![]() ![]() Today’s Cheltenham looks a lot like the Overbrook of Brame-Scott’s youth - increasingly black, with threats of white flight and falling home prices. Five years later, she bought her own home.īut whatever she was trying to escape by taking that next, “better” step, has proven hard to shake. Then a divorced mom making $68,000 a year, she rented a three-bedroom townhome in the Lynnewood Gardens housing development, which sits just atop the city’s northern border. In 2010, after her daughter graduated from a Philadelphia charter school, Brame-Scott followed the family tradition of upward mobility. But Philly’s reputation for crowded classrooms and empty coffers convinced her to seek something else. Finally, the family decamped to Overbrook, lured by the promise of a stable, middle-class life.īrame-Scott went through the Philadelphia public school system and graduated from a magnet program at Bartram High School. ![]() From there he moved to West Philadelphia, met his wife and landed a job at the IT company Unisys. Her dad first landed in North Philadelphia and went to Ben Franklin High School. They’ve just made me so sad that they’re my neighbors.”īoth of Brame-Scott’s parents were born in the South and migrated to Philadelphia for shots at a better life. “And it’s not because of the school district. “This past year, more than ever, I’ve constantly said 2020 can’t come soon enough,” she says. She chose Cheltenham, and still believes in its potential - despite a creeping sense of disillusionment. She worried her two kids wouldn’t fit in. She picked this border suburb of 36,000 just north of Philadelphia to escape the kind of bigotry detected in that Facebook post. Three year years later, Brame-Scott still keeps screenshots of the conversation on her phone.īrame-Scott moved to Cheltenham seven years ago. The woman dodged, explaining she wasn’t racist because she had black friends. ![]() Why? Because we allowed them to take over as a neighborhood we regret it.”īrame-Scott knew what the poster meant by “them,” but she asked anyway. Now we can only have memories and reminisce through Facebook. ![]() “We had a great life! Over time the neighborhood changed and people panicked sold their houses. WHYY thanks our sponsors - become a WHYY sponsor ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |