Home of the week

Our home of the week still looks like Christmas. No the decorations are still not up but I took this one shortly before New Years day. It's in the 4500 block of Worth Street (Google map).

Home of the week

We are back this week with another home. We passed this one on Dyre Street. Not only is does the home standout but their pride in the new graduate makes it our home of the week.

Crime in Frankford

From the Inquirer today:

A 16-year-old girl told police that she was repeatedly raped Thursday after being abducted on her way to school, police said yesterday.

Police last night said they were questioning a suspect, a man in his 30s, and expected to charge him overnight.

The girl, a sophomore at Simon Gratz High School, was walking through a park area in the 1300 block of Orthodox Street on her way to catch the Market-Frankford El around 7 a.m. when she allegedly was confronted by a man with a gun, said Capt. John Darby, commander of the Special Victims Unit.

Read the entire story here and an update here and the Northeast Times.

Next week in Frankford

• Sunday, Janyary 6th - Noon - Presentation at 1:30 PM: "The Forgotten Battle of Franklin Tennessee" You're invited on Sunday, January 6th, 2008 to be part of an exciting afternoon when the Grand Army of the Republic Museum and Library presents Dick Simpson's slide program "The Forgotten Civil War Battle of Franklin Tennessee". The program, which is free and open to the public, takes place at 1:30 p.m. at the museum, 4278 Griscom Street,
• Thursday, January 10th - 7PM - Frankford Civic Association meeting - 2nd floor conference room at Frankford Hospital

Lorenzo DellaValle

It is a note of interest when everybody come to a unanimous agreement about anything. This time our 2 fine neighborhood newspapers both covered the honor bestowed upon Lorenzo DellaValle by City Council.

I still remember shortly after turning 11 the pictures on TV of the sinking of the Andrea Doria. One famous Philadelphian, then mayor Richardson Dilworth was on board. Unknown at the time, to us, was that a future famous Frankford resident was also on board coming to America.

Read the story from the Gleaner and the Northeast Times and don't forget to wave when you walk by Lorenzo's shop on Frankford Avenue near Harrison.

Positive signs on the Frankford business corridor

The Northeast Times this week has a lead story about the new signage along Frankford Avenue. Attention to the needs of the business area is always a plus and it is great to read about the cooperation of our various legislators in getting this done.

Frank Furness and the Art Holiday

Art Holiday? What has the Art Holiday got to do with Frank Furness? So who is Frank Furness? I know absolutely nothing about architecture - zero. I grew up in the 1950s, the age of Penn Center downtown. When I got my first job downtown I did a lot of walking and always found myself not interested at all in the building that were being built at that time but some of the old ones were definitely striking. They had character and were interesting. Even when they were dirty and in disrepair they were far more attractive to me then the boxes going up along Market Street.

I later found that Frank Furness was the architect of many of those old interesting buildings. This link will take you to the Wikipedia entry for Frank Furness. A sample of the buildings still standing by Furness are the old Girard Trust bank building, now the Ritz Carleton, Knowltown mansion at Rhawn and Verree, and the Fisher Fine Arts library at the U of Penn.

Frankford was home to at least 2 building by Furness. This is the Philadelphia and Reading railroad depot which was situated on Main Street (Frankford Avenue) about where the PGW office is now. It was a busy spot for a number of years and provided rail service to downtown Philadelphia as well as all points on the Reading system

So what does this have to do with the Art Holiday? Well let's keep going it should come out here in a minute or two.

The other building that was designed by the Furness firm still stands in Frankford today but is easily overlooked. If you ride down Bridge Street to the Mount Sinai cemetery at Cottage Street you will see a small chapel building just inside the gates. It is a Furness building. Lots of things to see and well worth a walk to have a look.




Now what does this have to do with the Art Holiday? It is remote but the acclaimed 20th century theater designer William Harold Lee was a Furness protege and it was Lee who did some redesign work on a silent film house in the 1930s called the Windsor theater which was later renamed the Ace and ended up as the Art Holiday in Frankford.

It would be nice to see the old Art Holiday transformed into something that would be an asset to the community.

Reader comment:

Actually, it's unknown whether Frank Furness designed the (now
demolished) Philadelphia & reading railroad depot in Frankford.
According to Preston Thayer, who wrote his PhD thesis on Furness's
railroad depots, "the building may have been designed by Furness,
but it was the Frankford & Southwark Railway's depot, built in 1858
as two single-story stone buildings, which were joined in 1878 by a
one and half story brick building with a clock tower on the corner.
It was located at the intersection of Frankford Ave, Oxford pike,
arrot street and margaret street."

Sincerely yours,
Steve Dorfman