The Wish List Thread - What do YOU want for our 'hood?

There are quite a few spots where you can fish. Penn Treaty Park, Pulaski Park, Washington Avenue Green, and the area along Delaware Ave. between the Race Street Pier and Pier 9. There are also some spots north of Allegheny. The DRWC has also promised to incorporate fishing areas into future projects.

More info here:

http://www.delawareriver.net/fishing.php
http://planphilly.com/updated-fishing-no-longer-allowed-race-street-pier

For Han dynasty to expand into fishtown because I am so lazy and don't go to old city enough.

Also, a Korean restaurant.

Would prefer if they both had delivery

Thai food!

- Red sauce restaurant.
- A year round ice rink.
- An actual arcade with skee-ball.

I would like Fishtown to attract people who actually want to stay here and raise a family. I don't want Fishtown to be a place where suburban twenty somethings come because its a party neighborhood and they feel hip to be in a urban neighborhood and look at natives like they're the odd ones for being here, push a ton of change, then move back out of the neighborhood when they have kids.

a decent chinese restaurant. a decent chinese restaurant with late night hours (open til 2, maybe 3 or 4 on weekend nights)
same with a decent italian restaurant, except it doesn't so have to be so late night

Your wish is granted. I have it on good authority that the construction going on next to the NKCDC on Frankford Ave. is going to be a Red sauce restaurant.

I really hope so. between this and the Pizza Museum I am very happy with the changes within this neighborhood

Yay.

You know, I've heard this stereotype, but haven't found it to be all that true.
I know a lot of folks who moved here when gentrification started and have had kids and stayed.
(Although I'm not denying that some have moved when they've had kids. But I knew Fishtown-born-and-raised families who did the same thing, even before gentrification.)

I want lifers to stop acting like a persecuted minority. they are worse than christians in this country.

Anybody else you want to stereotype and insult while you're at it?

No, if I had wanted to, I would have.

Just thought I'd offer. It is the "wish list' thread after all.

An all vegetarian restaurant that's a BYOB.
A veterinarian.
A sit down coffee shop within a 5 minute walk of my house.
A Wegman's.

I'd like to see the caganer in local nativity scenes.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/12/18/travel/18CATALANXMAS-20.html

And a bookstore.

My wish is for this inane stereotype to be put to rest forever. The definition of family is no longer "cram as many kids as possible into your tiny house." A couple with two dogs and no kids is still a family. Having children does not give you more of a right to live in a tight knit neighborhood than anyone else. And did it ever occur to folks that some of us moved here in our 20s with every intention of staying, maybe getting married and having kids, maybe not...but definitely planning to make a life here? But sometimes plans change, priorities shift, things that didn't seem like a big deal before kids suddenly become deal-breakers. We live in a modern society. Not everyone lives on the same block where they were born. The assumption that anyone who lives here, but doesn't have kids, is somehow uninvested in the neighborhood is ridiculous.

Yeah, then when we go to Bryn Mawr, we'll know how to pronounce it. If we stop by Gwynedd Mercy for a class, we won't be too late to go to Berwyn for some dinner. I gotta get back to Uwchland before the sun sets on Pencoyd, cause I'm going shopping in Penllyn the next day.

I too would like for SOME locals to get that persecution complex and chip off their shoulder.

You can have pride in the glory that is Fishtown/Kensington/Pt Richmond without being a whiny little insecure person.

Probably the best example of how to be a good hard-core local I can think of would be the people writing "Your Philly Neighbor."

They are proud, but they don't sugar coat anything and they don't act so freaking lame.

FYI, "y" is considered a vowel as well as a consonant.

In Welsh it is pronounced [ə] in monosyllabic words or non-final syllables, and /ɨ/ or [i] (depending on the accent) in final syllables.

h/t wikipedia

I have a weinerdog in my nativity scene, as well as a donkey wearing a red beret. Nunzio took my pink plastic dinosaur out and I think he threw it away. Gimme a break. Like baby Jesus doesn't have a sense of humor. Bah!

...oh, and my wish for the neighborhood would be that people pick up their trash and not treat the streets and gutters as their personal trashcans.

I bet most people here didn't even know those names were Romanian.

I really just wish happiness and health for everyone. Seriously.

And world peace.

and a pony.

Hey now, easy on my Welshfolk! BTW I took this photo during my trip to Wales in '09 -- longest town name in Britain.

For folks to stay away from getting all summer’s eve regarding semantics.

someone to move the car with no wheels off of sepviva.

I wish Girard Ave didn't feel so much like a highway.

I don't know what the proper set of improvements would be that would magically transform Girard, but I know that it's too wide for it's own good.

Eliminate the outer lane of traffic in each direction and turn the parallel parking into perpendicular or angled in like on 2nd street in nolibs with big green bike lanes. widen the sidewalks if there is any space leftover to accommodate more al fresco dining once that ordinance is passed.

I mean, it would have taken a lot more money and even more political will but its still a relatively easy solution to envision.

But then where would people double park to go to Bank of America, especially when there are plenty of actual open parking spaces?

if you ask most of the drivers in this city: thats what bike lanes are for.

I often double-park when I go to Sketch; it's just too difficult to pull out of a legitimate space after a burger/fries/shake. Don't judge me.

I say widen the sidewalks a few feet, have normal parallel parking in what's now the outside lane, and leave room for a bike lane.

But, as the outside lane approaches the trolley stop at teh end of certain blocks, the sidewalk widens to cover the outside traffic lane entirely and merges with what's now the trolley island.

I wish I could draw a picture. It makes a lot of sense in my head.
It would make crossing easier

Where does the lane of traffic go in that situation? does it get forced into the trolley lane?

that would certainly slow down traffic (which is fine by me) but it would be terrible for cyclists to be forced to deal with the tracks, especially on wet days.

Ok, after 10 minutes with Google Earth (very scientific, yes) I think the right-of-way is about 120 feet, building front to building front. That's 88 feet of roadway, with 16-foot sidewalks on either side. The roadway consists, generally, of two 8-ft parking lanes, four 11-foot travel lanes, and two 14-ft trolley lanes. Someone check my math.

For one thing, I'd rather see a median down the whole avenue. Allows for nicer center trolley platforms (even elevated high platforms in a dream world where SEPTA buys new vehicles) and a safe place for pedestrians in the middle of the street, if they don't make the crossing all at once. Plus, it visually shrinks the road, which makes you drive slower.

You could try an 18-foot center median, with four 12-foot travel lanes (two of which have trolley tracks). Add back the 8-foot parking lanes, and you get an extra 3 feet for each sidewalk.

Cons:
Double parking is even more of a pain now, because you can't swerve around people into the median. Will require enforcement (hah!)
Eliminates all of my favorite illegal left turns (like Girard onto Shackamaxon towards the river)
Extra landscaped space for the City to poorly maintain

EDIT: Oh yeah, people will want bike lanes, right?

I envision a deal similar to what the City pitched for Market Street - separate bike lanes somehow worked in there.

full time seven day a week funding for staff and a new building at Pops BlackCoyle Mcbride Playground.

Effective and easily available treatment for those who want to get out of addiction.
Strong law enforcement applied to those who don't.

Problem is that "is not like me" is not a particularly good basis for an insult, hence the overuse of the only 'slur' that can be grasped onto.

I think Gawker came up with "fauxhemian" as the alternative to hipster.

I like it.

I'd also like for folks to stop dropping their clothes on my street (for reals - I could clothe a family), and for people to stop dumping dirty diapers in the sewer culvert-thingies.

i seem to recall walking pepper past your house a week or so ago and seeing bags full of baby clothes. or maybe that was on tulip? i don't remember.

Most likely. My catty-corner neighbors like to spontaneously purge their house of items - and they have a lovely second floor broken window with trashbags taped over them at the moment.

Socks, underwears, pants, sweatshirts, tee-shirts - all have been found on my block.

What size? You can give me a ballpark.

That's the funny thing - no consistent sizes.

I don't know about the hood, but I'm wishing I'd hit that Mega Million thing tonight.
Drinks would be on me at quizzo...for sure.

1. Thai restaurant
2. Chinese restaurant
3. garbage cans at all/most bus stops
4. cops walking the beat
5. a good butcher
6. Wegmans
7. a liquor store that sells 6 packs

In addition to a butcher, a small Italian grocer would be excellent as well. Some place where you can pick up fresh gnocchi and what not.

I would like more drug dealers keeping the streets safe.

A new motorcycle club of 1%ers to keep the riff-raff out.

Hear hear. And stop throwing garbage into the sewer.

I was talking with a neighbor yesterday when a man crossed the street and unselfconsciously dropped his candy wrapper on the ground in front of us. We glared. He asked what the problem was and when my neighbor said, "You just littered," he mumbled, "Oh, I thought it went down the drain..."

what really amazes me is when people will throw trash on the ground less than 10 feet away from a trash can. and they're usually walking towards the trash can.

I've seen people litter while standing in a circle around a trash can. Ugh.

Speaking of litter, anyone know who is responsible for the new trash cans on Girard? They're nice, they just fill up fast.

an all-vegetarian restaurant would be cool, but I hardly have time finding vegetarian selections at most of the places around here. were you being sarcastic about the coffeeshop though? there is hardly a shortage of coffeeshops in this neighborhood! sheesh when I told people that I moved back here their first response was "oh, gee, I'm soooo sorry" and I'd perk up and say "but it does have the best bars and coffeeshops in the city!"

please tell me that you're kidding!??!

I know a lot of people who makes jokes about this sort of thing when talking about the litter problem in the neighborhood. please don't tell me that there are actually people THAT stupid!!!!!

You should have just head butted them after they said "Soooo sorry".

Not kidding at all. And it's not unusual to see well-meaning neighbors sweep the entire street...into the drains. I saw one clogged yesterday with dog baggies. SO ' lazy to pick up after one's dog only to toss it anywhere.

honestly, I dont think its lazy. If you were being lazy, why pick it up at all? its.... something else? spite? malice? I dont know, but I don't see it as being lazy.

The sewers being used as trash cans is simply an old habit that takes a long time to change. Many folks genuinely don't know there's a problem with it. Others may know it's a problem, but have a hard time or are unwilling to change their habit.

I agree that picking up is some sort of effort but what's the point of then leaving a full bag of crap on the sidewalk? Exposed piles are bad enough but unlike baggies, they eventually get washed away.

Yes! I'm going to steal your wish! I'll go ahead and let my fiancé steal it from me. Things sometimes work better in numbers!! I'd much rather people pick the first, but I understand that's true wishful thinking.

Just to clarify, I was stealing the wish for addicts that want help to have the access and the ones who aren't ready yet to be punished if they bother others quality of life. Not sure why it didn't pop up under Dans comment. Still new to this.

No, I wasn't being sarcastic. In CC, most residences live much closer to a coffee shop than I do. It takes me 20 min to walk to the closest sit down coffee shop. Coffeehouse Too is close, but they are take out only.

i know it's on the other side of york, but leotah's has an incredibly cozy little sit-down area and amazing coffee and tea. are you close to there?

Total pie in the sky wish - The old electric plant next to Penn Treaty would make a really cool contemporary art museum. I'm thinking something like the Tate in London.

One Catholic school that went from grade 1-12.
One decent public school that did the same.

I think that that's actually in the eventual Riverfront plan, IIRC.

I'm not sure if it's that building or an adjacent building with eight round towers on top, but I look at them and want to paint them solid colors. One row would be the CMYK cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, and the other red, yellow, blue, and white.

THAT would be amazing!

I think it would be so totally cool if the cats of fishtown became something of a community pride thing. It's fishtown, and as I've learned since moving here, fishtown takes care of it's own. The cat's are fishtowner's too, right?

Trashcans on every block, which, if they existed, were not overfilled eyesores, so people could (and would) pick up the trash flying down the street.

How do we know...if they haven't been here for at least six generations, we can't be sure about them.
Who knows, they may have come from (god forbid) Pittsburgh.

I wish everyone would paint their cornices.

what if it's painted, but not the same color as the house? we couldn't reach ours...

and it's not a cornice, it's siding over a cornice.

I would disturb my family of squirrels.