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Art Holiday

The Northeast Times reports that Frankford Associates has had to walk away from the deal to purchase the Art Holiday property. The story in the Times details the business reasons why that decision was made. So where does that leave us?

We had that blight on the neighborhood for years thanks to the present owners Cinema Art Theaters who have owned it since 1979. According to the Secretary of State of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the corporation was created in 1968. The corporation is headquartered in Narberth. The officer of the corporation listed an address in Rosemont.

It is time to put them on notice, Frankford will not be screwed again.

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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.

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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.

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Frankford Special Services District

A hearing has been scheduled for October 25th for the bill to re-establish the Frankford Special Services District. The entire text of the bill is available thanks to Hallwatch.org here.

The service area of the proposed district shall include the approximate 480 taxable (for real estate purposes) commercial and industrial properties on both sides of Frankford Avenue from Torresdale Avenue to Bridge Street and certain side streets including portions of Kensington Avenue, Foulkrod Street, Gillingham Street, Griscom Street, Margaret Street, Meadow Street, Orthodox Street, Paul Street, Pratt Street, Darrah Street, and Unity Street. This area is referred to as the "whole district." While the service area does contain residential properties, properties that are zoned residential will not be assessed. Tax exempt properties located within the District will be encouraged to contribute cash or in-kind services.

The city will be responsible for collecting the special tax assessment from commercial and industrial property owners which is an improvement over the former situation.

“Immediately following the public hearing, a meeting of the Committee on Rules,
open to the public, will be held to consider the action to be taken on the above
listed item.”

Thanks Hallwatch.

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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.