Our Invitation to Germantown

When our group went to Germantown to do our video project, we had a quite different experience than the other group reporting on Germantown did. Like we mentioned in our last blog, Germantown Avenue is getting a face lift; but not everyone is happy about it. As we wondered down Germantown Ave surveying the construction, we decided to talk to local business owners about how they felt about the construction, and how it has affected their businesses so far.

We started out going to a hair salon. The ladies that worked there were eager to talk about their business, all while the construction workers were drilling away outside. After interviewing the store owner and another associate, a customer who was getting her hair done decided she couldn’t hold her thoughts in anymore. She felt as though the city should be doing more to notify the residents and store owners, so that they can plan ways to get around better. The women in the first store were so friendly and helpful that we immediately were optimistic about our project.

We ventured down the road and got to The Reunion Store. When we asked to interview them about the construction the owner said “how deep do you really want to get into it?” I replied, “Well, we’d love to hear any and all of your thoughts.” We ended up interviewing another associate instead of him because he didn’t want to go on camera, but he gave us a bunch of information on what is really happening in Germantown. He gave us story ideas about the politics of Germantown, something he was very concerned about, and told us to stop by frequently. He loved the fact that someone actually cared about what he had to stay about his neighborhood, and he urged us to dig deeper.

The next man we interviewed was just as helpful and willing to speak with us. Overall we found the people there caring and accommodating. Never did we feel uninvited, and I hope it stays that way throughout the semester.

Group 2, Germantown, Amanda Hill, Erika Ransom, and Steven Urgo

Nicetown-Tioga is Safe, from Above.

In the Nicetown-Tioga area, there are security cameras that rest high above Broad Street. These cameras keep a close eye over all of the activities that take place in this high crime area. Most of the adults we spoke to in this community think that this is a good idea and do feel safer with the closed circuit cameras that look over their neighborhood, but what do the kids have to say. We asked some of the kids who spend time at the Boys and Girls Club in Nicetown.

“I love it,” 11-year-old Craig Guttman said. “Mommy always tells me to walk with my head up and not to talk to strangers. Now I know that there are good guys watching to make sure I make it home okay.”

Guttman is one of many children who go to the Boys and Girls club before and after school while their parents have to work. Guttmans best friend, Ron Greene, also says that the cameras make him feel safe. “There are a lot of them in my home area,” the 12-year-old said. “We had a police officer from the city come and talk to us about how to be safe when walking around the streets without an adult. They even told us what to do if we see something bad happening to us or someone we know.”

Both Guttman and Greene have to walk about seven blocks from their homes to the Boys and Girls Club located on Wayne Ave. Of those seven blocks, six of them have at least two cameras on them. This keeps their parents almost worry free.

“It is a true blessing,” Ryanne Guttman, Craig’s mother, said. “I always tell La’Toya (Greene, Ron’s mother) how luck we are to live in a place with such extra safety. I wish we could put these up all over the city.”

Group 23 - Tim Bratton, Trisha Fleurimond and Todd Miller

Suburban State of Mind

A long day of shooting and reporting came and went in Brewerytown. My group members and I walked, talked and as the hours passed the grumbling in my stomach grew louder and louder. Although we were reporting on the lack of grocery stores within the neighborhood, I still figured, rather assumed, that there would be a McDonalds somewhere close.

Walking back to my car I peered up allies and side streets, passed intersections and corners; yet there was still no chain restaurant in sight. I hoped that at any minute the bountiful golden arches would appear over the horizon; however, Mickey D’s was nowhere in sight. What I did find were mini-markets.

As my hunger intensified I felt like I had passed thousands of them. But the spoiled little suburban girl in me did not want to fill up on no-name chips, twinkies, and cookies. So I took a step back to think. I took myself out of the scenario and thought, “What if I lived here, what would I have to do fix this hunger gnawing at my stomach?”

I came to the realization that I, little miss Bowie, Maryland, would have had to eat at a corner store. The recognition was somewhat unreal for me, but clearly not as big a deal for those walking in and out of the corner stores. The nearest supermarket was on 22^nd and Dauphin. That is about 2.5 miles away. And according to a few residents, it took about thirty minutes on the bus.

One young man I spoke with told me how uncomfortable it is to carry bags of groceries on the bus. How he had to be careful not to buy too much because he feared he would not be able to manage the load. I visualized the process as he spoke to me. It seemed so tedious, full of effort and frustrating. Imagine taking two hours out of your day to go to the grocery store, yet you still were not able buy everything you needed.

I wondered how they manage detergent, bottled water, toilet paper and paper towels? Just one of those items would be all I could carry, yet most of these items are essential for everyday use. I, having been used to instant gratification, simply expected to be able to eat what I wanted when I wanted it. However, that just is not how life works.

As I approached my car, I almost felt embarrassed. Had I really allowed myself to starve because I didn’t want to eat cookies that weren’t name brand? I tried to ignore my hunger as we got into my car, but I couldn’t help but think to myself “Rakiya, we aren’t in Bowie anymore.”

Group 4 Brewerytown Rakiya, Litty, Eruore

Julia de Burgos Bookstore Upcoming Events

Considered by many to be Puerto Rico’s greatest poet of all time, Julia de Burgos has left her mark on the Puerto Rican community in Kensington. The Julia de Burgos Books and Crafts Store is located at 2721 N. 5th Street and is also known as the main hub for Taller Puertorriqueno.


The bookstore is the region’s best shop for original Latino jewelry, crafts and artwork. On display all over the store are the vejigante masks. The masks are worn for the various carnivals and holidays throughout Puerto Rico. Each community has it’s own vejigante mask, and the store does its best to represent all the cultures that make up Puerto Rico.

Besides being the best shop for Latino books and crafts, the store showcases many events that are mostly free to the community. They are best known for their “Meet the Author” series. A famous Latino author will grace the store with their appearance once every month and do free readings of their famous work. As well they often engage in conversation with the audience and answer questions.



The next author will be famous poet Mariposa, also known as Maria Teresa Fernandez. She is an award winning Nuyorican poet from the Bronx, NY. She has written several books and has performed internationally, including over 100 college visits.

This upcoming weekend the bookstore will hold the 13th Annual Arturo A. Schomburg Symposium. In the early 1900s, Arturo started his work to unearth the history and the many accomplishments of the Black Latinos of Latin America. The bookstore regularly holds an art symposium in honor of Schomburg’s work. This year’s theme is Politics, Gender and Race.

This event is free to the public with a $25 registration fee for artists. The symposium takes place Saturday February 28th, from 9:30 - 5:00 p.m.
Group 14 Kensington
Nick Sero, Jessica Bautista, Allison Ashenofsky

What's the Difference Between North & South Ridge Avenue? Food.

For this week’s project, my group and I decided to focus on the theme of food for our video element. We covered a market on Ridge Avenue, which sits close to Midvale Avenue. It’s a great resource for the community — it’s larger than most grocery stores and offers a wide selection of fresh and organic foods.

However, the store is separated from the more southern part of Ridge Avenue by Laurel Hill Cemetery, one of the largest graveyards in Philadelphia. The other side of the neighborhood, which is significantly less affluent, has fewer options for food. There are a number of bodegas that line the street, which mostly offer candy, chips, beer and cigarettes. As for a full-fledged grocery store, the neighborhood doesn’t have one.

This is congruent with studies done on urban food choices. According to researchers from the University of Alberta, lower-income neighborhoods are closer to stores with more high-calorie foods and further from large supermarkets with fresh produce. It’s hardly a surprise, then, that people in lower socioeconomic brackets also tend to be more overweight.

There was a You Tube skit on this unfortunate circumstance that became popular two years ago. In it, a beer-bellied Rafi Kam explains Brooklyn’s bodegas: “You get a [fruit drink] for a quarter, you get chips for a quarter, and you got a lunch for fifty cents.” He then sarcastically thanks New York’s politicians for letting poor people eat such foods. Though he makes light of the situation, Kam drives home a serious point. Unhealthy food is cheaper, so people who have less discretionary funds are more apt to buy it.

Of course, Ridge Avenue is unique because it does offer a fresh market on its more northern end, which is accessible by public transportation. However, the presence of the cemetery — as well as the recently built condos — cleaves Ridge Avenue into two very distinct communities. People tend to stay on their side most of the time, and for one area, that means being closer to a number of bad food choices. And who can turn down a Tastykake when it’s there?

By Holly Otterbein, Amber Sizemore and Tom Kelly for Group 26

Goodbye, old Progress Plaza

Oh, Progress Plaza, we hardly knew ye.

That is a picture of the Plaza the day there was a bomb scare in the parking lot, and in the back, you can see a new-looking building with a Radio Shack already in place.

Now, the rest of the old Plaza has fallen down, and with a Fresh Grocer, among other stores, expected to rise up over the coming months, the place will never look the same.

The Plaza is located on Broad Street, in between Oxford Street and Jefferson Street. Last October, Barack Obama held a campaign rally there. But now, the old remnants of construction from the 1970's is gone, as construction crews tore down the remaining pieces over the past days.

They even cleaned up the rubble fairly quickly, as now everything is organized in neat little piles of cement, metal, brick and all other types of things that came down during the construction.

Being that this is Philadelphia and nothing gets done on time, one would suspect that this site of an empty parking lot will become a familiar one over the coming months. But, here's to hoping, even in this economy, that a solid shopping mart-- which this community desperately needs-- will arrive on schedule.

Group 25
Emily Patz, Tiffany Miller, LeAnne Matlach, Todd Orodenker

Fairhill Full of Surprises

A trip into Fairhill on a rainy Sunday afternoon this week proved that “El Centro de Oro,” or the “The Center of Gold,” is more colorful and culturally vibrant than any other neighborhood in Philadelphia.

The people who inhabit this area around 5^th street and Lehigh avenue in North Philadelphia are as proud of their Latino heritage as anyone you will find.

This intersection serves as both an ideological, geographical and cultural center for the Latin American community in Philadelphia. It is home to several music stores that sell not only copies of artists’ music, but musical instruments as well. It is home to many culturally rich establishments such as Latino-owned restaurants and shops, and it is also serves as a center for the areas different festivals.

While reporting on the musical trends in the neighborhood it became clear that one can find a little bit of everything in Fairhill. Our first interview subject loved hip-hop, while others enjoyed salsa music, and a variety of other Latin tunes.

Everywhere we turned there were colorful murals depicting different aspects of Latino culture and history. We even saw a mysterious fenced in area filled with painted wooden cutouts of Latinos playing musical instruments over a backdrop of yet another vibrantly colorful mural.

We are beginning to like our assigned neighborhood more and more as we spent increasing amounts of time there. It seems that whenever the camera and tripod are setup, everyone wants to know what we are trying to film.

We even ran into one of our interview subjects from our first assignment while we were reporting on our most recent one. Orlando was happy to see us back out filming the neighborhood and expressed his enthusiasm for the Cenro de Oro area, but mostly just his home, 5^th street. It is certainly exciting to see familiar faces in a city so large and we hope to see him again.

Group 18 -- Scott Fender, Cortney Laird, Steve Baro

Finding Pride on Fabric Row

In our headstrong search for a quality of life story, we happened upon the self-owned-and-operated rich "district", if you will, of Fabric Row. What is ironic about Fabric Row, on Fourth Street, between South Street and Catherine, even though it does enhance the quality of our neighborhood and provide a historical marker in Philadelphia, and for many shop owners family history, it also acts as a major supplier and convenient aid to fashion designers, tailors, and upholsterers in numerous states and regions of the East Coast.

Every shop owner and customer we interviewed mentioned the fact that people from all over the east coast have come to Fabric Row in Philadelphia to shop for the supplies that they need rather than travel to New York City or settle for their local fabric shops (if there are any still in existence). People from as far as Florida, Virginia, Vermont, West Pennsylvania, Delaware, and all of New Jersey, travel to Southern Philadelphia simply for fabric.

“We get a lot of Delaware people.” Marty Zatcoff, owner and operator of Kincus Fabrics said about his clientele. “We have a guy who comes a couple times a year from the University of Vermont to buy fabric for their shows. We get a lot of schools who drive up here from Virginia for their marching bands. [Just] regular customers who take the ride.”

When we asked James La Grants Rogers, owner of La Grants, why he thought Philadelphia is such a hotspot for fashionistas and others in the business living outside our state lines, he said that the typicality of department and discount stores in addition to the low number of fabric suppliers in those areas are lacking what Fabric Row possess.

“They want something they don’t see in stores. A lot of times you go in the stores you see the same kind of products over and over again. It’s not how it use to be where everybody had something different.”

So it was inspiring really, even standing in the rain and cold, waiting patiently to do interviews for this project, to know that our modest urban neighborhood has such a significant impact on such a large section of our country.

Group 16: John Casey, Gabbi DiPietro and DaVonne Armstrong

An Evening With Mayor Nutter

Member's of the Fishtown community will have an oppurtunity to come together with Mayor Michael Nutter tonight.  The mayor and Councilman Darrel Clarke will be attending a community meeting that is being held today, February 24th, at 6:00 PM. The meeting will be held at Adaire Elementary School. 

The meeting is open to all.  With many of the cuts that are expected to come from the mayor, Fishtown is likely to be one of the hardest hit communities.  This open community meeting girls Fishtown residents a chance to confront the mayor and councilman, and demonstrate what Fishtown has to offer. With the budget a major issue of discussion, what is sure to be a hot topic of debate is the status of the libraries of Fishtown.  

Figure just above the main doors the the Fishtown Free Library

With each trip to Fishtown our group has made, it becomes more recognizable what a proud community this is.  We have men dozens of people who have been willing to talk to us. And everyone who we talk to describes what a great area Fishtown is, and all the ways the community connects with each other.  

One thing we've noticed is how it seems every business we walk by has a "Save the Library" flyer in their windows.  While it could be perceived as just an act to seem invested in the community, we have found that almost everyone that talks to us mentions the importance of the library.  The people of the community really seem to feel like the libraries are an important part of the area and are willing to fight for it.

Tonight could go a long way towards the determining how much planned budget cuts will affect the Fishtown area.  While the community outcry possibly could be falling on deaf ears towards the matter, the people will, regardless, have their chance to be heard.  But if we've learned anything from our time among the Fishtown community, they'll turn out in large, proud group.

Group 20 Justin Elson, Amanda Gerinikos and Connor McCormick

Immigrant discloses secrets behind explosion in Logan

What used to be lined with more than 957 brick row homes is now a disserted 47-acre wasteland in the middle of an economically deprived Logan neighborhood. The lot has been the source of blight in the area ever since the former houses that once stood in the vicinity of Ninth Street and Roosevelt Boulevard began to sink, causing structural collapses and gas leaks.

Nearly 80 years ago, all coal ash in the city was deposited on the 17-block radius, which includes areas around Loudon Street, Marshall Street, Roosevelt Boulevard and Wingohocking Street.

In the late 1980s, an explosion that was covered up by city officials is what a Dominican Republican immigrant is saying caused homes to start sinking.

The immigrant, who wishes to remain anonymous, is the owner of Franco Grocery, located on 2601 S. Seventh St.

“It was an explosion in the house by Ninth Street,” she said. “I don’t know if it was gas. There used to be a lot of drugs in this area and in those houses. I don’t know if they were cooking methadone, [but] it was an explosion in one those houses.”
Over time, the homes’ foundations inched deeper and deeper into the ash and trash that builders used as fill for the old creek beds over which these homes were built.

Longtime residents who frequent Franco Grocery have informed the owner that they remember their homes shaking from the explosion.

When the incident occurred she didn’t believe the city’s claims, which said the explosion was caused by the local gas company, because the owners of the houses that were damaged were never compensated for the loss of their properties.

The case of sinking homes in Logan is considered to be the city’s worst example. The explosion initially destroyed a whole block of homes.

“If you build something on top of that land that is already shaken because an explosion, that part of the land will start sinking because that material in the bottom has settled,” she said.

The owner said the then-Mayor W. Wilson Goode was to blame for the disaster, as the land happened to be owned by a real estate developer who was a friend of his.

“There are still people now that haven’t been paid for [being displaced by the explosion],” she said. “I believe they just want [the vacant land] to be sitting there until we move out.”

Brittany Diggs, Jess Geoghan, Andrew Forgotch for Group 21 Olney/Logan

A few days in Germantown

This past Wednesday, Group 15 set out again to take on our neighborhood of Germantown. We were hoping to do a story about the many vendors that are set up on many of the neighborhood's corners. With our luck, the second we stepped off the train, it started to pour. We walked around for about 45 minutes and decided to go back a different day.

Our group went back on Friday and had such a hard time trying to find people to talk to us. All of the vendors at their stands weren't interested in speaking with us, so we decided it was time to find a different story.

We went back on Monday and decided to go talk to some of the firefighters at the Germantown fire station. They were very willing to talk and help us out. We spent a lot of time talking to the Captain who was very eager to share a lot with us. He talked about the positive and negative changes he has seen in Germantown since he began working here as a firefighter. After speaking to him, we even came up with other story ideas we are going to look into for later in the semester.

Spending the past week in Germantown really left us questioning why so many people really do not want to talk to us. This project really made our group realize that finding these stories is definitely going to be a lot harder than we thought it would, but we are definitely realizing how important it is to take notice of everything that we pass while strolling through Germantown!

Group 15- Jennifer Campbell, Anna Conzelman, Tom Wolfe

Hunting Park: Trash Stinks

But what will the community do about it?

Accumulated trash in a vacant lot

A sea of fast food containers fills a vacant lot near a bus station on Broad and Bristol streets. As people snaked on various goodies and take-out food while waiting for the R bus to arrive they overlooked the filled trash can and tossed their garbage to the ground.

The accumulated trash may not be a personal problem for many of the passersby but its presence is one that diminishes the appearance of the area.

“The trash is disgusting,” Barry Evans of Spring Garden said while biting into his first chicken nugget. “It smells and it just doesn't look nice,” he added, as he swallowed down his accompanying drink.

Although he is just a visitor of Hunting Park area he explained the need for greater involvement from the sanitation department to help clean up.

When I asked Evans where he planned to put the trash when he finished with his nuggets and drink as I motioned toward the garbage can piled to the brim with bottles, empty chip bags, and soiled napkins, he confessed that he might have just dropped it to the ground.

A useless garbage that is filled to the brim

“If you hadn't alerted me to the trash issue, I probably would have just added my trash to all the litter in the lot,” he said

According to the Philadelphia government website, rubbish and garbage collection within the area is scheduled for Tuesday. The site only refers to trash pick up for residential, private and business establishments and doesn't mention what to do about trash that collects in vacant, unclaimed areas.

“It's awful. Just awful. The trash brings mice, rats, roaches, all the rodents no one wants around,” said V.J. Smith, a native of South Philadelphia who was in Hunting Park visiting her grandchildren.

Smith, who frequents Hunting Park, notices one main difference between her quiet South Philadelphia neighborhood and the bustling streets of the North Philly area which is the cause of all the unwanted trash, the lack of respect of others.

Fast food containers litter the lot

“It's usually clean in my neighborhood and that's more than I can say for around here because people just don't care sometimes,” said Smith. “People throw their garbage on other people's property because they don't care so it's time for people to start caring about their neighborhoods to keep them clean,” she added.

Whether the vacant lots or streets of Hunting Park will ever be cleaned, no one can be completely sure but it is a definite truth that residents and visitors alike notice there is a problem and want it fixed.


Hunting Park, Group 22: Kendra Howard, Cris Robinson, Kurtis Lee