The neighborhood surrounding North Philadelphia's Urban Crisis Response Center speaks to the reality of a city grappling with deep poverty. The scene includes a silver coffin chained to a telephone pole with a sign reading "All Lives Matter."

"If you mess with guns and drugs, you'll end up inside there or in a jail cell," explained a local, of the message behind that jarring prop not too far from 16th Street and Lehigh Avenue.

During Philadelphia’s 2015 mayoral race, this depressed block served as the backdrop for a political rap video titled “I Want To Live.”

“We need a plan 'cause we’re out here hurting,” sang Lady Lesh in that song, which doubled as a campaign spot for Republican candidate Melissa Murray Bailey, who lost to Democrat Jim Kenney.

This week, that block returned to the political sphere as the city’s Republican Party announced it would become the temporary home of a Philly GOP campaign office.

Suffice it to say, some neighbors told PhillyVoice that they don’t exactly embrace their presidential candidate’s way of thinking. Before we get to all that, let’s talk about how we got to that stoop on Tuesday.

"The Book of Revelations. That's what I think about Trump." – Resident, who lives near the Philly GOP's North Philadelphia campaign office



A SIX-HOUR TOUR

The Philly GOP announced Monday that it would open eight campaign offices with one goal: get as many Philadelphians to vote for Donald Trump as it can.

"Our nominee is poised to win Pennsylvania and the presidency, as is evidenced by September polling that shows our nominee closing the gap in our state,” said party chairman Joe DeFelice. “We have the momentum, we have the message and we have the energy of voters on our side."

The opening of the South Street campaign office already got a bit of attention. The others are located in North, Northeast, Northwest and South Philly, along with Bridesburg/Tacony, Germantown and Mt. Airy.

Tuesday's vice-presidential debate offered the perfect opportunity to cruise by all of them to see whether locals in a deep-blue city were welcoming of a politically red neighbor moving in to drive votes to the Trump column.



DeFelice readily conceded that, despite the announcements, they haven't all opened yet and, when they do (he hopes that happens by the end of the upcoming weekend), they won't be staffed around the clock.

My tour exposed the reality that there's much work yet to be done as Election Day creeps closer.

At Chelten and Pulaski avenues in Germantown, there were no signs of activity at a corner property which once housed state Rep. Rosita Youngblood’s election-day operations. Same for the Bridesburg/Tacony office.



Finding the Northwest Philadelphia location was a bit tricky, too, considering there are, oddly, two 8300 blocks of Stenton Avenue. One address was a boarded-up property featuring a No Trespassing sign hidden behind overgrowth; at the other, nobody answered the office door on the second floor of a green office building that houses a notary, insurance adjuster and radio station.

Trump's Northeast Philly location, at GOP party headquarters near Cottman and Frankford avenues, is not so much a campaign office as it is repurposed space.



Brian Hickey/PhillyVoice Near the corner of Frankford and Cottman avenues, a door at the Philadelphia Republican Party's headquarters is decorated with a large photo of Donald Trump. The office serves as one of eight that the city's GOP has opened, or will soon open, across the city.

Sure, there’s a big smiling picture of Trump (head-to-knees) in a doorway near a trio of Trump/Pence signs, but they were outnumbered by signage for U.S. Pat Toomey and state Reps. John Taylor and Martina White.

Down in South Philly, a trio of signs, Trump door hanger and Make America Great Again T-shirt hanging in the window made it clear that 1713 Wolf St., with ties to the party's 26th Ward, is politically oriented.

The office felt less out of place than the roof deck across the street, where a Dallas Cowboys flag and a blue-and-silver version of Old Glory, waved.



Brian Hickey/PhillyVoice The Philly GOP's Donald Trump office in South Philadelphia.

One neighbor, who chose to remain nameless, said he wasn’t surprised at all by the temporary neighbor as “there’s always something political going on there.” Sporting a Flyers T-shirt while smoking a cigarette, he didn’t seem like the type of voter that the GOP could sway.

“I’m not even going to vote. I don’t like either of them,” he said of Trump and Hillary Clinton. “I’m not even paying attention to it. I don’t care who wins.”

TALKING POLITICS IN NORTH PHILLY

That level of apathy wasn’t apparent back at the North Philly location, though.

Activist Terry Starks runs the Urban Crisis Response Center. He explained why he welcomed the GOP to a neighborhood where voter turnout will determine the size of Trump’s inevitable loss.

“We’ve been fighting with the city for eight years, trying to get resources for our programs,” he explained over the phone on Tuesday afternoon. The Philly GOP "reached out to us. Actually, we reached out to them first because we’re working on getting political balance in the community."

Starks isn’t a political newcomer. He was behind the video shot there last year, and appeared regularly with Bailey during the mayoral campaign.

“This is the poorest part of the city," he said. "At the end of the day, it’s all about finding the best way to get resources, whether that comes from Democrats or Republicans.”

Also seeking resources were a half dozen men (ranging in age from late 20s to late 50s) hanging on a pair of 16th Street stoops across from the Trump office on Tuesday.

Many of them were drinking – "Why do we drink? It helps numb the pain of this reality," explained one – and everyone spoke freely.

The wide-ranging discussion covered police brutality, a "slave" mentality that exists to this day and, among many other topics, disdain for African-Americans who vouch for Trump.

They viewed the campaign office as a photo-op prop in the exact type of poor community that Trump would do nothing to help if elected.



"What we’ve got going on right now, it’s going to get 10 times worse if he wins," said Kevin, who didn't give his last name. "We'll have a lot of wars, and more underprivileged kids going to war, because that’s the only way to feed yourself."



Asked for their take on Trump, the men responded:

"Trump is a chump." "F--- Trump." "I think he’s a bigot. He’s going to start a f-----g war. He said he likes wars." "The Book of Revelations. That's what I think about Trump." "He says he’s gonna get us jobs, but I don’t see it happening."

"The man's saying anything he can just to get elected." "He's a bigot. There's no other way to look at Trump. He's a bigot." "He don’t have the right attitude. He will push the bomb button in a heartbeat. He'll have no problem pushing the atomic bomb. And then somebody else gonna push the bomb. Then, we’ll push the bomb. Then, somebody else will push the bomb. Trump is the wrong guy for that job." "The devil will be the devil. Conquer, divide, destroy. That’s what power is about." "This is how I size up Donald Trump: As an oppressor. He’s an oppressor."