A recap of the voting at the Frankford Civic  Meeting on Wednesday, July 27th.

• Take out food at a grocery store at 4677 Frankford Avenue was approved.
• Building expansion of Mastery Charter School Smedley Campus was approved.
• A group day care home at 5108 Torresdale Avenue was not approved.
• Take out food at a grocery store at 2056 Bridge Street was approved.
• A check cashing facility a 4947 Frankford Avenue was not approved.  There was one dissenting vote.
• Auto salvage at an existing facility at 1954 Church Street was approved.

There will be a Frankford Civic Association meeting on Thursday August 18th at 7PM at Aria Health in the 2nd floor conference room.

John Loftus at the Northeast Times this week reports that the cleanup on the 1900 block of Ruan Street from the fire back in January has finally been done by the city.  You may wonder why the owner of the building didn’t do this job.  See the full story for a fascinating glimpse into the problems of absentee property owners and why the city has to do more to bring them into line.  You will find that story here.

In the same issue of the Times, Bill Kenny updates us on the improvement on the 4800 block of Griscom Street and the intersection of Foulkrod Street and Frankford Avenue.  You can read that on at this link.

Complacency is quiet.  Activism is like a squeaky wheel.  It is so annoying that you have to throw some grease on it to quiet it down.  Don’t accept things as they are.  Makes some noise and make things better.

Meeting and events coming up in the next four weeks:

Grand Army of the Republic Museum Open House
When – Sun, August 7, 12pm – 5pm
Where – 4278 Griscom Street, Philadelphia, PA 19124 (map)
Description – Presentation at 1:30 PM: Devil Diarist of Winchester, VA Jerry Holsworth

Concerned Citizens of Northwood Meeting
When – Thu, August 11, 7pm – 8pm
Where – Simpson Playground – Orthodox St. (map)

Frankford Second Saturday Festival
When – Sat, August 13, 12pm – 5pm
Where – 4500 block of Frankford Avenue (map)
Description – Come celebrate the Arts in Frankford with performances, free food and art to browse or buy, Sponsored by the Frankford CDC, Frankford Aria Hospital and Quicky Mart Express. Performances will be held at the Parking Lot at 4346 Frankford Avenue.

PSA1 meeting
When – Monday, August 15, 7pm – 8pm
Where – 4900 Frankford Avenue, Aria Health, 2nd floor conference room

Frankford Civic Association Meeting
When – Thursday, August 18, 7pm – 8pm
Where – 4900 Frankford Avenue, Aria Health, 2nd floor conference room

We stopped at the Frankford Transportation Center corner at Bustleton and Frankford yesterday.  Its right outside of the SEPTA police office, opposite Walgreen’s.  they were getting a lot of business and the peaches lived up the the hype.  See below for a slideshow and stop by next Tuesday to see for yourself.  The two vendors are Hands on the Earth Orchard and Quaff Meadows Farm both from Lancaster County.

The print edition of the Frankford Gazette hit the streets today.  You can find it at the following locations:

• Quickie Mart Express – 4346 Frankford Avenue
• Free Library of Philadelphia, Frankford Branch – 4634 Frankford Avenue
• Sugar & Spice – 4801 Frankford Avenue
• 7-11, 5028 Frankford Avenue
• Holiday Thriftway – 5147 Frankford Avenue

So what does this mean?  We have a fairly large following here on the internet but we do not reach the folks in the community who are not connected.  That was until today.

This came about directly from the work of Jim Saunders from the City Managing Director’s office as a result of his work with PhillyRising.  He saw the need for a print newspaper and Patricia Coyne, of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations’ Community Relations Division (who is also volunteer board secretary for the Historical Society of Frankford suggested that some of us get together at her office to talk about it.  Tim Wisniewski, of the Frankford Special Services district talked to us last year about the need for a print newspaper and he also attended that meeting.  Within an hour, we had developed a plan and it became a reality today.  The final product was printed by the Frankford CDC at their office on Griscom Street and the papers were distributed by the Safety Ambassadors of the Special Services District.

Naturally the print edition is a little different than what we do online.  We are looking for advertisers to make it self supporting.  We are also looking for contributors of news, pictures, event reports and everything else that you want to see in a community newspaper.

When you child graduates from high school, send us a picture with the details.  If mom or dad comes home from deployment, let us know.  The school events that your kids are involved with are of interest to everybody.  We are also exploring ways to expand coverage to include some Spanish language reporting because we want to include all of the residents in our community.

Four years ago we started this web site because there was nothing else out there serving Frankford.  Most of the news that mentioned Frankford was negative.  So we wanted to focus some attention on the positive.  We will do the same with the print edition.  And did I mention that is is free?   You can see it at the locations listed above.  You can also download the pdf right here.

And if you are attending the special meeting of the Frankford Civic tonight, some copies will be available.

Thank you, Frankford, for your support.