Bridge Program Director Michael Ogden

Marquis planned on running away when he got to The Bridge school for boys, but he didn’t.

The fit 18-year-old was sent five months ago to the transition facility after being arrested for a petty theft charge, and he said upon arrival he was surprised to feel welcomed.

“There wasn’t fighting. It wasn’t a prison,” he said last night at the Northwood Civic Association meeting [See other photos of the meeting on our Facebook page here]. “The Bridge helped me change my life.”

Now he says he’s preparing for his official GED test and has already started some college preparatory school. He has gone from “only making oodles of noodles” to aspiring for a culinary arts education. Marquis was accompanied by Andrew, who was sporting a goatee and glasses and shared his own story of wanting to avoid the path of his parents, whom he said are drug addicts.

“I thought I was going to be a bum like my mom and my dad,” said Andrew, who has taken classes in plumbing and security camera installation. “Now tomorrow I’m taking the final GED test.”

Those are stories that Bridge Program Director Michael Ogden says he wishes would get out more. He’ll need stories like them if he and the rest of Bridge administration can coax a letter of support from the Northwood Civic Association toward their moving from their Fox Chase headquarters to new property along Adams Avenue.

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Disabled senior citizens were “snuck in on Christmas Eve” to a Northwood home bought in 2009 by Volunteers of America Delaware Valley, says that neighborhood’s civic association president.

“A year ago it was going to be a drug rehabilitation center and we fought it, now they’re putting the elderly in to get around the rules,” Northwood president Barry Howell told two dozen at Tuesday night’s meeting. “We’re not saying anything against the people they put in there, but we have a problem about them ignoring our deed restriction.”

The deed restriction, of course, is the decades-old Burk Deed Restriction that limits portions of Northwood real estate to remain single-family residences. It’s a zoning code add-on that has helped the neighborhood win nearly a dozen variance battles. Howell says the restriction will soon push the VOA operation at 4871 Roosevelt Blvd out, though it was partially city-funded and has government sanction as a necessary part of health services.

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Meetings for tonight are expected to be held as plans. We’ve confirmed the following: continue reading »

Finalizing a city energy authority and better empowering the city to fight blight are the two top resolutions in 2011 for Councilman Darrell Clarke, he told residents at the Northwood Civic Association meeting Tuesday night.

To a crowd of roughly 12, perhaps limited by clouds and rain, Clarke spoke at length of those two focuses:

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Updated 10/20/10 @ 2:30 p.m.

The shooting that left a 19-year-old in critical condition outside a former adult theater in Frankford brings to light the ever-present battle with irresponsible absentee landlords, says Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez.

The reason so many absentee landlords are able to remain derelict in their responsibilities to maintain safe, clean and community-orientated properties, Sanchez said at Tuesday night’s Northwood Civic Association meeting, is because the city doesn’t have the man power to track them down.

“Part of the problem has always been about resources,” Sanchez said last night to nearly twenty residents in the basement of St. James Church at the corner of Castor Avenue and Pratt Street.

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Northwood Civic Association photo by Christopher Wink.

A busy meeting schedule kept us from Tuesday’s Northwood Civic Association meeting, but the Frankford Gazette was there.

Zoning issues were the most talked about topics at the meeting, which President Barry Howell said drew about 60 people. continue reading »

The Northwood Civic Association announced yesterday an upcoming zoning meeting for Northwood Academy Charter School.

Northwood Academy, at 4621 Castor Avenue, is looking to construct a new building. The meeting will be held in the school Monday, June 28 at 6 p.m.

District Attorney Seth Williams at the June Northwood Civic Association meeting.

Seth Williams says he doesn’t always wear his seat belt while driving.  Philadelphia’s District Attorney also says he was recently caught by a red-light ticket camera.

Lessons for enforcing driving in a town whose DA has broken a law or two can be implemented citywide. So Williams told 30 residents at Tuesday’s Northwood Civic Association meeting in the basement of St. James Church.

“It’s not the severity of punishment that changes behavior,” he said. “It’s the certainty of punishment.”

It was one of four hallmarks he gave for his developing administration, before taking questions from a community that has characterized itself in a quality-of-life war against blight and crime.

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Northwood Civic Association's board members at a previous meeting. Photo by Christopher Wink.

Lots of things kept us from Tuesday’s Northwood Civic meeting — bad weather, election night and the big-deal Flyers game. The same reasons the Frankford Gazette lists for the unusually low attendance at the meeting. continue reading »

New Frankford Development President Felicia Richardson addresses the Northwood Civic Association at its monthly meeting Tuesday, April 20, 2010.

It seems the Northwood Civic Association has made nice with the for-profit company poised take operational control over the storied Frankford Y.

“This has the prospects of being a well established part of the community,” civic President Barry Howell told nearly 40 residents inside the St. James’ church basement at Castor Avenue and Bridge Street Tuesday night.

It was Howell, of course, who said in December that he “sensed a rat” around the proposal. But Howell now says lots has changed since then.

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