(Stories that begin with “I was a pizza delivery man” tend to go in a different direction than this one, so I apologize in advance for the letdown.)
I was a pizza delivery man one summer during my college years. My mom and I lived in southeast Pennsylvania, in a nice town close to the ivy-covered halls of Swarthmore College and one of the most depressed cities east of the Mississippi. When friends from my hometown in NJ would come to visit, they’d follow my directions from Rt. 95 and look around nervously, wondering why my mom had chosen to move to a ghetto slum. Within a mile or two, as they approached Wallingford, their moods would brighten.
When I began delivering pizzas, one of the other drivers stood beside me and pointed to the map of the delivery area. The area of Chester, PA cut off to the east by 95 was covered with cross-hatched lines. It may as well have said, “No man’s land.”
“What’s the deal?” I asked.
“We don’t deliver to that side of 95. Too many drivers got shot and had their cars stolen,” he replied.
“Uh-huh.”
“You want to buy a gun?” he asked. “I’m a licensed dealer.”
“That’s okay.”
(Keep in mind: this is within a year of my Napoleon Dynamite look)
I did carry a knife that summer, and kept a baseball bat in my car. I managed to make it through the season without getting into trouble, although I did pull out the bat once, when two guys were having a street-brawl directly in front of my car while I was on a delivery.
A year or two later, I drove a shuttle van during late-night weekend shifts for a motel near the Philadelphia International Airport. As part of that gig, I would drive the girls from the housekeeping department home when their shifts were up. They lived on The Other Side of 95. The side where there are corner bars with a line of guys 25 long waiting to get in, looking like a casting call for that bad movie-within-the-movie in The Hollywood Shuffle.
The trip was usually pretty easy, since I always knew how far I was from the highways. Still, a white guy driving a big van through Chester on a Saturday night must’ve seemed a little odd. If there were any cops on patrol, I bet they’d have been suspicious.
Why do I bring all this up? Because Chester’s getting a casino!
That’s right: this hideously depressed shipbuilding town has decided that the best way to revitalize its fortunes is to let Harrah’s come in and build a casino and racetrack.
Officials see the Harrah’s project as a potential economic engine that will bring new investment, service jobs and increased revenues to a Colonial-era city that has been battered by high unemployment, poverty, crime and drugs in recent decades [ . . .] While the city has not done an economic-impact study, [David N. Sciocchetti, executive director of the Chester Economic Development Authority] predicts the daily influx of visitors to Chester will prompt new restaurants, gas stations and businesses catering to tourists. He also sees an opportunity for companies that will supply the complex with goods and services.
No, seriously! The cure for their ills will consist of compulsive gamblers and track-denizens! Even better, the area upon which Harrah’s is building gets tax abatements, so the city and state won’t get as much of a benefit from the commerce!
I understand that Chester’s essentially a dead zone, and probably still doesn’t even have decent pizza delivery, but if you’re going to try to reduce crime, poverty and drug use, I’m not sure that slot machines and harness racing comprise a viable strategy.