Comments on Ghost of South Philly: ROW ROW ROW YOUR HOME… …. GENTLY TO THE BANK…. ...

Well I finally got a moment to makeup my lost comm...

2006-04-24T16:22:00.000-05:00

Well I finally got a moment to makeup my lost comment.
Not all homes in South Philadelphia were swathed in plastic slipcovers, or done up in flocked wallpaper. And not all homes had Louis the something or other furniture in white and gold either. Believe me I lived in one of those quintessential neighborhoods where the gammit went from "French Provincial" to "Spanish Colonial" and even some approximation of what was concieved by the inhabitants of these fine abodes as American colonial decor.
Mind you , none of theses schemes ever saw a real piece of antique furniture. As owning furniture with a provenance was considered "cheap" "how cheap" said in an escalating tone , and not a real question requiring an answer. "How Cheap" ...was a description of the situation.
One would say "Mildred did you see all dat ole furniture"? she would answer "yeah , how cheap, cant dey afford something new, I trew shit like dat out years ago".
You see New was the bomb, new was "it"
If you had new you had arrived.
Doing your house over at least once a year in my neighborhood was required, to be respected as a home owner. New wallpaper, new rugs, new paint color, or some new furniture which looked old but was really new, meant you had a few dollars to spend to be like everyone else...and could by new things to show off to your friends and family. You must have money, "did ya see dat house" "its beeutiful" ."Dey must be doin good"
It had to have something to do with our immigrant status as a people, out with the old in with the new. I have arrived , I am starting over.
My mom used to tell me stories of her mother , my maternal grandmother. She would tell me that my grandmother liked to have new things, so after a year or so , she would go around and pick at the wallpaper, so it would come loose. And she would pull at the drapes, so the fabric would tear.
Then she could show these things to my stern grandfather her husband, and say in a Southern Italian dialect" See , see how we live , what will people say , we have to call in somebody and get all new".
She was a determined woman as my mother related , and she got her way most of the time. A woman who spoke no Inglese. Ever.
My grandfather on the other hand was a practical, man who was a supervisor for the Pennsylvania Railroad. They did well for themselves and had eight children.He spoke English well and demanded that everyone around him do so also, except his wife. She was the only one from whom he took any orders. And so it was that when she tore a hole in the paper , it got redone.
My mother said that Grandmother had very lovely taste and for a woman from the mountains of Italy she knew her stuff about decorating. So no plastic ever touched a sofa. And the furniture was of the time it evoked.
And thus my mother learned a few things , no she never tore the wallpaper , at least I did not know of it . But she had very nice taste in things for the home.
So I grew up in a tiny South Philadelphia row house , ten feet wide at the most . But it was always decorated with taste and was always warm and inviting to be in.
When my parents died they left me this house , and I took over where they left off. I redecorated the way I saw fit . And I met an architect, and one of the first things he said to me after getting to know each other , was that he would never live in South Philly!
Well a year later he moved in . We had a two year plan that lasted eight years. And in that time , we did everything in the house over .
When we finally met our goals and moved out it was like a little jewel box. When friends or family would come they would marvel at how we did things , and would ask "how did you get that in here". We had alot of "stuff"
This house has a beautiful garden, not like any other in South Philadelphia. It was a place next to the house which was a house itself. But the house burned down and my parents walled it in and made a garden all along the side.
One entered it from the kitchen . And it was a little secret garden filled with beautiful things.
I loved that house and that garden, but things change and we must change with them. And I left it now almost 6 years ago. This house was built in 1832. So it had its quirks. And it had its ghosts, two of whom we all saw and heard many times. One lived in my room.So I grew up with these other worldly beings as part of my life. When people say they don't believe I smile and remain quiet, I know the truth.
When I met my partner I warned him of these other tenants in my house , but he being of the practicle mind , laughed me off. Until one night at about 3am when the smell of roast beef wafted up to our room, and he was astounded. I let him run all over investigating , but he found nothing as I suspected, for we never did. And then I told him of the death that occured many years before we lived there, of a woman who was cooking, and her clothes caught fire she died before they could get her to the hospital, in the tiny kitchen, from where the smell came. This spirit loved to break glass. And when our new shower doors exploded from the inside out...not a drop in the shower, all in the hall and down the steps.....he became less pessimistic.
One of the constant visitors to this house was your grandmother my father's sister Mary. And many times she had you in tow when she came to call.
So you must have memories like I do of this place except my ghosts made you feel at home, because they never bothered the company just the inhabitants.
I miss my parents and the smell of gravy on Sunday morning . I miss that garden , and the sound of birds in the trees , trees no one else had around their houses.
I miss the constant stream of visitors who came to feel the warmth and the love .
And now I live in a house which is huge by comparison. Designed by a famous Philadelphia architect Frank Weiss. It is all modern and all glass, and it is across the river in New Jersey. I left a home .And bought a house.
Sometimes I can hear my mother's voice, approving of my choices.
She would have loved it here. Sat at the fire and told more stories about her mother and the mountains of Italy. Or whipped up a cake, which seemed to come from nowhere.
And I can't help wondering if the young woman to whom we sold that house in SP, uses the same glass repair man that we did.

Caro Cugino,I fixed the problem..Please post! YOu ...

2006-03-28T07:13:00.000-05:00

Caro Cugino,

I fixed the problem..Please post! YOu know you coudl tell a pretty story about Row homes- How I remember Ken and Jerry's Titan Street dream House..

Well Frankie, my darling cousin I left a wondefull...

2006-03-28T04:50:00.000-05:00

Well Frankie, my darling cousin I left a wondefully poinant comment yesterday which seems to have disappeared into cyber forever, when I have a moment I will try to recapture some of what I wrote in response to your compelling thoughts.

Darling Cousin Frankie, I moved out of South Phill...

2006-03-26T12:51:00.000-05:00

Darling Cousin Frankie,
I moved out of South Philly many years ago over to the other State that holds many of our paisans and cumares who "made it" South jersey which is really just SP with trees. When first my partner , who as you know is not Italian, and me a born and bred south Philly boy, left the commonwealth, we had reservations as to how on earth where we going to continue our reputation as stellar hosts of some of the most talked about soirees, if we could not locally procure all the provisions needed to throw such a shindig. But alas, we have since discovered that here on the other side of the river , the Salumerias, and the bakeries and the Pasta shops rival any we may have depended on in "da city". Only because the re-population of the area once known for pigfarms, now contains some of the chicest plastic slipcovered country furniture a la Martha Stewart, in some of the lovelest McMansions any man could call his castle. I miss many things about my former hometown, but having to ask the Crack Ho to move her business elsewhere, off of my step so that I could enter after a long days work is not one of them.
I understand that my old neighborhood just blocks from yours has become quite the enclave of mod-ren town homes, going for somewhere in the range of $300,000 to $400.000..oh well if only I could have held out a bit longer.I am afraid propriety would not let me. As for decor, yes many Italian homes looked like homages to Louis something or other, or were FrenchProvincial whatever that may be, I did not see Lavender fields any where close by. Some fell for that "Mediterrainian" thing that passed thru in the 70's. With faux stucco, and heavy dark carved wood furniture making all the houses look like convent sets from a grade b Spanish film.
Personally I did not know that experience, as my parents never had plastic slipcovers or any other such devices to save any thing from use. And my mother had lovely taste and always looked to tradition for her furnishings a few of which I proudly call my own today and am always asked where I came to own them.
We lived in a very tiny house, only ten feet wide, it was not a row home as it was not connected to another, but had a lovely garden on the side , much like a house in Charleston SC does.The building dated to 1832, and maintained all the quirks of a home so old. Including a few ghosts of our own, which by the way we did see , on many occasions.
When my mother Ann died, I was left this tiny gem and continued to live there as I did for all my life , one address all your life, that in this world is an awsome event .
Then I met a man who showed me love and kindness that I did not get from anyone else and when one is in a state of mourning for a parent who was so beloved, my heart awakened again, and I was smitten from the start .
After almost a year we decided to give up his center city apartment and he should move into my tiny house in South Philly a place he vowed never to live. Love makes people do many things. I warned him of the ghosts but he not being Italian and possessing a very practical nature, laughed at my mention of the supernatural.
But then one sleepy night, it all started, and the ghosts were out to proove his/her existence in a big way. My partner to this day still won't profess a belief in the spirit world. But he will not deny he has personally met some of the ghosts of South Philadelphia.
I maintain friendships and family in South Philadelphia but I rarely go back, and now when I do it is with an odd sense that I never belonged there, this place that was the only place I ever knew.
It made me who I am today, and I am proud of what it once was to me. But the people that I loved are all gone now, and the place that I knew just exists in my mind,it is but a memory.
I miss you cousin and always think of you in your travels around the world far from South Philly.

Darling Cousin Frankie, I moved out of South Phill...

2006-03-26T12:50:00.000-05:00

Hey, I'm no "Commie"! I may have experimented with...

2006-03-21T12:29:00.000-05:00

Hey, I'm no "Commie"! I may have experimented with a little Trotskyism in college (and how hasn't)but as far an inevitable class conflict between workers and owners leading to a workers revolution, well I don't "swing that way".
The Philadelphia Weekly ran a story on YUPPIES who brought houses in the Greys Ferry area for around 300,000 only to find out that they are living in "crack central". The homes southwest of Graduate Hospital area nice but didn't these people walk around before buying the houses?

Well comrade I think property is theft....and at $...

2006-03-21T07:01:00.000-05:00

Well comrade I think property is theft....and at $250,000 and 200 meters froma crack house it is more then theft..

I remember my mother having the "imitation Louie" ...

2006-03-20T12:46:00.000-05:00

I remember my mother having the "imitation Louie" furniture complete with the plastic slip covers. I don't think we ever had the popcorn ceilings but I know other people who did and for the life of me I can't figure out why they would do such a thing to their ceiling.
The real estate market in South Philly (like most of Philly) is a fiction built on greed.