In another year your boy will be married. Chocolate Snowflake and I have considered where we will live and raise our family. Will we stay in Brooklyn? PrA’li not. For us to remain working class in Brooklyn you have to be pretty wealthy. We are considering relocating to Washington D.C. or possibly Philadelphia.
I can fux with D.C. and Philly. Both cities have the ‘big city’ appeal that I need. I have to be around people and I have to be around art. I would also like to live somewhere I felt like the social culture was unique and not homogenized. New York City itself is beginning to have that pasteurized feel. Sometimes I don’t even know I’m in NYC. Washington D.C. can be like that too.
I thought Philly was the last place that kept it really real. Maybe I got it wrong on this account also. Philadelphia has a concentration of colleges sited within the city. Penn State, Temple, Drexel, Lehigh, Villanova and St. Joe’s to name a few. But then why is this town so depressed and politically deactivated?
How do you let this beautiful building become dilapidated?
The building is called the Divine Lorraine Hotel. When it was purchased by Father Divine of the Universal Peace Mission Movement in 1948 it was the first of its class in Philadelphia, ne, the United States, to be fully racially integrated.
Believing that all people were equal in the sight of God, Father Divine was involved in many social welfare activities as well. For example, after purchasing the hotel, several parts of it were transformed for public use. The hotel’s first floor kitchen was opened as a public dining room where persons from the North Philadelphia community were able to purchase and eat low-cost meals for 25 cents.
The building was closed in 1999 and sold in 2000 by the International Peace Mission. In May 2006 it was resold to Philadelphia developer Michael Treacy, Jr. to be converted into condominiums. Treacy, instead of redeveloping the building gutted the Divine Lorraine of all the classic interior’s fixtures and architectural ornaments. Treacy then left the building in tatters to the squatters and the vandals.
I’d like to believe that Philadelphia can once again be as great as it was when the Divine Lorraine Hotel was a beacon for the best in man, but if Philly can’t put itself back together again this humpty dumpty is gonna have to consider moving to New Hampshire.
