By Christopher Wink

What if we just got rid of I-95?

In a high profile feature written from Boston for Sunday’s Inquirer by the paper’s celebrated architecture critic, growing attention paid to dismantling a one-mile stretch of the interstate that separates much of the city from the Delaware River is compared to bean town’s notorious “Big Dig,” and other urban projects that jettisoned highway systems.

“The question we should be asking right now is: Do we rebuild I-95 as is, or do we rethink the whole thing?” Harris Steinberg, who runs the nonprofit consulting firm PennPraxis, which developed a waterfront policy for the city in 2007, told Saffron. The Obama administration’s interest in urban areas, he said, “has given the city a license to do something bold.”

The Northeast is surely as a part of 95 as any part of Philadelphia, so a big part of the discussion is what the people think.

continue reading »

Outside media don’t care about the Northeast. We have all seen them misuse, misspell and mistake our neighborhoods and our streets, so we at NEast mag wanted to do something about it. When they get it wrong, we set it right in a segment we like to call Right NEast/Wrong NEast.

By Shannon McDonald

The city’s larger media outlets could not agree this weekend when a speeding driver injured two police officers early Sunday morning.

The accident happened around 1 a.m. on the 4200-block of Aramingo Avenue. That’s about all the reporters can agree on. continue reading »

I can’t help it – I like Garfield.

Faithful viewers of the A&E cable television series Parking Wars know of whom I speak. Garfield is one of the many interesting and loveable – yes, I said lovable – characters whose day-to-day lives working for the Philadelphia Parking Authority are put on display for the viewing public. Garfield and his partner Sherry travel the streets of Philadelphia, booting vehicles owned by motorists who owe a lot of money for parking and other violations. Needless to say, they encounter their fair share of angry citizens along the way.

It is the televised altercations that are captured on video while booting, towing and waiting in line at the impound lot that has brought the Parking Authority and Parking Wars under fire in recent weeks. The show was blamed Sunday in a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial for potentially hurting the city’s tourism industry. One angry reader called the Parking Authority a “disgrace,” and demanded that it be overhauled.

I understand being mad at the Parking Authority. I’ve been there. continue reading »

By Christopher Wink

Here’s a summary of the week’s Northeast news we didn’t cover. See others here.

The 22-year-old daughter in the alleged mother-daughter prostitution operation that advertised on the popular Craigslist Web site and was busted last fall has received a three-year probation sentence, the Daily News reported Wednesday. The woman, Tami Smith, and her now 39-year-old mother were caught soliciting an undercover police officer in a home they rented in Wissinoming, as CBS3 reported in October. continue reading »

By Christopher Wink

Outside media don’t care about the Northeast. We have all seen them misuse, misspell and mistake our neighborhoods and our streets, so we at NEast mag wanted to do something about it. When they get it wrong, we set it right in a segment we like to call Right NEast/Wrong NEast.

Northeast Philadelphia is not within walking distance of K&A. continue reading »

Courtesy of the Philadelphia Inquirer

By Shannon McDonald

Brien Gardiner, CEO of Philadelphia Academy Charter School, was found dead Wednesday after an apparent suicide.

Gardiner, who founded the school in 1999 and Northwood Academy Charter in 2005, was under investigation for his management of the first school. The 64-year-old was found dead around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday in the parking lot of Bethayres Train Station, following a single gunshot wound that police said was self-inflicted.

The investigation into Gardiners alleged mismanagment of the school will continue. Today, the Inquirer ran commentary by Pat McNally, NEastPhilly.com’s regular columnist who writes The Parent Trap.

By Shannon McDonald

UPDATE: Philadelphia Police’s Homicide Capt. James Clark told the Inquirer Richard Pearson, 40, may have overheard an argument between his killer and another person before he was fatally shot in the chest Thursday night.

Though they are still searching for more details, authorities believe the incident, which occurred in front of Pearson’s wife and four children,  may drug-related.

Read the original story on NEastPhilly.com.