Bruce Baldwin in South Philadelphia has dedicated his life to helping neighbors on 7th Street

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) – You may not have heard his name, but Bruce Baldwin is royalty on 7th Street in South Philadelphia.

“We respect Mayor Kenney, but we respect (Baldwin) Mayor of 7th Street,” Bernadette Wells, a lifelong friend of his.

“Mayor” is a title the 64-year-old has earned from decades of work in his community, much of it through the Ford PAL Recreational Center

“He is a blessing because many people need someone in their lives to give them hope and love. He is there for them,” said officer Joseph Ellerby, who is assigned to the PAL center.

Since the pandemic, Baldwin has organized COVID-19 food giveaways, neighborhood tests, and two weeks ago gave away 200 bicycles and scooters to neighborhood kids.

Now synonymous with respect, its name was used to instill fear in the neighborhood.

“Interestingly, we ran from him like kids,” Wells said.

“I’m cut from the same cloth as the other young guys out on the street,” said Baldwin, who is now the president of the Seventh Street Community Civic Association.

From the age of seventeen, he spent ten years in and out of prison, but tragedy changed his life.

“I was in state prison, I lost my little brother to AIDS, HIV, and I wasn’t home,” he said.

He started writing behind bars.

“When they robbed us of our dignity and took us out of our house,” he said as he read one of his poems.

Writing became his outlet and how he processed his emotions. Now, that’s how he honors his neighbors. He has written 4,000 poems, including one for every member of his community who dies.

“The hardest words I ever spoke were saying goodbye to my baby,” he wrote of a 16-year-old girl who died in his neighborhood.

For 30 years, all of Baldwin’s work has centered on a few blocks from 7th Street, but his reach goes so much further because of all the people he has helped.

“The reason this community means so much to me is that initially I took a lot away. That’s what happened. So I had to put it back in,” he said.