Off-campus residents team up for new club

Philadelphia, the site of Rocky II, is now home to another sequel. Sunday night, the Penn Friends and Students For Neighborhood Involvement -- PFSNI II -- met for the first time in the off-campus home of the University students who founded it. Penn Faculty and Staff For Neighborhood Involvement currently uses the PFSNI acronym. Meeting participants included Penn undergraduates, graduate students and long-term area residents. "Unlike all the other [neighborhood improvement] meetings I've been to, it's encouraging that students are the ones starting this," said local landlord Alex Senderowicz. Senderowicz first came to West Philadelphia in the '70s as an economic history graduate student. College seniors Tamara Dubowitz and Danny Gerber founded PFSNI II this year. PFSNI II is a group of students and West Philadelphia residents who want to make the off-campus neighborhood "a more happy and vibrant community," according to a flyer advertising the introductory meeting. "We've grown kind of upset about how the students treat West Philadelphia," Gerber told those attending the meeting. Regina Flesch, who has lived at 4212 Spruce St. for 27 years, said the problems are not getting better. "I wish I could say the neighborhood is improving but it doesn't seem that way," Flesch said. Dubowitz and Gerber said they would like the group to address the perennial problems of safety and "major trash pileups." Several participants said the mounting trash problems were the result of students not being aware of how and when to prepare their trash for pickup. "The recycling information?and trash information should come from the landlord," Senderowicz said. He encouraged students to put pressure on their landlords to "do their job the right way." PFSNI II has already secured a pledge from the Philadelphia Horticulture Society for a shipment of seeds and tools they will use to beautify the off-campus area. "If we can get Penn students gardening, maybe they won't pile their trash on top," Gerber said. Dubowitz said the seeds would be given to those attending future meetings. PFSNI II participants would be encouraged to distribute the seeds to their neighbors. While students agreed that safety was one of their major concerns, local resident Marion Pond, who lives at 4214 Spruce St., downplayed the extent of safety problems. "If the neighborhood was the kind of place where people were out doing things, there would be less crime," Gerber said. Although Pond disagreed with students about the degree of crime in the area, she did make an appeal for help in combatting several incidents of graffiti. "This thing has got to stop," she said. "If anyone is working in the neighborhood schools, that's the place to stop it." Dubowitz suggested that participants work in local schools through the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps. Pond also said that students should get involved in the bi-annual neighborhood cleanups organized by the Spruce Hill Tenant Association. Dubowitz said another goal of the group would be to improve the visibility of the University's Office of Off-Campus Living.