A suspect was taken into custody Saturday after PSPCA humane law enforcement officers broke up a suspected dog fighting operation in Lawncrest.

Officers recovered five dogs from 326 Van Kirk St. from the homeowner, who reports indicated has previously been cited for mistreating animals. continue reading »

Attack Mode Boxing cofounder and coach Lonnie Haile, left, with fighter Kieran Hooks. Photo/Raymond Boyd

Lawncrest-based Attack Mode Boxing  sent two fighters to compete Saturday at the Pennsylvania Golden Glove Regional Championships. The event was held at Derby Ink Gardens at 820 Spring Garden St. The two boxers who represented the Lawncrest based gym were Kieran “The Hitman” Hooks, 18, and Marquis Dacres, 25.

Hooks competed in the 152 lb weight class and Dacres was in the 200-plus weight class. They each defeated their opponents from Allentown in three rounds, and advanced to the Pennsylvania Golden Gloves State Championships in Reading on April 27. continue reading »

Bank robbery suspect. Surveillance image/Philadelphia Police

Philadelphia Police and the FBI are on the hunt for a man suspected of robbing two Northeast banks March 20.

At 10:08 a.m., a man entered the Bank of America at 6425 Rising Sun Ave. and gave the teller a threatening note. He fled without cash, but at 10:43 a.m., entered the Citizens Bank at 7327 Frankford Ave. and was able to get an undisclosed amount of cash. He fled south on Frankford Avenue. continue reading »

Community Planner Ian Litwin shows Frankford resident Doris Booker some improvements the Planning Commission envisions for the neighborhood. Photo/Tiffany Goforth

In 1961, Jane Jacobs wrote The Death and Life of Great American Cities, in which she proposed supporting neighborhoods’ use of community-based initiatives.

Fast-forward 50 years, and urban planners are taking her observations into serious consideration, as evidenced by the city’s comprehensive plan,  Philadelphia2035, to play up individual neighborhoods’ strengths and improve upon their obstacles to connectivity and access.

Within the next few years, the planning commission will complete 18 district plans, which will incorporate many of the themes and objectives found in the overall citywide plan.

Currently, only three of the 18 plans have been adopted. The most recent being the Lower Northeast District Plan, which includes Frankford, Northwood, Summerdale, Lawncrest and Oxford Circle.

Saturday, Lower Northeast District Plan Project Manager Ian Litwin, other consultants and city employees held a community visioning workshop at Aria Health-Frankford to discuss ways to make Frankford, a major transit hub, more accessible. continue reading »

Luke Dercole, right, is charged with buying guns for 16-year-old Michael Burak, left. Photo/Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams was in Oxford Circle today to announce the arrest of a straw purchaser who bought several guns for a teenager who used one of those firearms to shoot someone.

Luke Dercole, 32, is charged with illegal transfer, firearm not to be carried with a license, carrying firearms on public streets, possession of firearms by a minor and other charges. Dercole is accused of buying four guns fort he 16-year-old drug dealer. continue reading »

Police in the 2nd District are warning residents of a burglary that was just reported involving a thief who posed as a plumber in Lawncrest.

From Lt. Thomas Maccartney: continue reading »

Sheena Allen gets her fifth tattoo from Kadillac Tattoo owner Eric Perfect. NewsWorks Photo/Lane Blackmer

When Bob Elfant first approached Sheena Allen inside Urban Athlete in Mt. Airy, she was a bit confused.

“[He] goes, ‘so you’re into tattoos?’ I thought he was jerking my chain for a second,” said Allen, whose upper arms are decorated with pink hearts, yellow daises and roses. “Then he said, ‘well there’s a new place opening up.’”

Allen’s disposition quickly changed.

“I said, ‘really? I want to be their first [customer].” continue reading »

Residents of the 400-block of Van Kirk Street in Lawncrest hope others will be inspired by their block clean-ups.

This is the second half of a series about PhillyRising and its role in Northeast neighborhoods. The first half was about Frankford.

PhillyRising is relatively new to Lawncrest. Northeast Coordinator Manny Citron said he spent time building connections within the community before launching the program on March 15, 2012.

“When we did our initial mappings for possible PhillyRising neighborhoods, Frankford met all of our standard criteria but we also knew we would expand into Lawncrest,” Citron said.

The selections of neighborhoods for PhillyRising are determined through geographical information systems, which is a computerized mapping program that allows a programmer to build layers of information on top of each other, Citron explained.

“One layer might be property crime, the next layer might be violent crime, the next layer might be litter and so on,” Citron said. “It then generates a heat map to show where you have the most of those occurrences happening at the same time and location. Those areas will show up brightest on the map.”

This section of Lawncrest is correlated to the highest concentrations of community disorder like crime, drug activity, vacant businesses and empty lots within the 2nd Police District. continue reading »

The holidays are fast-approaching, but there’s still time to give to those less fortunate.

We’ll be keeping a running list of all the food, toy and clothing drives in the area (you can send details to us via our contact page). The Archbishop Ryan pet food drive is over, but many others are still going. continue reading »

Manny Citron of the Philadelphia Managing Director’s office leads a PhillyRising meeting in Lawncrest. Photo/Lucia Volpe

A park cleanup and Veteran’s Day ceremony, a five-block cleanup, and a neighborhood watch walk- through were just some of the successes highlighted during a PhillyRising meeting at the Lawncrest Library Tuesday night.

PhillyRising is a program through the City of Philadelphia that targets neighborhoods that are plagued by chronic crime and quality-of-life concerns.

“During meetings like this we put together an action plan to determine what this neighborhood needs and what we can do to make that happen,” said Manny Citron, the coordinator of the Northeast division of PhillyRising. continue reading »