-By Janet Kalter 

On first reading of Philadelphia Magazine's article, "What the Hell Happened to Old City," I was really riled. I have to admit, it didn't get much better after the second or third reading. I wanted revenge. It was the first time I wished I advertised heavily in the magazine so that I could withdraw all of my advertising from them.

What ever made them so angry with us that they went after Old City with a vengeance?  The photographs in the online version of the article highlight our most decrepit buildings, and the very businesses that we've been trying to get L&I to help us remove from our neighborhood: the nuisance bars, the palm reader. And how did they manage to make those photographs so harsh? Well, I was upset.

The emails were flying among concerned people in Old City, and I loved the comments that appeared under the article online. (By the way, if you don't subscribe, please don't buy the magazine to read the article; you can read it online.)

In the end, it's taken me only two days to calm down; and, as I read comments from others, I find that we're coming to the conclusion that we can leverage this article. It's not as though it's news to us that we have this problem with nuisance bars in Old City. We've been fighting hard to address this problem. We can use this article as ammunition as we struggle to get the powers-that-be to apply their powers.

Did Philadelphia Magazine actually do us a favor - inadvertently?

What is most upsetting to us, I think, is that all of Old City was colored by the few hours that we experience this incredible upset to our neighborhood between approximately 11:00 PM and 3:00 AM on Fridays and Saturdays. That's about eight hours. It's brought to us, by the way, by "visitors" to our neighborhood.

The rest of the week, Old City remains one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Philadelphia and, from people who have lived around the country, we hear that it rivals the neighborhoods they've experienced anywhere.

So where do we go from here? Stay positive. Continue our programs for more high-end businesses, more foot traffic, more serious restaurants, better signage, more trees, more gardens, more trash cans, more bicycle racks, less litter and -----fewer nuisance bars.

Will this article help? It should.