In West Poplar

It's been over a year since we last visited the south side of the 1000 block of W. Girard, so it's time for a couple significant updates. Before we look at the present and future though, let's just provide a quick reminder about the history of this property, in case

In Philadelphia and in other cities, a major component of the "urban renewal" movement of the 1940s through the 1960s entailed the wholesale demolition of intact inner city neighborhoods and their replacement with new subsidized housing. In most places, this meant the construction of new apartment towers, like in Hawthorne or Queen Village or Sharswood.

Every few blocks, Ridge Avenue creates a small or sometimes large triangular patch of land as it stretches on its diagonal path across our precious grid. While the grid makes it easy for out-of-towners to navigate our fair city's streets, we've always appreciated the interest that Ridge creates, from a city planning

For years, we've groused that the Philadelphia Housing Authority owns too much property. To be clear, PHA fills a crucial need in our fair city, providing affordable housing for thousands of people through a combination of housing developments, scattered site housing, and administration of various government programs to reduce rent

We were heading from one side of town to the other recently, and some ongoing construction on 8th Street just south of Girard caught our eye. Walking down the 900 block of N. 8th St. we felt a vague sense of recollection of having written a story about the block

It was just a few months ago that we directed your attention to a renovation project taking place at 925 N. Broad St., a property most commonly associated with the City Blue location on its first floor. The upper floors of this building have sat vacant for several years, an

At the corner of Camac & Wallace in the West Poplar (sometimes called Spring Arts) neighborhood stands a somewhat out-of-place building that doesn’t seem to fit in with its surroundings. Its glass block windows, strange cornice decoration, and unusual shape seem to want to tell a story. Would you like

We were making the rounds the other day and stumbled upon some significant renovation work taking place across the street from the Met. on North Broad Street. 925 N. Broad St. is a pretty unexciting commercial building, constructed with a utilitarian design around the time of the second World War. Within the

The building at 631 N. Broad St. dates back to 1867, and as you might expect from a building that's been around since the Andrew Johnson administration, it's had a number of uses over the years. It was originally constructed as the Edwin Hart Stables, a function that's called out on an inscription

Girard Avenue could and probably should be one of the most vibrant commercial corridors in Philadelphia. It's wide but walkable, has good public transportation, and has a great mix of smaller properties to accommodate local businesses and larger properties for the national chains. And yet it's like a roller coaster.