Monday, April 13th, was a beautiful day. Sunny skies and a high in the 70s brought everyone out of their homes on one of the first warm days since 2014. Matt Kilcline, leader of a community meeting at Finanta at 1301 N. 2nd St., was making it a point to finish quickly so that one of the first real vernal days of Spring could be enjoyed by attendees. But the meeting’s relative haste didn’t diminish the importance of the conversation that was about to take place.

Seated around tables facing a projector screen, those who made it to this first meeting of the new Front and Girard group brought varying interests and ideas for improving the neighborhood, with their namesake’s intersection being ground zero for change. Attending were representatives of adjacent neighborhood associations, both a SEPTA police and a Philadelphia PD sergeant, as well as business owners and investors in the vicinity. After a shooting on January 3, 2015 outside of the former Gold Club (now called Signatures) alarmed many residents and business owners, the task of taking ownership of that parcel of land has been the subject of meetings of Fishtown, Northern Liberties and Kensington neighborhood associations in the past several months. Sergeant John Massi of the 26th District, who had spoken at previous meetings to address the public’s concerns, was again at the table with others at Finanta last Monday, representing the PPD, in order to address and devise innovative solutions to the unique and seemingly intractable condition of the gateway to the River Wards.

The intersection at Front Street and Girard Avenue is the site of several overlapping law enforcement and governmental boundaries and the property in the four square-block area has dozens of owners. While many know East Girard for its growing commercial corridor of small businesses, the intersection of Front and Girard is also a primary entryway to the retail heroin market, and its proximity to public transit, the poorly-lit conditions under the Market-Frankford El and the nearby presence of a methadone clinic at 8th and Girard make it fertile ground for “nuisance crimes” like littering and loitering. These actions hurt property-owners cosmetically and are viewed as precursors to more serious and violent crimes, like the shooting that took place in January. Everyone at the meeting agreed that the Goldman Clinic at Girard Medical Center, the halfway-point between the El and the Broad Street subway, was at the center of the problem.

Kilcline gave a slide presentation outlining the Front and Girard organization’s plan—a “smarter” approach to community ills, “not just more police.” The area of their concern, West Girard Avenue, from Hope to Leopard, houses dozens of businesses, each with a responsibility to keep its frontage clear of rubbish and loiterers, said Kilcline, but many of buildings on Front Street are vacant. Making the situation even more difficult to address are the disparate jurisdictions at the intersection: The block is crossed by borders for the PPD 26th District’s Public Safety Area 2 and 3 the Fishtown Neighborhood Association, South Kensington Community Partnership and the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association.

The Spirit has extensively reported on the Goldman Clinic as well as Kilcline in our “Broken Windows” series, which wrapped up in last week’s issue. Following the shooting outside the gentleman’s club, Sergeant Massi told the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association that a demand for prescription drugs, which can aid addicts in abusing the methadone they are administered to prevent withdrawal and to override the opiate effects of other narcotics, as well as the sale of “take-home” methadone doses, is a large factor in area crime. The NLNA’s January meeting notes report the Sergeant describing how illicit activity connected to the clinic has, “spawned a market for dealers, drug transactions, and criminal activity to take place in the streets and businesses surrounding the clinic–from 9th Street down Girard to the El stop at Front Street. Recent activity by police to shut down these activities on some street corners appears to have driven addicts and dealers onto some residential streets in Northern Liberties and Fishtown. Also affected is the Ramona Rodriguez Public Library branch at 6th and Girard, where neighbors have reported a marked increase in clinic patients and others loitering, “nodding off” and otherwise creating an unsafe environment for children and others.“

Massi told the Front and Girard group that 70 percent of the neighborhood’s problems stem from the clinic’s proximity. He said that the loitering laws only apply to SEPTA property, and that they must be discerning in how they stop suspicious persons, noting that the District had, “just had the District Attorney come down and give us a refresher.” Massi described a method by which the police can make arrests that get those they deem to be chronic loiterers into the police system—to issue multiple summary ‘obstructing a highway’ citations, sufficient to arrest for a misdemeanor obstructing charge.

At the January NLNA meeting, the minutes reported Massi’s additional advisement:

Police cannot emphasize enough that neighbors must call 9-11 if you observe:

1. Individuals who appear to be “nodding off” or “high”
2. Drugs being sold
3. Fights or altercations
4. Individuals who appear to be “casing” cars or residential doors
5. Children who appear to be at risk, under the care of individuals who seem altered, non-responsive, or “high”

Christopher Sawyer is an activist and current candidate for Sheriff of Philadelphia County. He authors the blog Philadelinquency.com, which addresses issues related to local real estate and the connected politics. Sawyer lives in the Kensington area and has written about the quality-of-life-issues that are embodied in the special problems of the Girard and Front intersection.

Sawyer told The Spirit via email:

“Methadone clinics do not cure—they alleviate opioid withdrawal pain and that’s it…dosings are very frequent so a lot of patients are revolving through the clinic rapidly day by day. Since methadone wears off so quickly, it results in a large stream of vulnerable people transiting to and from the clinic on a regular cycle. This is very attractive to drug dealers and as a result, nearly every methadone clinic shifts the pattern of drug sales to be near the clinic and at “connection points” en-route, which is why Front and Girard is such a zoo.“

When asked what advice he had for Front and Girard organizers, Sawyer wished to “keep focused on what’s possible, not to lament on what’s not possible.” He wrote that, “legal challenges in PA courts and elsewhere have been used successfully as arguments by methadone clinics to override most zoning regulation. What is possible is to heighten the quality of life around Front and Girard to counteract the negative forces that are there. That includes: demanding Philadelphia Licenses and Inspection enforcement where property owners fall down on maintenance of their buildings, pushing a dramatically-increased effort to clean the intersection and beautify it, adding more artwork, rezoning the intersection for far more density and allowances (which increases the value of the land underneath the real estate that’s there), securing better lighting scenarios around the EL structure as well underneath it, and improving the quality of video surveillance that’s here (higher resolution cameras with microphones). The idea is that you’ll at least boost the quality-of-life level of the intersection to combat factors that drag it down.

Sawyer concluded: “I think in a year or so you’re gonna be back wondering the same things about Front and Coral.”

Also discussed was encouraging businesses to install video surveillance equipment and to register it with the SafeCam program. SafeCam is a registry program which allows police to access information about what footage of a crime might exist based on the camera database. Joanna Winchester of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) said that while only businesses were eligible to apply for reimbursement for camera installation under the program, all could benefit from its subsidy if an entire block integrated into the SafeCam network.

The night before the meeting, an aggravated assault was reported at the 8th and Girard corner, the location of the Goldman Clinic. Two cameras at nearby intersections which are linked the PPD’s Real-Time Crime Center, and of potential use in mitigating crime related to the clinic, were non-functional, according to 2013 audit by City Controller Alan Butkovitz. SEPTA has an extensive video surveillance infrastructure, but more distant from the El, where spotty coverage is the key feature of PPD cams, the need for businesses and residents to have independent systems is punctuated.

Front and Girard has resolved to meet monthly. The Spirit will provide coverage of developing initiatives.