Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
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Also this issue: Ring Up the King Made Music Man Chow, Fun Commissioner Gordon |
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August 15-21, 2002
city beat
A New D-Hole
 Mommy, what are those men doing?: Albo Jeavons proposes turning the so-called DisneyHole into a Museum of Corporate Welfare featuring works like his Business as Usual. Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
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Artist and activist Albo Jeavons takes on the Disney divot.
On Thu., Aug. 22, a group of visionary Philadelphians will converge on the vacant lot at Eighth and Market streets to present their proposals for what to do with what’s become known as the DisneyHole. The site was supposed to hold a DisneyQuest urban entertainment center, but after tons of taxpayers’ money was spent on a subsidized deal for the company and suburban developer Ken Goldenberg, Disney pulled out, leaving the city holding the bag.
The current plan for the site is yet another Center City surface parking lot.
To artist and activist Albo Jeavons, all this sound and fury signifying nothing at the DisneyHole shows exactly what's wrong with development in Philadelphia. As in most American cities, politically connected developers, an alphabet soup of city planning agencies, and politicians bought-and-sold with campaign contributions decide what gets built and what doesn't. Except the level of corporate welfare is even more egregious here -- Chicago got a DisneyQuest built without contributing any public money -- and the level of incompetence is so high in Philly that even when the powers that be agree, they can't get projects off the ground.
As a response to this sorry state of affairs, Jeavons and a few like-minded friends decided to form the Philadelphia Industrial Redevelopment Authority (PIRA) and sponsor a public brainstorming session for the Eighth and Market site. "Throughout the process [of creating PIRA], I've been thinking about who makes decisions in the city, the lack of real democracy, the ridiculous level of cronyism we have here," Jeavons explains. The activist hopes to accomplish more than just having "people put together proposals for the DisneyHole, but to plant the idea in people's heads that they can have a say in these things too. It doesn't have to be this insular group of businessmen and politicians who make all the decisions."
Explaining how he came up with the PIRA, Jeavons says, "I was just talking with a friend about all these organizations that have similar sounding names where they've taken a group of four or five words that they've put together in a number of different configurations. They have all this power in the city, but we have very limited access to them. So I thought, I'll make up my own. I'll start one."
"My original intention was that this was going to be a prank, and I was going to try to fool people," says Jeavons. And to some degree it worked -- one Philadelphian called PIRA to inquire about any job openings. But what started as a prank has taken on a life of its own. Jeavons says he plans to legally register the group's name. So PIRA's sort of real and sort of fake. "I'm fine with ambiguity," Jeavons says.
The real organizations that are being mocked had varied reactions to PIRA. Herb Wetzel, the head of the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, refused to comment at length. "The Redevelopment Authority is not involved with the Eighth and Market site. It looks like some sort of parody," was all he would add.
Peter Longstreth, president of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, takes the group a bit more seriously. "The idea of people taking interest in public works is always healthy," he says. But Longstreth takes issue with the suggestion that Philadelphia's government and planning agencies are inaccessible and unaccountable. "There's all sorts of different forums for public discourse," says Longstreth, citing hearings in City Council or at the planning commission.
Longstreth doesn't think his group bears much responsibility for the fiasco at Eighth and Market. "[PIRA gives the] implication that PIDC has some direct involvement with Eighth and Market. That land is controlled by the Parking Authority and leased to a private company. PIDC was only responsible for passing the TIF [tax increment financing] legislation."
But to Jeavons, the TIF legislation -- a tax break for developers -- is part of the problem, a problem that would be the focus of the Eighth and Market site if Jeavons had his druthers. His proposal is a Museum of Corporate Welfare featuring a mix of rides, games and social history. Jeavons sees the museum as a great place to display his sculpture Business as Usual, which features two life-sized stuffed men in dark suits on their hands and knees, one man's head inserted into the other man's ass.
Jeavons has two other projects in the works aiming at the creative reuse of the city. One is an arts festival to be held in the Broad Street subway concourse. He calls the other the Wal
Art Project "to encourage unauthorized decoration of the streets of Philadelphia." The pro-graffiti initiative springs from Jeavons objection to the fact that "if you have money you can put your logo on anything, but if you put up any kind of personalized expression the Center City District comes in and takes it down."
Center City District (CCD) spokesperson Elise Vider, defends the group's anti-graffiti measures saying, "One person's personal expression is another person's visual pollution." In CCD's book, graffiti is the "desecration of private property," plain and simple, says Vider.
Vider points out that CCD does its part to promote personal expression in the city by sponsoring the Art in Transit program, which gives local cultural groups discounted ad space on public bus shelters.
Knowing Albo Jeavons, it's just a matter of time before PIRA applies for the program.
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