A Turning Point

How I Became a Democratic Socialist

Asbury Park, 1982.

On Saturday, February 5, Joy Huertas of Philadelphia's Office of Transportation, Infrastructure, and Sustainability posted a charming piece of fiction about Washington Avenue, a dreadful street in South Philly that has been awaiting a remake for nearly a decade. 

In 2020, the City released its "final design decision" for Washington Avenue, calling for a "road diet" to reduce the avenue from five lanes for motor-vehicle traffic to three. 

Then came the calls for more public input. And so began the dance. Whatever proponents of the design did, it was not enough. Surveys, letters of support, community board approvals. Nah. Not the right answer. 

Finally, City officials huddled with groups of residents in Point Breeze and Grays Ferry to gather further information. They then decided that there was significant opposition to the three-lane design. (It appears that these meeting did not violate Pennsylvania's open meetings law, aka the Sunshine Act.) 

So the City dropped the "final design decision" - the product of seven years of work - and is now mulling two significantly weaker designs, with a final final decision expected in weeks and construction to take place this year. (For two stories in PlanPhilly, click here and here.) 

What struck me, in all this recent activity, was that the City was essentially acting as if this project had no history before 2020. 

Just to refresh everyone's memory, this project began in 2013. I went back and reviewed the emails in my "Washington Avenue" folder. They start in 2014. 

I attended two meetings - one in 2014 and one in 2015. The first (October 15, 2014) was at the Bryant Baptist Church on 19th Street a bit south of Washington Avenue, and the second (September 3, 2015) was at the Rock School for Dance Education on Broad at Washington. I have distinct memories of both. I will limit myself to one story. 

At the second meeting we were sitting at round tables, engaging in conversation. A middle-aged Black woman was sitting to my right, and we had a cordial discussion of the issues at hand. It may be a bit difficult to remember today, but back then the focus was on bike lanes. Today the focus is more on the whole street and on dead pedestrians. 

At any rate, I'm a good listener and a genial person, and the lady warmed to me, and at one point leaned a bit in my direction and said, smiling, "Bicyclists are evil." 

I didn't challenge. I just tucked the story away. And now you have it. 

I certainly had no doubt, after the two meetings in 2014 and 2015, that there were Black residents in Point Breeze who were strongly opposed to proposals to redesign Washington Avenue. 

In my opinion, for the City to come back at this late date and say they're shocked, shocked to discover that there is opposition in Point Breeze is disingenuous at best. 

Let me be very clear: I don't think opposition from Point Breeze residents is driving the design decision. Why do I think that? Because I was also present at the Battle of 11th Street, which took place in a community room near the Italian Market in 2019 and was focused on the proposed new, two-way cycle track for a stretch of 11th Street. (To see my report on that evening's meeting, click here.) 

One anecdote I didn't put in the 2019 story: A middle-aged white woman stood up and told the packed room that she had regular fantasies of running bicyclists down with her SUV. 

I thought at the time, and think today, that people who fantasize about committing mass murder should not be allowed to drive policy. And in this case they were not. Despite such vehement opposition from members of the community, the City went ahead and built the cycle track. And guess what? The sky has not fallen. 

Why is the outcome different on Washington Avenue? I will tell you what I think. I think the people in Point Breeze are being cynically used as a smokescreen. As the Wizard of Oz puts it, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." 

And who's behind the curtain? In my opinion, it's the business owners, many of whom treat Washington Avenue as their own private brick yard, loading zone, and parking lot. The old English common law held that the King's highway was not to be treated as a stable yard. This idea has been worn away over the years, but I still think it's valid to suggest, as a general principle, that we should not allow people to unilaterally privatize public property. 

There's a saying that goes back to Ozzie Myers, although he didn't quite say it this way. Over the years it's been slowly smoothed out. Here's the version that's in the Lexicon of Aphorisms: "Money talks, bullshit walks."

This is, of course, not a problem that is unique to the politics of Philadelphia. We see it in Washington every day. And in both parties. 

My thinking on this subject has undergone an evolution over the past decade or so. I used to be more accepting of the power of money in politics. But, really, how far is "money talks, bullshit walks" from Mao's dictum: "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." 

I think not far. And so I do prefer the notion that power proceeds from the consent of the governed. (I'm not alone in this. Have a look at the Declaration of Independence.)  So, I believe that an objectively good policy, supported by a very good public approval process, should not be trumped by shadowy forces acting behind closed doors. To use Ozzie's words, bullshit should talk, and money should walk. 

And that is why Washington Avenue has brought me to a turning point. For the last decade I have been devoting myself to reimagining Philadelphia's streets. They could, after all, be so much better. And I am perfectly willing to lose in a fair fight. I have volunteered on eight political campaigns, and my candidate has won twice.  

But Washington Avenue was different for me. I still think we need streets that should be safe, useful, and, if possible, even pleasant for all users. But I no longer think that designing better streets and then undergoing a thorough public review process are enough. I think we need to look at our broken political process and fix it. This involves replacing people and also reforming the way we do things in our political life. 

I don't think either the Republican or the Democratic party is up to this job. And so I plan to spend more time working with the Democratic Socialists of America, aka the Party of Bernie Sanders. 

I actually joined DSA about a year ago. My son suggested it to me. You can be a DSA member and also a registered Democrat.  Much of what the DSA does involves nesting within the Democratic Party and pushing it to do the right thing - something Bernie Sanders has had notable success with in the past few years. Dues are on a sliding scale, and you can sign up online. 

They have a nice magazine, and I got a membership card that says "A better future is possible." It sits on my bureau, and I look at it every day. It's red, of course. 

I haven't done much with DSA over the last year - they reach out on a regular basis and are happy to take no for an answer. But now I think I'm going to be reordering my priorities. I'm tired of being played for a sucker. 

See also Flex Posts on Pine and Spruce; About That Parking Lot in South Philly; A New World Being Born; It's the Road Design, Stupid; Looking and Not Seeing, Listening and Not Hearing.

City of Lights

Asbury Park's Boardwalk Circa 1980

1978.

I do miss the lights. Traveling carnivals still come to Asbury Park and work their magic in Bradley Park, just inland from Convention Hall. But the big permanent rides are gone, and I miss the lights.

There are still a few attractions for children on the boardwalk - a water park, miniature golf, and a pinball museum that has four small rides out front. Last summer my four-year-old grandson was quite fond of the school bus, which moved and made sounds when you fed it three quarters. He was a little bit fond of the train engine. The Batman car and the Flintstones car seemed to attract smaller children. There is also a playground on the beach, not far from the pinball museum.

1981.

It's not the same. Have a look at this Ferris wheel preening in the twilight.

1978.

I find myself entranced, and I can only imagine the effect on children. 

Let's have a look at the carousel house, which is attached to the Casino building. 

1978.

And inside the carousel house. (The carousel was built in 1923 and moved from Asbury Park to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, in 1992.)

1981.

As nearly as I can tell, the first carnival people who glommed on to the idea of using electric lights to create an evening wonderland were the builders of Luna Park, one of the three big amusement parks that were in the Coney Island entertainment district before World War I. The key man here was Frederic Thompson.

John Kasson traces Thompson's inspiration to the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, also known as the White City for all its white buildings, This event had a strong and lasting influence on American architecture and urban design, and it also explored the outdoor potential of electric lighting, which was only beginning to displace gaslit street lamps. "At night the splendor of the scene was further enhanced by an unprecedented battery of floodlights, using three times as much electricity as the rest of Chicago." (John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century, 1978, pp. 21, 61-66.) 

1978.

Professor Kasson reports the result in Luna Park: "Borrowing from the example of the White City, Thompson studded Luna with a quarter million electric lights. The same buildings that excited wonder during the day assumed a dazzling new aspect; the strings of lights seemed to sketch an insubstantial, dreamlike scene" (p. 66). 

As competitors refused to be left behind, the lights of Coney Island proliferated, and news of this unique little world soon spread across the globe. Charles Denson argues that, by 1904, Coney Island "was the mechanical amusement center of the world. No longer just a resort, it was a phenomenon that attracted curious high-brow visitors such as Sigmund Freud and Maxim Gorky. Coney's electric skyline was unlike anything ever seen before. Gorky described it as 'shapely towers of miraculous castles, palaces and temples. Golden gossamer threads tremble in the air. They intertwine in transparent, flaming patterns, which flutter and melt away in love with their own beauty mirrored in the waters." (Charles Denson, Coney Island: Lost and Found, 2002, p. 31.) 

Gorky is perhaps best known today as the author of a play called The Lower Depths, which was first produced in 1902.  It was directed by a fellow named Konstantin Stanislavski. Gorky visited Coney Island in 1906 and actually did not approve of the amusements, but the nighttime view clearly knocked his socks off. (To see his essay on Coney Island, entitled "Boredom," click here.) 

1978.

I can't match Gorky for florid prose, but around 1980 I found myself reconnecting with my childhood sense of wonder. Looking again at these pictures forty years later, I find myself reconnecting with two of my younger selves.

There was enchantment on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, all those years ago, and it was a lively place after dark.

1981.

My sense is that Gorky's basic concern about Coney Island was that the amusements were not uplifting - they didn't make you a better person. In this he was right, but out of sync with the audience, which did not want to be uplifted - it wanted the release of amusement, and if the result was childlike wonder, happy shrieks, or raucous laughter, so much the better. The carnies knew their audience well, and they delivered.

1978.

See also What Streets Can Learn From Boardwalks, Tillie Goes Biking.

Hans Fallada and the White-Collar Proletariat

The Fantasy of Rugged Individualism

South Philly, 1989.

Recently several members of my family have been reading the German writer Hans Fallada, who died in 1947. I came late to the party, and I'm not quite sure how many of his novels we currently have in our house. Books travel from home to home in our family, as needed.

I've only read two of Fallada's novels, The Drinker (published posthumously in 1950) and Wolf Among Wolves (1937). At some point I may read Every Man Dies Alone (1947) and his most famous novel, Little Man - What Now? (1932).

But I don't think I'm going to do it right away. Frankly, I find reading a Hans Fallada novel exhausting and depressing. I believe this is because his characters are so real, and the situations he puts them in are so demoralizing.

I do strongly recommend Wolf Among Wolves if you want to understand what life was like during the German hyperinflation of the early 1920s. 

In December my son gave me a small book for the holidays - Heinz J. Schueler's Hans Fallada, from 1970. It is a critical analysis of the major themes in Fallada's work, and it tops out at 119 pages, which makes it easily the shortest book connected to Hans Fallada that I will ever read. I would caution an English-language reader that there are extensive quotations in German, which are not translated. They are, however, explained, and you can get the gist of what's going on by just reading the English. 

Personally, I discovered that the German I had in graduate school has just about completely disappeared, but I also noticed that if I'd read the novel under discussion, that helped quite a lot.

I found several spots where I was disagreeing with Schueler. There's a whole chapter on Fallada's portrayal of women, which frankly sounds a bit sexist today; Professor Schueler focuses on the role of women in marriage, saying that their job is to save men from isolation. Well, the book did come out in 1970, and that was another time. But I'm thinking of a woman in Wolf Among Wolves, who freely engages in sex for pleasure and who turns down an offer of marriage from a man she likes, but who is a bit stupid. And she's clearly not all that interested in being one of Fallada's angels of salvation. She's been helping an old lady run a junkyard in Berlin, and it's fairly clear the old lady wants her to take over the business. So all kinds of hints of modernity here, but Schueler doesn't write about them. 

The main focus of Fallada's writing is the plight of the Kleinburger, or lower-middle class man, during the turbulent twenties. Another term for him is Stehkragenprolet, or white-collar proletarian (although Stehkragen really means "stand-up collar" - the kind of stiff collar, often made of celluloid, that middle-class men in those days kept in collar boxes and attached to their shirts each morning.)

This class - the white-collar proletariat - was a critical element in the rise to power of both Mussolini and Hitler, so what Fallada has to say on the subject has relevance today. The two most important things to know are that Fallada saw them as isolated and demoralized. The people below them - the actual proletarians - often had class solidarity and traditions of mutual dependence and help. The people above them had their networks of power. The Kleinburgers believed in the capitalist canard of individualism, or each man on his own, or each against all, or wolf among wolves. 

And that is their fatal flaw. Nobody above them or below them is silly enough to believe they can get by without networks.

It's also what makes the Kleinburgers easy prey for fascists, who give them a place to belong and The Other to fight against.

The flip side of this is what happens when they find their isolation deepening, and their former leaders deny that the little people had simply been doing what their masters told them to do.  

Siege warfare: Isolate and diminish. (See The Correct Strategy: Fight.)

The Other, South Street, 1992.

See also Fascism, On Demagogues, Jim Crow Was a Failed State, The Roots of the Republic, Boos Are Good, Rugged Individualism: From Daniel Boone to Barack Obama.