An area of green space on Griscom Street adjacent to a vacant property. These areas are targets of the PhillyRising Collaborative in Frankford. Photo by Pamela Seaton.

This is the second of a two-part look at revitalization in Frankford. You can read the first part here.

In the early 20th century, Frankford was a bustling neighborhood. With a growing middle-class population, it attracted residents from throughout the tri-state area, many of whom shopped at the popular businesses on Frankford Avenue.

In the 1950s, however, it lost a large amount of its population due to a great number of Philadelphians moving to the suburbs. White flight became a major problem in the 1970s and by 1990, more than 30 percent of the storefronts on Frankford Avenue were vacant, with more becoming vacant as the years went by.

Janice McDuffy, a former resident of Frankford for more than 11 years, witnessed Frankford’s downslide firsthand.

“When I lived there as a kid, it didn’t seem so dirty and there weren’t so many abandoned houses and businesses,” McDuffy said. “On the block where I used to live, there are now two empty lots that used to be homes. People dump their trash there.”

“All of Frankford is dirty and filled with litter . . . it’s a mess,” McDuffy said.

McDuffy said she quickly realized that there was a lack of economic opportunity in Frankford and moved out of the neighborhood after graduating from college, pursuing a law degree and an acting career. She said she hopes her family can move out of Frankford as quickly as possible.

“They [her family] couldn’t open a business in the future, if they wanted to . . . just look at all of the vacancies on Frankford Avenue,” McDuffy said.

“I don’t know why Frankford has deteriorated so drastically, but it’s a shame.”

Fortunately for McDuffy’s family and other Frankford residents, a few local organizations in Frankford are working to revitalize the neighborhood, including the PhillyRising Collaborative, the Frankford Special Services District and the Frankford Community Development Corporation. continue reading »

Friday – One man died in an early morning fire on the 1000-block of Red Lion Road. Firefighters responded around 5:30 a.m. and were able to extinguish the blaze in less than a half hour. A secondary search of the complex after the fire was out led to the discovery of the man in a second-floor back bedroom. The cause of the fire remains unclear. continue reading »

This obituary will continue to be updated. Help us honor Frances by leaving comments of your memories of her, and contacting us here with further details.

Not a month after calling for a moment of silence honoring another board member’s passing, Frankford Civic Association President Frances Clay died Wednesday.

Clay was 57.

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State Senator Christine Tartaglione is “disappointed” with outgoing Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell’s veto of a bill that would extend the requirements of municipalities to provide health coverage for firefighters diagnosed with various cancers.

House bill 1231, dubbed the cancer presumption bill for firefighters, had some bipartisan support, but Rendell, who vetoed two other bills the same day, expressed concern about excessive costs to already burdened local governments. Nearly two dozen Pennsylvania mayors signed a letter urging Rendell to veto the measure, which was introduced by state Rep. Kevin Murphy and backed by Tartaglione, among others.

“I’m very disappointed with our outgoing governor,” she said of Rendell, while addressing just three residents and a handful of executive board members at the Frankford Civic Association meeting inside Aria Health Frankford. “This bill will come back next year.”

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Thelma Young at the September 2010 Frankford Civic Association meeting, of which she was a member for at least 15 years, according to the board's president. Click to enlarge.

Updated: Nov. 13 @ 11:14 a.m. with more family background.

Updated: Nov. 15 @ 10:22 a.m. with more personal details, courtesy of Northeast Times reporter John Loftus, who shared to limit the burden on the family.

NEast Philly will continue to update this profile of Thelma. We encourage anyone to contact us with additional information or share your memories of her in the comments below.

Thelma Young, 76, the feisty, passionate and funny, gray-haired, bespectacled and baseball-capped Frankford Civic Association board member, has died, a fellow board member has confirmed. Her age has not yet been confirmed, nor has the cause of death, though zoning board member Pete Specos referred to it as “sudden.”

“She was always active in the community, always looking to better the place she lived,” said Frances Clay, the President of the Frankford Civic Association. Young was a member of the both the civic association and the 15th Police District Advisory Council, or some form of it, for at least 15 years, Clay said. Young had spoken briefly during meetings about growing up in Frankford, though Clay couldn’t confirm details.

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Three of the original Safety Ambassadors and their supervisor, with Mayor Michael Nutter and Frankford Services District Executive Director Tim Wisniewski during the program's announcement in June, posing on Frankford Avenue near Orthodox Street. Photo by Bill Achuff. Click to enlarge.

The Safety Ambassadors Program in Frankford is growing, despite one source of its revenue remaining uncertain at the month’s end.

Last week, a two-person ‘detail’ team and another two ambassadors joined the revived program that patrols the Frankford Avenue corridor. Where the now six  Safety Ambassadors walk the avenue — escorting patrons, talking to shop owners and maintaining a consistent uniformed presence — the detail team will work to remove graffiti, trash and grime.

“We are making an impact on the avenue for very little cost to the businesses that are trying to survive there,” said Tim Wisniewski, the Frankford Civic Association treasurer and executive director of the Frankford Special Services District, which is funded by assessments totaling between $70,000 and $80,000 on the businesses that are within the 4100- and 5300-blocks of Frankford Avenue, from Adams Avenue to Bridge Street.

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State Rep. Tony Payton at the February Frankford Civic meeting.

It has become something of a tradition at Frankford Civic Association meetings in the past year.

The first 15 or 20 minutes of the meetings, held in a conference room on the second floor of the old Frankford Hospital, are devoted to typical zoning issues, event announcements and new community concerns. Then something changes.

The meeting becomes more of a conversation and the topic is always the same: recovery homes.

True to form, it happened again Thursday night. Only three or four residents were in attendance, outnumbered by media and legislative aides and almost doubled by the association’s executive board, but the conversation was no less lively.

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The backyard of Frankford resident Majorie Rivera's neighbors, where she says she's seen drug deals take place.

It was early afternoon on Feb. 28, 2009 when Frankford resident Marjorie Rivera got an unexpected scene. She was getting ready to celebrate her wedding anniversary with her husband when they noticed a moving van outside of their two-story home. That chilly February day would be the first time Rivera would learn that the house next door was being turned into a recovery home for men.

As a mother of two daughters and aunt of many nieces, Rivera panicked as the thought of living right next to a recovery home settled into her brain.

“I’m thinking, ‘Oh wow, I got problems. These are all men. Recovery home? Well that’s for drugs. And don’t courts usually send people to them? What if these guys did something?’ I don’t want that next door to me,” she said. continue reading »