THE PORT RICHMOND of the early 1990s had working-class charm.

Neighbors traded Crock-Pot recipes. They knew every kid by name. They scrubbed their steps with bleach and prettied their stoops with marigolds and mums.

Then came the invasion of Robert N. Coyle Sr.

Coyle, a real-estate investor who already had a stronghold in neighboring Kensington, swept into Port Richmond with fistfuls of cash. One by one, Coyle bought homes, some as cheap as $7,000, until his housing empire ballooned to hundreds of properties.

"Just picture a shadow moving across the area like an army," said state Rep. John Taylor, R-Philadelphia, who represents Port Richmond.

Almost overnight, Port Richmond became a neighborhood divided. On the west side of Aramingo Avenue, where Coyle and his son, Robert Jr., acquired hundreds of homes by the early 2000s, residents got hit with a tsunami of blight.

The east side of Aramingo, where the Coyles never got a foothold, maintained its folksy feel, with parents pulling toddlers in red wagons to Campbell Square Park, then stopping by trendy BYOBs for crab asparagus omelets and homemade apple crisp.

"Port Richmond is a tale of two neighborhoods," said community activist Patty-Pat Kozlowski. "Once you go on the west side of Aramingo Avenue, it's almost like you go through a portal.

"It looks like a third-world country."

Slumlord millionaire

 

Coyle, whom locals call a "slumlord millionaire," gobbled up the once-stable houses on Port Richmond's west side - and let them rot.

He rented to the city's poor and desperate. Tenants endured homes with no heat or window panes, leaky roofs, crumbling ceilings, creeping mold and seeping sewage.

Longtime residents blamed their sinking property values on Coyle's decaying homes. They no longer recognized their neighborhood, or their neighbors.

"You'd have three families living in one house, trash on the porch, kids never in school," Kozlowski said. "You can't have 17 people living in a house with one toilet."

Many of Coyle's renters were transients who didn't appear to have jobs. They moved out as quickly as they moved in, neighbors said.

The houses left vacant attracted drug dealers, squatters, rodents and stray dogs. One fed-up resident likened Coyle's homes to "public toilets."

Empty soda cans, broken beer bottles and soiled diapers littered the streets. Weeds and maggot-infested garbage clogged alleys; graffiti marred walls.

"We think Coyle caused the deterioration of the neighborhood," Taylor said. "He has wreaked havoc."

And crushed dreams, some allege.