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Neighbors say club controversy doesn't define them

The Valley Club, the private, suburban swim club that become the focus of intense media scrutiny last week, sits just feet from the Philadelphia city line.

(Editorial cartoon by Tony Auth)
(Editorial cartoon by Tony Auth)Read more

The Valley Club, the private, suburban swim club that become the focus of intense media scrutiny last week, sits just feet from the Philadelphia city line.

On the city side, a Northeast neighborhood of redbrick duplexes is filled with Russian immigrants and with contractors, their vans and trucks loaded up with ladders in the hope of more work.

Across the border in Huntingdon Valley, an industrial area of squat gray or beige buildings surrounds the swim club. A little farther into Montgomery County, children of many different racial and ethnic backgrounds play among large single-family homes where Chinese, Russians, Indians, and African Americans live.

The furor over the club's decision to rescind the temporary membership of a group of largely black and Hispanic children who spent just one day splashing around the pool before they were asked to leave has frustrated many nearby residents, not least because it has given their neighborhoods, which are largely white, a bad reputation.

"I think they're knuckleheads up there," said John Fenton, 43, who lives in the Northeast and stopped into a restaurant just up the road from the club. "Even if the management up there didn't have any racial motivation, the way they handled it, you have to be more careful. I don't know how you can do that to little kids."

Others bemoaned the presence of idling news trucks, saying they felt the media cried racism before all the facts where known.

"If you're going to take one or two comments and run with it, you can paint any picture you want," said Trent Odhner, 29, who grew up in Huntingdon Valley.

The visiting campers said that when they had gotten to the pool, they heard club members ask what all the "black kids" were doing there and expressing concern that one of the campers might "do something" to the other children.

The club president, John G. Duesler Jr., said Friday that overcrowding, not racism, had led the club to refund the day camp's deposit and cancel the agreement to use the pool. Although the club had known how many children to expect, Duesler said, it hadn't thought through the consequences of having so many in the pool at once. Contracts with two other day camps were similarly canceled.

Some club members spoke to reporters last week to explain that they had complained to the club's managers because of the crowded pool, not because the children weren't white.

But motivation can be tricky to pin down when it comes to allegations of discrimination. And Duesler's comment that he had canceled the camp's access for fear it would change the club's "complexion" was an awful flub, if nothing else, some residents said.

"It was a terrible choice of words," Duesler said Friday, adding that he had meant that too many kids in the pool changed the atmosphere.

Odhner, a kitchen manager at Oh! Bryon's Saloonery, a bar and restaurant just down the road from the club, said he believed that it was possible Duesler was telling the truth, and that it was possible club members had made racially disparaging remarks within earshot of the children. While he doesn't feel the club should be held responsible for the remarks of individuals, Odhner said, Duesler dug his own grave when he said "complexion."

"You can't use a word like that today," he said. "It's going to take off the way it is."

None of the neighbors interviewed denied that racism exists. A few Philadelphia residents who would not give their names talked openly about how they didn't want black people in their neighborhoods.

But just as neighbors felt it would be wrong to exclude the day camp from the club because of race, they felt it was wrong to say all of the neighborhoods around the club are unwelcoming to minorities.

Diana Poon, 38, who is of Chinese heritage and lives in Huntingdon Valley, said her daughters, ages 12 and 17, loved the area and had never had problems with racism at their school. One of her girls attended a Fourth of July party at the swim club.

"Everybody gets along with us," she said. "This is the first I've heard of this."

Ellen Stone, 37, who emigrated from Russia and has lived in Huntingdon Valley for four years, said her neighborhood - the Estates at Huntingdon Valley - is very diverse.

"We have a black family. We have a lot of Indians. We have a lot of Chinese," she said. "Kids are still kids. They play together. There are a lot of nationalities in my daughter's class. Her best friend is Indian."

Joe Streeper, 36, an electrician who lives in the Northeast, said: "You've got Russians, Polish, Jewish. You get everything in this area. . . . Everybody talks to everybody. Everybody helps everybody."

Other clubs have offered their pool to the campers, but the story isn't finished yet. A parent of four children filed a suit in federal court in Philadelphia last week, alleging that her children were not permitted to swim at the club because they are African American. The state Human Rights Commission is also investigating, and Sen. Arlen Specter has asked the Justice Department to see whether the club violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

"I don't think it's any more racist than any other neighborhood," said Gary Sheffron, 50, a housepainter who was checking the brakes on his 1993 forest-green Corvette on Friday. "It's a shame. Sounds like somebody had a bad day and opened his mouth and said something stupid."