We were in the area the other day, and spotted three fenced-in lots on the 3000 block of West Girard, just around the corner from the still-newish Bottom Dollar market. Doing a little bit of research, we discovered that all of the properties are being developed by ML Builders LLC. 3028 W. Girard Ave. has been a blighted property for years but has now been demolished. 3004 and 3008 W. Girard have both been vacant lots for at least a decade.

3028 in the past. It's the one with the blue door.

Current shot shows demoed home and formerly blighted home next door being rehabbed.

The two vacant lots at the end of the street

The developers purchased all three parcels at the end of last year, shelling out…

Trane oh Coltrane. Old fashioned Blue Trane. Since he passed away in 1967, John Coltrane’s legend has only grown, while his most important physical connection to Philadelphia has deteriorated.

In 1943, Coltrane moved from North Carolina to Philadelphia and enlisted in the Navy. When he completed his service in 1946 he returned to Philadelphia, further pursuing his musical efforts and later purchasing a home in Strawberry Mansion overlooking Fairmount Park.

The Coltrane House

Next time you’re in Brewerytown and have an hour to kill, take an amble up 33rd Street, up past Girard Avenue. To your right you’ll descry a row of Victorian style homes, many of are bruised and blighted from a lack of proper upkeep over the years. To your left, the edge Fairmount Park. For a soundtrack, how about Coltrane’s 1957 Blue Train album? As you walk up the street, watch…

Part of what goes into writing Naked Philly is walking, biking, and driving around different neighborhoods, attempting to find upcoming development or ongoing construction. A fringe benefit of doing all of this meandering is that we often stumble upon interesting buildings that we otherwise would never have encountered. One such building is 1232 N 25th St., an unusual home that we first noticed over a year ago.

The building

Sure, the home has a number of unique architectural details, but most interesting is the fact that the remaining original structure is too narrow to accomodate a front door, and ingress is only possible via an addition that was clearly tacked on many years after the home was originally built. We’re guessing there was some alternate structure that existed prior to this addition that looked like the adjacent building, but we can’t find…

A reader tipped us off to a new zoning notice at 2400 W. Thompson St., on the border of Brewerytown and Sharswood. This blighted shell has been on and off the market for several years at an asking price of around $40K. Though public record doesn’t show a sale, we’re guessing that new owners are behind an effort to rehab the building and use it for four apartments.

In bad shape

As you can see, the building is in need of some significant TLC. This is not unexpected, considering the fact that numerous blighted buildings are prominent in the immediately surrounding area. Vacant land is also a problem.

Across the street

Immediately to the north is vacant land and blight

There’s no question that the Brewerytown neighborhood to the west has been…

We’ve had reason to find ourselves on Fairmount Avenue a lot in recent months, and at some point we discovered the wonderful Rybread. We’ve tried several of their sandwich offerings, and we can honestly say that the only problem we can identify with the place is that there aren’t nearly enough places to sit.

Rybread

In an effort to address what we imagine is a fairly common bit of feedback, the folks who own Rybread are going ahead and opening a second location, according to Foobooz. The new establishment, tabbed to open in late April, will be located at 2816 W. Girard Ave., on a block we’ve profiled a couple of times in the past (and yes, the building across the street next to Mugshots is still blighted). The new location will have the…

Just last week, we told you about Cambridge Row, a partnership between Fairmount CDC and local developer MM Partners to purchase a number of PHA properties, rehab them, and sell them on the open market. This project will be taking place on the 2700-3000 blocks of Cambridge Street, and will involve the revival of ten properties that have been sources of blight for years. And it seems that the spirit of rehabbing properties on Cambridge Street is contagious.

2800 Cambridge St.

2800 Cambridge St. is an imposing corner property, dwarfing the two story homes next door due to its height and the fact that the other homes on the south side of the block are set back from the front of their property line. The building was purchased by Cambridge Partners LLC back in September for $135K, and these developers seem serious about…