The potential of Coatesville

The story of Coatesville - a historic town still reeling from the decline of the steel industry but grasping at renewal - can be read on its main street.

Family businesses in the city for four generations abut stretches of abandoned storefronts along Lincoln Highway. But, intermittently, modest signs of a long-promised renaissance break the bleakness: a small office building, a renovated middle school, a health and housing center that opened last year.

Potential is a word that Frances Sheehan uses to describe the Chester County city. Sheehan is president and chief executive officer of the Brandywine Health Foundation, which demonstrated its belief in Coatesville's possibilities by opening the Brandywine Center on Lincoln Highway in April.

But Coatesville's potential remains unfulfilled, stifled by high crime, poverty, and now a chain of arsons that has placed the city of about 11,600 people in the national spotlight.

The arsons, which have killed one woman and last weekend destroyed 15 houses in a single blaze, have prompted some residents to plan a Coatesville exit strategy. Others, buoyed by national attention that has generated an influx of resources and a renewed feeling of camaraderie, are daring to express what was for many unthinkable weeks ago: hope.

"If you're not from Coatesville, you'd think this is just a terrible place, but things like this happen in other places," said Richard Hicks, the city's recreation director. "I'm hoping everything is going to turn around and get better. We have some great things going on, but people don't know about it."

What people know are the headlines.

In 2003, Coatesville received negative press for a brash - and ultimately doomed - redevelopment plan that included the eminent-domain seizure of a farm in a neighboring township. The failed endeavor left the city millions of dollars in debt.

By 2006, the city had hired a new manager, Harry G. Walker III. In less than a month, Walker became a defendant in a lawsuit alleging violations of the Sunshine Law. In 2007, he faced back-to-back charges of drunken-driving and failing to report an accident in separate cases.

Later that year, the bad-news spotlight caught the city in its glare again when some citizens complained that two of Coatesville's seven City Council members, both ministers, were violating the Constitution by punctuating council meetings with prayer.

More recently, Police Chief William Matthews has come under attack for failing to obtain certification in Pennsylvania, leaving him unauthorized to make an arrest or carry a gun. Citing an undisclosed medical issue, Matthews has defended his abilities, stressing that the turnover of a third of the force is unrelated to his leadership.

All of this is the latest chapter in the history of a city that once was a bustling municipality, flush with jobs at the industrial behemoth Lukens Steel and a retail economy driven by stores including national chains such as JC Penney, Sears, Kresge's and Firestone and long-standing family businesses such as the Coatesville Army & Navy Store, operated by the Skolnik family.

"When I was a child, going to downtown Coatesville was like going to New York City. All the storefronts were lit in neon," Council President Martin Eggleston recalled.

Judy Skolnik, who works at the Army & Navy, likened growing up in Coatesville and working in the store to The Wonder Years.

But Lukens, the city's largest employer, declined with the rest of the steel industry. And the Route 30 Bypass, built in the 1960s, made it easy for shoppers to forsake the city for other destinations, including the Exton Square Mall, which was built in the 1970s.

With the economic downturn came rising unemployment, increased crime, and a drug trade booming alongside working families - all in a city surrounded by the affluence of Chester County.

Longtime residents, including 102-year-old Gladys Flamer, have lived through the good and the bad.

"Who'd want to come to Coatesville with these fires?" she asked. "This is a terrible thing. You don't know who's going to be next." Flamer called for city leadership to take the reins.

William Lambert, president of the Coatesville branch of the NAACP, pointed to politics, power and race as culprits in the city's failure to thrive while surrounded by wealth. The 2000 census found Coatesville nearly evenly split between African American (49 percent) and white (42 percent) residents. Latinos, counted without regard to race, made up 11 percent of the population.

"We are a part of Chester County that has been neglected," Lambert said. "You have to have a tragedy for anybody in government to come in and do anything."

Eggleston said there was a need for a renewed commitment to personal responsibility and a respect between neighbors to generate concern about each other and each other's property.

Others see a crisis of leadership. In December, Chester County District Attorney Joseph Carroll released a statement describing Coatesville as a city in crisis and calling for the ouster of the police chief and two council members. Carroll, who worked in Coatesville as a teenager, has bought a house in the city and is renovating it.

His involvement has reassured fire victims like Linda Edmondson, whose house was struck by an arsonist a year ago on her 60th birthday.

"I'm totally satisfied now that they're doing all they can to stop this," she said. "My frustration is that it took so long."

The arsons, which have caused millions of dollars in damage, has brought in state, county and federal resources; law enforcement help; and assistance from nonprofits. Donated clothing has saturated the city. Monetary donations have topped $20,000, according to Councilwoman Patsy Ray. A town watch is being organized, and a special City Council meeting Wednesday night attracted more than 500 people - nearly 500 more than usual.

And still on the city's list of development projects are some signs of hope: a hotel, a supermarket complex, and an apartment building.

Even with the current trouble, longtime resident John Pawlowski sees the glass as half full. "I think this is a passing thing," he said. Coatesville "is going through a dismal period that won't last forever, and when things get straightened out, it will be good."