NEast Links: Bringing you additional Northeast news

Police critically wounded the man who tried to rob the Pantry 1 Food Mart and the 7-Eleven early Thursday along the 5300-block of Harbison Avenue. An officer fired when the suspect allegedly pointed a gun [CBS3].

Also in the 15th District, police are looking for two men involved in a shooting at Leiper and Foulkrod streets. A 53-year-old man was shot in the hand and hip early Wednesday, suffering non-life-threatening injuries [Action News]. continue reading »

The Frankford Civic Association voted Thursday night to write a letter of opposition to the city’s Zoning Board, asking it to deny a zoning variance for the development of a new facility for the Bridge, a school for boys suffering from drug, alcohol and behavioral issues.

“We’ve been just overwhelmed with drug-related facilities, so we need to say ‘no’ because we’re the closest civic,” said association president Brian Wisniewski, referencing tumult over whether the local Frankford, Northwood or Juniata neighborhood group had the authority to vote on the facility. “At first, the Bridge wanted to go to Juniata but they got together with Northwood to try to bum rush Frankford… We have something to say too.”

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Bridge Program Director Michael Ogden at the February Northwood meeting. Photo by Christopher Wink for NEast Philly.

After several meetings and a handful of discussions about the move from Fox Chase, the Northwood Civic Association has granted permission to the Bridge to come into the neighborhood, with the Juniata Civic Association echoing the approval of the residential treatment facility for adolescent boys. Representatives for the Bridge will go before the Zoning Board May 5.

The Frankford Gazette has the full report from Tuesday night’s Northwood meeting.

Two nonprofits trying to take root in Northwood are getting two different reactions from that neighborhood’s civic association, and the difference has everything to do with a decades-old deed restriction, says its president.

Plans to develop a new facility along Adams Avenue for the Bridge, a residential treatment program for adolescent boys aged 14-18 and a subsidiary of Center City-based Public Health Management Corporation, now has the support of the Northwood Civic Association, following a voice vote at Tuesday night’s meeting. Roughly 30 people in attendance agreed with the civic association board’s plans to support the initiative, countered by a lone voice dissenter.

Other residents had raised concerns in preceding conversation, though much was answered by Civic President Barry Howell and state Rep. Tony Payton’s Chief of Staff Jorge Santana. The civic board can now write a letter of support to the city’s Zoning Board, which would have to approve a zoning variance for the facility to be built.

That support, which closed the meeting near 8:30 p.m. at St. James, was balanced by voices of opposition for another proposal.

For two years, Northwood Civic Association President Barry Howell and a cohort of his members have organized and mobilized against national rehabilitative nonprofit Volunteers of America operating a facility at 4871 Roosevelt Blvd. near Allengrove Street. Tuesday night, Howell pledged an invigorated effort to undo VOA’s use of the property, which currently houses three “disabled elderly residents,” who, Howell said in January, were ‘snuck in’ by the nonprofit.

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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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