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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A man was transported to Aria Health Frankford early Tuesday evening after being shot in the jaw. According to a police report, the 30-year-old man was shot in the jaw by a man a woman told police is his father on the 5300-block of Large Street in Northwood.

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 »

Students from Camelot Schools’ Excel Academy South serve the lunch that they prepared to homeless residents of St. John’s Hospice in Center City. Photo courtesy of Camelot Schools.

Warm corn muffins.  Steaming bowls of chili. Potato salad. Macaroni and cheese. It was the perfect lunch for a crisp November day and a special treat for the homeless residents at St. John’s Hospice in Center City, prepared and served by culinary arts students of Camelot Schools’ Excel Academy South.

“Community service is an important part of our program,” said Kevin Marx, the school’s executive director.  “This is our first time doing this, but we will be doing more meals like this.  And not just at shelters, but at nursing homes, too.”

“The kids were really excited about coming here,” added Lari Luckenbill, Excel’s culinary arts teacher. “I couldn’t bring the whole class, and it was difficult narrowing it down to 15.”

The students prepared the meal in their state-of-the art kitchen at Excel South, located on the campus of Friends Hospital in Northwood. They transported the food to St. John’s, where they heated it up and cheerfully dished it out to the residents. 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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Photo by Tom Rowan Jr.

The term “assembly required” took on a whole new meaning at 9 a.m. on Saturday when 200 volunteers unwrapped St. Stephen’s preschool’s very large present -piece by piece, box after box – in the middle of a closed-off street.

Amid the sea of flattened brown boxes and sheets of stray bubble-wrap, volunteers were assigned to teams of three and five people, making small clusters sporadically spread out across the barely visible black asphalt road. The altruists were sitting, standing, bending, twisting and mulling over how to properly screw, hook, join, attach and connect colorful poles with potato chip-shaped plastic chunks.

Lowell Hartzell, consulting his consolidated 12-page instruction manuel with worn corners at the staple, moved from station to station, continually running his hands through his short, salt-and-peppered colored hair and pulling at his white socks that barely stuck out from his tan Timberland work boots. He first instructed one build team, then another, troubleshooting his way through a field of questions and concerns.

Hartzell, a former Lumberyard Manager, had a deadline of 2:30 p.m. to deliver to the children of St. Steven’s Daycare Center in Tacony the gift of a brand new playground. continue reading »

A 10-year-old boy in Northwood is in critical condition at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children after being struck by a vehicle while riding his bike.

The boy was riding around the intersection of Horrocks and Herbert streets around 7:45 p.m. when the driver of a black Dodge Charger struck him and fled the scene.

No further details have been released.

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 »