Gentrification and the Fresh Prince

I was super freaked out the other day by this little throwaway line in a post on City Paper’s the Clog about a cleanup effort in Clemente Park, which is a few blocks from my house:

Kimberly Neff and a small band of kickball players-turned-community-minded activists in the neighborhood were trying to do for the park which is a neighborhood icon less for its role in the opening credits of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and more for its long-held status as something of a neglected eyesore.

Whaaaaaaaa? I always assumed it was actually in West Philadelphia! Clemente Park, for the record, is at 18th and Wallace, in Fairmount, and lately it’s less an icon for being in the Fresh Prince credits OR for being a neglected eyesore than for being the focus of arguments between crazy yuppie dog owners and crazy yuppie parents on Phillyblog. I looked the video up on youtube.

But rewatching those credits I’ve seen a million times, I found that not only are there verses that my local Fox affiliate always left out of the theme song, but that Will Smith was clearly shooting b-ball outside of the school right by my house… minus almost 20 years of demographic shift and cleanup efforts done by groups such as Neff’s, which can be found here at Fairmount is Fun. The neighborhood has changed a lot since the video was shot. Here’s Clemente Park in 1990 vs. 2009; apologies for the poor-quality screenshots of the credits: