Mantua/Parkside: Bridges Remain Neglected and in Disrepair

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Brad Johns waits for the bus at the corner of 41st Street and Westminster Avenue, resigned to the long wait. From his perch at this stop on SEPTA’s long-term detour for bus routes 38 and 40, Johns stares north, at the cement barricades that sit two blocks away at the entrance to the 41st Street bridge.

“For them to ignore that right there,” said Johns, pointing toward the blockade.  “That’s crazy.”

Although people frequently cross it on foot and on bikes, the 41st Street bridge has been closed to vehicular traffic since 1993. Structurally unsound, its battered steel and concrete suspend over six railway tracks once served a vital connection between Mantua and Poplar avenues. Also running through the bridge is a gas main serving a large area that includes Mantua and Parkside. The gas main is only one complication in a legal and financial saga that has left a visible stamp of neglect between these two neighborhoods for over a decade.

Currently, the City of Philadelphia is legally responsible for maintaining the 40th, 41st and 42nd Street bridges. These three structures are the only three means of traveling between East Parkside, Mantua and the rest of West Philadelphia. The Department of Streets shut down the 40th Street bridge to vehicular traffic in August of 2007 to “maintain the structural integrity of the bridge.”

The formal memo went on to state that traffic would be detoured to alternative travel routes until further notice with a goal to reopen the bridge “as soon as possible.”

“Repairs are scheduled to begin in November of this year [on the 40th Street bridge],” said Chief Engineer John Lutz of the City’s Bridge Unit.

Once begun, those repairs will take two years to complete. Only after the 40th Street bridge rehab has been completed will work be able to begin on the 41st Street bridge. Those repairs would take 22 months, Lutz said.

“The 40th Street has only been closed for a few years, so that’s being repaired first,” said Lutz. “The 41st has already been closed for so long, so we’re doing the 40th first.”

Bridge repair is expensive. Though the city must foot the bill, it spent years in court disputing that responsibility with the companies that own the tracks below the bridges:  the National Railroad Passenger Corp., better known as Amtrak, and the Consolidated Rail Corp.  The railroad companies won the final district court decision on appeal in 2000, seven years after the bridge’s closure.

Meanwhile, the bridge remains closed and the cement blockades on either side of 41st Street are now neighbored by those at 40th Street.

“I don’t use the bridge, at least not yet,” says Karen Williams from the front stoop of her house on Poplar Avenue.

Williams has only lived in the area for seven months, but she can already comment on the heavy traffic on Poplar. “You don’t have an open section, it can cause accidents,” she said, gesturing toward the intersection with her hands. “You’ve got this corner here, people zooming up one way and down the other.”

Calla Cousar has lived in the area since the late 1940s and is president of the East Parkside Residents’ Association. “It hurts to just look back and see what happened to a neighborhood that was once so vibrant,” she said.

Parkside and Mantua are primarily residential neighborhoods. A majority of the now-dilapidated row homes were built in the early 20th century, when these areas were defined more by thriving business and beautiful homes than their crime rates. Parkside is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Today, most blocks are home to at least one vacant lot while people like Brad Johns must take the bus or the Girard trolley outside of the neighborhood in order to shop or go to the doctor.

According to the Census 2000, nearly one third of the families living in Mantua and Parkside’s shared zip code lived below poverty level. Of those families, 45 percent were led by a female householder with no husband present; of those female-led families, over 50 percent have children under the age of 18. The median household income was $16,151. While 40 percent of individuals were employed as civilians, a staggering 48 percent were listed as not in the labor force. For those who are employed, overall commute time to work averaged at 25 minutes. One third of those workers commuted via public transit. For those who ride the bus, the long-term detour issued by SEPTA redirects routes 38 and 40 for an added 10 minutes of travel time.

Worrisome to some residents is the delayed access the detour creates for more critical, immediate services. “We do not have great access to emergencies, the fire department, the police department,” said longtime Parkside resident Bertha Crenshaw. “You have to wait until they go up to 42nd Street and then come around.”

“I really think that we have been greatly neglected and disserviced in this area,” she added.

Parts of the neighborhood are defined by blight and inattention, where trash and graffiti decorate vacant lots and line the bridges. Residents view the oversight simply as an outward reflection of where they stand on the City’s list of priorities.

“It seemed like everything just started to seem like it was going downhill. No money was coming in,” said Cousar. “When there’s no money coming in, the businesses leave. We ended up with a lot of vacant lots.”

Many doubt the bridges will ever be repaired and operate once more.

“The way I see it, the city is in a financial crisis. They need money,” said Johns, with a nod in the direction of the 41st Street Bridge. “That’s not gonna happen.”

Others don’t realize the 41st Street bridge ever functioned as more than an eyesore and safety hazard.

“It seems like everyone just forgot,” said East Parkside resident Quinton Davis, as he strapped on a surgical mask and prepared to clean up trash lining the fence of the playground along 41st Street, only a block from the bridge. “It’s been so long.”

In the Bridge Unit, Lutz agreed. “It has been a very long time,” he said.

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