Dr. Ketchup performing in Cedar Park. (Photo courtesy Cedar Park Jazz)

Starting this Friday, June 6, live jazz will again waft through Cedar Park. The Cedar Park Jazz series, an annual summertime staple, brings some great jazz and blues musicians to the park every Friday. The free shows begin at 6 p.m.

The local band Dr. Ketchup will open the series this Friday. Here’s the full schedule (please note that there’s no concert on July 4):

Every Friday 6 to 8 p.m.:

June 6 – Dr. Ketchup
June 13 – Mixed People
June 20 – Shirley Lites Band
June 27 – Gretchen Elise and Crew
July 11 – Rich Tucker and the Universal Experience
July 18 – Gregory McDonald & Friends
July 25 – Glenn Bryan and Friends
August 1 – Broke and Blue Band

Community contributions to the Cedar Park Jazz are always welcome. Please follow this link to make a donation:

The sponsor list of Cedar Park Jazz includes: Cedar Park Neighbors, Philadelphia Parks and Rec, Fairmount Park Conservancy, Baltimore Avenue Business Association, Gold Standard Cafe, and other local businesses and organizations.

Proposed zoning changes fall within the area pictured above.

Proposed zoning changes for the area stretching from 45th to 50th streets and between Chestnut and Spruce streets will be the subject of a public meeting tonight at the Lea School Auditorium (47th and Locust). Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell introduced the proposed changes on May 8th and the City Council’s Rules Committee hearing (the last opportunity for public input) is scheduled for Tuesday, June 3, according to Garden Court Community Association’s Zoning Chair Mariya Khandros.

The Garden Court, Walnut Hill and Spruce Hill neighborhoods are included in the area, so residents in these neighborhoods are encouraged to attend today’s meeting to provide their input (yes, we know it’s Friday night but the zoning changes affect almost every block in that area, so the organizers want to make sure that as many residents as possible give their input).

The changes include switching some parcels from multi-family to single-family zoning, or changing a commercially zoned location to residential. The parcel that includes the old West Philadelphia High School would also reportedly be zoned  for commercial use, presumedly to clear the way for  development of the high school building.

Blackwell introduced several zoning changes earlier this month, including proposed rezoning of the old University City High School parcel at 38th and Powelton.

The meeting will be held from 6 – 8 p.m.. Tuesday’s public hearing will be held in Room 4000 in the City Hall.

University of Pennsylvania (Source: Wikipedia)

Is the University of Pennsylvania paying its fair share?

It’s a question worth asking and it’s at the heart of the upcoming Philadelphia Area Jobs with Justice (JWJ) community forum, taking place Sat. May 31 at Monumental Baptist Church (4948 Locust Street). The forum, which begins at 3 p.m., will discuss Penn’s contributions (and lack thereof) to Philadelphia, as well as a campaign for the university to make PILOT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) contributions—voluntary payments made to the city by nonprofit hospitals and universities, which are tax-exempt entities, that benefit city schools and services.

According to the labor and social justice coalition, while the rest of Philadelphia is grappling with employment insecurity, slashes to the city budget, cutbacks in public services, and a long-standing education crisis, Penn continues to prosper on and around its 994-acre campus. The JWJ points out, the Ivy League’s total endowment is valued at $7.74 billion as of the 2013 fiscal year, and its president, Amy Gutmann, makes over $2 million a year as of 2011—over $600,000 more than 2010—ranking her as one of the highest-paid university presidents in the country. The university’s total budget for the 2014 fiscal year, though, is $6.6 billion, which consists of a $3.634 billion payroll budget including benefits.

And none of that money is earmarked for PILOT contributions—at least, not since 2000. In 1995, the city and Penn struck a five-year agreement during  which the university would voluntarily pay $1.93 million a year to the city as part of PILOT, but the program expired, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian. None of Philadelphia’s 2011 PILOT money came from Penn, Drexel University nor Temple University. Instead, reported Generocity, the biggest contributor was a 40-acre retirement community in Andorra called Cathedral Village that donated $272,250 of the $383,650 the city received in that year.

In response to Penn’s lack of PILOT contributions, Gutmann told DP in 2012: “We are very committed to having a big economic impact on the city. We’ve been cited as a model around this country of a university that has the most positive impact on its neighborhood and city.”

But JWJ clearly sees it differently.

“As you probably guessed, [‘Is U. Penn paying its fair share?’] is a bit of a leading question. [O]f course U. Penn isn’t paying its fair share,” the organization wrote on the event’s page. “It’s one of only two Ivies that refuse to make PILOT contributions … Well, we think it’s time to pay up.”

Registration is required for the forum. To register, click here. For more information, email director@phillyjwj.org.

–Annamarya Scaccia

The regional non-profit Repair the World: Philadelphia just moved its headquarters to West Philly (4029 Market Street) and tonight from 6 – 8:30 p.m. community members are invited over to celebrate the brand new office’s opening together with staff and volunteers. We reported on the pending move last month.

The open house will have food, drinks and entertainment, including a photo booth and kids activities. You can also meet neighbors participating in community-building collaborative art projects.

One of the main goals of Repair the World is to mobilize Jewish youth to help improve communities and guests can learn about volunteer opportunities available in the area.

For more information, email: matthew.renick@werepair.org. The open house registration page is here.

Hawthorne Hall (Photo from grayareaphilly.org)

Down every street, and around every corner, we see Philadelphia’s history chronicled in the old brick roads, the abandoned trolley tracks, and every lot overrun by foliage.

Most of all, we see the city’s history in the timeworn foundations of its older buildings. Be it the imposing Provident Mutual Life Insurance building or the grandiose Divine Lorraine Hotel, Philadelphia’s antiquity is forever sealed in their unique brickwork and beguiling design.

But how we preserve the architecture of that history has become uninspired, if not non-existent. Instead, Philly’s historic buildings are bulldozed to make way for shopping centers and luxurious townhouses. Or they’re left abandoned—nothing more than waning icons relegated to the pronoun of “I wonder what that used to be.”

That’s where GRAY AREA comes in. Supported by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, GRAY AREA is an experimental project launched by the University of the Arts and DesignPhiladelphia of the Center for Architecture that looks at “historic preservation in the modern city.” Currently in its third phase, GRAY AREA aims to engage both design and development experts and the public at large in envisaging creative ways to maintain and repurpose the city’s older buildings so they’re moments of revitalization in their communities.

As part of its third phase, known as GRAY AREA 3, a multi-disciplinary cohort of experts and community partners spent most of last year studying two historic buildings: Hawthorne Hall (3849 Lancaster Avenue) in Powelton Village/Mantua, and the Max Levy building (212-220 Roberts Avenue) in Germantown. Armed with a series of questions raised during GRAY AREA’s first two phases—a panel discussion and a facilitated conversation, respectively—the team researched the buildings’ history and their cultural significance in an effort to cultivate ideas for “eventual interpretation, reuse and design.”

This Wed, May 28, the GRAY AREA 3 team will gather at the Catalyst for Change Church (3727 Baring Street) to share their findings on Hawthorne Hall with the West Philly community. The event, which begins at 6 p.m., will serve as the third phase’s final community meeting in which they will test a preservation toolkit developed for “encouraging meaningful dialogue, making unexpected and new connections, and generating ideas,” GRAY AREA Project Director Elise Vider told West Philly Local.
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Photo from woodlandsphila.org

Last month, when West Philly Local shared details about The Woodlands’ community survey, many of our readers took to the comments section to air grievances about off-leash dogs running around the site. The general consensus is that off-leash dogs are dangerous to visitors, as well as other animals on the site.

In response, Erica Maust, The Woodlands’ program & communications coordinator, reached out both in the comment section and directly to West Philly Local to remind the community of The Woodlands’ strict no off-leash dogs policy, as well as promote its Dog Walker membership. Maust confirmed that off-leash dogs as a major concern for the grounds, and that concern was reflected in “an overwhelming number of [survey] responses from neighbors and community members.”

According to Maust, off-leash dogs are “never permitted, or welcome, at The Woodlands,” both by city law and management policy, no exceptions. All dogs passing through its gates must be leashed, and if they are not, Maust said, Woodlands staff will ask the owner to leash their dog. If they’re a repeat offender, they’re asked to leave the grounds.

“No one should feel unsafe or uncomfortable when visiting the grave of a loved one, enjoying an afternoon walk, or teaching their children to ride a bike,” she told West Philly Local. “Not everyone likes or feels comfortable around dogs, and we want all of our visitors to feel as though The Woodlands is a safe place to visit.”

But, she noted, The Woodlands employs a small staff on the 54-acre site, which makes fully enforcing its policy difficult. So The Woodlands also rely on members visiting the grounds to help implement or make other visitors aware of its leash policy when a staff member may not be present, Maust said.

In an effort to raise awareness about the policy and ways members could help, Maust said The Woodlands’ created a Dog Walker membership, good for one person and their dog(s). The benefits of this membership level, which costs $75, include invites to members-only events and Doggy “Yappy Hours”, discounted ticket pricing, occasional exclusive after-dark access to the grounds, and one “I LOVE THE WOOFLANDS” dog leash.

“The dog-walking community is an especially important membership group to us, because so many people who live nearby rely on access to The Woodlands to walk their dogs daily. We recognize this, and we love that we can allow neighbors to walk their dogs at The Woodlands,” she said. “We also hope that these neighbors and their pets recognize that The Woodlands is an incredible resource that’s right in their backyard, and will use the space respectfully.”

The Dog Walker membership also includes access to the Dog of the Month program, in which visitors can submit a photo of their dog on the grounds via social media using the hashtag #wooflands. The social media campaign “has helped us raise awareness for our leash policy for all of our visitors and our followers on social media, and we hope it will lead to fewer problems and incidents with off-leash dogs at The Woodlands,” Maust said.

–Annamarya Scaccia