Northwood Civic Association President Barry Howell discusses the Frankford Y at the Sept. 20, 2011 meeting.

If action isn’t made on the historic Frankford Y, “it needs to be leveled before something awful happens there,” said Northwood Civic Association President Barry Howell Tuesday night.

“It is becoming dilapidated, and kids are starting to hang out there doing drugs and causing trouble,” Howell said at the civic group’s monthly meeting at St. James Church on Castor Avenue. “It won’t be long until someone breaks into the door and bad things are going to happen.”

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At Thursday’s EPIC Stakeholders meeting in Frankford, the new owner of 1520 Arrott St. laid out plans for what used to be Primo’s Sports Bar and Grille.

The Frankford Gazette was at the meeting and has video of Vern McDonald explaining how he went from wanting to open a gentlemen’s club to his new plans for a restaurant with a liquor license.

Another Frankford bar with a troubled past due to reopen will get some community scrutiny at a forum next week, a city council representative said Tuesday night.

The former Primo’s Sports Bar and Grille, at 1520 Arrott Street, which sits diagonally from the Arrott Bus Terminal beneath the Margaret Orthodox El stop, has a new owner hoping to reopen it, says Jason Dawkins, who works for City Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez. But coming off a court-ordered closure following episodes of gun violence, greater attention needs to be had, residents have said.

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Friday – The Philadelphia Police Officer who was shot late Thursday night was released from Temple University Hospital early Friday morning. Officer Kevin Gorman of Mayfair was shot in the shoulder while on duty on the 3300-block of North Howard Street. The suspect remains on the loose. continue reading »

A satellite image of the Margeret-Orthodox station, which sits above Frankford Avenue in Frankford. Image from Google Maps.

The details of an estimated $25 million, three-year rehabilitation of the Margaret-Orthodox elevated-train SEPTA station began to emerge last night at the first community meeting held by the project management team.

The project, which focuses on bringing the second-to-last eastbound stop into American’s with Disabilities Act compliance, isn’t scheduled to begin until early 2011 and remains in the design phase. The funding for the project has not yet been secured.

“SEPTA means business, but we care about what the community wants and we want to hear from you,” Mauricio Silva, the project manager in charge of engineering, maintenance and construction, said last night inside the meeting room of Frankford Group Ministries, a 20-foot ceiling topped with stained glass keeping a watchful eye.

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A class-action law suit against property owners who rent their homes in Northwood could be looming in the coming months, warned neighborhood civic association President Barry Howell at last night’s meeting.

“I don’t know how rentals came to Northwood, but they won’t stay,” Howell said to 26 attendees. “If they don’t own it, they can leave.”

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