In Francisville

A reader tipped us off recently that they noticed some demolition activity on the south side of the 1600 block of Poplar Street, but it seems that the demo contractors moved pretty quickly and were mostly finished their work by the time we were able to pay a visit. In

Francisville has grown by leaps and bounds in the last half decade, but some blocks in the neighborhood have remained in sad shape. Even Ridge Avenue, which has seen numerous new buildings sprout up in recent years, still has its share of blight and vacancy. A couple years ago, we

We first visted the 1500 block of Parrish Street over five years ago, when we shared the news that the Philadelphia Boys Choir and Chorale planned to buy a warehouse at 1521 Parrish St. and make their home there, moving from a space near Drexel's campus. Part of that plan

Over the summer, we told you that the former home of Joy Chinese Restaurant at 723 N. 19th St. had been listed for sale and then gone under agreement in less than two weeks. At the time, we wondered about the future of this little building, which we suspected was once

News flash, Ridge Avenue is changing. Okay, this isn't as much a news flash as it is a reminder of the drum we've been beating for several years. But just because it's old news doesn't mean it's irrelevant or not worth mentioning regularly. After all, some blocks on Ridge have

We were making our way through Francisville the other day and a seemingly new chain link fence caught our attention at the corner of 16th & Cambridge. The 'Work in Progress' signs on the fence are a pretty good indication that something will soon be happening here.Chain link fenceBefore we

We've drawn your attention to Ridge Avenue several times over the last few years, as developers have built new buildings on properties that were sitting vacant and/or blighted for as long as anyone could remember. A fine example of this phenomenon can be found at 1526-30 Ridge Ave., where developers

When PHA built and sold a collection of low slung affordable housing units on the southern side of Francisville in the early 1980s, they surely didn't anticipate that these homes would become incredibly hot commodities to market rate developers several decades later. Slowly, over the course of the last few

We were on North Broad Street just a couple days ago, telling you about an eight story building planned for the 800 block, and we reminded you that the amazing and beautiful Metropolitan Opera House was getting renovated at some undetermined point in the near future. Yesterday, we got an

A couple of readers have reached out over the last few days to give us the heads up that some new permits have appeared on a chain link fence on North Broad Street, in between Uhuru Furniture and the appropriately named Tire Shop. We made our way to 836 N.