Elizabeth Moselle

by Sue Ann Rybak

Elizabeth Moselle, director of Commercial Corridor Revitalization and Business Development for Mt. Airy USA and director of the Business Association of Mt. Airy, will resign at the end of July to accept a position with the Fairmount Park Conservancy, a nonprofit, collaborative partner of Philadelphia’s Parks and Recreation Department. She also plans to do some consulting work with U3 Ventures.

Anuj Gupta, executive director of Mt. Airy USA, applauded Moselle's contributions to Mt. Airy USA, which included working for nearly a decade to transform the face of Germantown Avenue in Mt. Airy.

“Anytime, you work in the public sector ultimately you are looking to achieve some positive change and not everyone gets to accomplish that for a variety of reasons,” Gupta said. “Elizabeth leaves this position having accomplished real change.”

He added that her efforts to revitalize the Avenue will continue “to benefit the future of this community for a longtime to come.”

“I think that is the strongest testament to anybody's work in the public sector,” Gupta said.

He pointed out that while there is still more work to be done, the Avenue has changed from a place that 20 years ago people used to avoid to a place people want to be.

For the past eight years, Moselle, a Mt. Airy native, has spearheaded beautification projects along the Avenue, including Mt. Airy USA's “Rock the Blocks” initiative, a comprehensive capital improvement program that has produced dramatic, visual changes to the physical landscape of Mt. Airy’s Germantown Avenue shopping district.

Prior to joining Mt. Airy USA in 2006, she managed residential initiatives at the Allegheny West Foundation in North Philadelphia.

Moselle, who was initially hired as a program associate, said she is grateful for her experience at Mt. Airy USA and everything she has learned there.

“There aren't a lot of places where I would have had the opportunity to do as much as I did here,” she said. “Mt. Airy USA encourages young people to lead by giving them the chance to do things they haven't done before. It was a really valuable experience.”

Besides helping to revitalize the Avenue, Moselle oversaw the GoMt.Airy marketing initiative and helped to develop the Business Association of Mt. Airy.

“I am really proud that we were able to do a successful Night Market and then to be able to do it on our own and create our own brand,” she said. “To be able to have a large profile event that gets over 12,000 people and generates media buzz, I think, we are really getting Mt. Airy on the map. I think things are only going to go up from here.”

Moselle added that Mt. Airy is a great community and said it was amazing to see the Avenue transform because it wasn't that way when she was a kid.

“Overall, it's just great to be able to see a tangible difference in the neighborhood,” she said. “And it was really nice to do it in a neighborhood I grew up in.”