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Marilyn Greenberg remembers the Northern Liberties of the 1940s and '50s, when it was a crowded, thriving urban neighborhood. Across 2nd Street from Greenberg's home stood a vast complex of buildings that was the Schmidt Brewery.

"I would open the window as a child and lean out and watch the beer barrels rolling down the street," she says. "The trains were going back and forth 24 hours a day, and there was a tap room on the corner where they periodically threw drunks on the sidewalk--that was my entertainment. It was before television, you know."

But Greenberg's brother, Harvey Bell, has less pleasant memories of the brewery. While running the family business across the street, he watched as Schmidt's went into a long decline. The beer's label was sold and the brewery closed in 1987. After that the buildings sat abandoned.

"It was almost like watching the hands of a clock move, that's how fast the deterioration of the neighborhood was happening," Bell says. "And the crime was horrible. My car was broken into so many times it wasn't annoying anymore. It was just something I expected to have happening."

But Bell kept his business alive in Northern Liberties long enough to see the neighborhood finally turn around. Further south on 2nd Street, six new restaurants are poised to open. And the brewery is now mostly a pile of rubble, demolished by a developer who has big plans for the site.

A company called Tower Investments bought the Schmidt properties for $1.8 million at a sheriff's sale last year. The new owner, Bart Blatstein, is best known for his development of Delaware Avenue in South Philadelphia, where he lured major tenants like Home Depot, Wall Mart, and a United Artists Theater to former industrial sites.

Blatstein says there's a serious need for retail and housing development in North Philadelphia. But more than that, he's enchanted by Northern Liberties.

"It's a great neighborhood," Blatstein says. "It's a combination of old-timers, young professionals and, what I call the greatest natural resource that Northern Liberties has, which is their artist community. They've got a passion for this neighborhood that is unrivaled by any neighborhood I've ever seen."

Blatstein loves Northern Liberties so much that he's gone on to buy empty lots, buildings, and even an abandoned school. Tower Investments now owns 17 percent of Northern Liberties. To help develop the Schmidt site, Blatstein obtained an $8 million, tax-subsidized loan from the city. But he won't yet say what he plans to do with all the land.

"I can't really identify now what it is I'm referring to," Blatstein said when asked for specifics.

"But if I can pull it all together shortly, it's gonna be quite an exciting project," he says.

The lack of specifics has many residents of Northern Liberties alarmed. They say that if a strip-mall, suburban-type development is built at the Schmidt site, it could ruin the character of the neighborhood.

The 76 Carriage Company stables at 3rd and George Streets is only one block from the noisy demolition at the Schmidt's site, but here you can hear birds chirping. It's one of Darrell Millborne's favorite spots.

"This was one of the aspects of living in Northern Liberties that appealed to me, just coming down here to visit the stables," says Millborne, who is President of the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association board. "Sometimes the horses come up to the fence and you can pet them, or you bring a carrot."

But Millborne worries that Tower Investments may build up the neighborhood to the point that semi-rural enclaves like this just won't exist anymore. He says Northern Liberties owes its success to private individuals who threw their energies into rehabbing buildings and turning abandoned land into community parks.

Pointing to a vacant lot across from the horse stables, Millbourne says in the neighborhood's long-term urban plan, it was to remain a green space. Now that Bart Blatstein owns the lot, "that remains to be seen," Millbourne says.

But not everyone is dreading the growth of Northern Liberties.

"It will drive up property values, revive Girard as a business strip, and trickle up into our neighborhood," says Jim Flaherty, Executive Director of the Kensington South Community Development Corporation. His struggling neighborhood, just north of Girard Avenue on the northern border of the Schmidt site, would benefit from spill-over growth.

Flaherty also sits on the board of the American Street Empowerment Zone, which also borders the Schmidt site. The federally-funded program is negotiating the terms of a $6 million loan to Tower Investments to help develop the site.

In return, Flaherty says, Bart Blatstein would have to pledge to hire some local residents and take into account neighborhood concerns about the site. But thus far, Flaherty says, those concerns have not been well articulated.

"I haven't had any representation from the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association, the official group respresenting the neighborhood, about their concerns. I've heard individual concerns but no official concerns," he says.

Activists in Northern Liberties admit they do have a problem speaking with one voice about what they'd like to see done at the Schmidt site. But they say that's partly a symptom of the neighborhood's individualistic nature.

Architect Tim McDonald, who sits on the Urban Development committee of the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association, also thinks many residents don't want to seem ungrateful.

"I can't tell you how many times I've heard from the older residents, 'It's better than what we had...stop complaining,'" McDonald says.

"So in other words, we don't have a right to actually engage in what's taking place in our community, and have a say in what's going to take place. We should just shut up and be happy with whatever we get."

But McDonald says he and other activists will keep making the case for what they want, a "pedestrian-friendly" development with stores that front the street.

"If you don't have a vision appropriate to a particular context, then you're wasting your money. It's that simple," he says. "All we've ever asked is to have a part in developing that vision."

Developer Bart Blatstein says he understands the neighborhood's frustrations, and he hopes to unveil a plan soon. But for now, the residents of Northern Liberties will have to wait a bit longer to find out what their neighborhood might become.

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