The Emerald Street Club
The factory's down and the block's kids have found a dangerous playground. --- Edward Cardona moved to Kensington's York and Emerald Streets five years ago because he says it seemed like a better neighborhood than his last. Never mind that across the street from his house, was a three-story abandoned factory that hid drug users and stolen cars. "They was always kicking the bums out of this one," Cardona said. "It was crazy. They were cooking in there they had mattresses to sleep on." In the first half of the 1900s, this Kensington neighborhood produced some of the country's finest textiles, but demand dried up and the jobs and the people left. On this block that has meant the closure of Providence Dye Works. The factory's had no regular tenants for several decades, and in recent years, criminals broke in and used it for their own businesses. "They had all these The factory is now demolished by city crews, but its still a headache. Cardona and his neighbors are constantly trying to keep their elementary and junior high school children out of what the kids say is the ultimate playground. "You see that gray thing over there?" one local kid asked. "We used to have a race, you had to go around it three times, whoever gets around there first they win." "I made up the game," said Crystal Cardona. The 12-year-old sits with her cousins on the front steps of her rowhome 20 feet across from the two-block lot of rubble. On the other side of the street, a three-foot high pile of bricks covers the block's sidewalk and spills into the road. An abandoned car sits on the lot, missing windows and tires. The kids say they've seen prostitutes and their clients in the vehicle. "When the tower was half-knocked down we climbed on it and all the rocks would tumble and the cops came and we were really scared...we sweared not to go in there but we have to go in there," Crystal said. "Because its fun. We play hide and go seek, or tag and there are places to hide cuz we dont have no where to play."
"I don't know I got to see what else to put in here," Gonzales said. "I gotta see if I can find some old stuff." Community groups have said for years that the city's abandoned buildings and vehicles pose dangers to local children. Over the last year, Philadelphia's City Hall towed away over 66 thousand abandoned vehicles and is preparing a 250 million dollar demolition blitz of vacant and dangerous properties. The Cardonas and their neighbors have put in repeated calls to the city to get them to do something about cleaning up what's left of this factory. "I don't let my kids outside unless I'm watching them," Aida Cardona said, outside her rowhome with a watchful eye on the lot across the way. "Because I don't trust that place right there. But the kids, they don't listen..no matter how many times you tell them...its like an attraction for them." Licenses and Inspections has cleanup on hold right now because it is inspecting a neighboring garage for asbestos which also needs to come down. A spokeswoman for the department says the debris will be cleared and that an inspector will be sent out to investigate neighbors' concerns. Meanwhile, the kids on York Street's favorite playyard will stay open and the Cardonas say they will do everything they can to keep them out of the lot.  whyy.org |
cars, a nice chop shop. new cars. GET OUT OF THERE!" Cardona yells at one small child playing in the lot across the street.
Across the street, Crystal's cousin, Jose Gonzales swept the dirt out of his clubhouse. The club is the rusted steel base of what was once the dye factory's four-story smokestack. The metal tube that once channeled the smoke of the factory's dye operation now holds an old orange couch the beefy pre-teen dragged in here.