CyclistsAlvin Morris and Rick Young departed Philadelphia via Shawmont Avenue on the Schuylkill River Trail on Tuesday morning for a heart-pumping, 75-mile round trip ride.
On previous trips, they, like thousands of otherriders, had to stop at a gate where the trail abruptly ended near Pottstown and decide whether to risk traveling a busy alternate route.
No more.
Schuylkill River Trail organizers are celebrating the completion of a nearly one-mile connector in Montgomery County that gives cyclists a clear 70-mile path from Philly to Reading. The connector took about 10 years from planning to its Aug. 19 opening.
“I just found out about the connector Sunday,” Young said. “I love it. I told Al about it. We’re preparing for the [city-to-Shore] MS ride, so we need to get in some distance.”
The duo planned to continue on the Schuylkill River Trail for a few more miles past the connector before returning to Philly.
A Montgomery County Planning Commission map of the new Schuylkill River Trail connection between Industrial Highway and the Route 422 bridge near Pottstown. The 0.9-mile section of paved asphalt trail is now open, providing an unbroken path from South Philadelphia to Reading.Frank Kummer
‘A really, really big deal’
Elaine Paul Schaefer, executive director of the nonprofit Schuylkill River Greenways, says the connector is more than just a new trail segment.
“It’s a really, really big deal,” Schaefer said. “On many, many levels.”
Schaefer and others believe the unbroken 70-mile stretch could be a tipping point for cycling tourism because it is long enough for cyclists to plan trips that allow them to linger in towns for brews and food, or overnight stays, she said.
“At that point, the economic impact to towns along the way really exponentially increases,” she said.
Her group manages the Schuylkill RiverGreenways National Heritage Area,connecting people to the river and trail. Schuylkill RiverGreenways has its office in Pottstown, but manages 40 miles of the trail in Berks and Schuylkill Counties, raising money to help maintain it.
The new connector allows riders pedaling south from Chester County to ride parallel to Route 422 in Pottsgrove Township, Montgomery County, then loop under the busy highway and continue into Pottstown Borough.
“The trail now connects the population centers of Philadelphia to Montgomery County and Reading,” Schaefer said. “Soon, it will connect beyond that.”
Elaine Paul Schaefer, executive director of the nonprofit Schuylkill River Greenways, speaks with Sue Shellman, foreground, and her husband, Bill Shellman, in yellow, both of Skippack, at the new connector.Frank Kummer
A boost for Pottstown?
Schaefer believes the new connector will lure cyclists willing to stop and spend money in Pottstown, a former steel town whose sizable downtown contains restaurants, inns, and breweries. Pottstown’s Riverfront Park along the trail is already widely used.
Peggy Lee-Clark, executive director of the nonprofit Pottstown Area Economic Development Inc., said it is too early to judge the impact of the connector, but there is “excitement.”
“I think that always any connection for the trail is an economic boost,” she said.
Commuting workers also use the trail, Lee-Clark noted.
“The river is an important asset to us, as is the trail,” Lee-Clark said. “The connector is just one more thing that brings people to the area and exposes them to all of the other opportunities here in Pottstown.”
When complete, the Schuylkill River Trail will run about 120 miles from Fort Mifflin near Philadelphia International Airport to Frackville, Schuylkill County. About 80 miles of paved and crushed stone trail are currently open. A swing bridge connecting Grays Ferry to Bartram’s Gardenis nearing completion.
Jason Brudereck, of the nonprofit Schuylkill River Greenways, rides new the Schuylkill River Trail connector as it crosses from Chester County into Montgomery County.Frank Kummer
How the connector got built
Montgomery County is planning a formal ribbon-cutting on Sept. 29 for the connector, which is alreadypopular. On Tuesday, dozens of cyclists were riding at midday.
Scott France, executive director of the Montgomery County Planning Commission, said the county started trying to acquire rights-of-way to the land a decade ago.
“We are super excited this is open,” France said. “It’s been a long time in the works. This has had its share of challenges, but the fact is that we got there.”
The connector cost $1.28 million, France said. Most of it was paid for from a $550,000 grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, and a $542,000 grant from the William Penn Foundation. The county funded the balance.
Although the connector is less than a mile, it was a challenge, France said.
This is the sign cyclists and pedestrians once had to stop at before the connector was finished.Frank Kummer
The county had to build around a state-owned bridge, work with Peco and Verizon to move utilities, and obtain permits to build in a flood zone. Additionally, crews had to stop work during the breeding season of the northern red-bellied turtle,a threatened species common in the area.
Bill Hartman, trails and open space planning manager for the commission, said the connector serves another key role.
“It provides full access to a number of other trails,” Hartman said, including the Cross County and Perkiomen Trails.
Further, Montgomery County Commissioner Neil Makhija noted that the connector and Schuylkill River Trail are also part of the much wider Circuit Trails network, a planned 850 miles of interconnected trails in the Philadelphia region, including South Jersey.
Makhija said he plans to celebrate his 40th birthday on Sept. 13 by riding the inaugural Tour de Montco, a 40-mile ride from Pottstown to Bala Cynwyd.
The new trail segment, Makhija said is, “not just a trail in the woods — it’s a connection, bringing us closer to Philly and Reading and connecting the two.”
Sue Shellman, foreground, and her husband, Bill Shellman, in yellow, both of Skippack, ride from Chester County onto the new Schuylkill River Trail connector into Montgomery County.Frank Kummer
The developer of a controversial apartment project at 106 Jamestown Ave. in Manayunk requested that the Zoning Board of Adjustment delay its Wednesdayhearing.
The six-story, 73-unit building would replace the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s pop-up beer garden that currently leases the space.
Neighborhood backlash against the project from developer Dan Greenberg has been intense.
Critics say the project doesn’t provide enough parking; offers no commercial space; and would eliminate the beer garden, a popular community gathering place.
“It was prudent that he postponed,” said Councilmember Curtis Jones Jr., who represents the area and recently came out in opposition to the project.
Jones’ opinion is relevant because the project is seeking to build taller and denser than current zoning rules would allow, and the zoning board heavily weighs the opinions of neighborhood groups and the district City Council member. (The project is 60 feet tall, above the height limits imposed by the Main Street Manayunk overlay.)
Greenberg also needs permission to build apartments in an area that is not zoned for residential development.
A rendering of the proposed 73-unit apartment building for 106 Jamestown Ave. in Manayunk.Barton Partners
“Fortunately for him, he’s not finally purchased it yet because zoning is an essential part of the sale,” said Jones. The delay “gives them the opportunity to talk to the community, but as it stands, I cannot support it.”
Greenberg’s team declined to comment, but a city staffer confirmed that Wednesday’s delay stemmed from the real estate company. A new hearing is not yet scheduled.
“This means that the applicant will contact us to reschedule the next hearing date,” wrote Ian Hegarty, a Planning Commission staffer who advises the zoning board, in a message to a questioner on the board’s Zoom on Wednesday.
The Manayunk Neighborhood Council led opposition to the project, submitting a petition against it to the zoning board with more than 500 signatures.
A community meeting earlier this year attracted 200 attendees, 97% of whom were opposed to the project, according to the neighborhood council.
“Even we are a little surprised at the universal opposition,” said John Hunter, the council’s zoning chair, in an email.
The Jamestown Avenue proposal also faced criticism from the Civic Design Review committee, an advisory-only city body.
In a June meeting, the board asked the developer to consider adding commercial space, criticism of the project also raised by the neighborhood council.
A rendering of the paused 73-unit apartment development from under the railway bridge. Barton Partners
At that meeting, Hunter criticizedthe plan’s 36 parking spaces, arguing that the standard in Manayunk is one parking space for every housing unit. The notoriously hilly neighborhood is less walkable and has fewer transit options than neighborhoods closer to Center City.
The developer’s team has repeatedly declined to speak publicly, but at a meeting in June, lawyers for the project indicated that compromise is possible.
“There have been, and there still can be [modification to this project],” Adam Laver, a land-use attorney with Blank Rome who represents the developer, said at the June design committee meeting. “This team remains very interested … in hearing your feedback and continuing to make this project, which we believe in, as good as it can possibly be.”
For now, the beer garden will remain in place until the end of the season. Although PHS says it does not yet have a final closing date, the organization typically ends its outdoor pop-ups in October.
PHS declined to comment further on the future of the beer garden in light of the project’s delay. Itopened the garden in 2020 as a temporary pop-up.
“He should consider if he can reduce the scope of the project to preserve the garden,” said Jones.
The project is part of a wave of apartment development on and around Main Street in Manayunk, with 1,800 units in the pipeline. That includes more than 800 homes slated for Venice Island, the flood-prone spit of land next to Manayunk in the Schuylkill.
During the bridge closure, cars and bicycles will be detoured to Chestnut and Walnut Streets, according to PennDot’s plans. The agency has said one sidewalk would remain open to pedestrians to cross the bridge during construction.
Six SEPTA bus routes will be detoured in the area for roughly a year starting Monday: buses 31, 44, 49, 124, 125, and L1 Owl.
Parking restrictions are also in effect in the area through 2028 because of the project, PennDot spokesperson Helen Reinbrecht confirmed. Those restrictions affect Chestnut Street between 23rd and 22nd Streets, 23rd Street between Market and Walnut Streets, and Walnut Street between 23rd and 33rd Streets.
PennDot’s multimillion-dollar project is mostly funded with federal money, with 20% of the cost paid for by the state.
Pedestrians can cross, but the Market Street Bridge (at left) is closed to vehicle traffic Monday for a Pennsylvania Department of Transportation project that could span 14 months.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
But for thousands of residents, many of whom live in North Philadelphia, next year’s tax bills are expected to soar.
Nearly 6,000 homeowners in Philadelphia saw their property assessments this year climb by more than 50% compared with two years ago, the last time the city conducted a mass revaluation, according to an Inquirer analysis of city property assessment data released in June.
Of those homeowners, more than 2,200 saw their assessments more than double.
That is likely to result in sticker shock come tax time next year, because property tax bills in the city are calculated based on home values. The revenue is split between the city and the Philadelphia School District.
Homeowners across the city saw a median 3% increase in their property assessments this year compared with the 2025 tax year. Jumps were higher in neighborhoods that border gentrifying areas, such as in parts of Kensington and West Philadelphia.
But this year, two other areas of the city had the densest concentrations of homes where property assessments increased by 50% or more, according to The Inquirer’s analysis.
The steep rises are clustered in the southern end of Strawberry Mansion, the historically Black neighborhood along the Schuylkill, and in the tiny Hartranft neighborhood north of Temple University and east of Broad Street, where residents are predominately Latino.
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Housing experts and advocates for low-income homeowners have long criticized the city’s assessment system as systemically biased, leaving Black and brown homeowners to pay disproportionately high property taxes. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker convened a task force in 2024 to study the city’s revaluation system, and that group’s recommendations are expected to be released later this year.
Monty Wilson, a senior attorney at Community Legal Services who sits on the task force, said the Philadelphia Office of Property Assessment is the best in the state and has “worked really hard to become more and more accurate.”
But he said bias persists in part because of the unique challenges that assessors face in low-income neighborhoods that can cause volatility in home values, such as higher rates of vacant lots, foreclosures, and other factors.
A 2024 CLS report found that errors were clustered in lower-value neighborhoods where a majority of residents are people of color.
“That means when a property is overassessed,” Wilson said, ”it tends to occur in a Black and brown neighborhood.”
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The Parker administration did not respond to requests for comment.
In response to a previous article about this year’s property reassessments, city officials emphasized that some lower-income homeowners pay relatively low tax bills because of the popular homestead exemption tax break. The program, which any homeowners can apply for and obtain if they live in their house as their primary residence, exempts the first $100,000 from a home’s taxable value.
That means that some homeowners in working-class neighborhoods previously paid little to no property taxes. A sudden increase in valuation, like the ones seen this year in pockets of North Philadelphia, could require they pay bills next year that are several hundred dollars more than in the past.
Take the 2500 block of North Marshall Street. The residential North Philly street sits between West Kensington and Broad Street, and nearly every home saw its assessment increase by 60% or more, according to The Inquirer’s analysis.
Most of the homes there had previously been valued at less than $100,000, meaning owners with the homestead exemption owed no property taxes. Now, many of the homes on the block are valued at about $140,000, an amount that would next year yield more than $500 in yearly tax bills for owners with the homestead exemption.
More than 40% of the Hartranft neighborhood’s residents are below the federal poverty level, which is $33,000 a year for a family of four, according to U.S. Census data.
At Left a property on 2500 N. Marshall St., Philadelphia, PA 19133 is shown Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
City Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose district includes parts of Kensington and North Philadelphia, said the Hartranft area is not like sections of Kensington that have seen an influx of development in recent years and where increases in property assessments may be expected.
It is possible, she said, that lower-income residents who have been displaced from parts of Kensington looked to move west of the neighborhood, increasing demand in the Fairhill and Hartranft areas.
Lozada — who has held workshops in the neighborhood to connect residents with property tax relief programs — said she fears her constituents are being asked to pay disproportionately high taxes and not seeing better city services and stronger public schools.
“How is it possible that someone in Fairhill is paying a higher tax for a property that has not had any investment, in a neighborhood that is not as safe, whose school system is not as great, as somebody that lives in Chestnut Hill, for instance?” she said, referring to the upscale Northwest Philadelphia neighborhood with a $109,000 median household income. “There has to be a better way of doing a more accurate evaluation in every neighborhood.”
In Strawberry Mansion, community leaders said that increased assessments are likely a result of market pressure from Brewerytown to its south, a comparatively whiter and higher-income neighborhood.
“The city has to be super transparent about this assessment system so people can better understand it and not feel that sticker stock,” said Tonnetta Graham, president of the Strawberry Mansion Community Development Corp. “If we know how they came to their number, it’s easier to chew.”
The 1700 block of North Newkirk Street on Thursday, Aug. 20, 2026 in Philadelphia.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr., whose district includes both Strawberry Mansion and parts of Hartranft, did not respond to requests for comment.
Jalon Alexander, a Strawberry Mansion native who this month launched a campaign to challenge Young for his Council seat next year, said he was recently at a block party in the neighborhood where he heard repeatedly from older homeowners who were concerned about their increased assessments.
“They feel taken advantage of, and they feel like it’s coming out of nowhere,” Alexander said. “This is an area where there’s high levels of poverty, and there is not a lot of political or government attention in this area. I’ve spoken with many people whose rates have almost doubled. It’s the biggest issue in the neighborhood.”
Staff writer Michaelle Bond contributed to this article.
Restaurateur Bruce Cooper is big on dates. He opened Jake’s in Manayunk on Oct. 19, 1987 — Black Monday, the day the stock market crashed.
He’ll close it on Oct. 19, 2026, the start of its 40th year on Main Street.
In between was another financial crisis, an expansion that reflected changing tastes, a devastating flood, a pandemic — and nearly four decades in which Jake’s evolved along with Manayunk itself.
Cooper, 72, is selling the side-by-side Main Street properties that house what is now Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar. Before the final night, he plans to turn the wind-down into a reunion. Past employees will get a 50% discount on Sundays and Mondays, and the restaurant will extend its September restaurant week (Sept. 14-20) pricing through the final day. On Oct. 19, a party will empty the bar and kitchen, with proceeds going to a local charity.
“I just wanted to get to [the start of] 40 years,” said Cooper. “I wanted to get out two years ago.”
Bruce Cooper with his son, Bruce Joseph Cooper II, inside the wine bar at Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer
Cooper, a Culinary Institute of America graduate from Upstate New York, had spent a decade as executive chef at Lankenau Hospital before deciding that he wanted a restaurant of his own. He took business courses at Community College of Philadelphia and St. Joseph’s University and spent years looking at properties before a real estate agent showed him a former print shop in Manayunk in early 1987.
Cooper didn’t commission traffic studies. While walking along Main Street, he noticed Jaguars and other expensive cars rolling up to a posh restaurant called Jamey’s, which had opened a year and a half before. Otherwise, as he remembers it, “there were practically tumbleweeds floating down the street. You could find parking on a Saturday.”
That spring, Cooper bought 4365 Main St. and assembled a group of investors to open Jake’s, his then-wife Helena’s nickname.
Jake’s was conspicuously ambitious: white tablecloths, contemporary artwork, an extensive wine list, and Cooper’s refined cooking, including pastas from scratch. Dishes included crab cakes with raspberry butter, scallops with red pepper and papaya sauces, and duck breast with tangerine sauce.
The restaurant’s whimsical facade depicted an oversize table setting, with food spilling from a plate and wine pouring into a glass, surrounded by flowers, flatware, linen, and crystal — designed to suggest both fine dining and a sense of fun.
The exterior of Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar in Manayunk on Monday, Aug. 10, 2026. The bar is closing after 39 years.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer
Many early customers came from the Main Line, crossing the Schuylkill over the Green Lane Bridge into the former mill town.
Business grew quickly. When Cooper had put together his business plan, his accountant told him his projected sales were impossible for a 65-seat restaurant. Jake’s reached the projection in its second year, Cooper said.
By the 1990s, Main Street was crowded with boutiques and similarly high-aiming restaurants like Sonoma and Kansas City Prime.
In a 1998 review, Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan described a room of cushioned banquettes, contemporary design, and a stylish but unstuffy clientele. He called out the veal dumplings with caramelized ginger, seared tuna with sticky rice, foie gras with grilled mango, and the barbecued salmon — a signature.
Craig LaBan’s first review of Jake’s, from July 1998.Newspapers.com
And then there were the mashed potatoes. One version paired Yukon gold potatoes with buttermilk and roasted corn. Another, served beneath medallions of veal, was infused with lobster and cream. Patrons, LaBan reported, had taken to calling the latter “sex on a plate.”
LaBan awarded Jake’s three out of four Liberty Bells, the rating system he used at the time. “That’s when it really started to take off,” Cooper said.
Manayunk’s overall success brought its own problems. Friction between residents and the expanding restaurant and bar scene in the late 1990s led then-City Councilmember Michael Nutter to push for a five-year moratorium on new restaurants in the district.
Julia Child with Bruce Cooper at an event in 1996.Courtesy of Bruce Cooper
Cooper, who later served as president of the Manayunk Development Corp., believes that the moratorium lasted too long and helped push Main Street toward nightlife. He later helped develop agreements among restaurateurs, landlords, the business association, and neighborhood groups that placed operating restrictions on new restaurants.
Meanwhile, the style of dining that had made Jake’s successful was changing. White tablecloths were giving way to small-plate menus.
Which leads to another consequential date: March 14, 2008, on the eve of another financial crisis, when Cooper bought the former clothing store next door at 4367 Main St. and opened Cooper’s Brick Oven Wine Bar. Cooper’s is a markedly different restaurant, drawing a younger crowd and serving pizza, small plates, craft beer, and less expensive wines.
The dividing line quickly blurred, Cooper said. Customers at Cooper’s wanted food from Jake’s, and Jake’s customers wanted dishes from Cooper’s. The restaurants shared a kitchen, and Cooper eventually merged their menus and identities as Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar.
Head bartender Carrie Hice chatting with patrons at Cooper’s Wine Bar in 2023.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Then came July 17, 2016.
Cooper got a middle-of-the-night phone call that a city water main had ruptured outside the restaurant, sending water through the building and destroying the kitchen and the apartments above. He gutted and rebuilt, with business-interruption insurance helping carry the restaurant through a six-month closure.
The experience changed the way Cooper thought about the business.
“When you stop a business and then restart it, there are people who had been coming every week, and then they stopped,” he said. “They got into another routine. They went elsewhere.”
Even months after Jake’s reopened, Cooper said, customers would walk in surprised to discover it had reopened. “That’s when I started looking at things differently,” he said.
Cooper considered selling, but a real estate adviser urged him to wait as residential development accelerated in Manayunk and Roxborough. Three years later came the pandemic. His extended time at home spoiled him, he said.
Chris Campana (left), with help from Bruce Joseph Cooper II, choosing a wine from the wall in 2023.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Three years ago, Cooper moved to Delaware. His son, Bruce Joseph Cooper II, 37, now manages the restaurant day to day, while the senior Cooper comes north once or twice a week to handle scheduling, wine orders, and other duties.
In June, Cooper put the properties, including four upper-level apartments, on the market for an undisclosed asking price. Cooper said he wants a clean break rather than passing the restaurant to his son, though neither rules out working together on another project someday.
The closing will end one of the longest remaining restaurant runs from the era that transformed Manayunk. Pitchers Pub (1987) and Zesty’s (1993) are still at it; U.S. Hotel Bar & Grill has been open irregularly since Bill Green, the former mayor and congressman, reopened it in 1986.
For Cooper, that history encompasses more than the people who ate there. “When you look back, you think about the generations of customers —in a lot of cases, we’re talking about three generations,” he said. “But it’s not just the customers. It’s all the people behind the scenes: the banker, the produce person, all those people who helped you get through things.”
Bruce Joseph Cooper II, then 11, helps chef Bill Murphy carry food from Jake’s basement to be loaded into a truck for a 1999 holiday dinner by Philabundance. Vicki Valerio / Staff Photographer
Cooper’s son grew up at Jake’s, handing out cookies at holiday meals his father helped organize through North Light Community Center. He joined the restaurant full-time during the pandemic, starting as a food runner and eventually taking over management.
Purveyors and other restaurateurs have approached Cooper Jr. with potential job offers, he said, and he would consider working with whoever buys the properties. He once imagined taking over Jake’s himself but is no longer certain that is what he wants.
His father understands.
The restaurant business, the senior Cooper said, demands long hours and constant attention. One lesson he would give a new restaurateur is the one that helped him survive both the flood and the pandemic: Own the real estate if you can.
“If I didn’t own this real estate during COVID, I would have owed the landlord,” he said.
Cooper has begun informally advising other restaurateurs about the economics of getting into, staying in, and getting out of the business. After nearly four decades, he said, he is ready to find out what comes next.
His son thinks about Jake’s in more personal terms.
“Even in my almost five years working as a manager here, I’ve seen kids go from being in the womb to toddlers, and they know me as Uncle Bruce,” the younger Cooper said. “That’s one of the greatest feelings in the world — being able to say, ‘I knew you before you were born, little one.’”
Bruce Joseph Cooper II (left), general manager, and Bruce Cooper (right), owner, inside Jake’s & Cooper’s Wine Bar in Manayunk.Allie Ippolito / For The Inquirer
Philadelphia’s largest apartment owner, PMC Property Group, wants to build a 31-story high-rise at 24th and Walnut Streets.
The 372-unit apartment building at 200-10 S. 24th St. would also include 118 parking spaces and a swimming pool.
The proposed 358-foot-tall tower would be the real estate company’s latest apartment development on the Schuylkill. PMC built the two Riverwalk Towers a half mile to the north, in Center City’s Logan Square neighborhood, and the 287-unit building at 2301 John F. Kennedy Blvd.
“Through these [earlier] efforts, PMC has taken dead space pretty much and activated it, creating the vibrancy of Center City living,” said Adam Laver, a land-use attorney with Blank Rome who represents the developer, in a meeting with the Center City Residents Association (CCRA) on Thursday night.
The 110-year-old building that currently sits at 200-10 S. 24th St. is best known for its mural celebrating the Phillies, by David McShane, which dates to 2015. It would need to be demolished to make way for the project.
The building currently houses Walnut Bridge Parking & Storage and is owned by Michael Karp, a major local real estate owner, student-housing landlord, and charter school operator. He did not respond to requests for comment.
“PMC does not currently own the property, and it could potentially be a joint venture,” said Laver.
PMC Property Group wants to change the zoning on this 110-year-old former industrial building at 200-10 S. 24th St. so they can build a large, new apartment tower.Jake Blumgart
Parking for the proposed project would be on the bottom two levels, on a podium built to reflect the current industrial building. (The parking garage on those lower floors would exit onto 24th Street.) The tower itself would be set back from the podium and property line.
Philadelphia-based Tantillo Architecture is designing the building. They have previously worked on projects like the office-to-residential conversion of 400 Market and the redevelopment of the landmark Bellevue Hotel on South Broad Street.
Like many historical buildings along the Schuylkill, 200-10 S. 24th St. has an industrial past, but unlike some of its counterparts it is still zoned exclusively for that kind of use.
PMC is seeking to change the property’s zoning legislatively, which would require the support of City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, who represents the area.
That means support from CCRA — the local registered community organization (RCO) — would be invaluable to the project. RCOs grapple with zoning issues and their feedback often holds significant sway with elected officials.
The presentation on Thursday night was part of PMC’s ongoing negotiations with CCRA.
“The industrial [zoning] does not allow residential household living,” said Laver. “That’s really why we’re having this open process with all of you this evening.”
A rendering of the proposed tower, looking east, along Walnut Street.Tantillo Architecture
Neighbors were concernedabout whether parking could be available to the public, whether demolition could affect the direct neighbors in the condos and townhouses of Fitler’s Walk, and whether the Phillies mural could be saved.
“That is something that we would be pleased to work with CCRA and others to try to figure that piece out,” Laver said, in regards to the mural.
He said that PMC would also consider providing some public parking, as the garage’s demolition will mean some current public spaces are lost.
Laver said that he anticipates that the project could take two and a half years to develop, assuming that PMC gets the support of CCRA and Council President Johnson.
Following Thursday’s public meeting, CCRA will consider public feedback, and the organization’s board will vote on whether to support the zoning change.
A rendering of the tower, from street level, looking west.Tantillo Architecture
A bill changing the property’s zoning could not be introduced until Sept. 17, at the earliest, when City Council returns to session.
Johnsonsaidearlier this year that he hadn’t yet begun seriously considering the project as negotiations between the developer and CCRA unfold.
“I’m aware of the project, but they’re still going through the RCO process,” said Council President Johnson, in a May interview.
“Once they get through that process, if the RCO says, ‘Yes, this is something we want to see in our neighborhood,’ then they’ll get a hearing where we’ll evaluate if this is something we want to support as a body,” said Johnson.
PMC could also secure relief from the property’s industrial land use regulations from the Zoning Board of Adjustment, but that is often a lengthy andunpredictable endeavor.
For years, Graduate Hospital — the Center City neighborhood roughly bounded by South Street and Washington Avenue, and Broad Street and the Schuylkill — has been sorely lacking in places to stop in for a snack, pastry, or ice cream cone.
It didn’t seem to matter: Rittenhouse was so close that residents’ desires for little treats were generally met by walking a couple blocks north, where “little treats,” the culture of which has been surging worldwide, abound. On the 200 block of 20th Street alone, between Walnut and Spruce, you’ll find 1-900-Ice-Cream, which opened in 2022 and sees relentless lines down the block; All Aboard Candy, which opened last year and is one of two places you can buy adorable gummy candies; and Biederman’s, a seafood-centric “appetizing” shop that opened earlier this year.
Now, Grad Hospital is seeing its own treat boom. In recent months, the neighborhood has seen an influx of treat sellers that shows no sign of stopping.
The openings have been concentrated on South Street between 15th and 17th Streets, but other parts of the neighborhood are changing as well.
Winners Ice Cream, Ange Branca’s jacket potato and creamsicle-driven operation Mod Spuds, Sandpiper Cafe (where you can get trendy matcha lattes), and Sweet Mousse (which sells even fancier beverages and mousse cakes) all opened within two blocks of one another on South Street between May and July this year. They are all Asian-owned — a notable aspect of little treat culture, as Asian flavors like matcha and ube have been extremely popular at little treat retailers. (Demand for both ingredients has been so high, both have seen global supply chain shortages.)
The market for little treats, also known as treatonomics, is propelled by Gen Z but not at all restricted to that generation, as spending on “pick-me-ups” generally increases in recessions and in uncertain economic conditions, economists have found.
Cookies and cream dream in a waffle cone at Winners Ice Cream in Graduate Hospital.Kiki Aranita
The Grad Hospital boom is powered by nimble operators with no need for the ventilation systems required at most full-service restaurants. Thus, they are able to launch after footing comparatively light construction costs.
“We’re two months in and it’s been awesome,” said Anh Nguyen, the owner of Winners. “Many are saying Grad Hospital needed an ice cream shop, so I’m happy we opened here.”
Nguyen’s clientele consists mostly of neighborhood residents and families. He hopes to attract more customers from outside the area. “My aim is to win the block, then win the city. I love being the neighborhood ice cream parlor — somewhere for families to go celebrate and make memories.”
Though Nguyen currently lives in Roxborough, he hopes to move. “I’ve fallen in love with Grad Hospital since being here and everyone I’ve met has been so welcoming and encouraging.”
The dark chocolate banana mousse cake from Sweet Mousse in Graduate Hospital.Kiki Aranita / Staff /
Little treats are massively impacting a neighborhood that, until this year, was stalled in gentrification. Once primarily home to working-class Black residents, Grad Hospital fell into disrepair when the manufacturing industry declined in Philadelphia. The neighborhood gentrified rapidly between the late 1990s and early 2010s due to city tax abatements and proximity to University City and Center City. According to a study by Pew Charitable Trusts, Graduate Hospital experienced the most dramatic changes in racial composition in Philadelphia in the early aughts: “[Graduate Hospital’s] total Black population fell from 7,793 in 2000 to 3,450 in 2014. During the same period, the number of white residents more than tripled in the neighborhood.”
The wave of redevelopment, new construction, and gentrification brought comparatively few small businesses and restaurants. Unlike South Philly and Fishtown, Grad Hospital has no established restaurant corridor.
A Malaysian spud from Mod Spuds.Courtesy of Mod Spuds
“Mod Spuds [on the 1400 block of South Street] needed a place that is a fine balance between good traffic, neighborhood-y, and affordable,” said Branca, who said that the location was perfect despite (or even because of) being a “less desirable block.” Its limited kitchen space, which does not allow for an exhaust hood, kept her rent down. It was only after Mod Spuds opened that Branca realized she was right on Grad Hospital residents’ commute home from jobs in Center City.
The neighborhood has also beckoned “empanada queen” Jezabel Careaga, who had left as a business owner, but not as a resident, in 2018. Technically, Careaga’s original Argentine bakery, Jezabel’s, was in Fitler Square, but now she is reopening it at 617 S. 24th St., right on the cusp of Grad Hospital. Careaga’s empanadas and alfajores helped define Philly’s little treat scene long before the culture acquired its tagline.
“Graduate Hospital has changed so much since I first came to this neighborhood, but what is really special to me is seeing the generations grow up here,” said Careaga, who has lived in the neighborhood since 2010. “It feels like I’m creating a little piece of the memory I had with my grandmother, right here in my own neighborhood.”
Assorted dishes from Jezabel Careaga, including empanadas, medialunas, escabeche, ricotta cake, facturas, olive oil crackers and preserved lemon labneh.Lucas Careaga / Innprodev Agency
The same children who would stop at her bakery after school are now grown up — some have even asked her for jobs. “And now I’m seeing them with children of their own, stopping by our bake sales with their little ones,” said Careaga. “It makes me so happy to think that the traditions we started years ago can continue with another generation.”
In the early hours of a summer Sunday morning, vapors snuck out of an overfilled oil storage tank and snaked through the hulking Gulf Oil Refinery smeared along the Schuylkill in Southwest Philly.
What happened next was so destructive, and so deadly,it was assigned a chilling and haunting label: “Refinery Holocaust.”
The overfilled storage tank, which at the time was being filled from a Venezuelan tanker, contained more than 70,000 barrels when the fire started.
The explosion at the sprawling refinery Gulf called Girard Point drew a massive response from local fire departments.
Teams coated the oil-slicked flames with firefighting foam, and the six-alarm blaze was declared under control just before 9 a.m.
Eight hours later, a second explosion rocked the refinery, spreading to more storage tanks and sending racing flames through waist-deep pools of water mixed with oil and chemicals and engulfing a group of firefighters standing in those pools.
The second explosion elevated the inferno to 11 alarms.
Ruin and ashes
Under thick clouds of charcoal-gray smoke a day later, three Gulf employees steered a rowboat over the toxic pools to shut off a valve that was spewing liquid naphtha. The highly flammable chemical used in the refining process was fueling the last fire, and the last dangerous threat.
On Aug. 26, nine days after the escaped vapor silently swept through the refinery and ignited a blaze that wreaked $10 million (or more than $60 million today) in damage, the last of the flames were finally and fully extinguished.
The Daily News noted that the occasion was celebrated by those in attendance with cigars and watermelon.
Investigators ultimately concluded that inattentive employees had let the tanks overfill, and the buildup of flammable vapors ultimately led to the explosions. The city cited and fined the corporation for code violations.
Many large storage tanks, the refinery’s office building, and an assortment of pipelines and processing units were wiped out.
Six firefighters died at the scene, two others succumbed later to severe burns, and more than 30 were injured — two critically — in what is considered one of the deadliest days in the department’s history.
“The tanks, the line — maybe you can replace them,” Bill Zahner, then a Gulf fire safety man, told the Daily News in 1975, “but the bodies you just can’t replace.”
On the last Thursday of July, during Manayunk’s summertime Stroll After Hours event, throngs of young families pushing strollers and couples walking dogs roamed the business corridor.
Some stopped at art vendors with frames sprawled across the sidewalk, while others meandered down Grape Street to grab a bite from a food truck or claim a seat at the outdoor screening of Toy Story.
On such an evening, Main Street Manayunk’s evolution is on full display.
The riverside neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia has seen many eras, from textile mills in the 19th century to chain retailers in the 1990s, to today’s collection of local upstarts.
“It’s the best it’s ever been,” said Jen Wankoff, 51, of Roxborough, who turned out to Stroll After Hours with her friend, Jen Filip, 50.
“It used to be a lot more commercial. There was a Banana Republic, a Pottery Barn, but then once one left, they all left,” said Filip, who has lived in Roxborough since the early 2000s. “Now it’s all small businesses.”
More changes are coming to Manayunk. Even as apartment development has slowed in much of Philadelphia, over 1,800 new residential units are proposed along or adjacent to Main Street. All that additional population stokes neighborhood anxiety about traffic and parking, but retailers expect it will be good for business.
Kim Albanowski of Philadelphia pushes her dog, Koda, across Main Street in “his chariot” as Jason Pepin looks on.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
“There’s probably going to be 1,600 new people living in those units, and they’re all going to come to Main Street to shop and eat,” said Dan Neducsin, 83, who has long been the largest property owner on Main Street and helped shape the identity of the corridor.
“The restaurant scene has been strong [since the 1990s], and now I think it’s even going to get stronger,” said Neducsin, who has sold 12 of his properties in recent years to long-term tenants and small-business owners like Tim Spinner, owner of Taqueria Amor.
“I just want to see the people who I have in there now do well, and my tenants have welcomed the opportunity,” said Neducsin, who emphasized that his company is not closing or selling all its holdings. But “it does make sense now for some new people to come in and take advantage of what’s here.”
Manayunk’s Main Street appeal
In the past two years, 12 new businesses opened along Main Street.
One of them is Riptide Tavern, opened in June by Spinner, who also owns Taqueria Amor next door.
Spinner said he wanted to open a neighborhood bar with creative cocktails and a cheap beer menu — much like a dream restaurant he conceived for a culinary school project years ago.
“I wanted to be in the Caribbean or down the Shore, but along the Schuylkill River with the canal back there is close enough,” Spinner said.
The Riptide Tavern in Manayunk is packed on a Thursday during Stroll After Hours.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
Eleanor’s Consignment is set to open on Main Street in October. Owner Emily Mannix, aformer paralegal who has lived in Manayunk for two years, named the consignment store after her late mother, who died in 2023. They shared a love of secondhand-shopping.
“This has been something that has been on my mind for the past four years,” Mannix said. “Life is short, and I might as well jump in and try.”
It’s not a bad place to do that. Realtor Christine Ertz notes that while rent is not low, it’s more affordable than in areas like South Street and Queen Village.
“Manayunk has the demographic businesses want,” said Ertz. “It has the younger folks, but also the more mature folks that have expendable income, and we’ve got the 27-to-35-year-olds that really enjoy the niche, smaller stores.”
The apartment boom in Manayunk promises to add even more. Many of the new developments have smaller units, which are likely to attract single people or younger couples. The price points of the new rentals, while lower than Center City or Northern Liberties, also suggest that tenants will have disposable income.
Those changes haven’t been without controversy. The Manayunk Neighborhood Council has pushed back against development it deems as out of scale with the community, and that’s often lacking new commercial space, affordable housing, and parking while being weighted to small apartments.
John Hunter, an architect and zoning chair of the Manayunk Neighborhood Council, says few of the new buildings have commercial space to add to the neighborhood’s daytime vitality. He disagrees with the idea that the apartment boom will boost local businesses.
“We have heard that misrepresentation for years now — that new apartments will generate pedestrian traffic along Main Street,” Hunter said. “Fifteen years of those promises has proved that is not the case.”
But some neighborhood observers see the development interest along Main Street as a concrete example of the area’s ability to attract people and investors.
“We’re seeing a diverse group of experienced, well-regarded developers all making independent decisions to put their capital and time into Manayunk,” said Veronica Blum, a retail broker with MPN Realty who has been working with Neduscin on leasing and sales.
“When that many smart people come to the same conclusion about a neighborhood, it says a lot,” said Blum. “It’s a real vote of confidence in Manayunk’s future, and I think we’re just beginning to see what’s possible.”
Nervous Nikki and the Chill Pills perform during the Stroll After Hours event on July 30.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The cost of staying open
Still, the commercial corridor has seen turnover and closures.
Pizza Jawn closed andKismet Bagels came in its place — Pizza Jawn’s owner bought the former Manayunk Tavern down the street, which became Bar Jawn. Smiley’s closed and Blu Zone Cafe moved in; and Iron Works Fitness opened up in the former Kismet Cowork.
A large restaurant space sat empty for months after Winnie’s closed last November. But, two Roxborough natives recently leased the space for a new “punk French” restaurant, planned to open in late fall.
Joan Boroff Denenberg, who does marketing and retail strategy for the Manayunk Development Corp. (MDC), said a few storefronts remain empty because the property owners aren’t local and are backed up with other projects throughout the country.
Neduscin says he isn’t struck by an unusual number of vacancies along Main Street. But maybe that’s because when he began buying properties there in the late 1980s, much of the commercial strip was vacant to the southeast of Cotton Street.
“Anytime I saw a property that was available in Manayunk I ended up buying it because I thought if I owned enough properties, I could kind of set the direction of the street,” Neduscin said. “I got to handpick who my potential tenants would be. I tried to bring tenants that I thought would bring additional people here.”
Insomnia Cookies is one of the few remaining chains with a presence on Main Street in Manayunk.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The bustle of Main Street now extends all the way down to Shurs Lane, roughly double its occupied length when he started.
Neduscin also says he really tried to find independent entrepreneurs to lease to — “I didn’t want a McDonald’s on Main Street” — and those restaurateurs and small-business owners gave Main Street a unique identity.
More than 30 years later, that’s why he wanted to sell some properties to one-time tenants like Spinner.
Still, business owners say myriad challenges remain. The permitting process is notoriously slow, especially if a trip to the Zoning Board of Adjustment is necessitated. That can leave business owners paying rent without being able to open their doors as they wait for permission.
“When it takes longer, you have to have deeper pockets, and I think that does scare some prospective businesses,” Neduscin said.
Further, owners on Main Street face the macro challenges affecting small businesses throughout the region. Brandy Deieso, who opened the gift boutique the Little Apple in 2010, said the cost of goods has increased due to tariffs, shipping costs, and rising gas prices.
“Being a street full of locally owned small businesses is great,” said Melissa Walter, co-owner of Love City Brewing, which just opened a second location in Manayunk. “But as we all know, running a small business is really hard.”
Building a business community
The bubblegum pink Cupid’s Bookshop storefront has built a following and even attracted customers from Baltimore and New York since opening last year. Now, it’s upgrading to a bigger location on Main Street.
“The growth we’ve had, it’s been amazing,” said owner Tina Long.
Cupid’s capitalized on the insatiable demand for bodice rippers and love stories, and Long says the bookshop benefited immensely from the MDC’s incubator program. Cupid’s was the first participant.
The program allowed Long to lease a storefront at 106 Grape St., owned by the business association, for a below-market monthly rent of $1,000 for up to three years, and the MDC provided guidance and support. With her new storefront opening in August and a five-year lease, she’s graduating from the incubator space early.
The “Welcome to Main Street” sign hangs over Main Street at Ridge Avenue in Manayunk.Michael Klein / Staff
“We loved the idea, but it turned out beyond our wildest dreams,” MDC executive director Gwen Mccauley said. “She’s now becoming part of the fabric of our district.”
Baby Face Studio also ended up on Main Street in part because of the MDC.
Artist and owner Kim Canefield in 2022 applied for the MDC’s emerging artist tent at the Manayunk Arts Festival, where she could set up shop for $100 instead of operating a $500 tent on Main Street. The festival draws over 300 artists and 150,000 visitors each June, McCauley said.
She set up a full-time vendor tent at the next three Arts Festivals. Each time, she was stationed in front of an art gallery, not knowing that the same space would eventually become Baby Face Studio.
“I just kept looking at it, and peeking through the window,” Canefield said. “The whole time I was staring at the future of what the studio was going to be.”
Love City Brewing already has a foothold in Callowhill, but saw Manayunk as a place to grow. Its second spot opened in the former Fat Lady Brewing. When searching for a new location, co-owner Walter was attracted to Main Street’s critical mass of small, independent businesses.
“Seeing them succeed, we thought: ‘Oh, we’re a small, local Philly business too,’” Walter said. “We can make it work there.”
Philadelphia is the latest locale for vigilante Jack Reacher's shadowy dealings in season four of Reacher, streaming now on Amazon Prime. The show, which stars actor Alan Ritchson as the hulking retired Army investigator, was spotted filming around town last year.
Based on Lee Child's 2009 novel Gone Tomorrow, this season has Reacher facing off against the CIA, federal agents, and international mercenaries following a woman's suicide. And while much of the on-screen action appears to have been filmed elsewhere — namely Toronto, which looks a lot like Philly, but with space — the City of Brotherly Love does show up quite a bit.
Here, we'll be rounding up all the Philly spots we can identify this season. Check out the map below for where Reacher and his cohorts took them in the city.
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Philadelphia
City Hall
Michael Bryant / Staff P
Reacher's fourth season immediately sets the scene with a shot of the William Penn statue atop City Hall as a nightscape of Center City shines in the background.
Philadelphia
Uptown Beer Garden
Erin Blewett / For The Inquirer
We catch our first glimpse of our hero, Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson), as he exits Uptown Beer Garden, who walks out of the establishment silently with a beer in hand.
Philadelphia
LOVE Park
MICHAEL BRYANT / Staff Photographer
Reacher speaks for the first time this season, ordering a "wiz wit" from a nondescript food truck in Love Park.
Philadelphia
Avenue of the Arts
JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer
Here, Reacher strolls down the sidewalk on the west side of Broad Street, chomping on his cheesesteak. Canonically, it is just after 2 a.m., and the street is deserted as he descends into the Walnut-Locust entrance B line, which runs along Broad Street.
Philadelphia
Walnut-Locust Station
Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
As he enjoys his cheesesteak, Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) heads down into the Broad Street Line at this Center City station. Several interior shots of the station are shown, including one in which a rat munches on a hot dog.
Philadelphia
Benjamin Franklin Bridge
Thomas Hengge / Staff Photographer
Philly is again shown off in all its nocturnal glory with a low-light shot of Center City from the Ben Franklin Bridge.
Philadelphia
Benjamin Franklin Parkway
For the first time in the season's first episode, the sun rises on Philadelphia. And it does so in this stunning aerial shot showcasing many of the Ben Franklin Parkway's gems — Logan Circle, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the works.
Philadelphia
Parkway Central Library
Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
We get a great glimpse of the exterior of the Parkway Central Library before heading inside, where Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) and Jacob Merrick (Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette) do research on Congressman John Sampson (Marc Blucas), a North Carolina representative who is launching a presidential bid.
Philadelphia
Parc
Courtesy of HughE Dillon
Parc briefly plays host to Reacher, Lila Hoth (Agnez Mo), and Jacob Merrick (Christopher Rodriguez-Marquette) as the trio settles in at an outdoor table to evade police.
Philadelphia
Walt Whitman Bridge
Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Reacher and his cohorts travel back into Philly via this bridge after escaping Washington, D.C. In the background, the old Southwark Generating Station is clearly visible.
Philadelphia
Schuylkill Expressway
Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
As Reacher and his crew traverse Philly at night, the action leads to a shot of the west end of Center City near 30th Street Station from the Schuylkill Expressway.
Philadelphia
Schuylkill Expressway
Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Here, we get another nightscape shot of Philly's skyline, again from I-76 near 30th Street Station looking east. In the foreground, Locust on the Park is lit up green and is featured prominently.
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That was every location we could spot in the opening three episodes. Explore the map of all locations featured. Tap onHover overa pin to learn more.
Staff Contributors
Design and Development: Garland Fordice and Sam Morris
