improves as you move east towards Mantua where everyone was friendly and didn't seem concerned I was wondering around. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ushuaia-x/ the url should send you my flicker page with pictures. The photos focus on Lancaster between Drexel and Belmont, The first picture is from Drexel looking west and the last picture is Belmont looking east towards Drexel. The idea was as you follow the photos you see how the street changes from trendy bars to vacant lots and appliance shops indicative to a neighborhood vastly different from Drexel.
ReplyDeleteALeiser - I really enjoyed looking at your pictures on flickr. I liked the idea of staying on Lancaster and taking new pictures block by block. It was very interesting to see the changes in your surroundings and how quickly things changed once you moved away from Drexel's campus. I especially liked how you included captions stating specifically where you were. I am familiar with the area but there were a lot of pictures of areas I did not recognize, and it was engaging to go through.
ReplyDelete