Got the winter blues? Frankford Avenue has just the thing to cheer you up. Bundle up, grab a friend and head out to the arts corridor to see old pals and maybe make a few new ones. The new vintage boutique, two percent to glory, makes her First Friday debut. Throw in a pony, some vegan pastries, talented artists and the usual food and drink, and you have yourself a night to remember.
This month’s listings after the jump…
Well, 2009 was good to the arts corridor! Frankford Avenue witnessed the debut of 7 new businesses. Pirhana Betty’s Art Market, Extra Extra, Part Time Studio, Philadelphia Argentine Tango School, Bella Sera Cafe, F & N Gallery and Angel Studios. And the good news doesn’t stop there. Girard Avenue welcomed quite a few places as well. Enter the new Slingluff Gallery, Fishtown Airways, the Milk Crate Cafe and the Music Fountain, just to name a few. The Caterpillar, a seasonal outdoor performance venue, burst onto the Frankford Avenue scene offering residents and visitors an opportunity to enjoy a pleasant evening and talented artists. Every day it seems like something new and inviting is happening on these corridors. First Fridays are bigger and better than ever thanks to the enthusiastic and growing particpation of merchants and artists each month.
The excitement continues into 2010. This will be a big year for Frankford Avenue. The corridor will see the opening of another sit down restaurant and a vintage boutique, two percent to golory. Fifteen commercial buildings on the corridor and along Norris Street will light up their facades to improve the sense of safety in the evening hours in the next few weeks. And let’s not forget that it’s finally here! The long awaited construction project that will transform the face of Frankford Avenue from York Street down to Palmer Park. Look out for new sidewalks, signage, street trees, 4 additional art racks, trashcans and two spectacular bus shelters. Keep your eyes peeled for a constructions schedule and an anticipated start date in the coming weeks.
While we missed the First Friday this month (we were still enjoying eggnog), some folks carried on with the usual festivities. Pirhana Betty’s Art Market featured sculpture, jewelry and paintings by Laurel Patterson on January 1st. Proximity Gallery hosted an opening reception for the 2nd Annual Neighborhood Group Show on January 3rd. And there is still plenty to do the coming weeks of this chilly month. Highwire Gallery is hosting its opening reception Friday, January 8th from 5- 9 pm. Heat things up next door at the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School when you take the first class of a four week beginning tango dance session at 7 pm. Meander across the street and check out the Part Time Studios crew and the ’Polarbear Polaroid’ event. Hungry for more on Saturday? Mindy Kober’s solo show kicks off at an opening reception January 9th from 6-9 pm at Slingluff.
Andres Amarilla and Meredith Klein are emissaries for what was once a dying art. As an 11 year old boy growing up in the post-dictatorship years of Argentina, Andres was likely the one of the only children in the country learning the Tango. Cultural repression during the junta years had crippled a once-growing traditional dance form, which still resonates in the ears of foreigners as hallmark of Argentinean society. Slowly the dance was winding back into popular psyche, but a young generation had lost the art form. Andres took his rare training as youth and parlayed it into a career dedicated to teaching others a piece of his culture that had almost been erased.
Andres met Meredith Klein, a fellow dancer with ties to the Philadelphia region. After traveling and teaching Tango workshops on the road for several years, and getting married, the couple decided to take up a friends offer to use his South Street loft as a base for a part-time dance academy. Weary of a life of constant travel, they settled into Philadelphia two years ago and began plying their trade in the City of Brotherly Love.
You did it again. You made our holiday First Friday screaming success. Each and every person who showed up, sipped some coffee, dropped some dimes on local crafts, or helped get the word out about our festivities.
So, we would like to extend to you an enormous thank you from everyone at NKCDC and all of the Frankford Avenue artists and merchants, without whom there would have been no Holiday Walk. The event was more successful than we could have ever anticipated. Anecdotally, our cafes reported brisk business, the craft fairs were packed, and our newest additions to the avenue were embraced by new comers and First Friday veterans alike. I hope you all had a good time, too. Hope you’ll stick around for the next year’s.
And I’ll leave you with some pics from the spiritual epicenter of the Art Walk, F&N Gallery’s Art Shop, which was bumping all Friday night.
After the jump…
This December 4th, from 5-9pm, the Fishtown Area Business Association, in association with area merchants and the NKCDC, is organizing Fishtown and Kensington’s biggest, most festive First Friday ever! Spanning Frankford and Girard Avenue with nearly 30 different merchants, galleries and artist’s studios participating, the neighborhood is getting ready to ring in the holiday season with an evening of arts and crafts, good food and drink, live music, and shopping discounts from your favorite merchants!
This event will also feature five new(ish) businesses on Frankford Avenue: the art gallery Extra Extra, café Bella Sera, vintage boutique two percent to glory, dance academy the Philadelphia Argentine Tango School, and artist collectivesPart-Time Collective and Piranha Betty’s Art Market. Be sure to check out these exciting new additions to the Avenue!
In these tough economic times, it is more important than ever to shop locally and support the small businesses that are the life blood of our cities and main streets. Help keep money in the community by coming out and doing your holiday shopping in the neighborhood.
There is plenty to do. See Philly’s hottest emerging artists, learn to tango, check out live music, get your headshot taken and start that acting career, or just play board games and drink wine! With Christmas trees, cocoa and all the yule tidings you can handle, we sure hope to see you there!
Check out the participants and specials after the jump!
The two-story brick building’s low slung exterior and modest facade do not belie the expansive space within. Without the handmade sign strewn with christmas lights and some choice descriptive terms in capital letters (”ART”), there’d scarcely be an indication at all of the teeming interior of Piranha Betty’s Art Shop that awaits the visitor. This new artist collective has packed every inch of their Frankford Avenue store front with their wondrous creations.
Their informal signage is excusable, PBAS just opened within the last week, but their content is above par. Stylized crucifixes, crafted trinkets and other fabrications of the mind meld with a barrage of live music, tarot readings and video bowling (harder than it looks). The result is eclectic, but on their First Friday premiere last week, it was had the energy and spirit of a party.
Their primary mission is to provide an affordable public venue for local artist to ply their wares. Beyond that, they also offer the community a chance to buy high quality creative works, most for under $60.
Of course, there is only so many receptions and First Fridays to fill such an expansive space, so PBAS is working on scheduling events to fill out their calendar, including “live music, life drawing classes, film nights, and children’s art workshops.”
For information about joining the artist’s collective, click here. Otherwise stop by 2472 Frankford Avenue today and support neighborhood art! Piranha Betty’s can be found online at http://www.piranhabettys.com/.
It’s a busy month on Frankford Avenue. Hot on the tail of Bella Sera’s grand opening comes Extra Extra, self described as an “artist-run space dedicated to the exposure of under-represented artists challenging the limits of the visual and performing arts”, is warming up for its first event this weekend.
Tucked away just yards from Frankford Avenue, the gallery at 2222 Sepviva Street will follow up First Friday this month with its November 6th performance by musicians Young Ice and Hopalong. Additionally, an interactive artistic activity sponsored by the ”Spatial Awareness Club” will occupy the main gallery area, as visitors get a chance to leave their mark on a 1996 Geo Track parcel map depicting the Kensington area. These drab blueprints of underground utilities must be colorized, and only the good people of Fishtown can make that happen! Stop by and color by numbers while listening to some aspiring local performers.
Extra Extra will return next month for a First Friday reception, and the opening of a second floor featuring “artist’s books, zines, prints, photographs, drawings and other print ephemera” by the collective of artists and friends who curate Extra Extra.
Halloween has come and gone and the icy grip of winter will soon be upon us, but for this last chapter of fall be sure to come out and enjoy the crisp air outside on First Friday. This November has puppet shows, scandalous photography and a hand stitched heaven; what could be greater? Come on by for your fix of art/food/fun/drink.
And a sneak peek for next month: we’re gearing up for a Frankford Avenue Holiday Event next First Friday, with your favorite stores and galleries getting decked out all festive like. So make sure a shopping spree on the avenue is on your list for next month. Rumor has it there will be some new faces on Frankford just in time for Christmas…
This month’s event listings after the jump…
Neighbors viewing renderings of the streetwork
Last night, neighbors from the 1700 to the 2300 blocks of Frankford Avenue gathered at Circle of Hope for an important community meeting. They were briefed on the details of a million dollar PennDOT project, years in the making, that was about to break ground. The location: their own doorsteps.
After years of community planning phases and approval letters being sent between NKCDC, PennDOT and the City of Philadelphia, street improvement work on Frankford Avenue was finally put out to bid several months ago. A contractor, L.C. Costa Construction Inc, of Warminster, PA was the low bidder with a 1.15 million dollar price tag for the half-mile zone’s street work. Pending a final commencement order from PennDOT, contractors could begin work as early as the first half of November, and no later than early December.
Details after the jump…
When Renee Fuchs came to Philadelphia from her native Hatboro, she thought she was coming to follow a lucrative career in Human Resources for a local non-profit. Now, years later, as she stands on the verge of opening her very own vegan bakery and cafe, it looks like she made a wrong turn somewhere. But that ‘wrong turn’ has taken her straight to Fishtown, and into a community hungry for even more healthy food and tasty coffee.
All during her tenure at the non-profit, Renee had had side projects as an outlet for her creative energy, even selling homemade doggy treats out of her home. She started making vegan food when her brother was diagnosed with Celiac disease, also known as gluten intolerance, making it impossible for him to digest most traditional baked goods.
Her discovery of a store for rent in Fishtown was what made her decide to make her interest in vegan baked goods into a job. Renee says she was looking for a place “with open-minded people”, and settled on Fishtown over Center City. She says its up-and-coming feel and artistic presence made it seem like a neighborhood that would be more accepting to the concept of a vegan cafe.
Although Renee won’t be baking the food at Bella Sera, it will be provided by a well-regarded regional bakery, Vegan Treats, out of Bethlehem. Renee doesn’t want to push away non-vegan customers, and believes that Vegan Treats makes pastries so good, they’re virtually indistinguishable from non-vegan baked goods.
Renee wants her cafe to be focused on providing healthy, delicious food without harming the environment or exploiting workers in other countries. In that spirit, all the plates at the cafe will be biodegradable, and all the coffee will be Fair Trade. So come out and support the latest addition to the Ave. Renee held her grand opening last Sunday to huge crowd, and is looking forward to more successes to come in the future. Visit their website at www.bellaseracafe.com for more information.
Located at: 2146 E. Susquehanna Ave
