Waste Management plans to add to its Holmesburg facility. Image/Google Maps

As part of its contract with the City of Philadelphia, Waste Management already runs a single-stream recycling facility on a portion of its 42-acre site in Holmesburg.

Pending approval from the Zoning Board of Adjustment, Waste Management will add a facility to the property to do something with the 20,000 tons per month in waste the recycling center brings in [zoning plan PDF].

Tara Hemmer, director of area recycling operations for Waste Management, brought the proposal to last night’s Holmesburg Civic Association, where she explained how the Process Engineered Fuel facility would work. Waste Management plans to build a 59,000-square foot building on its property, which extends east toward the Delaware River from Bleigh Avenue and Milnor Street. continue reading »

Click to visit a larger version of the photo, taken by Joe Kaczmarek.

We knew Hurricane Irene would have an impact on the Northeast, only now are we started to get a better sense of what that impact was.

Above, photographer Joe Kaczmarek takes a shot of Northeast resident Hugh Owens, who just had his truck crushed at Solly and Castor. Find all of his work here, including a flooded Roosevelt Boulevard during Saturday night.

Sadly, though Owens was uninjured, as we reported this morning, a few people weren’t as lucky.

If you have photos, send them to info [at] neastphilly [dot] com, or use our Facebook or Twitter pages.

Below, we share some reader submitted videos and photos of Irene’s path.

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An estimated 750 people attended a Tuesday night meeting at Lincoln High School to get information about the methadone clinic proposed for the 7900-block of Frankford Ave.

Dennis Kulp and Carl Primavera were booed at a meeting last night to discuss a methadone clinic in Holmesburg, but neither was around to hear it.

Primavera is the attorney for Healing Way, Inc., which has plans to open a methadone clinic at 7900 Frankford Ave. Kulp owns the property.

As the meeting at Lincoln High School got started last night, Mayfair Civic Association President Joe DeFelice announced Kulp had emailed him earlier in the day to say he’d been advised by his attorney not to attend the meeting in case it should interfere with future litigation. Primavera hasn’t answered any attempts to reach him.

DeFelice and Holmeburg Civic Association President Fred Moore cohosted the meeting, which drew an estimated 750 people to the school’s auditorium, and featured guest speakers 6th District Councilwoman Joan Krajewski, 5th District Sen. Mike Stack, 173rd District Rep. Mike McGeehan, 172nd District Rep. Kevin Boyle, 202nd District Rep. Mark Cohen and Karen Grumankin, who presented a letter written by Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz. continue reading »

People lined up outside Guppies Childcare Center last week to sign petitions and T-shirts in opposition of a methadone clinic on the 7900-block of Frankford Avenue.

Organizers are expecting more than 500 people at tonight’s meeting to discuss a methadone clinic set to open on the 7900-block of Frankford Avenue in Holmesburg.

The two-hour meeting at Lincoln High School is organized by the Holmesburg Civic Association, Mayfair Civic Association, Mayfair Business Association and Mayfair Community Development Corp., sparked by public opposition to the clinic.

A panel of speakers will address the issue before taking questions from guests. continue reading »

People lined up outside Guppies Childcare Center Tuesday to sign petitions and T-shirts in opposition of a methadone clinic on the 7900-block of Frankford Avenue.

As the sun beat down and the skies darkened to the north with the threat of rain Tuesday evening, Milt Martelack stood in the bed of a pickup truck, leading the crowd.

“Just say no to methadone,” the crowd cheered, speaking out against an addiction treatment clinic planned on the avenue by Healing Way, Inc.

Hundreds of people were chanting as cars whizzed up and down Frankford Avenue and police officers reminded those at the rally to stay out of the street. Residents and business owners of Holmesburg, Upper Holmesburg, Mayfair and beyond gathered to rally against the opening of a methadone clinic at 7908 Frankford Ave., across the street from schools and a daycare center.

“Can you imagine having to walk my 18-year-old son to the bus stop?” Sonia Latouche asked. Her son takes the 66 bus to school, waiting for it on the corner of Frankford Avenue and Decatur Street, where the clinic is set to open.

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This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

Joe DeFelice has put a lot of effort into that little playground. And a few hundred residents and supporters have all helped in small ways.

In fall 2009, DeFelice, the Mayfair Civic Association president and now a new Mayfair CDC board member, kicked off a $50,000 fundraising campaign to renovate and reopen the Mayfair Memorial Playground at Rowland Avenue and Vista Street. More than a year and a half later, the Mayfair Civic Association has $20,000 and is seeking the opening on a smaller scale.

That fundraising was done dollar by dollar and almost exclusively by volunteers, like himself.

If fundraising for the playground, which closed in April 2008 after a young girl was injured on out-of-date equipment, was kicked off while powerful state Rep. John Perzel was still at the height of his influence, in the middle of this decade, DeFelice says the process would have been quite different.

Instead, in October 2009, Perzel was a month away from an 82-count indictment of corruption and a year away from losing his three-decade grip on a statehouse seat to a freshman Democrat who had never held public office before.

“When Perzel was in power, the CDC was buying houses, [a] movie theater, building [a] rec center, etc., so I’m sure that a little playground wouldn’t have been that difficult to come by,” DeFelice said. “So in the old days, a check may have been written, but now you have a large amount of neighbors who didn’t previously know each other coming together for a common good and coming up with new, innovative ways to raise funds.”

So what’s the biggest impact from Perzel’s indictment, the historic state budget deficit and a shake up of community leaders in a tight knit neighborhood like Mayfair? Perhaps nothing short of a change in how residents improve their blocks forever.

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A historic building in the Northeast is now continuing its purpose centuries later.

The Lower Dublin Academy began as a one-room log cabin schoolhouse in 1723. The building developed from the will of Philadelphia’s own Thomas Holme who died in 1695. Holme was Pennsylvania’s first Surveyor General, working directly under William Penn. Before he died, he left specific instructions for his family.

“Holme gave four pounds towards the education of a child in the community,” said Fred Moore, president of the Friend of Lower Dublin Academy (Moore is also president of the Holmesburg Civic Association and is an active member of the Northeast Philadelphia History Network). “The will was not finalized until 1723 when his grandchildren decided they needed to take care of their grandfather’s wishes.” continue reading »

Ian Litwin of the City Planning Commission (far right) addresses the Holmesburg Civic Association at the April 2011 meeting.

Two of the three candidates for the 6th District City Council seat went to last night’s Holmesburg Civic Association meeting to address neighborhood and district-wide concerns and answer questions from residents.

Republican candidate Sandy Stewart and Democratic candidate Marty Bednarek each addressed the members before taking turns answering questions. Democratic candidate Bobby Henon was not in attendance.

DROP was a hot topic, but a question about term limits drew the most discussion from the roughly 20 people at the meeting. continue reading »

This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

You can find an update to this post at the bottom of the article, from the April 12 Holmesburg Civic Association meeting.

About $10.6 million was funneled directly to the Mayfair Community Development Corp. since 2000, granted from the state Department of Community and Economic Development, according to its website. Much of it went into street cleaning and senior citizen programs.

The document states $800,000 was used toward the Devon theater.

The same state department gave the Holmesburg Civic Association and the Friends of the Holmesburg Library $5,000 each, according to state records.

continue reading »

This is part of ongoing coverage in “District 172: The Politics of Change after State Rep. John Perzel,” a collaborative effort with Philadelphia Neighborhoods funded by J-Lab.

Kevin Boyle has made a conference room out of John Perzel’s closet.

The young freshman state representative from the 172nd district in the Northeast beat out the indicted former state Speaker of the House last fall and is settling in his first year of elected office. It’s just a matter of form that his constituent services are taking place in the same Frankford Avenue storefront that Perzel held dominion for a portion of his 32-year career. (Boyle is a Democrat; Perzel a Republican).

“We just needed another place to get work done,” Boyle told NEast Philly during an interview last month, standing in the small, undecorated, white room with a table and four chairs. Boyle’s chief of staff Seth Kaplan says the conference room was formerly a closet when Perzel had offices there.

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