Last week we told you about the Philly Flavors expansion and renovations to 2026 Fairmount Ave., where, someday, we might see a Chinese restaurant or a bakery. We recently observed progress there as workers repaved the sidewalk and were doing some other cosmetic work on the building.

This week we decided to get nosy at 2021 Fairmount Ave., a creepy looking, faded old black garage with a red border that cries out “you don’t even want to know what’s going on in here” to passersby. We knocked, and, to our surprise, someone answered. Building-owner Joe, who preferred to keep his last name private, stepped out of a three-quarter-sized door that seemed more appropriate for a fun house than for a dilapidated garage. He explained that he has owned the building for decades, but that it has sat vacant for the past ten years. Before that, Joe owned and operated JMJ Glass out of the space, replacing windshields and windows around the neighborhood.

Not appealing. Not yet.

Joe figured that given Fairmount’s current influx of new buildings and retail combined with the good number of people in the neighborhood “dressed in clothes that shows they can afford a few things,” now was a good time to renovate the ground-floor for retail and two upstair apartments.. The fate of the downstairs space is yet to be determined, and guessing its ultimate use would be purely speculation. Therefore, we speculate that the space will contain a combination Pet Store/Bowling Alley OR a Record Store that only sells tapes from the early 80’s. But whatever it ends up being, given the work across the street, the water-ice expansion, and the opening of Fare, the 2000 block of Fairmount is certainly a block with a lot of excitement and intrigue at the moment. We can’t wait to see how things shape up. –Lou Mancinelli