Underground music lovers are mourning the closing of the DIY music venue the Golden Tea House at 40th and Baring. Venue organizers, who have kept the Golden Tea House going for 2-and-a-half years, announced today on Facebook that gigs it now has on the books will be moved elsewhere.
“The why and the how aren’t really important but suffice it to say that it was one of the more predictable inevitable causes,” the Facebook post reads. West Philly has been the home to dozens of underground music venues over the last few decades. Some last only a few weeks before they are closed.
The Golden Tea House even made it into The New York Times, WXPN’s The Key notes, when the newspaper printed a photograph last spring of the album release party for The Menzingers (see video below). One would have thought that publicity might have spelled the end for The Golden Tea House, but it continued to thrive, hosting shows that drew crowds that snaked down the block waiting to get in.
The venue’s neighborhood has also changed a great deal in recent years as a number of residential building projects have popped up nearby.
Two West Philly food start-ups are joining forces to spread the love this Valentine’s Day. Red Fox Gourmet and Smackaroons, both operating out of the Culinary Center on S. 48th Street, have just launched “Love Me…I’m Local,” a campaign celebrating the collective of emerging artisan food entrepreneurs in the Philadelphia area. Their first collaboration and product offering is a Valentine’s Day Gift Suite featuring gourmet treats.
Smackaroons produces dairy and preservative free artisanal Coconut Delights and currently has over 60 retail partners in the Greater Philadelphia and Delaware Valley Regions. Red Fox Gourmet is a snack company focused on making wholesome snacks with no artificial ingredients or preservatives. Its owner and head chef, Sarah Merrick, says that she and Claudia Baudo, the owner of Smackaroons, are thrilled to be part of this campaign. Continue Reading
A great neighborhood beautification project is underway in Mantua. Initiated by local residents and supported by community leaders and organizations, the Mantua Greenway project is an effort to transform an overgrown and littered strip of land on Mantua Avenue, adjacent to the Amtrak railway, into a green space, reports the Philadelphia LISC blog.
Lifetime Mantua resident Bessie Washington, who lives across the street from the lot, started a small garden there in 2011 in memory of her mother. The planting of the first few flowers and plants has blossomed into a grassroots cooperation, resulting in a large neighborhood revitalization campaign to create a green space and build a walking and biking trail. Thanks to support from the Philadelphia LISC (Local Initiatives Support Corporation), the project also received funding.
“In 2013, the William Penn Foundation provided $200,000 for concept design and early stage planning, and this past October the neighborhood was awarded $150,000 by the state for design, engineering, and partial construction of the greenway. The path will eventually connect to the city’s Schuylkill Trail system, and will boast trees, murals and art installations,” according to the LISC blog post on the project.
Read more about this and other Mantua revitalization efforts here.
25-year-old Ashjakia Washington and 69-year-old Otero Guillermo, who were reported missing last week from their homes in West Philadelphia, have been found and are in good condition, according to police. Washington, from the 5500 block of Chancellor Street, went missing on Jan. 22 and Guillermo went missing from his residence on the 4800 block of Pine Street.
Washington had been reported missing before – in April 2014, according to police.
Here’s a chance to better understand an African immigrant’s experience in West Philly. Asali Solomon will talk about her coming-of-age (in West Philadelphia) novel Disgruntledat the book launch event this Tuesday (Feb. 3) at the Penn Book Center (130 S. 34th St.).
Called a “masterful writer” in a recent review of Disgruntled by the Los Angeles Times(great review), Solomon invites readers into the journey of protagonist Kenya Curtis as she navigates childhood in West Philadelphia. We meet Kenya as a fourth grader at Henry C. Lea School where she tries to fit in but is confronted with her and her family’s Afrocentric identity and we follow her through adolescence and onto a private school in the suburbs as she continues to try to figure out her place in the larger scheme of things.
Disgruntled is partly autobiographical. Solomon, an English professor at Haverford College, was born and raised in West Philadelphia. She is also the author of the short story collection Get Down.
The event starts at 6:30 p.m. with a reception, followed by Solomon’s talk starting at 7:00 p.m.
We’re happy to pass along some recent news from the West Philly food and restaurant world.
Renovations Underway at Rx The Farmacy
(Left to right): Danielle Coulter, Ross Scofield, and Tim Blair.
Some Spruce Hill residents and Rx The Farmacy (Facebook page) fans may have noticed that the restaurant has been closed for several days, so we got in touch with one of the owners, Ross Scofield, to see what’s going on. Turns out they are doing renovations to the kitchen. “A lot of things/equipment in the kitchen were left over from Rx,” Ross explains. ” Now that the Farm is on a steady track, we are taking the opportunity to update our little cooking space.”
Ross and his partners, Danielle Coulter and Tim Blair, who now also manage the recently opened The Barn on Baltimore, are taking the opportunity to renovate the kitchen during the slower winter season. Ross also shared some of his plans for the busy spring season.
“Spring time is a busy time for The Farmacy with UPenn having graduation and the neighborhood coming out for the nice weather. I want to have a new outside seating arrangement in place. The Farm needs a nice, big sign out front. New plates, flatware, and glasses are all needed. The kitchen also needs to be “repositioned” to handle the volume of brunch service,” Ross wrote us in an email. Continue Reading
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