As litter and abandoned buildings thrive.
In my Philadelphia neighborhood a large, abandoned Rite Aid store continues to deteriorate after its closure two years ago. The homeless often congregate behind the building to shoot up or sleep. Vandals have smashed some of the front windows but the replacement boards make the building look even worse. The parking lot surrounding the building has become a dumping ground for mattresses and mountains of trash that nobody — even the city — seems to want to clean up.
This Rite Aid was trashed during the 2020 George Floyd riots. Windows were broken and then boarded up while shoplifters had a field day. This was when many blue cities were letting thieves go free if they stole goods under a certain dollar amount. A clerk used to keep me abreast about the number of holdups; he eventually left his job in disgust, convinced the neighborhood was beyond repair.
Fifteen years ago when this Rite Aid was built, a WAWA was added next door. At that time this was a different neighborhood. Employees at both stores were from the neighborhood; they were mainly of Italian, German, Irish and Polish descent, people who grew up in the area. There was little crime and shoplifting. A seismic shift occurred when New York-based developers moved in. Suddenly 500k utility-looking warehouse homes were replacing many of the humble 2- and 3-story brick structures built in 1921 or before.
Concurrent with the riots and pandemic lockdown came a crime surge, especially in areas like North Philadelphia and Kensington — areas where the WAWA Corporation, based in Media, Pennsylvania, is reluctant to open new outlets.
A combination of factors (i.e. the riots and the closures of Mom-and-Pop stores in poor neighborhoods because of the pandemic lockdown) changed the character of this once relatively peaceful village.
Like a flash of lightning, white employees of Rite Aid and WAWA disappeared, replaced by equity-based affirmative action hiring practices that seemed to come from a sense of collective guilt around the George Floyd incident. The new employees lived in other neighborhoods, some so “unschooled” that when I went to order a BLT at WAWA a newly hired clerk asked me if I wanted my bacon cooked.
Okay, no big deal. This is life in the city. Equality for all and poor people of color need jobs too. But something else happened.
The scene grew dangerously risqué at night when the parking lot of both stores would fill up with idling white cars with tinted windows, headlights on. The parking lot traffic was related to making the right drug connection. Eventually long-time neighborhood residents began avoiding the store after dark.
Shootings and fights followed. The stores responded by hiring multiple security guards but even this was inadequate. Arrangements were made to employ Philadelphia police officers alongside the guards. Customers were greeted by three uniformed officers stationed by the front door, a scene reminiscent of armed guard battalions in Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport.
Sadly, nearly all of Philadelphia now has become this kind of armed camp.
Since 2022, some 73 Rite Aid stores have closed in Philadelphia, including a large store at 17th and Chestnut Streets in Center City. Today, there are no remaining Rite Aid stores in downtown Philadelphia. Fast food restaurants are also rapidly disappearing; in 2020 a pro-George Floyd mob burned down a popular — and the only — downtown McDonald’s near Rittenhouse Square. It has not been rebuilt.
Although some abandoned Rite Aid buildings in the city have been converted into urban dog parks and even car washes, my neighborhood Rite Aid continues to slowly deteriorate as the city of Philadelphia itself deteriorates. --->READ MORE HERE
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