In West Philly

To paraphrase Hannibal Smith, we love it when a plan comes together.In this case, we're referring to the 30th Street Station District Plan, released last week. This plan, as you might imagine, details a vision for 30th Street Station and its surrounding neighborhood over the coming decades. If everything set

At the end of last year, we brought you a somewhat sad story of a demolition at 4042 Chestnut St. in West Philadelphia. The old building, dating back to the mid-19th century, was being demolished in favor of a new batch of student housing which was going to make full use of the

Off-campus student housing has exploded in West Philly over the last several years, with new apartment buildings appearing on blocks that developers heretofore considered to be too far west, north, or south. Those same developers have taken an interest in Woodland Avenue and surrounding blocks, specifically targeting University of the

We would have to imagine that at some point in its history, the northeast corner of 46th & Walnut was home to a row of Victorian homes, or perhaps a larger castle-like structure like the property on the southeast corner of this intersection.Southeast corner of 46th & WalnutMore recently, at least

You may remember five years ago when we reported about the sad state of an apartment building known as The Croydon. In 2012, we enthusiastically reported that this old beauty would finally be restored and filled with residents by a partnership between Orens Brothers, Hillel Tsarfati and Kfir Binnfeld.Finally, at the

There's a section of the 4600 block of Sansom Street between 46th Street and Farragut Street that's been rather bleak for at least the last decade, probably going back many more years. A single building on the south side of the block has survived the passage of time, with two huge

A reader gave us the heads up the other day about some construction activity on the 3600 block of Spring Garden Street, a block that has somehow escaped our attention over the years. The construction we discovered was taking place at a three-building apartment complex at 3608-3612 Spring Garden St. with

A little over a year ago, we told you about a plan for a sixteen story tower and twelve for-sale residential units at 3201 Race St., replacing a surface parking lot and some poorly maintained homes. At the time, the project had already gone through the Civic Design Review process,

Over the weekend, we made an early-morning trip to Trader Joe's (no lines before 9am on a Sunday!) and afterward we decided to take a detour through West Philly to see whether we could stumble upon any theretofore unknown construction. We sadly came up empty on the construction front, but

We're a little embarrassed. When we told you a couple weeks ago about two missing Frank Furness Victorian twins at 3935 and 3937 Chestnut St., we were able to determine that the Ronald McDonald House had purchased the properties but we didn't know what they were planning for the large site. Commenters