Because I Was Born And Raised Here, I Wanted To Share This Piece Of News

By Dianna Marder
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

If a single city neighborhood could lay claim to the only outlet for something as exotic as Tunisian harissa pasta, would that neighborhood be considered chic? Maybe, but East Falls knows better than to put all its hope into one market basket.

Blessed with proximity to the Schuylkill (river and expressway), this slice of the city gave the world Grace Kelly and a slew of recipes for catfish. Thousands of commuters pass by daily on Ridge Avenue, and on weekends thousands more stroll and cycle by on Kelly Drive.

But for all its potential, East Falls seemed to sleep through the revivals in Manayunk, Fairmount, Brewerytown, Northern Liberties, Port Richmond and Fishtown.

Now the new Marketplace at East Falls is up and running, offering shoppers the Tunisian pasta and a Reading Terminal-style greengrocery. And more development is on the way.
With the anticipated infusion of nearly $400 million in public and private dollars, East Falls is in for an extreme makeover.
"Now there are a lot of pent-up expectations in East Falls," said Carolyn Sutton, who chairs the board of the East Falls Development Corp. "We all feel as though success is just around the corner."

But. In East Falls, there's always a but.

Fallsers, as the locals are known, have heard talk of an economic revival for nearly a decade - even as they watched restaurants open to acclaim and shutter for lack of customers.
The neighborhood's most prominent intersection, at Ridge and Midvale Avenues, still has more storefronts empty than occupied. Intense civic involvement breeds fractiousness that can make progress difficult. And native son Mark Sherman's return to the roost as a major real estate developer has only added complexity - and controversy - to a dizzying development scene.

"We've been waiting a long time," longtime resident Jerry McCormick said last month at a ceremony marking the lighting of the landmark Falls Bridge across the Schuylkill to accentuate the planned gateway. "I've lived here 26 years," said McCormick, a public school teacher, "and I've been waiting."

Updating a rich history Nestled by the Schuylkill and the Wissahickon in Northwest Philadelphia, East Falls is where John B. Kelly, the self-made millionaire and triple gold-medal-winning Olympic rower, raised Grace and Jack Jr. The Old Academy Playhouse, where Grace got her start, still draws crowds, and Kelly Drive was renamed in memory of Jack Jr. - an Olympic oarsman like his father and a member of City Council.

Gov. Rendell, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, U.S. Rep. Chaka Fatah, and a cadre of elite city officials whose jobs come with residency requirements have homes at the top of the hill, near Philadelphia University - in a section rich in architecture with estates that attest to a grand past.

There were indeed falls in East Falls - that's what made it such a haven for catfish. But the creation of the Fairmount Dam three miles downriver in the early 19th century ultimately submerged the falls, leaving only a few rocks protruding from the river. Millwork became more important then.

In the late 1800s, industrialists built mansions here that looked down on the lower falls - on their mills and the rowhomes they built for their workers.

But the community seems to split along the tracks where the R6 Norristown Line runs. Here the streets become narrow and steep, almost tumbling down toward the Schuylkill. This is where workers labored and lived in the 1850s.

Despite recent tensions at Thomas Mifflin Elementary School involving black parents and the school's white principal, the neighborhood's Democratic ward leader, Ralph Wynder, said East Falls was an integrated neighborhood that had not been negatively affected by racial issues.

Mayor Nutter, who represented the area on City Council, called East Falls "one of the most highly organized neighborhoods in the city."

Throughout the 1990s, the community battled the Philadelphia Housing Authority when it wanted to retreat from its promise to demolish and redevelop Schuylkill Falls, a blighted and crime-ridden high-rise public housing project. The project has been replaced with Falls Ridge and Hilltop at Falls Ridge, side-by-side developments of subsidized and market-price homes, townhouses and apartments.

With that issue resolved, the neighborhood's comeback gained momentum in the late 1990s when the newly formed East Falls Development Corp. adopted a master plan, initiated zoning changes, and began spreading the word that East Falls had room to grow and welcomed callers.

When Gina Snyder arrived to run the East Falls Development Corp. in 2002, she found the neighborhood ignoring its enviable waterfront. Now, thanks in large measure to her leadership, the neighborhood is determined to reconnect with the river.

Lighting the landmark Falls Bridge has been accomplished. New, well-lit public parking is in place under the Twin Bridges, and the city's Mural Arts Program is committed to making an art installation on the Twin Bridges' 80-foot supports. Across from the parking lot, renovations are under way to turn the remnants of a 1930s-era city swimming pool into a cafe and visitors center. (Pat's note; this is where the old bathey was located, in case you did not know) And there are plans to extend access to the river with a pier or boat dock.

At the key intersection where Kelly Drive meets Ridge and Midvale, a gateway will be created, said Snyder, with new streetlights, directional signs, crosswalks, trash receptacles, benches, trees - all designed to lure strollers and cyclists from Kelly Drive into East Falls' retail corridor.

The old Rivage catering hall site facing the river will be transformed, she said, into East Village, a complex with apartments, offices and shops on a protected pedestrian mall with off-street parking and a new through street.

Farther along Ridge Avenue, as it winds toward Scotts Lane, 19th-century manufacturing sites are being refitted as luxury apartments and condos with granite countertops, bringing as many as 500 residents.

On Henry Avenue, the old Medical College of Pennsylvania, site of the world's first medical college for women, will be retrofitted as market-rate apartments; subsidized living spaces and a community center for seniors; a school for autistic children; a production facility for Capogiro, an artisan gelato maker; plus shops, offices and a fitness facility.

The Arthur Ashe Tennis Center has a new 10,000-square-foot home on the riverfront. The basketball leagues that drew crowds and local heroes to Gustine Recreation Center have new indoor courts. The Catfish Cafe, a stalwart from the 1980s on Scotts Lane, is making a comeback.

Marketplace at East Falls, Jeff Baskin and Lisa Berger Baskin, husband-and-wife entrepreneurs, bought a 95,000-square-foot tract on Ridge Avenue in 2001 because it came with city tax advantages. They did not immediately envision a market.
They rented a section in the rear to a sheet-metal fabricator, and made space in the front for a fitness center and the offices of an event planner. With these three thriving, the Baskins courted renters for the remaining 22,000 or so feet.

When nothing developed, Jeff Baskin, who previously owned and operated a produce stand at Pike Place Market in Seattle, decided to create the Marketplace at East Falls.

The historically significant building housed America's first commercial computer, and for the opening in November, Baskin put enlarged archival photos of the 16,000 pound Univac on the walls of his Marketplace.

The market's closest neighbor, the Victorian-era Laurel Hill Cemetery, draws visitors from around the world, so the Marketplace should be easy to find. But it may be difficult to enter.

A median blocks southbound drivers from turning left into the market, and the next opportunity to turn is in North Philadelphia.

Lisa Berger Baskin is working at the city and state levels to get the go-ahead for a left-turn lane.

Undaunted, the Baskins hope to open additional vendor space in 2008, and they say the market's first bar mitzvah party is scheduled in the spring. "The community has really embraced us," Jeff Baskin said.

Why on a side street? Not far from the market sits Mark Sherman, the native-son real estate investor. Sherman grew up in public housing, served as a cook in the Navy, became a roofer, and then made a fortune buying and selling homes in University City. In 2000, Sherman said, he started selling those holdings, estimated at $20 million. He turned his attention to East Falls and now owns a considerable amount of well-placed acreage in much of his old neighborhood.

But he has invested the bulk of his time and attention - and $30 million of his money - into an unconventional enclave on Scotts Lane.

Sherman Mills, the development he hopes he will be remembered for, is an amalgam of luxe living spaces, working studios for emerging artists, event space popular with the corporate crowd, and a cozy cafe where they all can mingle. The Pennsylvania Ballet company is at home here, at least for the next six years.

Sherman envisions his Mills as a venture so unusual it will one day be a stop for the Philly Flash bus tour, bringing visitors from across the country. This leaves some Fallsers scratching their heads. They wonder why Sherman is investing millions to create Shangri-la on a side steet, and doing what appears to be the minimal with his properties in the neighborhood's retail core.

At Midvale and Ridge - the spot designated in the community's master plan as a future gateway - Sherman owns the building that houses the popular beer-and-burrito bar Johnny Mañanas, noted for the gigantic chile pepper that adorns the exterior.

Diagonal to that, Sherman owns a hulking Masonic hall that sits empty, awaiting the proper tenant. One would be hard-pressed to eat in the area without encountering a Sherman property. He owns the buildings that house two bar-and-grills, Buckets on Midvale and the Pour House on Ridge; Franco's Trattoria (formerly Verge), the area's only white-tablecloth restaurant; and the soon-to-reopen Catfish Cafe.

Critics, among them former Sprigs restaurateur Sally Ferry, wish Sherman had done more to save the eateries that went under in buildings he owns - Verge, Indigo, Sprigs and Well Grounded - perhaps giving the owners a temporary break on the rent. Others say he should lower his retail rents across the board, just to get occupants.

But Manayunk developer Dan Neducsin dismissed that idea. "Rent is just one factor of your business," said Neducsin. "I think Sherman's charging less than I'm getting in Manayunk."
Gila Williams, who owned the coffee shop that went under, Well Grounded, said she couldn't blame Sherman for her tough economic times.

Rising gasoline prices cut into her customers' discretionary spending, she said, and a Dunkin' Donuts opened nearby with off-street parking.

Carolyn Sutton, who at one point owned the successful Borgia Cafe in Society Hill, said East Falls needed a balance of restaurants and retail. "Every time a restaurant doesn't make it here," she said, "a store won't, either." Sherman agreed, and said renting to shopkeepers or restaurateurs whose businesses are likely to fail does more harm than good. "When a business closes," he said, "it is a setback for the whole neighborhood."
So instead of letting his properties languish, Sherman said, he has backed businesses - sometimes to the point of hiring managers and staff - to keep places such as the Pour House, Buckets, and the Cafe at Sherman Mills running until a permanent owner can take over.

That's a help, said Robert Inman, who teaches public finance and urban fiscal policy at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. But there is a debate among economists, he said, about what it takes to create the snowball effect needed to revitalize a neighborhood. Inman doesn't buy the notion that one big-ticket venue, such as the soccer stadium planned in Chester, can do the whole job. "And I don't think new restaurants are enough to turn a neighborhood around, either," he said. "My sense is that it takes new residents. When higher-income, educated residents move into a neighborhood, they create a demand for restaurants and retailing they can walk to. Once those new businesses develop and thrive, word gets out beyond the neighborhood, and the snowballing builds."

That seems to be where East Falls is headed.

For Sherman, who describes himself as a guy who doesn't like to stay in one place too long, that's good news. When the time is right, Sherman said, he'll sell his East Falls holdings, just as he did in University City, because he enjoys setting things up more than keeping them going. "My position in the world is to empower others and then go away," he said.

Room for growth, considering that it took 20 years for Manayunk to morph from an industrial backwater, East Falls has accomplished much since 2000. "Besides, we don't want to become Manayunk," Snyder said. "We want the kind of development here that benefits residents - not pushes them out. "Even with all the projects on the books so far, the community will have room for growth.

But at one potentially desirable tract - the site once occupied by the Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute -development will be stalled at least three years. The city's Youth Study Center, which is being pushed out of Center City to make way for the Barnes Foundation, will move to that spot in East Falls while awaiting its permanent home in West Philadelphia.

Small steps, and some steps backward, "are part of the definition of economic development," said Ken Weinstein, the developer who brought the Trolley Car Diner to Mount Airy and hopes to make the old public pool house by the river, Bathey House, a charming cafe. "Somebody does a project that encourages somebody else and so on. East Falls is getting there, and it is absolutely going to make it."

Contact staff writer Dianna Marder at 215-854-4211 or dmarder@phillynews.com. Read her recent work at http://go.philly.com/diannamarder

History Of The Falls Housing Project

East Falls Housing Project


Before the City of Philadelphia built the East Falls housing project , the land was own and occupied by a 19th century chemical plant which provided houses for the workman and their families up on the hill behind the plant. This section of East Falls was known as Laboratory Hill.

The chemical plant made alcohol which caused the production of many obnoxious gases. During the Civil War, the plant made a lot of money because of the high cost of quinine that was used.

Laboratory Hill became Merck Chemical before it closed and the land bought by the City for low cost houses.

Today, the Falls Housing Project no longer exists. In its place is a new housing development complete with single family homes, senior citizen housing and stores in an effort to revitalize the area.

Historical Places In East Falls

In one of my family updates, I wrote about Bernard and Mary Cafferty and their nine children. According to the records, Bernard and Mary Cafferty lived and raised their children in a section of Philadelphia called East Falls. They lived on Ridge Avenue across the street from Dobson Mill. They attended St. Bridget’s Roman Catholic Church located on Midvale and Stanton Streets. In the following paragraphs, I will review the historical backgrounds of some of the places that had a societal influence on the East Falls’ community.

DOBSON MILLS

One place of great societal influence on the local community of East Falls was Dobson Mills. The first mill was located on Ridge Avenue and the Wissahickon Creek. During the Civil War, Dobson Mills made all the woolen army blankets for the Union soldiers. When the Fairmount Park Commission decided to extend the Wissahickon Park in 1872, Dobson Mills relocated to Scotts Lane and Ridge Avenue until it closed its door in the 1930’s. Though Dobson Mills gave employment to many hundreds of people it also employed Children. Before the Child Labor Laws went into effect, the mill owners had children work 6a to 5p at a rate of three dollars a week. In addition, the employees of the mill had few rights as workers and it was commonly known that if one family member offended its employer, all members of that family who worked in the mill would suffer the consequences by being laid off.

OLD FALLS TAVERN

The Old Falls Tavern was built in 1731 and located at Ridge Avenue and Indian Queen Lane. It was a building two and one half stories tall with heavy white washed plaster, a steep pitched roof and a two story porch in the front upper section framed with a fancy black iron balustrade. The back faced the river and on sunny afternoons and warm summer nights, its porches were filled with people enjoying refreshments. The central double doors had long panels of glass and when you entered its doors you were greeted by a long colonial staircase covered in a deep red carpet. The bar stood off to the left and was darkly paneled with a very large fireplace that was lit in the cold winter months. The tavern was famously known for its catfish and waffle dinners. The catfish was caught directly from the Schuylkill River. Sadly this historical building met its fate by a wrecking ball when demolished in 1973.


FALLS HOUSING PROJECT

Before the city built the Falls Housing Project, the land on Ridge Avenue was home to a Chemical Plant and its workers. This Chemical Plant made distilled alcohol and fumes from the plant threw obnoxious gases into the air. Because the plant needed workers, its owners built a group of houses behind the plant up on the hill which was called Laboratory Hill by the community. The plant workers and their families lived in these houses. During the Civil War, the chemical plant made a lot of money because of the high cost of Quinine. Later the plant was taken over by Merck Chemical until it was demolished by the city for public housing. Today, the Falls Housing Project has been replaced by other low income housing.

LAUREL HILL CEMETERY

Located on Ridge Avenue, the cemetery opened in 1835. Before the cemetery came into existence in 1835, the grounds belonged to a Catholic Men’s College called Laurel Hill College. The college existed until 1834 before it was made into the first rural cemetery in Philadelphia. The North section of the grounds was once the country estate of Joseph Sim while the Central section was home to George Worten Pepper.


SAINT BRIDGET’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH

Located on Midvale and Stanton Streets, St. Bridget’s was the first Roman Catholic Church built in the East Falls section of Philadelphia. The first mass was held on April 15th, 1855. The school opened in September of 1888 under the Sisters of St. Joseph Nuns. The following is a list of all the pastors who served at St. Bridget’s from its creation in 1853 to 1973.
Father James Cullen 1853-1865
Reverend Thomas Fox 1865-1874
Reverend Richard O’Connor 1874-1883
Father Michael Martin 1883-1884
Reverend William Walsh 1884-1908
Reverend Bernard Gallagher 1908-1918
Monsignor Wenceslaus Walsh 1918-1928
Reverend David Munyon 1928-1947
Reverend Edward Allen 1947-1952
Reverend John Cartin 1952-1973
Reverend James Murphy 1973

For those of you who attended St. Bridget’s are any of the above names familiar to you?


RIDGE AVENUE

Ridge Avenue is known as the “Natural Highway”. It started out as a well established Indian path that was the main route for the last three hundred years from the city to the countryside. Before Ridge Avenue became Ridge Avenue, the highway had several names throughout the years. In the 1700’s the road was known as “King’s Road” before becoming “Manatawny Road”. Then it was called “Reading turnpike” and “Robeson’s Road” before being called “Rock’s Burrow” then “Wissahickon Road”. Then the name changed to “Rich Road” before it changed again to “Ridge Road”. In the 1800’s the road changed yet again to “Ridge Road Turnpike then finally to its current name “Ridge Avenue”.