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Nice.  I often take Alter St. as a shortcut when the frequent paratransit van or ambulance is blocking Ellsworth and it’s amazing how development has by and large skipped over that street.  

[...] Shot Down by Common Pleas – Construction begins! Five New Homes Will Change The 1900 Block of Alter Street, Plus A Buried Lede! | NakedPhilly Love. It. Help rid Philadelphia of bandit signs!!! Do you got Kensington Pride? Reply [...]

Why the mural exactly?

[...] to build a mixed-use property at Point Breeze Avenue and Titan Street? Naked Philly reports that variances for two of OCF’s contested developments along Point Breeze Avenue– the mixed-use propo…. Will an appeal [...]

the mural will cover the rear side of commercial properties that are on Washington Avenue. The picture above titled looking west shows the long wall on the right.

Why not a mural? A mural sounds fantastic! Livin’ up this place a bit.

Congrats on getting approved!! Glad that my hours wasted during those exhausting zoning meetings and rescheduled meetings actually paid off.

Assuming it’s a cool mural, it would certainly be an improvement over the current view.  That has to be the reason why Alter St. is lagging so far behind the rest of the area in development – the backs of those commercial buildings don’t make a very appealing streetscape.

Is this a challenge or a death threat?

Right.. here’s more my actual question.  What kind of local artists are we talking about here?  Are they people who are actually from that neighborhood or are they people who moved there?  If it’s the latter, then I personally don’t feel that people who don’t come from somewhere should be painting murals in that place.  It’s a neighborhood thing, a community thing, a way to instill pride in a community that might’ve forgotten what that feels like or to make people feel better about themselves and their neighborhood.  A mural in itself implies paying tribute to something or a community bettering itself.

I don’t like the fact that murals seem to be a fad these days because they serve a purpose when done by the right people.

Do you really think that’s actually Tiffany Green?

Do you really think that’s actually Tiffany Green?

I walk by there often when I walk my dog and the homes look quite nice, it seems just a short time ago they were building it and it was not a complete structure yet, now there are nice homes filling the block. 

Not sure where that mural will go, hopefully not on the side of someone’s home.  Though, personally I would never buy a home with a mural on the side of it – in fact I wouldn’t buy any home where I could look out and see a mural, I think it can often be so tacky.  Good luck with the sales if others think like me.

As for the local artists, – local artists should be what they are, local artists, whether that is someone that lived there for 1 month, 6 months, or 20 years, an artist is an artist and a community is made up of the people who live there.  If you live there you are part of the community, like it or not.  I would be hard pressed to think that the builder would not select long time members of the community, or the youth, but seriously, a new resident is also part of the community.  What if a black person moved in, would they not qualify?  Now then, you really start getting into some real issues of race, politics, and prejudice.  That comment saddens me a bit.

It is unfortunate that some people may have forgotten to take pride in their neighborhood, they can learn and should from others.  My grandmom lived during the great depression, she lived in a polish neighborhood after the war, they knew how to clean and take care of their homes.  It didn’t matter if they did not have a lot of money, she swept the street every week and then I grew up to sweep for her when she was older.  I see people cleaning my street in PB, long time residents, and I also sweep the pavement too.  There comes a time when people need to take responsibility for their actions and in-actions and not blame others.  Use the change as a learning experience and see what you can gain from the experience and grow.  Everyone should care and fight for their community to better it but don’t go against people moving in who are prepared to care as well.

see my comment guest 3/19/12

see my comment guest 3/19/12

 Please make it a gardening scene, Philly is over-populated we don’t need more paintings of people, we need greenery – this I could actually see would enhance the back of the buildings.  Also, please no funky pop art – not that my opinion counts I just moved in…haha

 Please make it a gardening scene, Philly is over-populated we don’t need more paintings of people, we need greenery – this I could actually see would enhance the back of the buildings.  Also, please no funky pop art – not that my opinion counts I just moved in…haha

I was house hunting a couple of years ago and one of the neighborhoods I researched is Point Breeze.  I ended up choosing a different neighborhood, but one of the things I came across in my research was the complaints of some of the residents about the new developments.  I think they are completely off base, since neighborhood development benefits both new and current residents.  Their main gripe seems to be possible property tax increases.  If this is in fact their main gripe, perhaps OCF could propose to the City Council that they give old residents in gentrifying neighborhoods the same 10 year tax abatements received for new construction.  If the fear of increased property taxes is truly their only legitimate gripe, then this should assuage those concerns.

[...] may remember, we told you about a month ago about five new homes going up on the 1900 block of Alter Street. As you can see, looking down the street, framing has begun for [...]

[...] March, the ZBA granted variances for both projects, as we told you at that time. It appeared as though both would begin construction in the near future. The one concern for the [...]

[...] may recall, we told you about five new construction homes going up on this street, two of which are now nearly complete. Two more have been framed, and the last one should soon go [...]