Photo courtesy of Jim MacMillan.

A submission I made to a book anthology out of the noted Kelly Writers House has been accepted.

The collection, called Philos Adelphos Irrealis, was meant to portray various states of Philadelphia that never came to pass — in 200 words or less. I focused mine on the aborted effort in the late 1980s for Northeast Philadelphia to secede from the city and form its own municipality.

After some discussion with a dear friend, I decided to show something that might not have happened if that secession occurred. I also decided to do what I knew best (and what I thought would be unique to the collection): offer a submission in traditional newspaper style.

See the submission below and head over to the University City staple to purchase a copy for $5 to get a variety of local writerly takes on the prompt.

A Philadelphia Police officer was not honored today for saving the life of a 24-year-old father of two in a West Philadelphia shooting last week, authorities say.

Police Officer Daniel Stern, not of the 16th district, was not driving his patrol car west on the 5100-block of Haverford Street early Thursday, when he did not see a fistfight spill out of a corner nuisance bar. Stern did not discharge his firearm at the 19-year-old alleged assailant when he reportedly pulled his own firearm from his waistband, a police spokesman said. Stern, not a four-year veteran of the force, did not injure the assailant in the leg and did not bring him into custody.

The identities of neither the 24-year-old who was not saved nor the 19-year-old who was not caught were released. The 24-year-old will not celebrate his daughter’s fifth birthday next month and will not attend the Community College of Philadelphia next fall.

Stern did not become a police officer, like his father and grandfather, because his native Northeast section of the city seceded in 1991, he says. Stern was not given a commendation by Police Commissioner Charles Ramsay at a ceremony that was not held at City Hall.

Photo courtesy of Jim MacMillan here. Watch some of my writing process here, by seeing other draft versions.

Though I took part in three of 14 JLab-funded Philadelphia Enterprise Reporting Fund projects, first announced here last fall, I led one of them.

For Northeast Philadelphia hyperlocal NEast Philly, I helped lead the editorial direction of a project called District 172: the politics of change after state Rep. John Perzel.

• http://neastphilly.com/john-perzel/

Following the indicted former state Speaker of the House, whose corruption trial has been postponed until the fall, we covered what the impact the loss of a 30-year state leader would be on his district, particularly a small swath that had served as his political base.

Find all the coverage here.

I had the following roles:

• Reported two feature stories, including the final piece on how community building in Mayfair and elsewhere may be undergoing a sea change, and a second piece on the touchy subject of redistricting and Perzel, in addition to some smaller items.
• I interviewed Perzel’s replacement, Democrat Kevin Boyle, his staff and had Perzel fail to respond to comment following repeated attempts through his attorney.
• I spoke to more than a half dozen neighborhood leaders and others with perspective on the matter.
• With NEast Philly founder Shannon McDonald, I helped carve out the editorial direction and direct the Temple University Philadelphia Neighborhoods interns, who were our partnering organization.
• I designed the District 172 branding.
• I developed a layout for the District 172 landing page and worked with Frankford Gazette co-founder Jimmy Smiley to publish it.
• I gave copy and content to Smiley for our Players and Timeline section, two more interactive tools on the page.

Two pieces I wrote for NEast Philly made their way into yesterday’s Metro Northeast Philadelphia edition.

First, as depicted above, a piece on Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams’s presentation at the Northwood Civic Association meeting during which he again outlined the four main objectives of his nascent administration.

Second, as depicted below, my coverage of the second meeting of Northeast Philadelphia Now, a fledgling attempt to coalesce various neighborhood groups to fight back against quality of life crimes plauging that part of the city.

In both cases, I was due a byline but something want awry in the production — which also resulted in the wrong NEast branding. But then, I suppose it’s still the beginning of the partnership between the hyperlocal news site and the city’s most circulated daily newspaper.

I certainly hope the paper is giving the niche site the respect it deserves, a fear others have recently had with other papers.

Check yesterday’s issue here, from pages 15-22. The issue runs every other Wednesday.

Last month, the Devon Theater, a professional production house in a working-class neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia, canceled the final half of its inaugural season due to state budget constraints.

In going through some documents of mine, I found, perhaps prophetically, a story that never was from back in March when the Devon first reopened. Originally planned for Philadelphia Weekly, its working slug title was ‘Can the Devon survive in Mayfair?’

Perhaps that hope now seems less likely. Below, I share the piece that didn’t run (for a variety of reasons) and some extras from the reporting.

Before writing this piece for PW, I covered the Devon’s reopening heavily, additionally for the Inquirer, NEastPhilly.com and uwishunu.

As originally written March 2009 and, boy, do I feel like my writing has grown some even in the ensuing months.

Kathleen Murray has already seen ‘Nunsense’ – years ago somewhere in Center City, she said.

But she’s not going to miss the chance to see one of the first live performances held at the resurrected Devon Theater.

So Murray, 76, bought tickets and also became a proud Devon volunteer. Last Saturday [3/14], she had orientation and looks forward serving as an usher, helping with ticketing or costumes or with the summer camp.

She’s an active theatergoer, supporting venues like the Arden and the Keswick, but says there is something special about the Devon being in Mayfair, her blue-collar Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood. That kind of support, Devon executives say, is just what they need to make professional theater work eight miles and a social class or two from Center City.

In Aug. 2004, the Mayfair Community Development Corporation, which has maintained ownership, bought the Devon for $800,000. The 65-year-old roof allowed severe water damage. There was termite-infestation, collapse and decay. As part of an expansive, $6 million plan to reshape the surrounding Frankford Avenue corridor, the CDC wanted to bring theater to the cavernous former adult movie playhouse.

There is little question that they have the attention to launch with a bang. The staying power of a modern, professional arts center in the heart of an Irish working class neighborhood in transition, though, is far less certain.

And in transition is certainly something Mayfair is in.

Mayfair was a new neighborhood in the 1930s, developing on farmland that surrounded older communities like Tacony and Holmesburg. Bounded by Roosevelt Boulevard, Pennypack Park and largely hugging Frankford Avenue, Mayfair, like much of the Northeast, is diversifying today, but still maintains its old working class Irish American roots.

“The Devon cannot exist and thrive feeding on Mayfair alone,” said Mike Lally, the theater’s general manager. “It’s going to start here, but it can’t end here.”

The marketing focus is 15 miles around, he said. They aim to be seen as a Philadelphia, not exclusively a Mayfair or even Northeast Philadelphia theater.

The $6 million cost is a heavy burden, but Lally said revenue from keeping the versatile Devon’s schedule full can help. The Devon can host weddings, community events and, McEnlee mentioned, fundraisers for nonprofits, schools and hero tributes for fallen police officers, firefighters and others. There’s also lease revenue from six storefronts.

For those six storefronts, the CDC has received more than 200 offers, Mayfair CDC Executive Director Brian Patrick King said. But they’ve only accepted two — one of which is Fuse Management, the theater’s production company.

“We want to be selective,” King said. “Because we can be.”

“This model exists across the country,” said Amy Pickering, who is assisting with the theater’s production element and educational outreach. That model includes community interaction, from two-week summer camps, art-gallery space and monthly Saturday reading sessions.

A few hundred people have offered to volunteer as ushers and ticket agents, said Michael Pickering, the Devon’s artistic director and Amy’s husband.

“They’ll even clean the toilets,”  he said. “Anything to be involved and make sure the Devon works.”

But will that neighborhood be enough, if it sustains at all?

“Theater companies have a great fear of leaving Center City because they don’t know if the audiences will follow,” said Karen DiLossi, the director of programs and services for the Theater Alliance of Philadelphia.

There are groups in neighborhoods beyond Center City that are succeeding at performance art though, DiLossi said. Walking Fish Theater is at the forefront of Fishtown’s resurgence, and Chestnut Hill has Stagecrafters Theater. Theatre Exile has opened offices at 13th and Reed streets and has plans for performances at those Bella Vista digs. Act II Playhouse has become a celebrated mainstay in Ambler since opening in 1998, DiLossi said.

“Still, it seems many are afraid to try it,” she said.

“This is professional theater in a community,” said Michael Pickering. “As opposed to just community theater. Our actors are professionals.”

They say their quality performances will put butts in the seats. They better hope so.

“We’re all in,” said King, the CDC director. “It can’t be anything but a win.”

If Murray, the neighborhood boster turned usher, is any example, the neighborhood will do all it can to assure that win.

“Will the Devon survive? I think it will. I certainly hope so. Once the word is out in the community, we can support this. It can pull from across the bridge in Jersey and farther still,” Murray said. “I know I’ll help anyway I can. I can’t see it fail.”

EXTRAS

• “It’s going to be arts, culture and Tony’s pies,” Stephen McEnlee of Fuse Management said of its proximity near the famed tomato pie joint.
• “That’s the only thing the CDC cares about with this project,” Brian Patrick King said. “We’re going to transform this stretch of Frankford Avenue. This block is going to be a model and serve as a gateway to Mayfair.”
• Pickering has had reservations for the March 28 opening for weeks, including one for 24 people from Bucks County.
• Pickerings, 50 and 29, now of Sicklerville, N.J. to work in Atlantic City, came on in January 2008. Met McEnlee in Discovery Church
• “We also have the most expensive curtain track in town,” Mike Lally said of what is dividing concessions from the seated audience in the compact theater.

Joe Mallamaci, owner Tony’s Place

• Three years ago, Tony’s expanded into a third storefront. “We have been waiting three years since for the Devon to open,” he said.
• “This will make people stay in the neighborhood rather than go downtown or to Jersey,” he said.
• Now Tony’s has three rooms. In 1980 bought an adjacent storefront and three years ago, after first hearing about plans to bring the Devon back, bought a third, and now can seat 210 people.
• “We rented the room out, but now we will be able to regularly fill all three stores. We’re trying to employ people again.”
• “My father Dominic and his brother Tony opened this restaurant 57 years ago in 1951. So we have lots of loyal customers. Many of them have left the neighborhood and they still keep coming back. But, they come to eat and they leave,” Mallamaci said. “The Devon will keep them here.”
• “As soon as we heard the Devon was bought by the CDC, we bought another store to accommodate the new customers we knew would come.”
• “Economically, when the economy went bad, we had to close it,” he said of the third room. “But with the buzz and the talk about the Devon, it’s going to make sense again.”
• “I believe in the people over there running it. It’s not just the plays but the graduations, the teacher conferences. I think it’s going to have great long term success.”

Frankford Terminal, taken in 1918, before the construction of the Frankford El. Obtained from the Philadelphia City Archives. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Updated h/t

He was an ogre of man, slimy, rat-toothed and overbearing, with day old five o’clock shadow and a crunch of black hair falling out of a sun-weathered red trucker hat.

This man, maybe 45, was propped up on the aged bar of Quinn’s Irish Pub II, a neighborhood drinking establishment with so colorful a stable of regulars that they made this second one just up Frankford Avenue here in Philadelphia from the first. It was passed closing time, the lights were low and the rumble of the adjacently-running elevated train dutifully making its way back home to the Frankford terminal ended hours ago.

The bar maid, fair-skinned, with light-brown hair in a pony tail and a stain or two on a white t-shirt, had taken a seat and served another round on the house. She, the man, two other patrons, a buddy and I had fallen into a conversation of seeming interest to all those involved.

What do you do with Frankford?

Frankford, once a separate borough, is now easily one of the most historic neighborhoods in Philadelphia, the historic capital of the United States. Like Philadelphia, all of that is often forgotten or misplaced for a layer of grime, and crime and unease.

[Read a recent series of stories on the neighborhood by a new online news startup in Philadelphia: parts one, two, three and four].

Frankford, once the gateway to the great Northeast — an isolated, middle-class, family-orientated swath of the city that has its own signs of wear — is now as often dismissed as being too poor, too dangerous, too dirty and, yes, probably too black to be a part of the conversation of cultural significance here.

So what was I — a college-educated, 20-something, outsider — doing there?

That’s what this man at the bar, who professed to have seen it all, couldn’t understand.

“Get out of here,” he said. “It’s not safe. It’s not for you.”

I had been in Frankford then just a few months, having moved there at the end of November 2008, looking for a distinct neighborhood that was connected well by transit and was in another part of Philadelphia — a city I so love learning about. I got that, but yes, there was the same sway of crime and drugs and poor quality of life that are found in a lot of the undereducated neighborhoods and towns in this country that don’t offer much opportunity for those living in them.

I’ve always taken to try to hear what people there think about ways to improve their own neighborhoods — if they think ‘improvement’ is what they need at all.

This man, echoed with little degree of variation by the barmaid and the others, made clear his hopelessness.

“Nothing. Nothing can be done because it’s too far now. Everyone good left. All these undesirables moved in,” he said then. “Frankford is just a dumping ground now.”

I can’t say I agreed with much of what he said. But his is an opinion that is probably replicated throughout the 40,000-person neighborhood, so it’s an opinion that needs to be known.

I don’t live in Frankford anymore. Two weeks ago, as I penned for neighborhood blog Frankford Gazette, I handed my apartment keys to my landlord and took one last look at the nice $500-monthly apartment I called home for more than a year. I moved to a nicer neighborhood, nearer to Center City. It has it’s problems too, but by just about every account it offers a better place to live. It’s a place that will offer it’s own opportunities for writing and sharing and spreading, so you’ll hear more about it.

For now, I’ve begun to make the tiny switches of my identity that come with a move — though I still have the better half of 1,000 business cards labeling me from Frankford and will keep coming back for work with the neighborhood high school’s journalism club and contributing to Northeast Philly hyperlocal NEast Philly.

I hadn’t thought about the man and the after-hours conversation that night in that tiny bar in the shadows of the El for months until the night I gave up that apartment. That’s when I revisited and remembered our rambling two-hour talk, dominated by his answers and my questions, though throughout the time others chirped in.

“Anyone who comes here now wants to take something. A neighborhood needs people to give,” the man said sullenly later in the night, allowing for a glimmer of vulnerability in the low light, speaking just above the din of an unattended TV. So why don’t you ‘give’ I asked him. “I can’t even imagine Frankford being a better place, so what would I be doing?”

The barmaid got up then to distract herself by cleaning some pint glasses she had already cleaned. She grew up in that neighborhood, went to its schools and, aside from car trips to big box stores on Roosevelt Boulevard and the occasional trip to Center City, she never left Frankford. I suppose it wasn’t anything she needed to hear again.

It was creeping toward 3 a.m. as the other patrons started to file out. My buddy and I, too, had to leave, so I wished the man well and thanked him for letting me ask my questions.

“You’re young and smart, so you’ll leave soon and good thing,” he said as I went to leave. “So what’s ever going to change?”

Naja Wigglesworth was happy to be alive after jumping from her apartment building during an early-morning fire. Photo by Rikard Larma for Metro

I was able to humanize a bit the standard spot news metro fire story yesterday, when I covered a five-alarm blaze in the Burholme section of Northeast Philadelphia for Metro.

It wasn’t the fire and it wasn’t the screaming but God who woke up Naja Wigglesworth early Sunday morning, the 23-year-old says.

She was on the second floor of the Austin Manor Apartment building in the Burlholme neighborhood of Northeast Philadelphia when it went up in flames around 4:30 a.m. yesterday.

Read the rest here.

So often, because of time constraints, coverage of these tragic fires are just rehashing of deaths and times and places, without accounting for the people who endure a great deal. I was happy I got to hear from residents about their experiences.

Below, local TV news coverage of the fire and an interview that didn’t make it into the front page story.

The heat was unbelievable, the screaming seemed unreal and Brandon Underwood was in a panic.

That’s when his 2-year-old daughter said, “Daddy, we better get out of here.”

So Underwood, 25, took his wife, his daughter and 4-month-old son and rushed outside of their Jendora Apartment building in Northeast Philadelphia early Sunday morning.

Their building wasn’t on fire, but an adjacent one — just 15-feet away, Underwood said — called Austin Manor and located at 7024 Rising Sun Ave. in the Burlholme neighborhood was.

When they got outside, Underwood said he saw flames shooting out and watched that entire adjacent building collapse. They’ll be staying four blocks away at his mother’s house.

The free daily newspaper’s photography editor Rikard Larma gave me a ring and asked that I interview Naja and Brandon, whom he came across while taking photos of the wreckage.

Below watch 6ABC coverage.

I also had a brief in today’s Metro on an Old City slaying, and last week, I filed a piece on the Devon Theater canceling the rest of its inaugural season.

Banner advertisement design by Brian James Kirk for TechnicallyPhilly.com

Here’s introducing one of the first regionally-focused community news portal in Philadelphia: NEastPhilly.com, home to anything and everything that happens in Northeast Philadelphia.

In a true testament to its rapid growth in its first few months of existence, tonight it is partnering with WHYY, Philadelphia’s NPR affiliate, to host the third and final primary debate for Democratic city controller candidates. If you’re in the Philly area, I welcome you to come see a down and dirty triumph of a small media venture.

This could be the future of news coverage.

Last fall, Shannon McDonald, who is now on the tail end of a media firestorm, began plans to launch a quarterly print publication called NEast magazine, covering Northeast Philadelphia. I pushed her to think of beginning online — even if her core demographic was a working class community not heavily entrenched online. I thought it was an opportunity to begin a brand for cheap, making her known to what potential advertisers, readers and sources she could.

She’s now the founder and editor of NEastPhilly.com, an online news portal for her native Northeast Philadelphia and hopeful one day home of NEast magazine, aimed to begin quarterly production in spring 2010. I’ve served as Web editor — launching and maintaining the minimalist and simple site — and an occasional contributor.

The results aren’t in yet. While NEastPhilly.com has clearly developed a small reputation, partnering with WHYY, collecting a small but loyal readership and adding three other regular columnists, we haven’t yet moved to monetization, nor have we made a bold step toward Ms. McDonald’s dual goal of a robust Web presence and print reality for her print-leaning community.

Still, I think a formal introduction of the site here is overdue, particularly after presenting with Ms. McDonald on the possible fiscal viability of the NEast brand at BarCamp NewsInnovation, a journalism “un-conference” held at Temple University two weeks ago.

I already wrote about my thoughts on the BarCamp and shared the speaking notes I used with fellow co-founders of Technically Philly for my first presentation of the day.

But Ms. McDonald and I thought NEast could offer its own conversation. So in the spirit of spontaneous presenting, we threw together some notes and spoke to a small group of ten about the lessons we’ve found in the early stages of our work.

Those notes below.

Branding online in a Print-Heavy Community: NEastPhilly.com
National BarCamp NewsInnovation Philadelphia
April 25, 2009

1. Site Preview

• Basic, cheap WordPress.com template
• Neighborhood-centric
• Breaking/latest news focused interface for those unfamiliar with blog format

2. Northeast Philadelphia

• Authenticity in living/background
• Demographics
• Its place in the city and relationship with big media

3. Why Online, Why Now

• Loss of community news coverage, serve that community we love
• Print-heavy readership, but brand-trusting
• Develop relationships with those online
• Introduce to broader city, which is online
• Find contributors (free now, pay later)
• Cost ($10.19 plus time)

4. Profitability

• Conversation cannot be on advertising alone
  o But, opportunity to develop ad relationships
  o Northeast advertisers not trusting of online
• Creating trusted brand to find community support
  o Regular presence
  o Broader media recognition
  o Events and promotion (beef & beers and political forums)
• Longterm alternative revenues
  o Niche sites look to fill all niches
  o Northeast swag (books, business partnerships, T-shirts even)
  o Common Northeast purchases (school uniforms, little league trophies)

5. Take Aways

• Little to no cost to begin brand
• Small town hybrid model brought to cities
• Advertising cannot be king
• Easy to launch, agile
• Impartial, but involved

I’ll be interested to see what progress we can make, if only for learning for the future. I’ll keep you posted when fitting. If you live in the region, have ties to the Northeast or just want to see what we’re doing, feel free to check out the site or subscribe.

Read about other cool things my peers are doing.

This is NEastPhilly.com founder Shannon McDonald and me in Annenberg Hall at Temple University after the BarCamp for NewsInnovation April 25, 2009.

By Howie Shapiro and Christopher Wink | Philadelphia Inquirer | March 22, 2009

About 400 people, dressed for a gala, will take their seats Friday evening in what once was a dilapidated Frankford Avenue movie house. Three women in nun’s habits will pop up, administering parochial-school demands: Get rid of the gum! Flip off those cell phones!

The lights will dim, the loopy musical Nunsense will begin – and Northeast Philadelphia will have its first professional live-performance theater, in an area where many people (those in the Northeast included) may not expect to find one.

The opening of the sparkling Devon Theater is an example both of neighborhood tenacity and of a professional Philadelphia theater community whose growth – against the economic odds – seems unstoppable.

“I welcome them to the theater community,” says Margie Salvante, executive director of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. “The theater industry, on a national level, is really focused on Philadelphia as a hot spot right now.”

Excitement has been building in the Mayfair neighborhood where the Devon, on Frankford between Barnett and Stirling Streets, heralds a new level of local entertainment and the gradual revitalization that has taken hold. A call for volunteers to help usher, greet, and take on other duties drew more than 200 responses.

“I’ve seen the Devon at its worst. I want to see the theater now that it’s alive again,” says one of those volunteers, 76-year-old Kathleen Murray, who sometimes goes to the Arden Theatre in Old City or Glenside’s Keswick but relishes the idea of being able to see a show closer to home.

Her orientation was last weekend. “Will I be selling popcorn? Anything!” she says.

Whatever Murray does, she’ll be doing it in a state-of-the-art theater with a new 40-foot stage, and cupholders at each seat – just like at the movies. Its sound design boasts under-the-stage speakers to balance music for the front rows, and necklace transmitters that beam sound directly to the hearing aids of ticketholders who need them.

It even has a skybox of sorts, a roomy 20-seat balcony level for VIPs or rentals, with its own restrooms and catering space.

A local company, Fuse Management, which produces theatrical and special events nationwide (including on the Parkway and at Penn’s Landing), has been in charge of renovation and will mount the productions. Fuse opens the Devon with an agreement with Actors’ Equity, the professional union of theater artists – not generally the case with nascent theater companies. (The nearest theater – Kensington’s Walking Fish, five miles south on Frankford Avenue – pays its actors but is not aligned with Equity.)

“We could actually do it without any unions,” says Stephen McEntee, a Fuse employee instrumental in the Devon’s rescue from termite-riddled, roof-rotting destruction. “But we believe in it because of the talent, and we believe that people should be able to make a living at their profession, the arts or otherwise.”

The Devon, felicitously located near two Mayfair eat-and-drink landmarks – Tony’s Place across the street and Chickie’s & Pete’s to one side – is now owned by Mayfair’s Community Development Corp. (CDC), the neighborhood revitalization group that has a $6 million investment in the theater and the still-to-come surrounding streetscape.

State, federal, city, and private money is funding two-thirds of the project; the rest comes from a loan to the CDC from Beneficial, says Brian Patrick King, its executive director and a Mayfair native.

The theater, he says, will be a production house presenting its own shows, a booking house bringing in others, and a rental on off nights for groups that can use its spaces. The CDC hopes six new retail storefronts on the block, also part of the project, will help pay the Devon’s costs.

The theater even plans to use its own shows to help charities raise money: The charity guarantees the house, then sets fund-raising ticket prices, and the Devon provides all the services, cut-rate.

Like other projects now coming to fruition in a tough economy, the new Devon has roots in a more optimistic time earlier in the decade, when a study showed Mayfair lacked arts and culture in general.

At that time, on the Frankford Avenue corridor that mixed long-standing businesses with newer ones opened by young owners, the Devon was the last old-time movie venue standing, if barely. So five years ago the CDC, looking to create an arts scene – and the nighttime buzz, dining, and shopping that often come with it – bought the Devon for $800,000.

The theater, built in 1946, was among the city’s last single-screen cinemas, eclipsed by the era of multiplexes. In the beginning, its big, twinkly marquee – a landmark re-created and working again – advertised first-run films in what remains a solid, largely Irish Catholic neighborhood (where Nunsense should sell out). But as the business changed, it became a second-run house and then, in the ’70s, declined into porn; neighbors called it “the dirty Devon,” and worse.

One day in 1978, they woke to see a proclamation on the marquee: “No More Sex.” The Devon went back to being a second-run cinema, at 99 cents a ticket until 1985, when (amid some head-shaking) the price went up to $1.

Mike Lally, 29, a Mayfair native and manager of the new Devon, says that when he was a grade schooler, “the last thing I saw here was The Terminator – the original Terminator.”

The theater struggled and shut down, reopened for a few years with classic films in the late ’90s, then closed for good.

“When I walked in, it was like something out of a horror movie,” says Amy Pickering, the new theater’s education director, who will run its summer camp, workshops, and adult programs. That was in early 2008; the building was a dilapidated shell.

She and her husband, Michael – now the Devon’s artistic director – live in Sicklerville, Camden County, and had been traveling the country with a music-comedy dueling-piano show. They came at the behest of Fuse Management, drove around Mayfair, and were intrigued.

Their initial look at the Devon “terrified us a little bit,” Michael says, but they liked the neighborhood. “You could tell there wasn’t a lot of arts access around here, though,” he says, “and we decided it would be great to be part of providing that.”

The Pickerings understand that their shows will draw theatergoers as well as those who have never attended a live performance. To that end, the Devon’s Web site not only lists the usual particulars (ticket prices from $25 to $35, and the like), but also offers guidance on when to applaud.

“People may be a little intimidated,” Michael Pickering says, “and we want this theater to be as accessible as possible to everyone.”

That goes for what’s on offer, too, which returns the Devon to family-theater roots. You want cutting edge? The Devon is not your stage. (The Odd Couple is the just-announced second show.)

Its Web site poses the question: “Is this show appropriate for my kids?” The answer: “At the Devon Theater, we do not produce shows that are ‘for adults only.’ ”

Says Michael Pickering: “It’s a family area. We never want to put a show up with a parental advisory.”

See it here.

By Howie Shapiro and Christopher Wink | Philadelphia Inquirer | March 22, 2009

About 400 people, dressed for a gala, will take their seats Friday evening in what once was a dilapidated Frankford Avenue movie house. Three women in nun’s habits will pop up, administering parochial-school demands: Get rid of the gum! Flip off those cell phones!

The lights will dim, the loopy musical Nunsense will begin – and Northeast Philadelphia will have its first professional live-performance theater, in an area where many people (those in the Northeast included) may not expect to find one.

The opening of the sparkling Devon Theater is an example both of neighborhood tenacity and of a professional Philadelphia theater community whose growth – against the economic odds – seems unstoppable.

“I welcome them to the theater community,” says Margie Salvante, executive director of the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia. “The theater industry, on a national level, is really focused on Philadelphia as a hot spot right now.”

Excitement has been building in the Mayfair neighborhood where the Devon, on Frankford between Barnett and Stirling Streets, heralds a new level of local entertainment and the gradual revitalization that has taken hold. A call for volunteers to help usher, greet, and take on other duties drew more than 200 responses.

“I’ve seen the Devon at its worst. I want to see the theater now that it’s alive again,” says one of those volunteers, 76-year-old Kathleen Murray, who sometimes goes to the Arden Theatre in Old City or Glenside’s Keswick but relishes the idea of being able to see a show closer to home.

Her orientation was last weekend. “Will I be selling popcorn? Anything!” she says.

Whatever Murray does, she’ll be doing it in a state-of-the-art theater with a new 40-foot stage, and cupholders at each seat – just like at the movies. Its sound design boasts under-the-stage speakers to balance music for the front rows, and necklace transmitters that beam sound directly to the hearing aids of ticketholders who need them.

It even has a skybox of sorts, a roomy 20-seat balcony level for VIPs or rentals, with its own restrooms and catering space.

A local company, Fuse Management, which produces theatrical and special events nationwide (including on the Parkway and at Penn’s Landing), has been in charge of renovation and will mount the productions. Fuse opens the Devon with an agreement with Actors’ Equity, the professional union of theater artists – not generally the case with nascent theater companies. (The nearest theater – Kensington’s Walking Fish, five miles south on Frankford Avenue – pays its actors but is not aligned with Equity.)

“We could actually do it without any unions,” says Stephen McEntee, a Fuse employee instrumental in the Devon’s rescue from termite-riddled, roof-rotting destruction. “But we believe in it because of the talent, and we believe that people should be able to make a living at their profession, the arts or otherwise.”

The Devon, felicitously located near two Mayfair eat-and-drink landmarks – Tony’s Place across the street and Chickie’s & Pete’s to one side – is now owned by Mayfair’s Community Development Corp. (CDC), the neighborhood revitalization group that has a $6 million investment in the theater and the still-to-come surrounding streetscape.

State, federal, city, and private money is funding two-thirds of the project; the rest comes from a loan to the CDC from Beneficial, says Brian Patrick King, its executive director and a Mayfair native.

The theater, he says, will be a production house presenting its own shows, a booking house bringing in others, and a rental on off nights for groups that can use its spaces. The CDC hopes six new retail storefronts on the block, also part of the project, will help pay the Devon’s costs.

The theater even plans to use its own shows to help charities raise money: The charity guarantees the house, then sets fund-raising ticket prices, and the Devon provides all the services, cut-rate.

Like other projects now coming to fruition in a tough economy, the new Devon has roots in a more optimistic time earlier in the decade, when a study showed Mayfair lacked arts and culture in general.

At that time, on the Frankford Avenue corridor that mixed long-standing businesses with newer ones opened by young owners, the Devon was the last old-time movie venue standing, if barely. So five years ago the CDC, looking to create an arts scene – and the nighttime buzz, dining, and shopping that often come with it – bought the Devon for $800,000.

The theater, built in 1946, was among the city’s last single-screen cinemas, eclipsed by the era of multiplexes. In the beginning, its big, twinkly marquee – a landmark re-created and working again – advertised first-run films in what remains a solid, largely Irish Catholic neighborhood (where Nunsense should sell out). But as the business changed, it became a second-run house and then, in the ’70s, declined into porn; neighbors called it “the dirty Devon,” and worse.

One day in 1978, they woke to see a proclamation on the marquee: “No More Sex.” The Devon went back to being a second-run cinema, at 99 cents a ticket until 1985, when (amid some head-shaking) the price went up to $1.

Mike Lally, 29, a Mayfair native and manager of the new Devon, says that when he was a grade schooler, “the last thing I saw here was The Terminator – the original Terminator.”

The theater struggled and shut down, reopened for a few years with classic films in the late ’90s, then closed for good.

“When I walked in, it was like something out of a horror movie,” says Amy Pickering, the new theater’s education director, who will run its summer camp, workshops, and adult programs. That was in early 2008; the building was a dilapidated shell.

She and her husband, Michael – now the Devon’s artistic director – live in Sicklerville, Camden County, and had been traveling the country with a music-comedy dueling-piano show. They came at the behest of Fuse Management, drove around Mayfair, and were intrigued.

Their initial look at the Devon “terrified us a little bit,” Michael says, but they liked the neighborhood. “You could tell there wasn’t a lot of arts access around here, though,” he says, “and we decided it would be great to be part of providing that.”

The Pickerings understand that their shows will draw theatergoers as well as those who have never attended a live performance. To that end, the Devon’s Web site not only lists the usual particulars (ticket prices from $25 to $35, and the like), but also offers guidance on when to applaud.

“People may be a little intimidated,” Michael Pickering says, “and we want this theater to be as accessible as possible to everyone.”

That goes for what’s on offer, too, which returns the Devon to family-theater roots. You want cutting edge? The Devon is not your stage. (The Odd Couple is the just-announced second show.)

Its Web site poses the question: “Is this show appropriate for my kids?” The answer: “At the Devon Theater, we do not produce shows that are ‘for adults only.’ ”

Says Michael Pickering: “It’s a family area. We never want to put a show up with a parental advisory.”

See it here.

One week from yesterday three strangers riding beside me on the 3 bus will be dead.

But I can’t know it. It hasn’t happened, and I’ve never spoken to them before and won’t in the future. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even like know they were there, except for the boy, and that was only because his iPod was playing so loud I heard the bass of his trashy hip hop.

In just six days he will die on the same day as two others he doesn’t know.

I just want to get home without listening to what’s left of the music in some teenage boy’s ears.

I work at my uncle’s deli near Wissinoming Park. Normally my boyfriend picks me up after his afternoon class at Holy Family and has dinner with my dad and me in Port Richmond, but he has some group project. So I’m on the 3 with Jimmy Quinn.

Jimmy is wearing a big white tee-shirt, the kind that boys in my neighborhood stopped wearing like forever ago. He has black velor sweat pants and new Adidas basketball sneakers, white and black with red outline. A white wire hangs out of his pocket and is pulled up is side, split below his neck into buds tucked into either of floppy ears. He has big teeth with a space in the middle. I only know that because for a minute before we stopped near Oxford to unload some really sweaty Indian guy, Jimmy got really into some part of his song and started rapping. Totally quiet, but I saw that gap and those big teeth.

If I knew him, I might have known he was 19 and going to his grandma’s house to pick up his little brother who loves Jimmy like about as much as anyone ever has. Jimmy likes basketball but is bad and computers but only has an original PlayStation. That’s the old one, but I only know that because of my little cousin, who lives with my dad and me because his mom does drugs and is like a huge waste. Jimmy is from Fishtown and went to North Catholic. Now he delivers pizzas and smokes like tons of weed.

Six days from now he’ll die.

Jimmy is in a two-seater on the right side near the middle of the bus – I always sit in the back of the bus after this one time when this stupid kid put gum in my hair from behind me – and has his left foot on the back of the bar on the side of the seat in front of him.

In that seat is like the oldest lady I ever seen.

Frances has turquoise shirt with lots of little dots and has short white hair, lots of but not real long. She has a real long face with crazy little wrinkles that all intersect and make her face seem like stone, like she got a wrinkle for every hard day she ever lived. If her eyes – which I saw when she turned around to see if Jimmy really did mean to have his music so loud we could all hear it – were any indication, she had like a million hard days.

Frances was born in 1932 and grew up on Chatham Street in Port Richmond. She would steal penny gum drops from her parent’s candy store. Her father and mother worked alongside one another for 35 years, selling cigarettes to men in the morning, cabbage to women in the day, and candy to children in the afternoon.

At 18, Frances married a boy named Walter who was born in 1909 and grew up on Chatham Street in Port Richmond. He would steal bottle caps from his parent’s tavern on Aramingo. By the 1950s, the pair had a nice rowhome in Wissinoming. She had already missed her stop, but I didn’t know that and, as we came to Torresdale, she was forgetting herself.

Six days from now she’ll die.

Across the aisle on the left side, facing the side of the bus where Jimmy and Frances are sitting forward is Pete Alullo.

He has short hair and looks pretty normal for an afternoon on the 3. He reminds me of my dad. Pete has a little stubble and is wearing a dark blue polo shirt tucked in blue jeans and white sneakers.

Before he was looking at me, but I didn’t see it. If I had I might have thought he was a creep looking at me, but he was actually thinking about how much I look like his daughter Amanda. That’s why he is riding the bus. Pete’s brother is borrowing his truck, and Amanda, with his wife, is using his car for her driver’s license test. They live in Frankford but he’s going to a friend’s garage to see about buying Amanda her own car. The garage is near Castor Ave., which we’re coming to next. Pete retired last year from the Philadelphia police and now works for a security company transferring money from banks. He drives an armored truck and stuff. Amanda is super close to him and is really happy he isn’t working as a Philly cop anymore.

Six days from now he’ll die.

Jimmy is getting off a few blocks from Castor. The first and last time I’ll ever see him. All I can think is how much I hate him because he made me listen to his irritating music for like an hour on this stupid bus.

One week from yesterday just after 3 a.m., Jimmy is going to flip his grandmother’s 1989 Buick LeSabre into the river off Delaware Avenue.

He’ll be driving like 75 and will be totally wacked after having way too much Naty Ice at his friend’s older brother’s house party on American Street by Spring Garden.

It even will get mentioned in the newspaper because two guys will be smoking outside a bar across from where Jimmy crashes over the curb. They will run like hell to the river and like jump in. The will pull Jimmy out of the car and actually get him on the ground but endings are only as good as the action in movies.

Frances just stood up and sat down. Like she was resetting the whole bus ride and could fix that she didn’t know where she was.

Every morning for about 100 years, Frances woke up 6 a.m. One week from yesterday she won’t. She has lung cancer – which explains all the coughing, which almost makes me as mad as the music – but that won’t be what kills her. Her mind had been slipping a lot. Forgetting stuff, stuff she’d never forget. But she’d always remember those gum drops. She loved gum drops. It’s good to remember when you can only seem to forget. But I guess you can’t die of forgetting or remembering.

Her heart will just stop beating. I don’t know why. I’m not no doctor. I just think there should be a lot more attention paid to the idea that somewhere at 5:30 a.m. on some random morning next week a woman’s heart who had been beating just fine since before World War II will suddenly just stop.

I see Pete shaking hands and laughing with some mechanic guy as this bus sits at a red light at Castor. He’s smiling.

One week from yesterday at 2:19 p.m., according to security cameras, some black guy will come running up and shoot Pete’s partner like 1,000 times. Pete will get off a shot before getting the same end. The black guy will take about $1,100 and leave two men in their 50s who retired from cop jobs for safety and comfort. Two men in their 50s with daughters and wives.

I’ll never see Pete again, if I ever saw him. I’ll never know Frances or meet Jimmy. They’ll never know each other either, but six days from now.