I found this site while doing some more research on the Art Holiday. It seems the theater buffs have an interest in it. It was renovated by a prominent theater designer. A gem in the rough.
Category: Miscellaneous
Frankford home of the week
This pair on Kenwyn street in late September is our home for this week. There were many nice well kept properties on this block. It was hard to choose among them.
Dyre and Griscom then and now
On one of my walking tours around the town I took a picture of one of the big old houses on Griscom Street. Then I remembered that somewhere I had an old picture showing the same house shortly after it was built. This was it a few days ago on a nice sunny morning:
This was how it appeared in about 1910. You can see that there were not many other houses in the neighborhood yet.
Somewhere along the way it has lost its magnificent wrap around porch that must have been a maintenance headache but otherwise looks very much as it did. A lot of history must have passed over that porch step in almost 100 years of living.
Home of the week
Our home this week is a home to many. It is an apartment house on Penn Street. This building is immaculately maintained by the owners.
However, I must confess I know this building well since it was my first home when I moved back to Frankford many years ago. Then when my wife and I married we lived there on the top floor center for several years until we bought a house.
I got to know the owner at that time, John Corcoran. He showed me his old picture of the house as it was built. A unique old house of a style I could not name even today. It was significantly modified for conversion into apartments with a large addition in the rear. But the grand old main stairway was still there with the old dark wood banister that must have seen many a child sliding down its length.
I think John would be happy to see it looking so good today.
Prisoner Re-entry Program
Thanks to our friends at Hallwatch.org, who are watching those folks down at City Hall, the text of a bill recently introduced and sponsored by the entire City Council is available online. It proposes to give tax credits to employers who hire prisoners released from Philadelphia prisons. This is the link thanks to Ed Goppelt. We would hope it would give some incentive to some of our Frankford citizens who have serve time to stay out of jail.
