In Fishtown

When the factories in the River Wards made Philadelphia the Workshop of the World, Trenton Avenue had a train track running down the middle of the street to better allow for the inflow of raw goods and the outflow of completed products. Most of those factories have now gone dark, and

If we may generalize, many people find comfort in familiar brands. It's reassuring to get the same Starbucks iced coffee in Philadelphia and Los Angeles (you know, if Starbucks is your thing). If you still do your banking in person, it's convenient that you can walk into a Wells Fargo or a PNC Bank

If you were a longtime regular, everybody knew your name at Yesterday's Tavern at the corner of Huntingdon & Gaul in Olde Richmond. Yesterday's was a no frills neighborhood corner spot and one of a slowly dying breed of smoking bars in town, but for many in the area, it was

We don't know whether it's true, but it sure feels like people are eating healthier these days. Farmer's markets have proliferated all over the city and it seems that every coffee shop in town offers a CSA pickup. Whole Foods opened a huge new location at the end of last year,

Another day, another significant project on Front Street. A reader tipped us off last week that construction was getting started at 1229-31 N. Front St., a property which has been sitting empty for about a decade. Sometime around 2007 or 2008, a pair of blighted buildings were torn down at this

Saint Laurentius Church was built at 1608 E. Berks St. in 1882, and now there's a growing possibility that the building will not make it to its next birthday. But let's back up for a second, in case you haven't been carefully following this story.In 2013, the Archdiocese closed the Saint Laurentius

Just a few steps away from some skinny new homes under construction on the 2100 block of E. Hagert St., we noticed that the new apartment building at 2431 Frankford Ave. is all finished. We told you about this project almost exactly a year ago, just as site work was getting started. This property

Last summer, developers came to the community with plans to redevelop the large parcel at 1405 Frankford Ave., the longtime home of Penn Treaty Metals. By right, the developers could have built a mixed-use project with 30 units and no parking, but they instead proposed 32 units and 16 parking spaces.

As Fishtown and South Kensington continue to evolve from a development perspective, the retail mix on Frankford Avenue seems to get more and more appealing. Take, for example, Cheu Noodle Bar, opening this week on the 1400 block of Frankford. This block is on the rise in general, having seen the opening

Far be it from us to tell developers what to do- heaven knows we don't always know the right approach for a given property. But we're starting to feel pretty confident with the feedback that developers shouldn't try to get a variance for a multi-family project in Fishtown without providing