There isn’t a business owner along Ogontz Avenue who doesn’t have an inside joke with Alfred Dorman.
Dorman is the business district manager for the Ogontz Avenue Revitalization Corp., a nonprofit that was originally established to revitalize Ogontz Plaza in the 1980s. Now, the organization strives to improve the quality of life for West Oak Lane residents as well as stimulate economic development.
“Hey! I’m going to need that hoagie and a soda from you,” Dorman yelled to a man standing in front of Ogontz Plaza.
The two men burst into laughter and even on an overcast and rainy day Ogontz Avenue beamed with life.
“Sometimes people will joke with me and ask ‘Al, what are you drinking so early?” But, we have to keep our morale up,” Dorman said. “I kid around a lot but everyone is comfortable around me and trusts me.”
It is no joke that with the dedication of OARC, Ogontz Plaza has made a complete turn around from its empty and desolate state in 1983 to its current flower beds and a full parking lot of people enjoying what businesses their community now has to offer.
“There’s the community members and then there’s the business owners. Someone has to bring those two together and that’s me,” Dorman said.
“It’s not a sprint – it’s a marathon,” John E. Kitchen, president and CEO of OARC, said.
Kitchen explained that OARC’s revitalization goal doesn’t focus on any one aspect of life in West Oak Lane – to make real changes you’ve got to do them all at the same time. The organization operates under a five pillar approach where the concentration is on arts and culture, business development, cleaning and greening, education and community relations and housing and economic development.
“When you are coming into Philadelphia from Montgomery Country, you’re slapped in the face with how different it is,” Kitchen said. “It’s easy to think ‘Well, we’re obviously in Philadelphia now’ or ‘We’re in Philadelphia now because of how crappy it looks.’ We’re trying to make a seamless transition from suburbia into the city.”
With clean streets, flowers, trees and antique-looking street lamps along Ogontz Avenue the seam between Philadelphia and suburbia is proving to be harder to find.
There’s no doubt that the streetscaping project gave West Oak Lane a polished look, but what really breathes life back into the neighborhood is the people.
“People, residents and business owners are coming into the neighborhood. The number of vacant housing is under 70 when it was over 300 just a few years ago,” Kitchen said. “Before, community members didn’t have a sit down restaurant in West Oak Lane to go to, now they have several options. Business owners actually want to come here.”
Right off Ogontz Avenue at 72nd Avenue, Dorman knocks on a screen kitchen door. April Hidouri looks up from her bubbling pot of turkey chili and starts laughing. This sense of unity between OARC and business owners is what brings people like Hidouri and her brother Troy Newbie to West Oak Lane.
The two opened Cornbread and Coffee, a café, in 2003. Community members can come in have coffee, a hearty meal and indulge in the restaurant’s slogan: Ease into your day.
“People can come to Cornbread and Coffee, or they can go to Relish for dinner, or try Victoria’s Kitchen. A decade ago it was either Chinese or a hoagie,” Dorman said.
A decade of new businesses in the area energizes the area, but one of the most influential changes over the past 10 years is a little more political.
“What really made it take off in the last 10 years in West Oak Lane and the Northwest, we were able to get all of the politicians, the leadership, on a common platform,” Kitchen said.
State Rep. Dwight Evans worked to get a PennDOT Photo and Exam Center put into OARC’s revitalized Ogontz Plaza. The West Oak Lane PennDOT location is one of three centers within city limits.
“I’ve worked with OARC for 16 years and most people think that what I am most proud of is the jazz festival or the Ogontz Plaza, but I really am most proud of the political umbrella that we’ve established,” Kitchen said. “Without the common platform we probably would not be able to accomplish as much as we do.”
With the presence of OARC, West Oak Lane has been able to shine on a five-tier platform.
“You have to remember this: there is no box. If you say ‘think outside of the box,’ you are saying that there is a box. I want to stay away from a box.” Kitchen explained. “I’m simple. If there is garbage, you clean it up. If there’s a dead tree, you plant a new one. That’s what we’re doing.”
As Dorman walked past Evan’s office he knocked on the window and waved. Kitchen is right, taking time to be a part of the community that you are working for is simple, and that’s what Dorman is doing.
Sometimes he even gets the hoagie and soda that he is always joking about.
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