Good Fences and Poor Neighbors: Masterman and the Colonnade

    While the vast majority of Masterman’s woes are internal, one outside party has recently entered the ring with choice words for the school community. Not 440 or the city this time but none other than our next-door neighbor, the Colonnade, has sent an open letter to the administration castigating us. The letter alleges that we “treat [the] property poorly and show no respect to [the] residents”, including damaging property, stealing bollards, and throwing rocks at strangers. Our parents, seemingly, are not much better. Parents are messing up the sidewalk by parking on it, cursing and getting into car accidents with Colonnade residents, acting “dangerous and inconsiderate” and spitting on Colonnade staff. Ultimately, according to Richard Grzywinski, the property manager, living and working next to Masterman is “mayhem”. 

Masterman and the Colonnade were built to be sibling buildings, but even old siblings have falling-outs. While Masterman used to be a good, even beneficial neighbor with the best landscaping and building maintenance in the area, in recent years, this has changed significantly. Now Masterman is the one that drags, in both appearance and structure. “Pickup and drop off of students didn't use to be so chaotic,” Grzywinski relates, “parents [now] literally park on our sidewalk. We had our sidewalks replaced in 2018 for the safety of our residents, passerby, and Masterman. It cost over $175,000 to have them replaced and to have Masterman parents park their 5000-lb car on them is extremely frustrating.” While dismissal has always been a disorderly time and always will be for any functioning school, the recent implementation of more patio monitors and modified outdoor policies for middle schoolers (including more time in the morning spent outside) suggests that post-pandemic, students are acting up more. Student behavior before and after school has proved yet another strain on Colonnade staff and residents. According to management, “once the students are excused from school, they have no guidance and they get into things they shouldn't,” including confrontations with residents and staff. When interacting with students, “on more than one occasion they have been cursed at and treated poorly.” Grzywinski points to a further culture of disrespect towards Colonnade residents, especially the elderly, having difficulty leaving and entering the building due to loitering. The building also has had to put significantly more work into maintenance than it used to. “Students have broken parts of our fence, branches off of trees, bricks from our front walkway” and ultimately are “very disrespectful” of their next-door neighbors. Grzywinski is not sure why students have become more of a headache, ultimately telling me that “the blame lays more on the administration” than the students for the pattern of behavior. 

      The parent issue is more explicable. More parents on Spring Garden after the pandemic means less room for pickup and more room for frustration. Confrontations with parents ultimately arise from a common need to arrive and depart, both at rush hour times. These confrontations stem from unusually close proximity to each other and transportation frustrations. Masterman is fairly unusual as a Philadelphia school in that shares a block with another significant building and has a student body fairly dependent on cars and public transportation for getting to and from school. Most schools, especially magnet schools, have a fenced yard or few significant neighbors that act, often intentionally, as a buffer between the school and the community. Masterman, with its under-utilized and open patio, gives students more rein to wander and interact with near neighbors, which most schools do not have. The transportation issue also necessitates that students walk past the Colonnade to get home in some form or another and that parents/guardians scramble to get parking spots closest to their children, often near or in front of the Colonnade. Considering that these two worlds converge daily, there is ample room for conflict, and in recent months, Grzywinski has brainstormed how to resolve it. His proposal: Design and implement a pickup and dropoff that doesn't affect the surrounding neighborhood and traffic patterns in a negative way. Have more adults outside, inform both the parents and students that this is someone's house, and treat it like you would any other. For the 200 residents of the Colonnade on whose behalf he writes, the building is a home and want it to be respected as such. 

      Ultimately, while our relationship remains negative (and affirmatively so while loud trash pickups remain during teaching hours), it remains to be seen if these two warring neighbors can work it out. The Administration has not responded to the initial correspondence or letter according to Grzywinski, and Mr. Gilken, when asked, was not aware that any such letter existed, or that there were any problems with the Colonnade at all. The distress between us may not be mutual, but in order to overcome it, a reconciliation must be. Good fences make good neighbors, but no a-fence to anyone: we can certainly do better.