After Mayor Cherelle Parker revealed details of the city's agreement with the Sixers for the 76 Place project on Wednesday, the group "No Arena Gayborhood" took to City Hall on Thursday to voice opposition to the proposed project that will keep the Sixers in Philadelphia until at least 2061.
According to Vik Raghupathi of KYW Newsradio, supporters of the group delivered a petition to city council, urging members not to endorse the project.
No Arena Gayborhood supports the Save Chinatown Coalition, which obviously opposes the project as well.
Members of No Arena Gayborhood feel it is important to protect spaces for Philadelphia's LGBTQ+ community and that the arena would impact them in the same negative ways it is believed to impact Chinatown.
Among the concerns is the projected uptick in traffic and how it will affect access to commercial hubs of the Gayborhood. LGBTQ+ individuals feel that the gain from the arena doesn't matter if the Gayborhood and its meaning to the community are threatened.
As outlined on Google, the Gayborhood sits between the intersections of South 11th Street and Chestnut Street and Lombard Street and South Broad Street, less than a mile from approximate end to approximate end.
Chinatown covers a radius consisting of the intersection between Arch Street and North Broad Street and Franklin Square, about a mile from approximate end to approximate end.
Market East - where Parker and team officials make clear the arena is being built despite the storylines out there that it is being built in Chinatown - sits between the two areas. According to Google, Market East is a street or two beyond the borders of both areas.
Photo via 76 DevCoThe legislative package concerning the arena will be transmitted to city council on Oct. 24. This project still has to be approved by them to move forward. But, Mayor Parker proudly doubled down on her decision to support the arena on Wednesday.
Among her team's guiding principles for negotiating the deal was "preserving and enhancing Chinatown, including by responding to long-standing challenges that have developed over decades".
None of the five principles explicitly stands up for the Gayborhood the way that one serves Chinatown. The closest any one tenet came to supporting any other specific community is the final one, "ensuring city residents and businesses from groups that have been historically excluded from participation in deals like this have access to related employment and contracting opportunities".
Now, to be fair, Parker had reason to specifically name Chinatown in those principles. Among the misconceptions about the arena is that it will be located in Chinatown.
As explained above, that is not true.
Furthermore, Parker made a point to extinguish fires around the idea that buildings or structures in Chinatown will be demolished to advance the project.
Given the spread of what she says is misinformation, it's reasonable that she felt obligated to protect Chinatown, specifically.
But, in doing that, she opened the door for other parties, such as the LGBTQ+ community, to effectively ask, "what about us?".
