(18 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY: CLEARED FOR USE BY AP AND SNTV CLIENTS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Philadelphia – 18 September 2024
1. Wide of protesters booing
2. UPSOUND (English) Debbie Wei of Save Chinatown Coalition, “Mayor Parker has decided she is supporting the arena.”
3. Various of protesters chanting, “Shame, Shame”
4. Close up of protesters
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Debbie Wei, Save Chinatown Coalition:
“Well, Philadelphia Chinatown has been fighting this development for more than two years. Today, Mayor Parker, the mayor of Philadelphia, called a meeting of Chinatown leaders. Many of us were excluded from that meeting and not allowed into the room. And while she was there, people in the room from our community texted us that she had made the decision to endorse the arena in spite of overwhelming opposition. And not only that, but that she was negotiating community benefits agreements with the Sixers.”
6. Community members hugging and crying
7. Cut away of protest signs
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Debbie Law, Chinatown small business owner:
“I’m very saddened by the news that I just heard that the mayor has decided that she’s in support of arena. I’m hoping and praying and and I’m not going down without a fight that we can change her mind and city council because she hasn’t heard from everybody. She’s only heard from people that she surrounds herself with. And those are people who are conflicted or not undecided and not in support of… They are pro arena. I’m a community member. I wasn’t invited to any of these meetings, and I’m very disheartened by that.”
9. Various of Philadelphia Chinatown
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Debbie Wei, Save Chinatown Coalition:
“I think what’s important to know about our Chinatown is that we are a community in the deepest sense of the word. And what I mean by that is we’re not just a collection of streets and we’re not just a geographic location. We are people with relationships, with history, with memory. And when our people speak about the possible imminent destruction of the community, they are talking about losing home at the deepest level. It’s not about losing the business. It’s not about losing their house. It is about losing the people that you grow up with, the people that have taken care of you, the people that, the young people that are looking up to you. All of that is lost when you destroy a community.”
11. Various of Chinatown
STORYLINE:
The Philadelphia 76ers have a new teammate in their bid to build a new $1.3 billion arena downtown.
Mayor Cherelle Parker announced Wednesday that she has forged a deal with team owners to keep the NBA franchise in town and will send it to city council.
The decision comes despite objections from nearby Chinatown residents and just weeks after New Jersey’s governor offered $400 million in tax breaks to build the site across the river in Camden.
Team owners say their planned 76 Place would improve a struggling retail corridor near City Hall and capitalize on the city’s public transit. They have vowed not to renew the lease on their current home, a circa 1996 arena in the city’s South Philadelphia sports complex, when their lease runs out in 2031.
Chinatown activists who have felt the squeeze of development repeatedly since at least the 1990s had urged the mayor to reject the plan. They are only now getting some relief from a sunken expressway that cleaved their community in two in 1991, in the form of a $159 million grant to build a park over the six-lane highway and reconnect the area.
AP Video by Tassanee Vejpongsa
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