Episode Overview

Title: When Your Neighbor’s the Highway
Podcast: Cannonball with Wesley Morris (The New York Times)
Date: June 9, 2022

In this episode, Wesley Morris explores how the construction of highways has reshaped urban neighborhoods, focusing on Philadelphia’s Vine Street Expressway and its impact on the city’s Chinatown. Through personal reflections, interviews with longtime residents and activists, and on-the-ground observations, the episode interrogates how infrastructure projects often disrupt communities of color, the legacy of those rifts, and what repair or reparations could look like today.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Personal Connection and Setting the Stage

• Wesley’s Family and Driving in Philly
  • Wesley reminisces about growing up in Philadelphia, learning about cars from his father and sister Robin, who prefer driving, whereas he prefers to walk.
  • The Vine Street Expressway (I-676), cutting through Philadelphia, particularly Chinatown, becomes a metaphor for the divides infrastructure can create in urban life.
  • Wesley admits, “I wanted Robin to show me the Vine Street Expressway, because I, as a pedestrian, have always been fascinated by the way highways define neighborhoods. They can cut one neighborhood off from the next, and they can reshape whole communities.” (07:03)

2. National Context: Highways and Segregation

• The episode sets the local story within a broader context of the Biden administration’s focus on reconsidering infrastructure projects that have harmed minority communities.
• Wesley points out: “It was a recognition that really struck me, in part because it was the federal government admitting the government policies actually have hurt people. And, you know, by and large, these tend to be poor people. They tend to be Black people, Latinos, nonwhite people generally.” (07:55)

3. Chinatown’s Story & Interview with Cecilia Moy

• Introduction to Cecilia Moy:
  • A 92-year-old community activist, Cecilia has spent more than six decades fighting developments that threaten Chinatown’s integrity.
  • Cecilia recounts how activism found her when, due to eminent domain, her home and others were threatened for demolition.
  • She organized to save the Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church—an anchor for Chinatown.
  • On the community: “Everything that was part of our life happened at Holy Redeemer. That’s why it was so important to us as a community.” (11:04)
  • On speaking out: “Women don’t speak out in Chinatown. Not now they do, but not before, thanks to you.” (13:44 - Cecilia reflects on breaking tradition by leading the fight.)
  • On compromise: “We were willing to sacrifice the idea that a church and school would be separated from the rest of the community… Every day that place exists is worth it.” (14:08)

4. Living with the Expressway: Children and Elders

• Wesley walks with neighborhood kids and daycare workers who navigate the hazardous crossing of the Expressway daily.
  • “Crossing the Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia is its own kind of health hazard, its own obstacle course, its own workout.” (06:09)
• The group visits Franklin Square Park, where the children have made a memorial for a beloved felled tree, echoing Cecilia’s resistance to unwelcome change:
  • “Standing here in a playground… surrounded by little Cecilias, little future Cecilias being pulled into activism they don’t even know that they’re being pulled into.” (16:44)
• Wesley joins Chinatown elders (many over 80) crossing the expressway for their weekly food bank visit, observing how the neighborhood’s cohesion is split by the highway:
  • “No matter how fast you are, you still are going to have to stop at the median in the middle of Vine Street… the time on your pedestrian signal, it’s just not enough. Try being 80 years old with a shopping cart full of groceries.” (17:41)
• Noting the cultural desert on the far side: “This side of Chinatown feels like a totally different neighborhood. There’s no cultural life the way there is on the other side of the expressway.” (18:55)

5. Erosion of Community & Urban Segregation

• Wesley reflects on his childhood’s oblivion towards Chinatown, and how urban design perpetuates segregation:
  • “It would not have occurred to me to add [Chinatown] to that list of affronted parties, in part because I’d never thought about it as a neighborhood.” (21:10)
  • “You can go a whole life without having somebody who isn’t like you—and I mean basically racially like you—in your life. Because that’s how the cities were set up, segregated.” (22:06)

6. Hidden Histories: Burial Grounds Disrupted

• The Vine Street Expressway’s path paved over the cemetery of the First African Baptist Church, founded in 1809, leading to excavation and relocation of at least 89 graves:
  • “And to disturb, you know, graves, to actually put a highway, I guess people would say if that was not done, we’d be standing in the way of progress. But I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to disturb those who are resting.” — Pastor Terrence Griffith (26:17)
• Wesley wonders about the erased histories under Philadelphia’s developments, including Black and Native Lenape graves.

7. Ongoing Struggles and What Is Owed

• Cecilia continues to oppose new projects threatening Chinatown, including a planned commuter train station:
  • “Every 10 years, we have a major impact from a development in Chinatown. By the time you get done addressing one, there’s another one coming every 10 years.” (29:32)
• On reparations and the city’s obligations:
  • “They demolished all that. And people—there’s no place to move. They moved elsewhere. 50 years that lot has been vacant. They owe us to help us replace what we lost. They should give it to us. I think they owe us.” — Cecilia Moy (30:06)

8. Acknowledgement and 'Capping' as Recognition

• Philadelphia’s mayor admits the expressway harmed Chinatown, with ideas proposed like “capping”—decking over the highway with a park or development.
• “The important thing to me, though, is that it’s an acknowledgment from the government that something needs to be done.” (30:37)

9. Monuments, Memory, and Resistance

• Wesley describes how everyday acts—Cecilia correcting her misspelled name on a government letter—symbolize the ongoing fight for dignity and recognition:
  • “That correction is essentially what Cecilia’s work has been about, which is that the government says, this is what we’re doing. And whether it’s the blueprint for the Vine Street Expressway or this commendation from the state, Cecilia’s like, no, it doesn’t have to be this way.” (32:50)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I mean, we love each other, we’re very close, but we are very different. And one of the ways our difference to me manifests itself is you love to drive and I love to walk.” — Wesley to Robin (02:11)
• “I kind of broke, how should I say, a tradition by speaking out at a town meeting. Women don’t speak out in Chinatown. Not now they do, but not before, thanks to you.” — Cecilia Moy (13:44)
• “You know, there’s such a saying as, nobody told us we were poor.” — Cecilia Moy (12:25)
• “But every day that place exists is worth it.” — Cecilia Moy, on Holy Redeemer Church (14:27)
• “It’s a ceiling on how much the community can grow.” — Wesley on the expressway’s impact (19:45)
• "It would not have occurred to me to add it [Chinatown] to that list of affronted parties, in part because I'd never thought about it as a neighborhood.” — Wesley (21:20)
• “Who’s going to stop them from stopping a SpaceX launch pad from being built where I’m buried?... The city is just gonna city.” — Wesley, on impermanence and progress (28:30)
• “…the government says, this is what we’re doing. And whether it’s the blueprint for the Vine Street Expressway or this commendation from the state, Cecilia’s like, no, it doesn’t have to be this way.” — Wesley (32:50)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Driving & Family Banter: 00:45–03:00
• Wesley’s Fascination with Urban Highways: 07:03
• Chinatown’s Story & Cecilia Moy Interview: 10:27–15:00
• Walking with Children/Elders in Chinatown: 15:00–19:58
• Urban Segregation & Personal Reflection: 21:10–23:22
• First African Baptist Church Cemetery: 24:31–26:33
• Chinatown’s Experience with 'Progress': 29:08–30:37
• Final Reflections on Memory and Resistance: 32:50–End

Conclusion

Wesley’s journey through present-day Philadelphia and its past reveals the lasting impact of infrastructure on urban neighborhoods—how highways can sever communities, how resistance can preserve what matters, and why repair goes beyond simply paving over the wounds. The episode’s layered narrative captures both the physical barriers and the unseen, emotional costs of “progress”—while honoring the everyday acts of activism that claim dignity and space for generations past and future.