June 30, 2006

Your Not-So-Subtly Racist 'Northeast Times' Letter Of The Week

Barry Saltzburg, from Nevada, writes:

What’s become of my Great Northeast?

I grew up in Northeast Philadelphia and attended Fels Jr. High and Northeast High School, graduating in 1964, at which time I promptly entered the Marine Corps.

It was a safe and great neighborhood both when I left for Parris Island and when I returned from overseas. Oh yeah, there were the occasional fights between kids on Castor Avenue but with fists, no knives, no guns.

The entire section was clean and you could leave only your screen doors open at night, unlocked. No graffiti on the walls of Northeast or George Washington high schools. What happened? I now live in Nevada.

You can take the kid out of Philly but you cannot take Philly out of the kid, so with that in mind I return often, only to get more depressed when I see the old neighborhood.

Heck, the city does not even attempt to mow the grass when one first enters onto the Boulevard from the north.

What a first impression of Philly. The World War II generation, our parents, used to speak often of how nice the old neighborhoods of Strawberry Mansion and Mount Airy were or Germantown with their huge homes. Now look at them. I fear that the Oxford Circle is destined for the same fate. It’s a shame. What happened? Now cops are getting killed on Castor Avenue, the Northeast is undermanned by police and mailmen are being stabbed.

We may as well just refer to the Northeast as North Philly — what’s the difference? I suppose it would not be politically correct to even discuss it, so I will leave it at that.

Sweet. Oxford Circle would be so much better if it were more like Mount Airy.

What’s become of my Great Northeast? [Northeast Times]

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