Walnut Hill: Community Association Encourages Residents to Stand Up and Be Heard by Voting
Walnut Hill Community Association President Horrace Patterson believes that the primary election and November general election could impact the community significantly. As president of the association for the past four years, Patterson finds that drugs, crime, cleanliness, schools, abandoned buildings and vacant lots are plaguing the community. “In my opinion, Mayor Nutter hasn’t done anything directly […]
South Philadelphia: Five Relics With A New Future
The various neighborhoods of South Philadelphia are engraved with rich history, whether it be the earliest churches in the country or the traces of an old company. Either way, this history has left behind an increasing number of abandoned and demolished buildings scattered throughout the neighborhoods. In order to accommodate with the ever growing population […]
Spruce Hill: Historical Society Votes ‘Yes’ On Mansion-Preserving Construction Plan
Members of the University City Historical Society voted unanimously to support a new proposal for construction on the historical mansion on the corner of 40th and Pine Streets. The proposal will allow for the preservation of the now-abandoned 19th-century mansion. “We are an historical society, so as you expect, we’d like to see it preserved,” […]
Kensington: Renewal Group Provides Housing and Better Community Relations
[vimeo 65192696] Once nicknamed “the workshop of the world,” Kensington was a manufacturing district with business opportunity and thousands of jobs. As the factories closed, the jobs and residents decreased. Vacant homes began to line many of the streets, attracting poverty and crime with the diminishing neighborhood value. According to Maura Kennedy, the director of […]
Kensington: City Attempts to Fix Abandoned Building Problem
[vimeo 65192329] Philadelphia is a city that is beleaguered with privately owned structures that have been either abandoned by its owners or are left to rot until property values are high enough to make a profit. These buildings have become eyesores in communities and facilitators of crime. In neighborhoods such as Kensington, these edifices are […]
Plan Philly: South Kensington Block Deals with Rodents, Vacancy and Broken Sidewalks
[vimeo 63194999] The 1800 block of North Fourth Street starts with a small yard where children love to play in the summer. Several ignored lots with overgrown grass and trash weave in between the red brick townhouses. The “Rat House”—an abandoned building that breeds fearless rats—sits between another empty lot and a family residence. A […]
Kensington: Deconstructed Building Left Abandoned and Hazardous
Roofless and deconstructed, a grey building on the 1900 block of E. Letterly St. is nothing more than a pile of bricks, metal frames and shattered material. What is shown on Google Maps of 1921 E. Letterly St. is what it used to look like before its deconstruction less than a month ago. Leftover rubber […]
Hunting Park: Planning and Development May Help the Future
[vimeo 40912126] The development of Philadelphia seems to be well underway under the careful guidance of the Philadelphia City Planning Commission. Despite the many changes that have occurred in Hunting Park, the commission has a lot more in store for revitalizing the neighborhood. The commission is a government-funded organization run by nine members under the […]
Kensington: Residents Are Returning to Their Homes to Find Extensive Damage
[vimeo 40311934] Kensington residents are going back to their homes to find extensive damage from this week’s fire. It is too soon to determine the exact cause of the blaze, but some people will have to rebuild their houses or find other places to live. For additional coverage of the fire and its aftermath, see […]
Kensington: The Neighborhood Tries to Cope With the Fire’s Aftermath
The blocks that surround the abandoned warehouse, located at 1871 E. York St., which caught fire early Monday morning, continue to be off-limits as construction workers and firefighters spent countless hours trying to clear the area of leftover debris and hazardous material. Now that the flames have been put out, city workers were left to […]