Fresh Fruit and vegetables for up to 50% of grocery store prices, every first Wednesday, outside the main entrance to Marshall School.
See flyer below for details. Thanks to Phil Gelliebter for the tip.
Frankford Community Blog | Local News, Events, Community Resources
Fresh Fruit and vegetables for up to 50% of grocery store prices, every first Wednesday, outside the main entrance to Marshall School.
See flyer below for details. Thanks to Phil Gelliebter for the tip.
It’s time to take a look at the crime stats so far this year. This is just a comparison to last year for the period from January through July. It only includes data for the 15th District PSA1 which is the area South of Bridge Street in Frankford and Bridesburg. North of Bridge Street is PSA2.
Included below is a summary of the most important crime categories to most people; public safety and property crime.
15th District PSA1 | |||
January through July – 7 months | 2017 | 2018 | difference |
Crime involving firearms | 112 | 106 | -5.4% |
burglary | 128 | 124 | -3.1% |
robbery | 137 | 118 | -13.9% |
Theft | 465 | 467 | 0.4% |
Assault | 652 | 574 | -12.0% |
Homicide Criminal | 8 | 5 | -37.5% |
As you can see, overall crime is down. Theft remains about the same as last year.
Frankford is by no means, crime free. We continue to see rampant drug use and sales and the violence that is connected to that trade continues to be a problem that will drive good people away and keep good people from moving here. But, that problem exists in every part of the city to a degree. Until the cause of that problem is addressed, we are just pushing it from one neighborhood to another. Thanks to the cops who continue to try to do a good job under difficult
Ag Assault Firearm | 58 | 57 | -1.7% |
Ag Assault No Firearm | 97 | 97 | 0.0% |
All Other Offenses | 588 | 555 | -5.6% |
Arson | 14 | 12 | -14.3% |
Burglary Non Residential | 27 | 30 | 11.1% |
Burglary Residential | 101 | 94 | -6.9% |
Disorderly Conduct | 74 | 20 | -73.0% |
Driving Under the Influence | 50 | 37 | -26.0% |
Embezzlement | 3 | 5 | 66.7% |
Forgery and Counterfitting | 3 | 2 | -33.3% |
Fraud | 280 | 275 | -1.8% |
Homicide Criminal | 8 | 5 | -37.5% |
Liquor Law Violations | 10 | 5 | -50.0% |
Motor Vehicle Theft | 39 | 59 | 51.3% |
Narcotic/Drug Law Violations | 181 | 152 | -16.0% |
Offenses Against Family and Children | 2 | 3 | 50.0% |
Other Assaults | 497 | 420 | -15.5% |
Other Sex Offenses – Not commercialized | 18 | 22 | 22.2% |
Prostitution and Commercialized vice | 8 | 14 | 75.0% |
Public Drunkenness | 8 | 4 | -50.0% |
Rape | 37 | 17 | -54.1% |
Receiving Stolen Property | 1 | 0 | -100.0% |
Recovered Stolen Motor Vehicles | 141 | 207 | 46.8% |
Robbery Firearm | 54 | 49 | -9.3% |
Robbery No Firearm | 83 | 69 | -16.9% |
Theft From Vehicle | 177 | 190 | 7.3% |
Thefts | 288 | 277 | -3.8% |
Vagrance/loitering | 0 | 1 | |
Vandalism/Criminal Mischief | 258 | 276 | 7.0% |
Weapons Violations | 53 | 75 | 41.5% |
3158 | 3029 | -4.1% |
Richmond Street will be closed to southbound traffic between Allegheny Avenue and Ann Street beginning Monday, August 13, through late 2019 for construction on a project to rebuild and improve Richmond Street between Ann Street and Westmoreland Street in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia.
During the 16-month closure, southbound Richmond Street motorists will be detoured west on Allegheny Avenue, south on Aramingo Avenue, and east on Lehigh Avenue to access Richmond Street. Northbound Richmond Street traffic will be maintained during this closure.
Richmond Street remains two-ways between Allegheny Avenue and Westmoreland Street until this fall, when the southbound closure will be extended to Westmoreland Street.
Utility relocation and installation is currently underway and will continue for the remainder of 2018 under the first phase of the project. Construction also is currently taking place to widen Melvale Street, which runs parallel to the east of Richmond Street between Wishart Street and East Clearfield Street, to provide additional parking spaces for residents in the work area.
Reconstruction of the roadway and sidewalks, the second phase of the project, will begin in late 2018 or early 2019. The entire project is expected to be completed in late 2019. A.P. Construction, Inc., of Blackwood, New Jersey, is the general contractor on the project which is financed with 90 percent federal and 10 percent state funds.
Motorists are advised to allow extra time when traveling near the construction areas because slowdowns will occur. The contractor’s schedule is weather dependent and subject to change.
For more information on the I-95 improvement project, visit www.95revive.com.
In an effort to improve customer service for Philadelphia residents, the Streets Department has modified its process for obtaining a Street Event Permit through the Department’s Right of Way Unit.
Effective August 1st, all Street Event Applications handled by the Right of Way Unit will require pre-screening approval from local Police Districts in advance of being processed. This change applies to applications submitted for approval on or after August 1, 2018. Applicants seeking approval to close their street to host a block party or another street event must submit a Block Party Authorization Approval Form to their local Police District before applying for a permit with the Streets Department.
When applying for a permit, residents will be required to submit the pre-approval form and their street event application to begin processing the request. Police District pre-approval must be noted on the form to begin processing the application. Events include block parties, religious events, serenades, birthday celebrations, weddings, proms and other non-block party events. Applications will not be processed without a Pre-Authorization Approval Form demonstrating local Police District approval to close the street to traffic. Applicants can visit www.phillypolice.com/districts for a complete list of districts, locations, and phone numbers.
The Street Event Permit Process is being modified to improve the integrity and efficiency of the program. Applicants are informed in advance if their block is approved to be closed to traffic before providing payment of the permit and ancillary items such as food, music and other party-related activities. Local Police Districts have historically approved the closure of a street to traffic, however, prior to August 1, 2018, this procedure took place after the Street Event Application was processed and the permit approved by the Streets Department.
Learn more about the Street Event Application Process here. Early submission of applications enables the Streets Department to quickly process forms and to notify SEPTA, the Fire Department and other authorities of all block party street closures in their districts. Residents can apply online at http://secure.phila.gov/Streets/BlockParty.
Keisha McCarty-Skelton
Communications Director
Streets Department
1401 JFK Blvd.
Municipal Services Bldg., Rm. 730
Phila., PA 19102
215-686-5499
Peter J. Dawson, a long-time contributor to the Frankford Gazette, passed away on June 30th, after a long illness.
Pete lived in Mullica Hill, New Jersey but grew up in Frankford on Wakeling Street. He attended St. Martin’s grade school and Father Judge High School and then went on the graduate from St. Joseph’s University and Temple Law School.
You may have known him personally or only met him through his stories that we published over the years. He wrote about growing up in Frankford during the 50s and 60s and he recorded that era in a unique way, capturing the look and feel and smells and even the accents he encountered.
He had both a devotion to his Catholic Faith and yet an open mind about everything that you rarely find in one individual. I met him at first when he was on the Frankford Ghost Tour. He was one of those people I enjoyed talking to because you could never anticipate what he was going to come up with. He had an unfettered mind that is the mark of true genius.
Pete is survived by his wife, Rise’ (nee Sobel), sons Joshua and his wife Elaine, Reid, and Jeremy Dawson, stepdaughters Nancy (nee O’Connor) Doughty, and Melissa (O’Connor) Siegel and grand-children Jacob Siegel, Rebecca Siegel, Andrea Doughty and Bernard Dawson, and 4 brothers and 4 sisters and 18 nieces and nephews.
The following is one of his most popular stories from 2011.
One of the centers of kid activity in Frankford in the 1960s was “The Lot,” the tract of ground between Rutland Street, Foulkrod Street, Castor Avenue and Harrison Street. Back then, a railroad track ran along the top of the embankment on the Castor Avenue side of “The Lot”, from a small bridge at the Castor Avenue/Harrison Street corner to a small bridge spanning Foulkrod Street between Castor and Rutland. In that era, small freight trains still used the track to carry goods in box cars down to what was left of industrial activity down in the Kensington and Allegheny area.
In the early 1960s, the tennis courts you see there today did not exist. Instead, along Harrison Street, there was just a large open field where we used to play touch or tackle football.
Between the open field and the railroad embankment was the section known as “The Weeds”, the real center of our collective juvenile attention. The area called “The Weeds” was comprised of a vast, dense forest of the tallest, greenest-smelling ragweed you ever encountered, punctuated by chouchun trees, that invasive tropical looking species with woody stems from China, Ailanthus altissima, seen growing everywhere in urban areas these days, which we called “bow-and-arrow trees” because that is what we used to make out of them.
We walked trails and tunnels through the ragweed forest which took us to interesting piles of debris dumped in the weeds by contractors, and to the “forts” we dug into the ground and covered-over with contractor debris.
On the other side of “The Lot” was the large, neat organic garden of hardworking Old Man Schepis, and beyond that “The Garages,” the complex of rented brick garages fronting on Rutland Street near Foulkrod, whose walls can be seen to be collapsing inward today.
We used to don our sneakers, and yell to our parents on Saturdays, “Mom! Dad! We’re going to go play at ‘The Lot’!” And then we would go down there and manufacture bows and arrows and build forts and set-off homemade explosives in holes (to ensure that shrapnel shot upwards, not sideways). We weren’t very safe. But, we survived.
There was a lot of World War II army surplus in Philly in those days. Dennis and Daniel Grassi, who used to live up on Large Street, would show up with an astonishing array of genuine surplus weaponry (all rendered inoperable before sale) — M-1 rifles, Browning Automatic Rifles with bipod legs to support the barrel, a bazooka, hand grenades and, on one occasion, a Thompson machine gun with the circular ammo container.
Everyone wanted to hold the Thompson. Nowadays, someone carrying such items in public in our terrorism-sensitive society could not avoid arrest. Back then, the owners of such an “arsenal” were the envy of every kid in Frankford. We would show up at “The Lot” with our Army surplus weaponry, try to talk the Grassi boys into a trade for the day, and stage wars. A few of us would always reluctantly consent to being Nazis.
We loved climbing the embankment up to the railroad tracks. Before hang gliding became an American “thing”, we tried like the dickens to achieve flight from the top of that embankment, with homemade fixed wings and giant kites. One of us kids — one of the guys from St. Martin’s School on Oxford Circle, I don’t remember exactly who — broke his leg in one of the crash landings. We never achieved flight. But we were happy.
The biggest thrill of all was stupidity multiplied by a hundred — hiding in the weeds along the railroad tracks, as close as possible to the railroad trains thundering by a few feet away, without being seen.
The reason why getting close to the train without being seen was a big thing in those days had nothing at all to do with the very real danger being run over by a freight train. It was because of a rumor going around among the kids that railroad trains along that freight line were manned with cruel “railroad police” armed with frightening “staple machine guns” that could shoot out staples in a machine-gun-like fashion at kids caught playing near the trains.
The rumor was that railroad personnel had a kind of “license to staple,” and would cover us with painful staples, legally, at the drop of a hat.
Once I was over at Grassi’s with Den and Dan and I heard Mrs. Grassi warn her sons about the railroad police with their staple guns. Aghast, I thought, “So! It’s true!”
When first one kid and then another courageously crawled into the weeds next to the tracks while a freight train passed, and then came back without being stapled, he was a hero for weeks.
Finally, I did it, and I repeated the story of my bravado to friends while some of them stared at me open-mouthed. And I guess that used-up my allotted 15 minutes of fame.