Tomorrow, the Graduate Hospital neighborhood will be abuzz with all sorts of activity, with volunteering opportunities in the morning, the dedication of a green space in the afternoon, and arts, food, drink, and entertainment into the evening. We’ll certainly be there, and you should too.

At 9am, early birds can go to Catharine Park at 22nd & Catharine to participate in Neighborhood Cleanup Day and help tidy up 22nd Street. By 10am, you’ll be able to enjoy coffee and snacks and meet your local police and firefighters at the park as SOSNA throws an Officer Appreciation Event. At noon, the SOSNA Arts Crawl will begin, with neighborhood businesses featuring works from community artists, and several businesses offering SOSNA-sponsored drinks. Participating businesses include Beauty Shop Cafe, Ultimo Coffee, SoWe, Sidecar,…

Go to most of the neighborhoods surrounding Center City, and you’ll find a healthy number of green spaces that are open to the public. Graduate Hospital, until very recently, has been more or less bereft of public green space, with the nearly complete Julian Abele Park representing a very new addition to the neighborhood. And with the rapid development of almost every vacant lot in the neighborhood, opportunities for additional green space are rapidly dwindling. With that in mind, SOSNA is attempting to preserve the corner of 17th & Carpenter, one of the few remaining large vacant parcels in the neighborhood, as Carpenter Green.

The lot

Looking north of 17th St.

Owned for years by the Redevelopment Authority, this lot has sat vacant for as…

Yesterday, we were walking down 21st Street and were surprised to discover some serious interior demolition taking place at 2064 Saint Albans St., a corner property. This home seemed to be in decent condition, though perhaps a little worn down, and now it’s been thoroughly gutted.

From the north

Closer look

From the south

Our first thought was that this would be a rehab similar to the still-incomplete one that we told you about many months ago at the corner of 21st & Webster. As you can see in the photos below, the developers at this property took an existing home with some really unattractive features and prettied it up considerably.

In the past

Current view is

…

In 2010, Laurissa Kuehn and Carlos Cardenas purchased 2231 Montrose St., a two-story home on an adorable Graduate Hospital block. A few years later, the couple find themselves outgrowing this two-bedroom, one-bathroom home and facing a choice between expanding the home they’ve come to love or moving out, perhaps out of the city entirely. Earlier this week, representatives from Johnson Stromberg Architecture presented a plan to the SOSNA Zoning Committee to add a third story addition to the home, which would keep Laurissa and Carlos in the neighborhood for years to come.

The home with the black cornice

While this project may seem like an innocuous effort to provide a little more living space for a family, the new zoning code that was passed last summer creates a somewhat complex issue out of it. As we’ve…

The future of a proposed development at 1021-25 S. 18th St. is in question after developer Vitaly Paluchenko presented his plans for the site for the second time last month to the SOSNA Zoning Committee. While this neighborhood has seen considerable redevelopment and tons of infill construction in recent years, these lots have remained empty. But if the developer has his way, three triplexes, designed by Harman Deutsch, will soon rise on the site.

The lot

Closer look

For decades, the three lots were owned by different City agencies, which helps explain their long-term vacant state. The middle lot was owned by the Department of Public Property, and the developer purchased it for $114K back in 2010. The northern and southern lots were both owned by PHDC, which finally…

Last summer, we told you all about a new playground getting built at Chester A. Arthur elementary school at 20th & Catharine. This project was driven by members of Friends of Chester Arthur (FoCA), a non-profit group that partners with teachers and school administrators to help make Arthur the best school it can possibly be, and was funded through a combination of a grant from AmeriHealth Mercy, a gift from SOSNA, and individual contributions. Since the playground was installed in June, hundreds of kids have enjoyed this new neighborhood amenity.

The playground

But FoCA isn’t done yet, not by a long shot. According to an email we received last week, the next phase of schoolyard redevelopment is coming this summer. Earlier this month, the group met with landscape architecture firm Olin as well as school…