To those who haven't been properly introduced, or who've only seen it on the fly, the stretch of Baltimore Avenue that approaches 50th Street in West Philadelphia is not quick to reveal its quirky charm.
Rosemarie Certo admits to being guilty on both counts. Offered space to open a brewpub at this western edge of Cedar Park, she balked: "It was too far." Too far from what? "Too far from 46th and Baltimore," which was about as far as she saw commercial possibility.
She has come to adjust her view since, saying she has discovered profound value in the racial mix, arts scene, and political consciousness (ranging from prisoner-advocate vegan anarchists to establishmentarian Penn profs), and now sees in the diversity and coexistence a utopia - a model for "the way we should all live." (For now, though, she'll live in leafy Gladwyne, 12 miles away in suburban Lower Merion.)
Cedar Park was itself one of the city's original suburbs, former farmland planted with handsome, porch-fronted, bay-windowed Queen Anne homes when the trolley line linked it to Center City a century ago. But it has been in decidedly urban decline for years.
There are bright spots: Vientiane Cafe, for instance, the tidy Laotian spot that once operated out of a backyard blue tent. From an alcove, the Satellite Coffee shop winks warmly. Local anarchists do a Wednesday vegetarian lunch at the gritty A Space, inviting the postman to stay for a $4 plate of ginger triple squash, garlic rice, and Brazilian black beans.
But passersby are more likely to register the visible downers - the Soviet-style liquor store (soon to be replaced), sad thrift stores, grated windows, and forbidding steel security doors.
The biggest disappointment of all, of course, has been the grand, 1903-vintage brick firehouse - an emblem in its heyday of Cedar Park's status as a West Philadelphia "beauty spot," but in recent years a depressingly faltering, and finally kaput, sort-of farmer's market.
What was meant to be an anchor business and community hub had become a millstone around its neck; a symbol of civic stall, a dead tooth at an intersection in desperate need of a reassuring smile.
