Merry Christmas

On a lovely Friday evening we took a tour through parts of Frankford to see the lights. It was an eyeopening tour and we have posted the pictures as a slide show.

This is a sample from Duffield Street. Click here to see the slide show.

The Twins at PowderMill

Construction on the long awaited new housing at Castor and Wingohocking is about to begin. Follow this link to the website.

Lorenzo Compton

From the New York Times:

PHILADELPHIA — Lorenzo Compton did not have a promising start. His parents kicked him out at 17 for refusing to obey, he dropped out of the 12th grade when he got a girl pregnant, he served almost two years for drug dealing and he carries a bullet in his thigh.

At 43, Mr. Compton is again a force in the Frankford section of northeast Philadelphia — but this time as a one-man block patrol, as a mentor to countless young men, and as keeper of the keys to the fancy new football field that helps bring a ragged neighborhood together.

Read the New York Times entire story here.

Read in the HeraldTribune.com here.

Frankford High School

There are a lot of good things going on in Frankford High but we can't ignore the news:

Frankford High School was locked down this morning while school police searched for a male student who had brought an unloaded handgun to school in a bookbag.

The 17-year-old eleventh grader bolted down a hallway after school police manning the X-ray machine spotted the weapon in his bookbag at approximately 8:15 a.m. Fernando Gallard said the lockdown was lifted at 9:30 when it became clear the student was not in the building.

Read the entire story from the Inquirer here.

Frankford home of the week

This is the 17th week of our series. We found this pair on Jackson Street near Kennedy. Getting ready for the holiday on a rainy afternoon.

Gun Laws Poll

The poll about stronger gun laws has closed. The question was "Do you think stronger gun laws will reduce gun violence in Philadelphia?" This is how it ended:

• 13 out of 30 people said it would reduce gun violence.
• 8 out of 30 said it would not reduce gun violence.
• One thought it would make no difference one way or the other.
• 8 out of 30 said it might help but it would not be significant.

So roughly 43% think that it will definitely help and the rest say no or not much. Clearly we are divided on this issue.

So where does that leave us? Fumbling around as usual. Here are some of my incoherent thoughts:

• People who are straw buyers of weapons that are later used in a crime should be prosecuted as accessories to that crime. I don't know why it is not done now but those folks are far worse than drug dealers and should be treated the same as the criminals who later commit the crime.
• The mostly young people who are the perpetrators of violent crime are on a one way track to nowhere and I wonder why we have let them come to this. It's really easy to say it's not our problem but we are certainly going to pay now or later when we have to support them for the rest of their lives in prison. Why is it that the wealthiest nation in the word can't educate its children and put them on track to a positive life? Might it be that we just don't care enough?
• Have you met a criminal lately? If you think you have not, I would hold on to that thought. The prisons in this country run people though at an astounding rate. They bring them in, hold em and then send them out. Whatever problem they had before they went in are untreated and here they go on the cycle again. They are all over Frankford because it's a great inexpensive place to live. Hooray for us. If any area should support an effective criminal reentry program, it's us. Just don't ask us to do it for the entire city.
  

I would appreciate your comments and I'll publish them in a future post.

Crime in Frankford

A 27-year-old home-health-care nurse thought she was doing her disabled patient a favor when she let him crash at her Northeast apartment early yesterday after an argument drove him out of his own home.

But instead of thanking her, the man allegedly raped her as she slept, police said.

Ernest Johnson, 50, of Frankford, told the victim he needed a quiet place to clear his head, said Philadelphia Detective Joseph Jenkins, and she believed her patient, who walks with a severe limp.

Read the rest of the story from the Daily News on Philly.com here.