It’s undeniable that Fishtown has undergone a Renaissance.  With an avenue dedicated to the arts, farms popping up on popular corners and old factories turning into affordable housing for artists, it’s nice to know that this change has not happened merely because of outsiders taking over.  Rather, so much of this (and more) has happened because of the hard work and vision of one of Fishtown’s own.

Marlborough Street resident, Sandy Salzman, has been leading a period of positive change in our neighborhood in her role as Executive Director of the New Kensington Community Development Corporation.   She has spunk and vision, evident upon first meeting her, so it makes sense that she is in this leadership position; but, what she also has is the personal connection to the area to ensure that the value of our neighborhood is increased and the changes are sustainable by all residents, old and new.

“We had [Frankford Avenue named the Arts Corridor] before we had one gallery or coffee shop or artist,” Salzman shared.  “We knew that artists were moving north…whether we were ready or not.”  There were two choices: embrace the arts or move on. “We decided to embrace them,” Salzman recalled.  It was a wise decision to make for the neighborhood because along with the arts, so many other great additions have come to Frankford Avenue.  But, the decision was also made because of the historical context of Fishtown.  “This neighborhood grew up as a craft one so having the artists and the arts move back into the neighborhood brings back that movement.”

Sandy Salzman looks like a Fishtowner: bright blue eyes, a head of thick, white hair, a comfortable disposition, and a pride in the streets upon which she walks.  And, there is a reason for all of this.  The powerful eyes come from her Irish ancestry – she is third generation Fishtown Irish born to working class parents.  The hair comes with the age – at 63, she has lived many iterations of her life: oldest daughter to a widowed father, widow herself, mom of two (Amy and Steven) and grandmom to one (Sabrina.)  Her disposition comes from her ability to find resolve in the toughest of situations.  These streets, the ones from Girard to Lehigh, Front to the River are hers to revel in, having been around long enough to see them go down and rise up from the ashes.

Growing up poor, Salzman’s only choice was to go to work following her graduation from Hallahan.  “My first job out of high school was at the textile mills,” Salzman noted.  “The very textile mills that we’re currently turning into housing.”  Working in community development was never a field that she thought she would end up in because it was a field that didn’t exist back then.  She only had a high school diploma and the future was an unknown for her.

It was in the late 1970s in the basement of the Lutheran Settlement Home that Salzman got an administrative job with the Fishtown Civic Association and so her career in community development began.

“Fishtown was on the decline.  We still had people who lived here for generations but the younger people were moving away and the neighborhood was stagnating.  Businesses were leaving for the south, seniors were dying and because their kids were no longer in the neighborhood and housing values were so low, the homes were being left vacant.”  By the mid 1990s, there were 1,100 parcels of vacant land in the neighborhood.   Fishtown found itself in a bad place.  But emerging from, literally, the basement of the Lutheran Settlement home, was Salzman, with a little bit of community development knowledge, some undergraduate courses from CCP and Temple and the will and grit of a born and raised Fishtowner.

As E.D. of NKCDC, Salzman is responsible for everything from economic and real estate development to housing counseling and community engagement to land use management.  She has been responsible for hiring the best in all of these areas and along with that staff, has forged ahead with a neighborhood restoration program that has been phenomenal.  From bike racks and lighting to new housing and mortgage counseling; from vacant lot clean up to composting coops and farms; from big green blocks to new curbs and sidewalks, the change is apparent and Salzman needs to take credit.

But, she won’t.  “I hate to brag and I hate to talk about myself,” Salzman shared with me.  “I’m just doing my job…it’s not like I’m doing anything extraordinary.” Armed with a lifetime of personal neighborhood experience and a Harvard University issued certificate in community planning, she really is doing something extraordinary.  She is restoring the neighborhood to its original greatness, but with the twist – these changes are sustainable.

So it is only appropriate that the Lutheran Settlement Home honored her with the Alumni Award at their 9th Annual Women of Courage awards, held on May 16th at Sofitel.   While Salzman thinks she got the award merely because she was a girl scout there as a kid and she was from the neighborhood, she got this award for those reasons and all of the positive changes she has brought about in her role as E.D.

This writer really took to my meeting with Salzman.  She is real.  She is caring.  She is really easy to be around.  And, she is a very powerful woman.   Even her advice is wise: “One of the things I would caution young women who want to get into leadership against is this – You can’t let it be about your ego, and if that’s the case, you can’t make a difference.”