The Neighborhood
I grew up in the Polish ghetto of Chester, Pennsylvania. I use the word "ghetto" in the sense that in those days neighborhoods were ethnically segregated. The Poles held the area between Front Street and Fourth Street. Beyond that other immigrant groups had staked out similar enclaves. It was never clear to me why I had to stay away from the Irish and Italian neighborhoods; the map in my child's mind said simply "there be monsters."
The Polish people of my grandparent's generation were known as the working poor. My grandfather had to quit school when his father died. George Czyszczon became the family breadwinner at age twelve. The custom at the time was to keep a seat open on the factory line for the eldest son. This practice was the only form of social security other than charity on offer at the time. Somehow the family of seven survived the Great Depression if only barely. Then came the war. The neighborhood sent its young men off to fight. My great uncle Joe had one leg three inches shorter than the other, but that didn't exempt him from service. He was sent to Puerto Rico as part of the American garrison. Most of the boys returned; a few did not.
My grandparents owned a modest row house on the 100 block of Thurlow St. Some people called it the wrong side of the tracks. Actually, we were on the tracks. We used to shoot cans off the rails with a BB gun from the neighbor's porch. I guess to the older folks the activity seemed far safer than the old practice of sending young boys up the side of a moving train to rob the coal cars of their precious fuel. Despite our "poverty" the neighborhood was thriving.
St. Hedwig's Catholic Church marked the center of our community. The parish was large enough to require five masses on Sunday. Joe Szpock and Handsome Harry were the only two exempt from attendance because Joe was a bum and Harry was mad. Joe lived in an abandoned car behind the hardware store and made his living doing odd jobs. Harry owned a row house next to my aunt. I guess he was harmless, but his sudden appearance always sent our gang scurrying for cover. The neighborhood monster was tall and oily with fingernails an inch long. When he got sick, the local women took him food and medicine. We looked after our own.
Life was simple and routine. We had work and church, kielbasa for dinner, and Phillies baseball on the AM radio. The streets were clean and free of crime. You painted your concrete porch and front steps every spring. They didn't need it every year, of course, but to neglect this duty might earn you a reputation as a slacker. Kids graduated from St. Hedwig's school, and wonder of wonders, they began to enroll in college. It didn't take long before the next generation joined the middle class and began migrating into the suburbs.
It was all a dream come true until the day that something dreadful happened. The government arrived . . . to help. You see, the G-men had been studying the demographics of the neighborhood. The row houses were never worth much. The G-men began to encourage realtors to buy them up. The government would supply tenants and guarantee the rents.
The new arrivals were nothing like us. By this I mean they didn't share our values and customs. They didn't work or attend church. Their children were wild and undisciplined. They didn't even paint their porch and steps every year! It didn't take long before the neighborhood began to go feral. Broken windows went unrepaired. Garbage began to pile up in the alleys. Stray animals skulked about in the shadows. The Polish people fought back with brooms and buckets of paint, but to no avail. The neighborhood was dominated now by retirees. The muscle that the next generation might have supplied had already moved to the suburbs.
The new class of folk moving in had no vested interest in our neighborhood. The government would take care of everything. At least that was their attitude. Then the drug dealers and prostitutes began to arrive. The police didn't bother to investigate break-ins and assaults. You could file a report at the station if you cared to. When tenants moved out, the landlords simply boarded up the wreckage. The Polish ghetto was dying. The remaining Poles secured their homes with locks and bars and hunkered down to await the death knell.
There is nothing unique in this story. You've heard it before, probably even have a first-hand experience of your own if you're over fifty. The story is repetitive because government thinks it can substitute its influence for civic virtue. But a republic can only survive as long as the citizenry retains values based on hard work and commensurate reward. Nothing is valued that is not earned. The citizenry must have a vested interest in community and nation. It can't be given; it can only be earned. There is no other way.
Chester, Pennsylvania didn't die. It was murdered.
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Re: The Neighborhood
What a great story, Paules. I can visualize all that you describe. My mother comes from Polish and Lithuanian immigrants, and your story could be told about their neighborhoods of New Haven, CT. Or, as you mention, the same story has played out in hundreds or thousands of neighborhoods in our country. Thanks for such clear, clean prose!
Edited on Nov 17, 2010 at 5:46amMay '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Great story. I have a friend from Pittsburgh and he told me this story: His grandmother came from Poland as a young girl but learned no English. However the men of the family loved to listen to to baseball games on the radio so she could say, "No runs, no hits, no errors."
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BTW, have you been to Altoona? First time I went there in the 80s I was shocked. It looked like a place hit by a neutron bomb. The buildings were intact, but there were no people.
May '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Sounds like Coatesville. I grew up in Downingtown, my brother lives there still. He makes it clear nobody who values their life or property goes into downtown Coatesville nowadays. We used to take the Short Line bus over to movies downtown. I can remember standing on line for Old Yeller.
Jun '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Beautifully done ~paules. Your theme: "Diversity is Our Strength" was subtle, but powerful
May '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Thank you for that ~Paules; it's very vivid and very powerful. Once again, I wish my kids could have you as their teacher.
Jun '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Outstanding post, Paules. The brilliant elitist manipulators playing God with peoples' lives, never expecting the Law of Unforeseen Consequences to perform its dastardly deeds on even the most well intentioned connivance.
Jul '10
Re: The Neighborhood
"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Wonderful prose, ~Paules.
Now, everyone with Me: Main Feed! Main Feed!
Jun '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Well, thanks for the accolades, group. I wrote this originally on a comment thread for Bill Whittle's E3 Gazette where it was promptly bumped up to the main feed. It seems to be a crowd pleaser, though honestly I don't think the prose quality is all that good. But I'm glad to share with my Ricochet brethren if my efforts give a little boost to your day.
Oct '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Great but tragic story. In Toronto in the 1950's the government arrived to help a downtown neighbourhood, starting by counting how many occupants were in each house, and how many bathrooms they had. The conclusion was that the situation was intolerable, so the houses were expropriated and knocked down. Concrete block government housing was built instead, and the neighbourhood quickly degenerated into the drug-infested warren that it is to this day. Neighbouring Cabbage Town escaped this philosophy, and today is a beautifully renovated community full of young families. I worked for a while at the University of Toronto's press, and found a book full of praise for this appalling vision of a world re-built by a compassionate government, and was shocked further into my youthful libertarianism, which has mellowed, but not much.
Oct '10
Re: The Neighborhood
My own family has similar experiences. Many of my aunts and uncles fell into the welfare poverty trap, and many of their children were similarly ensnared until the '97 reform came along.
Liberals laugh at us. They say our concerns are stupid, ignorant, racism, and unempathetic. They refuse to acknowledge that people like me exist.
My family is from Utah. Utah's history is one--of many--proofs that classical liberalism is the only way to lift populations out of poverty. Yet, privileged, wealthy, elitist academics think otherwise. Why? History is so clear.
Nov '10
Re: The Neighborhood
~Paules:There is nothing unique in this story. You've heard it before, probably even have a first-hand experience of your own if you're over fifty.
Chester, Pennsylvania didn't die. It was murdered.
Your final line gripped me.
For me it was 8th & Lehigh in North Philadelphia. My parents whispered about "block busters" and held out even as we waved goodbye to every friend on the block. When our local library branch closed, my mother said enough. And off we moved to the suburbs. 1964 USA.
Re: The Neighborhood
A vivid story, Paules, told with grace and class. Thank you. As luck would have it, I've been to Chester several times to pick up or deliver paper loads. I had to park on the street for the night a few times there as well, which was a bit unnerving. The facility there looks like a prison, only it's to keep the employees safe. Rough area now, and falling apart.
Jul '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Wonderful last line: it was murdered.
I have seen the same process regarding the area's Indians/Natives/FirstNations: and believe me, it took only one generation to turn a competent sober people, able to build their own homes, and raise their own children, into welfare bums, alcoholics, and drug addicts. My theory has been that it is a lot nicer to just shoot to kill these people, than put them on welfare. At least when you shoot at someone, they have a chance to hide behind the nearest rock. When welfare comes, though, there is no way out.
Jul '10
Re: The Neighborhood
heathermc: Wonderful last line: it was murdered.
I have seen the same process regarding the area's Indians/Natives/FirstNations: and believe me, it took only one generation to turn a competent sober people, able to build their own homes, and raise their own children, into welfare bums, alcoholics, and drug addicts. My theory has been that it is a lot nicer to just shoot to kill these people, than put them on welfare. At least when you shoot at someone, they have a chance to hide behind the nearest rock. When welfare comes, though, there is no way out. · Nov 17 at 6:47pm
Wow! Talk about the "war on poverty." I often joke about it, but Yer's seems on the up and up.
Jul '10
Re: The Neighborhood
And the Democrats continue to warn us of the intent of Republicans to return us to those dark ages you've just described.
Oct '10
Re: The Neighborhood
How the wonderful "prose" touched the hearts of some. For me, a kid from northeast Philly, my neighborhood, in 1945 to 1960, was all Polaks, Italians and Jews from the camps. We watched it being murdered by the do-gooders, from Richardson Dillworth, urban redevelopment Mayor, to the anonymous liberals who infected America after the war. Sadly, not much has changed, except that the memory of the goodness of America seems to have been lost forever. My children and grand children can never have what we have lost.
May '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Thank you for sharing, ~Paules. I'm hoping there are more stories to come. I'm curious how you ended up on an Israeli Kibbutz.
May '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Yeah, what she said!
Sep '10
Re: The Neighborhood
Chester, Pennsylvania didn't die. It was murdered.
Bricks and mortar death panels. Very nicely done ~Paules.
Jul '10
Re: The Neighborhood
But you can't seem to kill the Welfare" either: it provides so many great paying jobs to so many people.
When I have suggested that perhaps a solution would be to just cut off the welfare, the reaction is, "they'll all die in the nearest ditch!" So the horror goes on, and the offices fill up with social workers doing 'good'. And the politicians on the one hand feel good about doing so much 'good' (another school!! another project! more work for social science majors!!!); and on the other, cynicism that 'hey, we have plenty of money, and who cares what is happening to the slum people anyway, so long as they vote for Meeee!!!'.