Here’s a couple of interesting art openings for your gallery crawl this Friday.

disTURBIA @ Art on the Avenue Gallery

If you haven’t noticed, Lancaster Avenue between 38th and 40th streets has become Philly’s newest gallery row.  Opening Friday May 11, Art on the Avenue Gallery at 3808 Lancaster Ave brings us disTURBIA, a show of mixed media sculpture installation and drawings by Romanian artist Raluca Ungureanu. Ungureanu defines “disTURBIA” as, “a term derived from the words  ‘suburbia’ and ‘disturb’ meant to describe the dark side of urban living.” Her work aims to engage the viewer in a dialogue about rootlessness and alienation in the big cities of today’s rapidly changing world. Born and raised in the mythic land of Bucovina, surrounded by a deep ancestral forest at the foot of the divine monastery of Voronet, one of the oldest in Europe, Raluca has carried the imprint of her origins, and has brought them to bear on renditions of New York and Philadelphia.

Free admission.  Through June 2.  Art on the Avenue Gallery.  3808 Lancaster Avenue.  artonave.org.  215-662-1074.
Opening: Friday, May 11, from 6 – 9 pm.
Gallery Hours: Saturdays and Sundays, 12 to 5 pm or by appointment.

Monsters Under the Bed @ 40th St Artist-in-Residence Program Gallery

The exhibition features a selection of puppets from Martina Plag’s puppetry atelier, “studium-praxis.” This installation specifically focuses on designs built at Martina’s 40th AIR Space studio over the past nine months. Each puppet or set displayed in the exhibition has been designed for a specific performance and to serve a very specific function.  The objects in Monsters Under the Bed are designed by Martina Plag, but most of them were made with the help of talented artists, each bringing their own unique approach to puppet making. Supporting artists include: Pam Raines, Stephen C. Layne. Bill Hanson, Deborah Glassberg, Laureen Griffin, Leah Walton, Lorna Howley, Leila Ghaznavi, and Cory Palmer.

Free admission. 40th St Artist-in-Residence Gallery, 4007 Chestnut Street.  40streetair.blogspot.com.
Opening: Friday, May 11, from 7-10 p.m.
Gallery Hours: May 18th & 25th, 3-7 p.m., or by appointment.

– Emma Eisenberg

A masked man robbed the Green Line Cafe in Powelton at gunpoint yesterday. The robbery is the second at a Green Line in the past week.

Police said the man entered the cafe on Lancaster Avenue near 36th Street at about 4:20 p.m. and fled on foot with about $500. The man is described as white, about 5’10” and wearing a grey hoodie, philly.com reported.

Police say the description is similar to the person who robbed the Green Line at 45th and Locust on April 25. Police confirmed that a suspect was detained and later released. No arrests have been made.

(h/t Daily News)

 
Powelton residents will soon get more access to fresh, locally grown food. The West Philadelphia Fresh Food Hub, a mobile grocery store, is launching in April to serve Lancaster Avenue and the surrounding communities. The truck will sell groceries like rice, flour, milk, peanut butter and eggs and fresh fruits and vegetables supplied by Preston’s Paradise and Greensgrow Farms.

Ryan Kuck, West Philadelphia Fresh Food Hub project manager, says that they’ve been running a push cart market for about five years and were “looking for a way to scale up and be a more consistent access point to fresh food in our neighborhood.” The idea is “to be a grocery store more than a farmers’ market.”

So, look for the Fresh Food Hub starting next month along Lancaster Avenue, between 37^th and 40^th streets. The truck will also travel to senior housing communities, block parties and community events. The schedule for Lancaster Avenue (near 37th) is Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from noon to 6 p.m., and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. when it’s not at a community event. They’ll have additional hours at the Mantua library on Wednesday evenings and the West Philly Senior Center on Friday afternoons (they are still working on the details).

For more information about the West Philadelphia Fresh Food Hub and people behind it, read this Plan Philly article or visit their Facebook page.

Redcap’s Corner, the venerable gaming shop at 4040 Locust St., is pulling up stakes later this week and moving to Lancaster Avenue.

The shop, which along with Locust Moon Comics occupied a good-sized chunk of the orange, 20,000-square-foot warehouse building that formerly housed Strikes Bowling Lounge (and an original Urban Outfitters), will reopen at a storefront at 3617 Lancaster Ave. in late January. Locust Moon vacated the building earlier this year and will open a new storefront location at 34 S. 40th Street early next year.

For Redcap’s Corner, the move means more retail and gaming space. The move also puts them much closer to Drexel University students, who owners Benn Roe and Adam Friedman say make up a sizable chunk of their student clientele.

The warehouse at 4040 Locust is undergoing extensive remodeling. A branch of Keswick Cycle opened in the building over the summer and at least one restaurant and office space is also planned for the location.