900 Hamilton Street

wasteland, for now: Decades of neglect turned this dank artery just north of Chinatown into a gathering place for the disenfranchised. Signs of a recovery are cropping up, however, as new residents settle into properties on surrounding blocks.
Photo By: Michael T. Regan

The death and possible rebirth of a Center City commercial district.

by Mike Newall

There may be no sadder place in Philadelphia to wait out a thundershower than under the Hamilton Street train trestle. For decades, large pockets of the city's homeless have collected in this dark, dank artery just north of Chinatown. Some come for a bed or a plate of food at "Our Brother's Place" homeless shelter, the only occupied building on the block. Most days, a crowd of men can be found hanging outside the red brick shelter with its blue door and fenced-in recreation yard. These men are an eclectic bunch: most suffer from mental afflictions and drug addictions, some look dull-eyed and soul broken, walking ghosts waiting out a sentence. Others exude quiet, humble determination. Like Barry, 44, a cleanly dressed, soft-spoken man who sleeps on a cot in the second-floor dormitory.

"It's a cold, cold world," says the recovering addict who slept on the street for months after his wife and children left him. "But I'm on my feet now and I'm going to make it."

There are homeless, though, who come to Hamilton Street daily but never venture to the part of the block on which the sun shines, never cross the threshold of the shelter. Rather, they sit in the darkness of the underpass, spending their afternoons on splintered logs and milk crates, passing tallboys and crack pipes, or strolling into the back lot with some shattered man or woman for a $4 blowjob.

On a recent afternoon, it was dry under the trestle as the rain fell hard against 10th Street. Pigeons perched in the amber rusted beams, whooping and flapping. Rats crisscrossed the concrete ledges. Miss Tia sat among eight men. Emaciated, with small patches of white hair splotched across her narrow skull, she sells what's left of her body for a few dollars. She wore no bra, furry oversized slippers and a tan, loose-fitting summer dress soiled with mud, malt liquor and excrement. Having lived on the streets for 18 years, she argues with the voices in her head. She said her family abandoned her long ago.

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

"I read in a book about the white picket fence and the peach tree in the back yard," she shouted, slapping her finger against her palm for emphasis. "I read about marrying some Prince Charming and having all the riches. Well, the man I married weren't no prince."

Miss Tia stood and waved her hand at the men on the log.

"Now, I'm married to all the men out here. All these men my husbands."

She shook her backside and yelled, "Fuck yeah."

The men slapped their knees in laughter.

One man placed a crack pipe, draped in a dirty hand towel, to his lips and took a long, slow draw. Now, the moist air smelled like burning Styrofoam. The man leaned back against the wall, his eyes reddened and alive, and stared out through the low hanging trestle beams, beyond Esslinger's cleaning solution plant, beyond George's Café — shuttered and rotting, the white plastic beams propping its red awning bent like swizzle straws — beyond the smattering of wholesale produce warehouses and tire shops that dot the marred streetscape of Callowhill, and gazed into the slate gray Center City skyline.

Another man drained the last drops of the last tallboy and tossed the crumpled can into the gutter.

"Damn," he said, licking his lips and scratching his scraggily goatee. "Damn."

The police rarely ever bother Miss Tia and the others who inhabit the underpass, usually only rousting them when there's a noticeable uptick in burglarized cars in the area. But that allowance will probably end in the next few years as life slowly breathes back into Callowhill. Restaurants are opening, like Jose's, a comfortable Mexican eatery on the corner of 10th and Buttonwood. Nicaraguan and Salvadoran immigrants are forming a small but vibrant community in the nearby blocks surrounding Spring Garden Street. Construction is under way to turn one abandoned warehouse into market-rate condominiums. Some residents even have plans to rejuvenate the desolate viaduct into a pedestrian promenade with cafes and art studios.

By 6 p.m., the rain had passed and the neighborhood slowly came back to life. At the Trestle Inn on 11th Street, Arlene the bartender mixed the drinks and a chocolate-skinned go-go dancer in a hot pink bikini took the stage. She danced seductively and sadly and when she was finished the sun streamed through the red tinted door, illuminating her in soft light as she walked away on crooked heels. On the 1000 block of Hamilton, workmen picked up their tools and wearily climbed back onto the scaffolding at the condominium site. The produce warehouses came alive again as Mexican men toiled under the watchful eyes of Chinese foremen, unloading flatbed trucks filled with the day's final deliveries of onions, soy beans and cabbage. Further down the street, men hauled cardboard boxes of unwrapped chickens, while pigeons feasted on heads of broccoli blown from a dumpster in the storm, and a little boy stood in his door frame, collecting runoff drain water in the palm of his outstretched hand. Soon, the boy's older brother and sister pushed past him and ran off to splash in the street puddles. The little boy sprinted after them.

And, under the trestle, someone had managed to scrounge up a 40. There was laughter and Miss Tia had closed her eyes and fallen asleep where she sat. At the shelter, men spilled onto the sidewalk. Old-timer "Smiling" Stephen Burnhannan squinted up at the sky and, content that the rain had passed, sat down on a stool to finish his latest Dean Koontz paperback. A desperate woman in a purple top leaned into the mesh fence of the recreation yard.

"Come on boys, only $4, whatever you want," she said, pulling her shirt past her belly. "My bronchitis is acting up and I need some crack."

None of the men took her offer.