PR-447-S

Page 1

Ron Panepinto Jewelers 700 Sansom St. 215-923-1980

www.PanepintoJewelers.com We Buy Gold & Diamonds

Vol. II No. 34 (Issue 46)

THIS longstanding business store front streetscape fixture is no more.

Changing Face Of South Philadelphia One longtime South Philadelphian just returned from a trip down South to his family homestead. “It was a long time in coming,” he says. “I left a teenager and returned 20 years later.” “But when I came back, it was good to be home in South Philadelphia,” he adds. What worries him is what he saw back in the Siuthland. His small town’s shopping strip was all but closed, every store empty except for one or two eateries. “The town went kaput when WalMart opened. Most of the people work there now, but the mom-and-pop shops we see in South Philadelphia are gone.” It’s this thriving small-business tradition that endears South Philadelphia to so many. The huge variety of shops, the duplication of goods and services keeps this section of the city relatively intact. But that may be changing as well, as several shops along E. Passyunk Avenue have changed hands or gone out of business. Along the ever-changing face of Washington Avenue, several smaller supply houses have gone under, though C& R Lumber at 13th & Washington is moving to bigger quarters at 16th & Washington Avenue. However, the slumping economy is beginning to be felt by some of the larger stores. Evidence of this was the auctioning off of Falcone’s Furniture, a historic South Philadelphia place to go for furniture, carpet, flooring, kitchen and bath equipment. Ed Barkowitz, of Associated Auctioneers, pounded the gavel late Wednesday to bring an end to an ownership that served the South Philadelphia community for over 30 years. The same changes are taking place (Cont. Page 2)

“Reporting South Philadelphia the way it deserves”

Value 50¢

August 21, 2008

Freed By Vietnam South Philadelphian Charlie Ly, a board member of the Victim/Witness Services of South Philadelphia, kept family and friends in dismay when the news arrived he had been detained by the government of Vietnam. Joy has returned since Charlie was released and is now home again. Ly had departed the US on Jul. 14 for Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, to visit family and friends. On Jul. 24, as he was preparing to return home to the United States, the government of Vietnam confiscated his passport, placed him under house arrest in his hotel, and has inter(Cont. Page 2)

Mr. President ...Page 10

CHARLIE LY is greeted by friends and family after he lands at JFK in New York City after harrowing battle with Vietnamese government which detained him, threatening a long sentence. Groups here rallied to get him free.

Home Prices Still Climbing Though fewer homes have been sold in the city this year, the prices for homes sold in South Philadelphia have climbed. That upgrade in housing prices was noted in a popular Philadelphia website, Hallwatch.Org. In a quarterly column on the state of the real-estate market in Philadelphia written by Dr. Kenneth Gillen and Hallwatch’s founder Ed Gottlieb, the typical

Philadelphia home increased in value by an average of 1.7% on a quality- and seasonally-adjusted basis. This modest increase comes after three consecutive quarters of house price declines. However, this price appreciation still remains insufficient to offset previous cumulative declines, and house values remain down 6.6% from the peak of where they were one year ago.

New Energy At Navy Yard S T A T E SEN. Vincent Fumo presented $40,000 check to Penn State University for fuel-cell research at Naval Base’s Building 100 Innovation Center.

The price increases were uniformly distributed across the city’s neighborhoods, with only one exception. From lowest to highest, the price increases by neighborhood were: Upper Northeast Philadelphia (+0.6%), Lower Northeast Philadelphia and Northwest Philadelphia (+0.7%), Center City/Fairmount (+3.0%), West Philadelphia (+7.1%), Kensington/Frankford (+8.5%), South Philadelphia (+10.0%) and University City (+20.5%). The only neighborhood to experience continued price declines this quarter was North Philadelphia (-4.9%). Philadelphia’s movements in house prices continue to stand in stark contrast to trends in other major US cities. According to Case-Shiller MacroMarkets’ composite house-price index, house prices have fallen by an average of 18% in the 10 largest U.S. cities, compared to only 6.6% in Philadelphia. Although Philadelphia’s house prices may be resisting their continued declines, home sales continued their downward plunge this spring. Even though spring is normally the busiest time of year for housing transactions, only 4,546 (Cont. Page 15)

Politics Get Wacky ...Page 18

Taking Wing For Israel ...Page 20

Waffleman. . . Page 9


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