Hometown Poverty
... On the way to my old neighborhood, I saw ghastly images of poverty such as empty stores once filled with goods for sale, children running the street with tattered shirts and worn out shoes, would-be tough guys hanging out on the street corner with no direction in life, majestic Art Deco street lamp in disarray probably due to lack of maintenance by the city, and cars being broken in as the owner watches helplessly. ... It seemed to me that when I left south Philadelphia the community was raising itself out of the ashes of poverty like the Phoenix of past.