UPDATE (3/11/2015):8 Limbs Academy opened on March 3, 2015. Here’s a short update from Coach Kate:
“We are scheduling FREE intros but are booked all through March, and we are starting to fill April. We are offering early morning ALL female kickboxing at 6 a.m. and evening classes starting at 6 p.m. The children’s classes start at 4:15 p.m., and there is an after school program for them starting at 3:00 p.m. Here is a link to our schedule: www.8limbsacademy.com/8-limbs-current-schedule.”
Here’s some exciting news for local martial arts and fitness fans. Partners and coaches Charlie Cottone and Kate Allen are opening a Muay Thai Kickboxing school, 8 Limbs Academy, on Baltimore Avenue in March. For those who are not very familiar with kickboxing, Muay Thai or Thai boxing is a national sport of Thailand. It is a physical and mental discipline also known as “the art of eight limbs,” because eight points of contact are used in the combat: fists, elbows, knees, and shins.
Eight Limbs Academy is expected to open in the first week of March, and coaches Charlie and Kate have already started preregistering folks, kids and adults alike, for their programs, which include All Female Kickboxing, Adult Muay Thai, and Kids Muay Thai programs. They will also offer an after-school program for kids who can come and spend time in the gym after school, including doing their homework, before their Muay Thai lesson. In addition to that, the owners hope to work closely and be involved with the West Philadelphia community. Continue Reading
WePAC head David Brown reads to Kindergartners at the Hamilton School (Photo from WePAC’s Facebook page).
The West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC) has reopened another public school library, this time at the K-8 Andrew Hamilton School (57th and Spruce). Students there have not had regular access to books in the school library, which will reopen one day a week, for 10 years, according to WePAC.
WePAC replaced most of the books, including non-fiction titles that were up to 85 years old, and spent hundreds of hours getting the library ready for Hamilton students. The library is the 13th that the organization has helped revamp, reopen and staff. Another 20 schools are on WePAC’s waiting list.
There are currently about 125 volunteers at WePAC who help operate the school libraries, which serve about 6,000 students weekly.
Most of the libraries that WePAC staff operate are on a modest schedule, opening one or two days a week. Part of WePAC’s strategy is to get libraries restocked and operating so that parents and community members can build on their work to keep the library going.
Underground music lovers are mourning the closing of the DIY music venue the Golden Tea House at 40th and Baring. Venue organizers, who have kept the Golden Tea House going for 2-and-a-half years, announced today on Facebook that gigs it now has on the books will be moved elsewhere.
“The why and the how aren’t really important but suffice it to say that it was one of the more predictable inevitable causes,” the Facebook post reads. West Philly has been the home to dozens of underground music venues over the last few decades. Some last only a few weeks before they are closed.
The Golden Tea House even made it into The New York Times, WXPN’s The Key notes, when the newspaper printed a photograph last spring of the album release party for The Menzingers (see video below). One would have thought that publicity might have spelled the end for The Golden Tea House, but it continued to thrive, hosting shows that drew crowds that snaked down the block waiting to get in.
The venue’s neighborhood has also changed a great deal in recent years as a number of residential building projects have popped up nearby.
Two West Philly food start-ups are joining forces to spread the love this Valentine’s Day. Red Fox Gourmet and Smackaroons, both operating out of the Culinary Center on S. 48th Street, have just launched “Love Me…I’m Local,” a campaign celebrating the collective of emerging artisan food entrepreneurs in the Philadelphia area. Their first collaboration and product offering is a Valentine’s Day Gift Suite featuring gourmet treats.
Smackaroons produces dairy and preservative free artisanal Coconut Delights and currently has over 60 retail partners in the Greater Philadelphia and Delaware Valley Regions. Red Fox Gourmet is a snack company focused on making wholesome snacks with no artificial ingredients or preservatives. Its owner and head chef, Sarah Merrick, says that she and Claudia Baudo, the owner of Smackaroons, are thrilled to be part of this campaign. Continue Reading
A great neighborhood beautification project is underway in Mantua. Initiated by local residents and supported by community leaders and organizations, the Mantua Greenway project is an effort to transform an overgrown and littered strip of land on Mantua Avenue, adjacent to the Amtrak railway, into a green space, reports the Philadelphia LISC blog.
Lifetime Mantua resident Bessie Washington, who lives across the street from the lot, started a small garden there in 2011 in memory of her mother. The planting of the first few flowers and plants has blossomed into a grassroots cooperation, resulting in a large neighborhood revitalization campaign to create a green space and build a walking and biking trail. Thanks to support from the Philadelphia LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), the project also received funding.
“In 2013, the William Penn Foundation provided $200,000 for concept design and early stage planning, and this past October the neighborhood was awarded $150,000 by the state for design, engineering, and partial construction of the greenway. The path will eventually connect to the city’s Schuylkill Trail system, and will boast trees, murals and art installations,” according to the LISC blog post on the project.
Read more about this and other Mantua revitalization efforts here.
25-year-old Ashjakia Washington and 69-year-old Otero Guillermo, who were reported missing last week from their homes in West Philadelphia, have been found and are in good condition, according to police. Washington, from the 5500 block of Chancellor Street, went missing on Jan. 22 and Guillermo went missing from his residence on the 4800 block of Pine Street.
Washington had been reported missing before – in April 2014, according to police.
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