North Philly

There is a patchwork of neighborhoods in Philly’s Northeast, each with their distinct personality. If you are interested in discovering which is the best fit for you and your family, read on to learn more about a few select neighborhood highlights: Bustleton, Somerton, Fox Chase and Rhawnhurst.

1. Bustleton

Mostly a residential community, Bustleton is a collage of single-family residential, twin homes, apartment complexes and condos. Shops and restaurants tend to gravitate to the main roads that border and bisect it — Bustleton Avenue, Grant Avenue, Red Lion Road and Roosevelt Boulevard. Also, with easy commuting via both SEPTA buses and regional rail routes and a quiet, clean environment Bustleton is highly livable.

The kaleidoscope of

The organizers of the Invisible River Festival want you to get up close and personal with the Schuylkill. And to truly experience the finale performance, you should get up close and personal with the river in a boat.

Say "Schuylkill" to a Philadelphian and the response you get might contain more talk of traffic jams than of crew races, boats or fish. The Schuylkill is one of the two rivers that define Philadelphia, but unlike the bigger one, people tend to regard it as a barrier to cross than as a focal point.

The aim of the annual Invisible River Festival is to make it that focal point, at least for one day. The festival returns for its third iteration this Saturday, Aug. 29, with an afternoon of interactive art installations, classes and

Hundreds of submissions. Fifteen finalists. Seven winners. The recipients of the Urban Land Institute Philadelphia's second annual Willard G. "Bill" Rouse Awards for Excellence represent the best of the best in urban design in the Mid-Atlantic region, from the Poconos to Harrisburg to the Jersey shore to the Delaware beaches.

The awards were bestowed on the winners at a ceremony at the Ballroom at the Franklin on June 17. Here are the residential projects among them:

Arbor Mews, Norristown, Pa.
Two burned-out vacant buildings near the heart of the Montgomery County seat were combined with new construction to produce a 12-unit stacked townhome complex that blends seamlessly with the large century-old homes surrounding it. The homes in this Barton

This map, which is still being tweaked, gives you an idea of where the initial network of 60 Indego bike share stations will be located. We just hope the system's still called Indego when it formally launches this spring.

Mayor Michael Nutter yesterday formally unveiled the city's new bike-share network, a round-the-clock service that will offer 600 bikes for checkout at 60 stations located throughout Center City, North, South and West Philadelphia.

Nutter also announced that as Independence Blue Cross will pick up just over half the tab for the $16 million initial network, the system will be named "Indego," a combination of "independence" and "go" that also brings to mind a certain shade of deep blue, deeper than the blue being used to mark the

4301 North Broad Street today.

In the middle of Philadelphia's Nicetown section, on a triangle of land bordered by Broad Street on one side and Roosevelt Boulevard on the other two, sits a handsome Georgian Revival structure that looks like it could have once been a baronial manor of some sort.

Behind a very impressive gate lies the home of a historically significant organization, as the state historical marker should indicate.

Since 1975, this building has been the home of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, Jurisdiction of Pennsylvania. Behind this organization is an interesting history of its own, one that we uncovered in search of this building's past. The search for that continues.

In the meantime,

Back to the future on East Market, or unlearning the lessons of The Gallery; one of the region's large commercial brokers looks back on a first-ever billion-dollar year; PhillyMag's Property blog calls out five projects as developments to watch in the year ahead; and here's a Christmas postscript—the story of what a Port Richmond water ice stand does when the weather outside gets frightful:

Changing Skyline: The anti-Gallery (The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philly.com)
What does a billion dollars buy in Philadelphia? (PhillyDeals blog|Philly.com)
Five Developments We're Tracking in 2015 (Property blog|Philadelphia magazine)
A Holiday Oasis Under the Highway at Sam's Christmas Land (Hidden City Daily)
 

By Gabriel Gottlieb

The Zoning Board of Adjustment this week approved variances to build an apartment building on a blighted lot in North Philadelphia. The particular lot is at 1322 N. 15th Street, at the intersection of 15th and Seybert streets, southwest of the Temple University campus. The lot has been vacant and overgrown for many years, and has a small vacant garage on it.

The developer’s attorney, Michael Mattioni, gave the presentation to the board. Developer Chris Rahn, who has built other such buildings in North Philadelphia, is developing this building, and Jeremy Lecompte of Harman Deutsch is the architect. The developer is seeking a variance to exceed the allowable number of units, which is 14 at the site. Mattioni explained that

Peco Energy will soon determine the winning bidder for its former Delaware Generating Station on the waterfront in Fishtown; the petition to add the Legendary Blue Horizon to the city's historic register is put on hold; PREIT forges ahead with its previously announced Gallery makeover, starting with sending kiosk owners packing; and the history of a North Philadelphia neighborhood is reflected in the afterlife of John Windrim's "Diamond Exchange" building for Bell Telephone:

PhillyDeals: Exelon weighing offers for Peco power plant site (The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philly.com)
Continuance Granted for the Blue Horizon (Hidden City Daily)
No holiday cheer at The Gallery (Philadelphia Daily News|Philly.com) 
A North Philly Building's Direct Connection to the

Apartments and condos will sprout like weeds in the coming year, says a real estate investment newsletter, and Philly will rank in the top 10 for multifamily construction; Temple releases more details about its new, Snøhetta-designed campus library; speaking of Temple, here's yet another sign that the "campus community" is moving into territory it once shunned; and finally, we have a leading economic indicator that offers solid evidence that the recovery is making spirits bright:

Multifamily Developers Push the Limits on New Construction (National Real Estate Investor)
New library will redefine Temple campus and academic experiences (Temple University News Center) 
Before and After at 12th and Dauphin (Naked Philly) 
How do you know economy is getting

Sorry, Carpenters Union—it looks like you should have signed the new labor agreement when you had the chance, for it's already producing a dramatic turnaround in the Convention Center's fortunes; A new owner plans to finish the job the former owner started with a Mt. Airy apartment complex; the ZBA greenlights the conversion of the former Orinoka Mills in East Kensington into affordable apartments; and new drone footage shows off Philly's finest ruin porn:

Convention Center managers hail quick turnaround (The Philadelphia Inquirer|Philly.com)
Northwest Philadelphia apartments sell for $8.75M (Philadelphia Business Journal)
Zoning board approves redevelopment of Orinoka Mills in Kensington (Plan Philly) 
Video Interlude: This Drone Footage of Philly Ruin