The public has been an integral part of the 30th Street Station District Plan, a joint master planning effort to develop a comprehensive vision for the future of the station and the surrounding area, which began in January 2015 with the first public open house at the station. On Wednesday, May 18, community members are invited to the final open house, where you can review the Draft Plan and discuss it with the project team before they start working on the Final Plan.

The plan will provide a vision for approximately 35-year-long development of the 30th Street Station area. The draft plan was released in March and includes such proposals as building a new urban residential neighborhood and park, new bridges, a new intercity bus terminal, and more. According to the draft plan, the first phase of the development would include remodeling of the station.

The open house will be held from 4 – 7 p.m. at 30th Street Station (30th and Market), in the North Waiting Room (behind Amtrak ticket office). The draft plan and renderings can also be viewed here.

When walking down South 40th Street over the weekend, we noticed a new sign in the window next door to The Green Line Cafe. A Taiwanese dessert shop is in the works for 32 S. 40th St., the storefront formerly occupied by Dr. Wyatt’s University Herbs. According to the Office of Licences and Inspections records, work is currently underway on the first floor of the three-story building, still owned by University Herbs, to re-fit the space for the new shop, which will include a non-commercial use kitchen and some seating (less than 20 seats).

The business owner, Xia Yang, lives in Chinatown, according to L & I records. We’ll post more information about this new shop when it becomes available.

And we hope that the store has a lot of this stuff when it opens.

Water gushes under the 4200 block of Market Street (Photo by West Philly Local).

An early morning water main break on the 4200 block of Market Street shut down this section of the street and affected some nearby buildings, according to reports. The break, which happened at around 4 a.m., flooded the basement of the fire house on the 4200 block of Market St. (Engine 5/Ladder 6) and also affected service at FMC Dialysis center due to interrupted water supply.

About five feet of water accumulated in the fire house basement, and firefighters were working this morning on pumping it out. The fire house equipment was not affected by the flooding, and it remains on active duty, 6ABC reports.

Basement of Engine 5 ladder 6 flooded after water main break this morning. Still running operations via generator. pic.twitter.com/L5kGHx5yEW

— Matt DeLucia (@MattDeLucia) May 16, 2016

The water department crews are currently working to repair the break. The 4200 block of Market remained closed as of 10:15 a.m. on Monday.

A tall elegant chimney on this Victorian twin at 424 S. 42nd St. collapsed into a heap of bricks on Saturday, at about 11 a.m. Neighbors said the chimney had been leaning for a while.

The three-story 7-bedroom single-family house was sold in February for $410,000 to a property developer.

Here’s an earlier photo of the house pulled out from Google Street View:

An art show featuring work by young homeless mothers will take place this Sunday (May 15) at Indigo Bleu Design Collaborative, 3870 Lancaster Ave. The work displayed in this exhibit, titled Mothers and Others, is the result of a powerful partnership between People’s Emergency Center (PEC), which provides housing and social services for homeless moms and their children, and the Homeless Health Initiative (HHI) of The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

HHI volunteers visit PEC’s Center for Parenting and Early Childhood Education several times each month. Led by an artist, these volunteer healthcare professionals bring not only the canvas, paint and brushes, they offer their time, encouragement and expertise. The young mothers experiencing homelessness feel empowered and excited for their first exhibit.

The reception for the exhibit will take place from 1 – 4 p.m. on Sunday. Proceeds from this event will benefit the artists and future creative expression programming at People’s Emergency Center. General admission tickets are $20 and can be purchased here.

Indigo Bleu Design Collaborative is one of the newest event spaces in West Philadelphia.  Continue Reading

The Green Tambourine is now open at 711 S. 50th St. (Photo from The Green Tambourine’s Facebook page)

The Green Tambourine director Ann Schwartz at the new studio near 50th and Baltimore (Photo West Philly Local)

The popular local music program, The Green Tambourine, which started four years ago at The Rotunda, has grown out of its space on 46th and Baltimore and has just moved a few blocks west to a new, bigger location.

“The old space [at 4614 Baltimore Ave.] was great to get us started in 2012 as a designated music space,” says the program founder and creative director Ann Schwartz. “I started looking for a bigger space at the beginning of this year since our schedule was getting tight. When the space came up in March I knew I wanted to make the move.”

The program, which moved to the former warehouse building at 711 S. 50th St., now has lots more space for current and new classes, and is hiring more teachers to expand the instruments that they offer.  Continue Reading