Local News

New wave of assaults hits Hill
by MICHAEL J. MISHAK
Four men fell victim to brutal assaults in separate incidents last week as they walked the streets of Chestnut Hill. The attacks, perpetrated by a roving group of teenagers, bear similarities to a recent spate of muggings reported on by the Local last month.

And while police insist they have taken actions to address the situation, authorities are holding their cards close to their chest, disclosing few details.

“We’re aware of a group of juveniles up there causing problems,” said Lt. Flannigan, of the 14th District, in a brief interview last week. “We’ve increased our manpower and we’re addressing the problem.”

A year after bankruptcy, sudden interest in a building’s fate
Mayor Street tours Women’s Y with Germantown nonprofit
by MICHAEL J. MISHAK
A nonprofit group with deep ties to City Councilwoman Donna Reed Miller courted Mayor Street last month in connection with its effort to purchase the home of the Germantown Women’s Y, an historic institution that filed for bankruptcy last August.

Officials from Germantown Settlement, a human services agency that offers a variety of community-based programs and runs a charter school, met with the mayor in mid-July to discuss their preliminary plans, according to Miller, who brokered the meeting.

Miller sat on Germantown Settlement’s board of directors for more than two decades before resigning in 1996 after being elected to Council.

Big boosts for Black Horse Inn, Bethlehem Pike
U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz said $950,000 in federal grants would help preserve history and spur economic development in Springfield Township
by MICHAEL J. MISHAK
In the largest infusion of funds to the Black Horse Inn restoration effort, U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, (D., Pa.) presented Springfield Township officials and inn advocates last week with an oversized check from Washington for $150,000.

The money, in the form of a matching grant, was secured by Schwartz under the federal Save America’s Treasures program. The historic inn in Flourtown, once a stop for stagecoach travelers, dates back to around 1744. It was the only structure in the state to receive the designation and the “hard to access” funds this year, Schwartz said.

But perhaps even more significant was the $800,000 in federal funds the lawmaker snared for the Flourtown-Erdenheim Enhancement Project, another effort seeking to revitalize the Bethlehem Pike corridor. The money is part of the six-year, $286.4 billion highway bill passed by Congress last month.

OMC pastors bring commitment to ‘shared priesthood’
by JAMES STURDIVANT
The Rev. Bob Bazzoli and the Rev. Joseph P. Jocco, newly-arrived clergy at Chestnut Hill’s Our Mother of Consolation parish, have more in common than just a priestly vocation. Both are members of the religious order of Saint Francis de Sales, which has responsibility for administering the 150-year-old parish. And the philosophy of this order brings with it a certain approach to parish life.

“We follow the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, so in our work and our ministry, whether it be high school or college, a program for young adults, service work or here at Our Mother of Consolation, the spirituality of St. Francis is what colors [and] directs our preaching, our ministry,” Bazzoli told the Local last week, sitting in a spacious office on the second floor of the parish house on Chestnut Hill Avenue.

The philosophy is straightforward, yet profound; challenging without being intimidating — welcoming, in fact. At least, that’s the way one understands it when talking to Bazzoli about what he hopes to bring to this spiritual community.

A road to recovery for families of murder victims
by AMY BRISSON
The pain experienced by families of homicide victims can be debilitating. Few know this better than Julie Good, executive director of the Germantown-based Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia.

In a sit-down interview last week, Good took out a blank sheet of paper and wrote the word “victim” across it. Then she crumpled the paper into a small ball.

“This is the [family’s] experience. It doesn’t destroy them, but it changes them forever,” she explained. She opened up the ball and flattened the now wrinkled paper on the table. “You can never make this piece of paper like it was before, but now it has the function of a piece of paper again.”