In Point Breeze

The northwest corner of 17th & Federal has looked pretty rough for as long as we can remember. Since developers bought it in 2015, the building at 1701 Federal St. has been sitting vacant and blighted, with its ground floor retail space unoccupied and plywood in its 2nd floor windows. The

Passyunk Avenue runs on an angle through several neighborhoods east of Broad, offering walkable retail and an impressive mix of different types of businesses. Over the last twenty years or so, this corridor has changed dramatically, shifting away from a focus on the surrounding neighborhood and becoming a retail and

Did you know that a few different agencies associated with the government of the City of Philadelphia own several thousand vacant properties, scattered across the city? The City is set up to own specific types of properties, including government buildings, parks, recreation centers, police stations, and the airport. Things are far less streamlined

Like so many other blocks in Point Breeze, the 1300 block of S. 20th Street has experienced numerous changes over the last several years. For whatever reason, compared to some of those other blocks, this block of 20th Street just feels like it's undergone a more noticeable change. Maybe it's because

As Point Breeze has experienced a significant wave of redevelopment over the last number of years, countless blocks have experienced major changes, generally swapping vacant land or blighted buildings for new construction. Among all these blocks, we'd nominate the 2000 block of Wharton Street as the one that's experienced the most significant transformation

Philadelphia's newest vegan cafe/bakery opened recently in a building that had previously sat empty and blighted for a number of years. Perhaps you remember, we told you about a year and a half ago that Batter & Crumbs Cafe would be opening at 1401 Reed St., marking the end of

Point Breeze has seen more residential development over the last half dozen years than perhaps any other neighborhood in Philadelphia. Even today, you'd be hard pressed to find a block north of Dickinson Street that hasn't seen some (or a ton of) construction activity over the last year. One might think that

Sometimes, boundaries between different neighborhoods feel quite arbitrary. What makes South Street so special that it divides Grad Hospital from Rittenhouse or Hawthorne from Wash West? When wide streets like Washington Avenue or Broad Street separate neighborhoods, that at least makes a little sense. But perhaps the clearest dividing line for neighborhoods

The West Passyunk neighborhood isn't one we cover too frequently in this space, since it doesn't see a whole lot in the way of development activity. The neighborhood's boundaries, for those unfamiliar, go from 18th to 25th Street from east to west, and Mifflin Street to Passyunk Avenue to the south.

The diagonal Point Breeze Avenue was once the commercial heart of the Point Breeze neighborhood, allowing residents to shop for most of their needs without straying too far from home. Like the rest of the neighborhood, the corridor fell on very tough times over the second half of the 20th