The Frankford CDC just can’t stand sitting still, so on Tuesday we held not one, but two, business spotlight events. We started our day at Frankford High School, where we teamed up with the Student Success Center to hold a round table discussion focused on owning your own food business. The panel consisted of three women entrepreneurs based here in Frankford, Lily Fischer of A Cupcake Wonderland, Tegan Hagy of Philly LoveBar, and Therice Denby of Denby’s Sweet Sensations (4428 Frankford Ave). All shared great insight in to the hard work involved in being a small business owner, their decision making processes, and where they see their businesses headed in the next few years. As always, the Frankford High School students were wonderful, and asked some great questions!

In the afternoon, we headed over to Aria’s Frankford Campus for our first Business Spotlight Day. As you may remember, Aria and the Frankford CDC are launching a new program whereby four Frankford businesses, four times a year, set up a table for an afternoon in Aria’s cafeteria and get to know Aria staff who might not ordinarily find themselves shopping on the Ave. We had a great time speaking with Aria’s dedicated staff, and think some great connections were forged!

Stay tuned for more information about coming events, and for details about how to get involved! And if you have an idea for a business support event, we’d love to hear from you! Just call our offices at 215-743-6580.

Back on May 6th we posted about the Frankford Civic meeting and the complaints about the 4700 block of Griscom.  It did not take long before things started happening by way of the Frankford CDC cleaning up and sealing 4728 Griscom Street.  It had been an ongoing concern to the CDC (which owns the building) but what made it more of a problem was that a squatter had taken possession of that building.  Squatters are difficult to deal with but the opportunity presented itself and possession of the building was secured.

The alley between 4728 and the building next door (4732-34 Griscom) which is owned by the city was also cleaned.  The pictures below show what was done.  Now the challenge will be to keep it that way. We’re hoping some concerned residents will come to the PSA1 meeting on Tuesday May 22nd to talk to the police about the problems they are having on the block.

As a news source for Frankford, we’re always on the lookout to see how we can better engage our audience.  Specifically, we want people to be informed of events and meetings before they happen.  We actually judge our effectiveness on how many people show up for meetings.

We understand that many in our community aren’t able to check the Frankford Gazette on their computer every day.  To that end, while the entire news industry moves away from print, we’ve walked towards it.  By printing our internet posts and distributing them along Frankford Ave, we’ve increased our ability to attract our intended audience who might not be inclined to search the neighborhood news on the web.

And in general, it’s a painful fact that many of Frankford’s residents don’t even have computers.  A recent study shows that 55% of Philadelphia’s residents don’t have internet access at home, it’s probably even greater in an economically challenged neighborhood like Frankford.

To that end, when we came across Text Blast, developed by local civic hacker (and Frankford celebrity) Tim Wisniewski, we thought it would be an excellent opportunity to further put seats in the meetings.  It’s a free service that will let us send a notice to many subscribed users via text message.  Our current thoughts are to get a good subscription of cel phone numbers together and then blast them all with a single text message about a civic meeting, or town watch meetup, or park cleanup, etc.  This is definitely a work in progress, but I think this is going to really help get the word out about civic involvement.

So if you’re interested in receiving announcements about Frankford community events, text message the word ‘frankford’ to 215-987-5555.  You won’t get any reply, I’m hoping the developer can fix it so that in the future it will return a confirmation.  It is anonymous.   We will have your cel phone number but no more information than that.  If at some time in the future you want to turn the service off, you can just notify us by email.

You you prefer, you can also email me your phone number and I’ll add it manually.  My email is jim@frankfordgazette.com.

Text the word frankford

to

(215) 987 – 5555

for community news about Frankford.

The Frankford CDC, State Representative Tony Payton, the People’s Emergency Center, and Technically Philly are holding a series of computer basics workshops! See the flyer below for all the details.

On my way to Ikea this morning, I snapped a pic of the buckling side wall of 5003 Penn Street, on the corner with Wakeling Street.  There is a growing gap among the bricks running from the second floor window down to what was probably a very nice front door.  And you might not be able to tell from the photo, but it’s begun to impressively bow out.

side of 5003 Penn St

Philly’s Office of Property Assessment lists the owner as one Tamara Lauma-Kallman who is behind 31 thousand dollars in property tax dating back to 1993.  Google Street View shows an impressive amount of overgrowth, probably during the summer.

I’ve reported the issue through SeeClickFix, which is monitored by Philly 311.