Well the crowd was smaller than it usually is on Tuesday night.  But rain + election day + Phillies + Flyers might have had something to do with it.

The War Memorial at Frankford Stadium was a topic of discussion. One of the bronze plaques had fallen from the memorial back in February.  Since that time the School District and the city have replaced it and then decided to clean all the metal.  Here are the before and after pictures.  You can click on the image to get a better view.

Barry Howell attended a meeting of the Concerned Citizens of Northwood at Simpson Playground last Tuesday.  Barry related that people attending that meeting spoke of being besieged by gang activity, bad section 8 tenants, parking issues and drugs in their back driveways.  Barry reiterated that the Northwood Civic is going to address these quality of life issues beyond the deed restricted areas of Northwood.  He will be discussing the issue with Councilman Darrel Clarke.

A meeting was to be held with the new operators of the Frankford Y to work out a community relations agreement.  The civic supports their effort to turn this now empty building into an asset for the community.  As long as they are going in that direction the community should support them.

In June the Civic will begin negotiations with Cancer Treatment Centers of America on the renewal of the community relations agreement.  The focus of this new agreement will be on jobs and investment in the Northwood community.

Some people at the meeting complained about people in pickup trucks trolling the rear driveways of blocks looking for trash and anything else that may be handy.  When they are around things seem to turn up missing.  There is talk of needing a town watch to keep an eye on the streets.  Barry encouraged anyone who would like to start a community town watch to contact him and he will put them in touch with the right people.

Final discussion related to the problem of L&I not enforcing zoning board decisions.  If the Civic wins a decision in zoning and the property owners ignore that decision, what does it take to get the city to enforce that decision.  The process is long and tedious and meanwhile the property owners goes on without penalty.

The next Northwood Civic Association meeting is scheduled for June 15th.  Seth Williams the District Attorney, has agreed to attend the Civic meeting.  Bring your complaints and take this opportunity to sound off on what is happening to your community.

If you have time on Friday, don’t forget the groundbreaking for the restoration of this old house.  As a result of the Cancer Treatment Centers of America involvement, the Knights of Pythias/Greenwood Cemetery is seeing some long overdue, monumental changes.  The ceremony will be on Friday April 30th at 10:00 AM.

A study commissioned by the owners of Greenwood Cemetery and the Philadelphia Historical Commission into the purported residence of Benjamin Rush has found the house was built between 1830 and 1850, precluding the possibility that the Signer of the Declaration of Independence could have spent any time inside it since he died in 1813.   It would have been a nice feather in the area’s cap if it had been Rush’s house since he was a player in the country’s founding and it would have led to more speculation as to what other founding fathers may have visited or even stayed in the house.

It’s still an old house though and the press release indicates that these findings clear the way for the structure’s restoration back into it’s correct historical context, i.e. a house from the middle 1800s.  It also coincides with the re internment of some 3000 graves currently being moved from the back of the cemetery to the front so that Cancer Centers Of America may build a parking lot and possibly buildings on land adjacent to their center.

The Inquirer today has an update of the process of relocating as many as 3,000 graves in Greenwood Cemetery.  Get the details here.

The Northeast Times reports on the meeting about the future of the Benjamin Rush house:

About a dozen community stakeholders offered cemetery officials their thoughts on what the future should look like for the Knights of Pythias Greenwood Cemetery/Benjamin Rush house rehabilitation project last week in a conference room at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

In 2005, CTCA moved into the old Parkview Hospital campus, adjacent to the 44-acre cemetery, at 930 Adams Ave., in Northwood.

Greenwood Holdings, a company affiliated with the hospital, and minority shareholder Friends of Greenwood acquired the cemetery and its historic yet ramshackle buildings last year.

That includes the circa 1782 Benjamin Rush House, where Doctor and Mrs. Rush are said to have served tea to George Washington and Annis Boudinot Stockton (who lived at Morven in Princeton).

Greenwood Holdings, working with consulting engineers and preservation architects, plan to restore the house, which was used as the cemetery office for many years, and transform it into the centerpiece for the cemetery.

Philadelphia Graveyards and Cemeteries author Tom Keels, who also guides tours through Laurel Hill Cemetery in East Falls, acted as a facilitator for the meeting, holding off answering questions from attendees, instead asking for their “out-of-the-box” ideas.

Joe Menkevich, former Northwood Civic Association president and amateur historian, suggested that CTCA, which has several hospitals located across the country, might consider naming this particular location the Benjamin Rush campus, noting that Rush himself worked on a treatment for cancer during his lifetime.

Read the entire story here.