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Center of a community dispute

An East Passyunk Crossing facility is at the intersection of old vs. new.

The nonprofit that runs Tolentine signeda 25-year lease with the city for $1 in 1990. It ends July 12.
The nonprofit that runs Tolentine signeda 25-year lease with the city for $1 in 1990. It ends July 12.Read moreMICHAEL PRONZATO / Staff Photographer

At Tolentine Community Center, high above the dozens of South Philadelphia kids who zoom on gym-class scooters and toss basketballs, loom two Autoframe Bingo King scoreboards.

For years, prodigious bingo games funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars through this city-owned building. In time, the games became a source of neighborhood bewilderment.

"Those machines," Tony Mattei said, "I'd like to sell them."

Mattei, 77, is interim executive director at Tolentine, where officials insist that after-school programs and summer camp - not bingo - are the priority. Tolentine is a 25-year institution in East Passyunk Crossing, a neighborhood whose now-constant whir of change can be measured in new restaurants, new boutiques, new rowhouses.

Space is at a premium, and the 35,000-square-foot community center is a desirable spot with an expiring lease. That has generated an acrimonious neighborhood dispute. Within its imposing black fence at 11th and Mifflin Streets, Tolentine is at the intersection of old vs. new.

"They do nothing for the immediate community," said Joseph Marino, 52, the cochair of the East Passyunk Crossing Civic Association, which is pushing for a change. "The gates are constantly locked."

The nonprofit that runs Tolentine signed a 25-year lease with the city for $1 in 1990. It ends July 12.

Marino wants the city to assume control of the building. He envisions better use of the only public space in the neighborhood - maybe a dog park - and more inclusive programs.

He and other neighborhood residents portray Tolentine as a secretive community building fueled by taxpayer dollars and run by an insular board.

Anna Mattei, the board's president and Tony's wife, said she feels betrayed by the neighbors.

"I have lived in this neighborhood for 65 years," Anna Mattei, 73, said. "Show us a little respect. I understand the enthusiasm. I applaud it. I support it. I am behind them. The young blood is needed to keep anything alive. But you cannot come in and smash and burn. Why can't we work together?"

The city constructed the building for $2.2 million in 1990; former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo helped secure funds. While the center is on city-owned land, it is not subject to oversight by the Department of Parks and Recreation, although the city pays about $30,000 a year for its utilities.

"It's different than anything else in our system," said Michael DiBerardinis, deputy mayor for environmental and community resources.

He wants a resolution by the fall.

"It's a little messy," DiBerardinis said. "I've been trying to find the middle ground. Will that happen? I'm not sure."

About 50 people - young and old, lifetime residents and newcomers - congregated in late April at the Neumann Goretti High School cafeteria for a civic association meeting to discuss Tolentine's future. The sound of basketballs striking the gym floor upstairs provided a cadence.

There were verbal jabs. Sensational accusations. And, following South Philly manners, some shouting.

"This is my meeting!" Marino yelled at Tony Mattei in the middle of it. The 77-year-old retired engineer collected his belongings to retreat.

Councilman Mark Squilla stepped in as peacemaker.

"We are trying to start a new day today," Squilla said.

Mattei paused. He raised his arms.

"Let's start," he said. "We are open."

The residents derided a lack of access to the building. Some complained of gratuitous fees. Others wondered how the nonprofit's board was chosen, and how much money the city supplied.

About 60 kids use Tolentine's after-school program, which costs $65 a week, Mattei said. The 10-week summer camp runs $1,350, and about 80 children are enrolled.

One man, who refused to give his name or address, spoke in favor of Tolentine's programming. The rest called for change.

Stephanie DeJesse, 49, wistfully recalled the groundbreaking for Tolentine. A few years ago, she said, she took her son and his friends to play basketball inside. She was turned away, she said. The gym was arranged for the next day's bingo game.

"I'm sure there are all kind of horror stories," Mattei said.

As the meeting concluded, Marino apologized. "I want to make clear these were not personal attacks against the Matteis," he said. Moments later, he said Tolentine was held hostage by a small group of people who must adapt with the neighborhood.

"I do not believe them capable of that change," Marino said, and the attendees dispersed.

Until last week, Tolentine's website had not been updated since March, to announce a closure due to snow. The online calendar for senior activities stayed frozen on November 2014. Bingo was scheduled for 10 a.m. every Wednesday.

For years, bingo proceeds funded Tolentine.

In fiscal 2002, Tolentine reported $713,316 in gross bingo revenue, but after $657,909 in expenses to run the games (including prizes), the organization netted $55,407.

Tolentine's net gaming income rose to $111,911 in 2010 and $154,468 in 2011, but it reported an overall loss each year.

That, Anna Mattei said, was related to the exorbitant cost of maintaining the aging former Broad Street Armory.

The nonprofit, seeking a larger bingo venue, bought the building at 1221 S. Broad St. from the state in 2003 for $106,246. It fell into disrepair. A decade later, Tolentine sold it to a developer for $835,000, but not before paying $400,000 to the state to release deed restrictions to enable the sale.

Tolentine's lawyer, Anthony B. Quinn, said the organization broke even on the Broad Street transaction.

Bingo continued during those years at Tolentine, where neighbors complained about the influx of cars and commotion.

"For 10 years, we didn't pocket one penny from the bingo games," Mattei said. "It went back into the building. People don't want to hear what they don't want to hear.

"We have no secrets. We have absolutely no secrets."

In time, the lucrative bingo games dwindled. Tolentine, after selling the armory, reported a much smaller income from the games in its 2013 tax return; just $29,154 in gross revenue and $8,199 in net gaming income.

Once Tolentine curbed its bingo, the center's former executive director resigned.

She had been paid $52,000 a year to manage the center's day-to-day operations. "It was always a constant battle between us," Mattei said. After a closer inspection, the board found inefficiencies, such as paying $300 a month for trash collection when the city was supposed to do it for free.

Mattei installed her husband as the interim executive director last August. The current board is five members with unlimited terms who are not paid.

"When you get a board of that size, you have a lot of insularity," said Laura Otten, executive director of the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University, who reviewed Tolentine's financial documents for The Inquirer. "Part of the reason we want a larger board is so you can have enough diversity of perspective, skill sets, and knowledge."

Mattei invited two younger neighbors to join the board in 2013. They did not last.

One of them, 38-year-old resident Ian Toner, said the tension between the board and the center's former executive director was too great. "That was sabotaging everything that needed to happen there," Toner said. He attended two meetings.

"It was frustrating," said Kate Clark, 38, another recruited board member who soon left. "The board was really small and they didn't do anything. The meetings felt dysfunctional. There was a lot of yelling. They were long. I just didn't feel comfortable."

The Matteis said Toner and Clark gave up. They said Toner threatened them with accusations of misbehavior. They bristled at suggestions to change the center's name.

"The board is old and conservative," Tony Mattei conceded during the April community meeting.

Toner, seated in the audience, stood.

"I have not disappeared," he said. "I am not rolled up in a carpet at the bottom of the Schuylkill River."

Marino lives a block from Tolentine. He wants the black gates destroyed. "It looks like something out of Fort Knox," he said. This, he attributed to "old Philly politics."

"I thought I had a good rapport with Mr. Marino," Anna Mattei said. "We have been friends forever and forever."

Quinn, Tolentine's lawyer, said the nonprofit was looking for another building to continue its services. Clark, the onetime board member, believes the Matteis genuinely care about the community.

Father Nicholas Martorano, of nearby St. Nicholas of Tolentine Church, blamed gentrification for the disconnect.

A faded sign, written in Italian, hangs from a Tolentine fence on 11th Street: Per Servire La Comunita.

"It hurts me a little bit," Martorano said, "to see the new forgetting the old."

215-854-2928@MattGelb