Naked Philly Blog Posts Archive - OCF Realty

Jun 14

Demolition For Peanut Gallery at 18th & Fairmount?

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Jun, 14, 2019 | 1 Comment | Francisville

"No comments from the peanut gallery," is an expression beloved by dads and high school teachers alike, often directed in response to smart aleck kids. The phrase dates back to the days of vaudeville theatre, when patrons sitting or standing in the least expensive section of the theater were known to heckle performers and hurl peanuts at the stage. The term was later adopted by the Howdy Doody show, to describe the kids in the studio audience. Many [...]
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Jun 13

Delorean Time Machine: 2517-19 W. Girard Ave.

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Jun, 13, 2019 | No Comments | Brewerytown

For a little over a century, an attractive little building has brightened the 2500 block of West Girard Avenue, but it doesn’t match anything else around it. Where did it come from? In 1915, an old blacksmith shop also used as the storefront for a junk dealer at 2517-19 W. Girard Ave. suffered a devastating fire, leaving a charred building on a large plot of land. It was purchased in 1917 by Joseph Decatur and Benjamin Weckerly, who eventually [...]
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Jun 12

City Blue Building is Expanding on North Broad Street

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Jun, 12, 2019 | 1 Comment | West Poplar

We were making the rounds the other day and stumbled upon some significant renovation work taking place across the street from the Met. on North Broad Street. 925 N. Broad St. is a pretty unexciting commercial building, constructed with a utilitarian design around the time of the second World War. Within the last decade, the first floor was home to a furniture store, which gave way to a City Blue location that's still operating. Some old sale [...]
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Jun 11

New Building on Point Breeze Avenue is an Improvement and Also a Disappointment

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Jun, 11, 2019 | No Comments | Point Breeze

Point Breeze has seen more residential development over the last half dozen years than perhaps any other neighborhood in Philadelphia. Even today, you'd be hard pressed to find a block north of Dickinson Street that hasn't seen some (or a ton of) construction activity over the last year. One might think that all of this construction would translate into dramatically increased commercial activity in the neighborhood- after all, more people generally want more goods and services, and [...]
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Jun 10

Wizards of the 2400 Block of Waverly Street

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Jun, 10, 2019 | 3 Comments | Rittenhouse

The Fitler Square neighborhood often gets lumped in with the Rittenhouse neighborhood, perhaps due to the fact that Center City Residents Association has represented the interests of the entire area for decades. Further cementing the connection, Rittenhouse and Fitler Square have been part of the same local historic district since the mid-1990s. Still, Fitler Square has its own distinct character and personality, with a mix of handsome brownstones, smaller but adorable homes on narrow streets, [...]
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May 23

Several Project Updates Just Off Delaware Avenue

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May, 23, 2019 | No Comments | Old City

We were making our way to Northern Liberties the other day, and as we were passing Dave & Buster's on Delaware Ave., we spotted a couple of projects under construction just to the west. One of them, at 10 Callowhill St., we've covered previously, a little over two years ago. When you consider that we alerted you to this project more than 24 months ago, perhaps you'd think that construction would be a little further along. Looking up [...]
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May 22

What’s With the Little Building Next to Union Transfer?

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May, 22, 2019 | No Comments | Loft District

The boundaries of the West Poplar neighborhood are from 9th Street to Broad Street, Spring Garden to Girard, but the northern and southern sides are quite different. Above Fairmount Avenue, PHA owns the vast majority of the land and the Richard Allen Homes cover most of the area. South of Fairmount, we've seen considerable market-rate development activity over the last several years, with a mix of one-off homes and block-sized projects filling in numerous vacant lots. Some [...]
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May 20

Apartment Building Under Construction Across From Kendrick Rec Center

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May, 20, 2019 | 1 Comment | Manayunk

We found ourselves in Roxborough over the weekend, and some new construction on Roxborough Avenue, across the street from the Kendrick Rec Center, caught our eye. The project in question, at 492 Roxborough Ave., definitely demands attention, as it doesn't exactly blend in with the surrounding buildings. Looking up Roxborough Ave. Building under construction Then again, the buildings that stood here previously didn't really match their surroundings either. Sure, they were twins, but they only rose two [...]
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May 17

Plans Coming Into Better Focus at 16th & Carpenter, Not So Much at 16th & Washington

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May, 17, 2019 | 6 Comments | Graduate Hospital

Just last week, we told you that developers had the Hoa Bin shopping center at 1600 Carpenter St. under agreement, surely meaning the end of the line for the vast majority of the businesses located therein. We saw the zoning application and indicated that the developers were planning to subdivide the property into two pieces, with a plan to develop a residential project on the northern side and to leave the southern side idle in [...]
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May 16

Theater Gone, Apartment Building Underway at 6th & Poplar

Categories: None

May, 16, 2019 | No Comments | Northern Liberties

If you visit the intersection of 6th & Poplar, a few things should immediately attract your attention. The first is the dramatic contrast between the northern and southern side of the block. On the south side are a collection of homes that are part of the Liberty Place Town Homes development, built as affordable units in the 1960s with the architectural stylings of the Northeast. On the northwest corner is a row of homes built within the last [...]
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