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A Tale of Two Philadelphias
Robert Zaller
A tale of two Philadelphias, or:
Enter Matisse, exit abused children
ROBERT ZALLER
In early June of this year, two well-dressed and well-briefed parties sat on opposite rows in Philadelphia City Council, where the city fathers were about to take up the question of whether to grant the Barnes Foundation a 99-year lease on the property currently occupied by the Youth Detention Center. On one side sat the director of the Barnes, Derek Gillman; members of the Barnes board of trustees, including its chairman, Dr. Bernard Watson, summoned from deep repose in Florida for the occasion; and a battery of the Foundation’s Pew-compensated Center City lawyers. On the other side were members of the Friends of the Barnes Foundation, fewer in number but robust in their determination to prevent the Barnes from being filched from Lower Merion.
As both sides understood, the occasion was ceremonial, the fix already being in. While both cooled their heels, however, the floor was held for an hour by a lone citizen who had come to explain why the city should install surveillance cameras in the park where he coached baseball. The problem, it seemed, was that the park had too many shootings. The coach described, in graphic detail, how after one such shooting he had administered CPR to one of his own players on the field.
The coach’s testimony brought things into a certain perspective for this observer. On the one hand, a debate about the disposition of $30 billion in art involving the city’s most powerful interests. On the other, a playground coach worried about keeping his school-age infielders alive.
These are the two cities that make up Philadelphia. It’s rare that they meet in the same room, and even rarer that the second takes precedence over the first.
Jannie Blackwell’s snit
There is another connection between them in the battle over the Barnes. That is the aforesaid Youth Detention Center, now more pleasantly called the Youth Study Center, which occupies the site intended for the new “Barnes Museum” and all its Renoirs, Cézannes and Matisses now blushing unseen in the inaccessible wilderness off City Line Avenue. I’m not familiar with the Youth Study Center’s curriculum, but, as the Inquirer detailed in its recent front-page exposé, it seems to include the beating and other abuse of children.
The kids locked up and beaten may not receive much of an education about art, but the fact is that Matisse can’t be moved until they are. One of the city mothers, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, is having a bit of a snit about that. She seems to think there’s enough poverty and crime in her West Philadelphia district without having to accommodate a new jail— ah, make that Study Center, of course. Not, at any rate, without suitable compensation. Nobody seems to want to give on the issue, and so the kids stay on the Parkway, right next to the Free Library, whose books they aren’t reading either.
The cynic’s scenario
Urban renewal is always a two-way street: what’s coming in, and what’s going out. Enter Matisse; exit abused children. The Youth Detention Center was, frankly, a poor endorsement for the Museum Mile and its tony new high-rises. Here, on the pretext of making the Barnes Foundation’s art more accessible to the masses, was a perfect opportunity to raise another barrier between the two cities, and to remove an uncomfortable reminder of those mean streets and playgrounds where Philadelphians actually live.
A cynic might suspect an even subtler ploy around the stalemate over the Youth Study Center. If it cannot be moved, the new Barnes cannot be built, at least not on that site. Since, we are regularly assured, the Barnes stands palsied before the operating deficit of $1 million that threatens to bring its $30 billion collection to your local garage sale, what better opportunity for the Philadelphia Museum of Art to show its public spirit than by giving Matisse et al shelter in its own new digs? Now, there’s a win-win if I ever heard one. The Pew and the state save the $300 million expense of a new Barnes; the art comes downtown; and the Youth Study Center site, suitably adjudicated, becomes the prime commercial real estate site that Nature always intended it to be.
Of course, only a cynic would think that way.
The Barnes could wallow in cash
Meanwhile, petitions are being filed in Montgomery County to keep the Barnes where it is, and to replace its Pew-dominated board. (Seven of the Barnes Foundation's 12 trustees are Pew appointees.) Montgomery County has offered the Barnes a bond and lease-back arrangement whose proceeds would cover the Barnes’s alleged deficit. Lower Merion Township has passed an ordinance to raise the attendance ceiling at the Barnes from the current 62,400 to 144,000. That, too, would in and of itself eliminate the deficit. The Barnes could actually wallow in cash, right where it is. Accepting landmark status from the National Historic Register would make it eligible for even more money.
Moving the Barnes downtown will make the rich richer, that’s for sure. And as for the other Philadelphia? On the day that Ed Rendell found $25 million in taxpayer money to puff up the Pew’s lagging campaign to move the Barnes, he announced a $25 million reduction in the state budget for education. Now we know who’s really responsible for impeding the Barnes’s move. It’s those pesky kids again, demanding to be raised, educated and not beaten while in custody.
To read responses, click here.
Enter Matisse, exit abused children
ROBERT ZALLER
In early June of this year, two well-dressed and well-briefed parties sat on opposite rows in Philadelphia City Council, where the city fathers were about to take up the question of whether to grant the Barnes Foundation a 99-year lease on the property currently occupied by the Youth Detention Center. On one side sat the director of the Barnes, Derek Gillman; members of the Barnes board of trustees, including its chairman, Dr. Bernard Watson, summoned from deep repose in Florida for the occasion; and a battery of the Foundation’s Pew-compensated Center City lawyers. On the other side were members of the Friends of the Barnes Foundation, fewer in number but robust in their determination to prevent the Barnes from being filched from Lower Merion.
As both sides understood, the occasion was ceremonial, the fix already being in. While both cooled their heels, however, the floor was held for an hour by a lone citizen who had come to explain why the city should install surveillance cameras in the park where he coached baseball. The problem, it seemed, was that the park had too many shootings. The coach described, in graphic detail, how after one such shooting he had administered CPR to one of his own players on the field.
The coach’s testimony brought things into a certain perspective for this observer. On the one hand, a debate about the disposition of $30 billion in art involving the city’s most powerful interests. On the other, a playground coach worried about keeping his school-age infielders alive.
These are the two cities that make up Philadelphia. It’s rare that they meet in the same room, and even rarer that the second takes precedence over the first.
Jannie Blackwell’s snit
There is another connection between them in the battle over the Barnes. That is the aforesaid Youth Detention Center, now more pleasantly called the Youth Study Center, which occupies the site intended for the new “Barnes Museum” and all its Renoirs, Cézannes and Matisses now blushing unseen in the inaccessible wilderness off City Line Avenue. I’m not familiar with the Youth Study Center’s curriculum, but, as the Inquirer detailed in its recent front-page exposé, it seems to include the beating and other abuse of children.
The kids locked up and beaten may not receive much of an education about art, but the fact is that Matisse can’t be moved until they are. One of the city mothers, Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell, is having a bit of a snit about that. She seems to think there’s enough poverty and crime in her West Philadelphia district without having to accommodate a new jail— ah, make that Study Center, of course. Not, at any rate, without suitable compensation. Nobody seems to want to give on the issue, and so the kids stay on the Parkway, right next to the Free Library, whose books they aren’t reading either.
The cynic’s scenario
Urban renewal is always a two-way street: what’s coming in, and what’s going out. Enter Matisse; exit abused children. The Youth Detention Center was, frankly, a poor endorsement for the Museum Mile and its tony new high-rises. Here, on the pretext of making the Barnes Foundation’s art more accessible to the masses, was a perfect opportunity to raise another barrier between the two cities, and to remove an uncomfortable reminder of those mean streets and playgrounds where Philadelphians actually live.
A cynic might suspect an even subtler ploy around the stalemate over the Youth Study Center. If it cannot be moved, the new Barnes cannot be built, at least not on that site. Since, we are regularly assured, the Barnes stands palsied before the operating deficit of $1 million that threatens to bring its $30 billion collection to your local garage sale, what better opportunity for the Philadelphia Museum of Art to show its public spirit than by giving Matisse et al shelter in its own new digs? Now, there’s a win-win if I ever heard one. The Pew and the state save the $300 million expense of a new Barnes; the art comes downtown; and the Youth Study Center site, suitably adjudicated, becomes the prime commercial real estate site that Nature always intended it to be.
Of course, only a cynic would think that way.
The Barnes could wallow in cash
Meanwhile, petitions are being filed in Montgomery County to keep the Barnes where it is, and to replace its Pew-dominated board. (Seven of the Barnes Foundation's 12 trustees are Pew appointees.) Montgomery County has offered the Barnes a bond and lease-back arrangement whose proceeds would cover the Barnes’s alleged deficit. Lower Merion Township has passed an ordinance to raise the attendance ceiling at the Barnes from the current 62,400 to 144,000. That, too, would in and of itself eliminate the deficit. The Barnes could actually wallow in cash, right where it is. Accepting landmark status from the National Historic Register would make it eligible for even more money.
Moving the Barnes downtown will make the rich richer, that’s for sure. And as for the other Philadelphia? On the day that Ed Rendell found $25 million in taxpayer money to puff up the Pew’s lagging campaign to move the Barnes, he announced a $25 million reduction in the state budget for education. Now we know who’s really responsible for impeding the Barnes’s move. It’s those pesky kids again, demanding to be raised, educated and not beaten while in custody.
To read responses, click here.
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