Author: Gil

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SCRUB

I started this out thinking it would be titled “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” but I’m not really that mad. SCRUB is the Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight. The subject arises because once again I found one of these signs on my street. I take it as a personal insult and generally rip the damn things down as soon as I can. However the genius who put it up did such a good job that I did not have time to get my ladder up there and unscrew it from the utility pole for several weeks.

Now it has grown on me so that I’ve decided to see how the city enforces it’s laws since these things are clearly illegal. Each sign can result in a $75 fine and there are at least 4 of them in a three block area that I have documented.

SCRUB has gone to court against the giants who have despoiled our city with blight and I asked their advice. They promptly invited me to supply locations and I went one better and took pictures and addresses. SCRUB will submit them to L&I and we will see how the system works.

In the meanwhile if you have any on your street and would like to add them to our collection, take a picture and email it to us.

It’s not the big things that kill the neighborhood, it happens piece by piece. Rebuilding the neighborhood happens the same way, one step at a time.

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Frankford residents arrested

From the News Gleaner:

Around 4 p.m. Sunday, police were flagged down on the 2300 block of Cottman Avenue and were told three men in a white minivan had just broken into a red Saturn in the Roosevelt Mall vehicle. Police saw the van exit the mall and gave chase up Bustleton Avenue. Several officers joined the pursuit, which only ended after the van crashed into a car on the 6000 block of Alma Street, police said.

Police said the men punched and kicked at officers. Arrested were Angel Guzman, 19, of the 3500 block of North 8th Street; Jonathan NegronVelez, 21, of the 4600 block of Horrocks Street; and Ramon Seijo, 28, also of the 4600 block of Horrocks Street.

Read the entire story here.

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Home of the week

Well we made it through the winter and now find ourselves in the first week of spring. I am still waiting for that end of winter surprise snow storm but I may have to eat my words on that prediction.

My older brother and I were talking about some things a few days ago and at some point he brought up that he walked home from St. Joachim’s all the way down to Plum Street near Torresdale, where we lived, every day. He was about 8 when we moved from that house so he was fairly young to be making that long walk but that was how it was in 1948.

He said he could clearly remember the house on Josephine Street where our aunt Bernice lived because he frequently had to stop there on the way to use the bathroom. That was a bit before my time.

By coincidence our home of the week is from that exact block (4300) of Josephine Street. If you have been following this series of posts you know that I don’t have any pattern to what home will be coming up. I see them, like them and that is it.

What I look for is not the newest or the biggest or the most improved or most prominent. I look for homes that are cared for in one way or another. Some are easy to not see because they are in blocks that otherwise don’t look all that good. Some are in areas where some folks don’t want to go. They are all over because there are good people living in ever nook and cranny of Frankford.

You might call them affordable estates. Good solid houses in the city. Close to good transportation and in a walkable neighborhood.

This week there are two. It’s a pair on Josephine Street. In honor of aunt Bernice.

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John Adams in Frankford

HBO began running the film version of David McCullough’s book “John Adams” last Sunday. It is a great story of a unique man in a unique time. I was curious if they would portray the trips that Adams had to make from Massachusetts to Philadelphia since he would have passed right through Frankford on the Kings Highway. The story jumped from his departure from home in Massachusetts and suddenly he was in Philadelphia at least 3 weeks later.

This week as I was reading the book, (John Adams by David McCullough, Simon & Schuster paperback, page 93) I came upon this passage which is of interest to us. It mirrors a scene in the movie that took place outside of the State House in Philadelphia.

In later years Adams would recall the warning advice given the Massachusetts delegation the day of their arrival for the First Congress. Benjamin Rush, Thomas Mifflin, and two or three other Philadelphia patriots had ridden out to welcome the Massachusetts men, and at a tavern in the village of Frankford, in the seclusion of a private room, they had told the New Englanders they were “suspected of having independence in view.” They were perceived to be “too zealous” and must not presume to take the lead. Virginia, they were reminded, was the largest, richest, and most populous of the colonies, and the “very proud” Virginians felt they had the right to lead.

So now we know, in his own words, what happened in a small room in a tavern in Frankford in 1775.