When television host Gordon Ramsay of “Kitchen Nightmares” focused his culinary microscope on a family-owned BYOB in Fishtown, his major changes were to the items on the menu.  He used the name of the restaurant, the Hot Potato Café,  to create new-spud-accommodating choices that just made sense.
In May, the restaurant, located on Girard Avenue, received a …

Three musicians are standing outside of a recording studio, talking among one other. Guitars and musical equipment are piled nearby. The conversation resembles a chemistry worthy of band members or life-long friends.

But one of them is a teacher, and the other two are students.

As the rehearsal room opens, it’s clear that this is no ordinary classroom. And this is no ordinary music class. There’s an overstuffed couch …

Tears fell amidst empty desks and rules of grammar chalk-written on the blackboard.   Candace Morris held back more as she spoke of the Salesian tradition of Northeast Catholic High School for Boys.

“We try to teach our students that you’re not expected to be everything; you’re only expected to be who you are and whoever Christ means for you to be,” said Morris, an English teacher at North …

Fishtown’s old souls brew Folgers and dip their sugary doughnuts in a coffee cup full of whole milk and granulated white sugar.

Other Fishtowners take a more dietary-conscious approach.  They see this morning ritual as a lifestyle choice and expect more from their daily wakeup routines.  Their doughnuts are made with flaxseed and soy rather than eggs and milk.

It is hard to keep every resident happy, especially as restaurants and cafes become more aware of special nutritional needs and lifestyle choices.  With an understanding for the demands of the market and the desire for coffee and food, Fishtown …

A black SUV drives down a lit Girard Avenue, music blaring and tires screeching.  Two girls lean out of the window and scream in unison, “It’s thirsty Thursday!”

Conveying the mood of the evening, the young patrons of a local bar watch the vehicle drive by and smile, as if in agreement.  Sightings like this are typical while standing in front of the popular music venue and bar, Johnny Brenda’s.  But it is already ten o’clock on a Thursday night in Fishtown and the drinks just keep on coming.

So then the question is, how are you getting home?

“I’ll …

Running down Frankford Avenue to catch an arriving train, we can hear the reverberations grow louder, amplified through the steel supports that line the street. We hustle up the steps, taking two or three at a time, move through the turnstile with an urban-honed precision and dash toward the end of the platform in a footrace with a braking subway car. We slide deftly between the closing doors and fall into the front seats that face the large window framing the tracks ahead.

“You have to sit up front,” explains Ame, a semi-retired …

Improved recycling, hybrid cars and other ways of going green have become increasingly popular in recent years. “It’s a pattern, not a trend,” says Jim Maransky, owner and developer of The IceHouse Condominiums, located in the heart of Fishtown.  Maransky says: “No one is buying cars that get eight miles to the gallon anymore.  Why would someone buy a house that is essentially the same?”  The condos, located across the street from Hetzell’s Field, are  under construction and …

The frantic lights of the slots machine reflecting off the mirrored walls, the metronome-like rhythm of the roulette wheel carrying both a small steel ball and the hopes of many, the roar from a craps table after the roll of a seven and the curious absence of windows and clocks are all hallmarks of the traditional casino experience.  And while it may sound like a scene set somewhere in Las Vegas or Atlantic City, Philadelphia is slated to get the casino treatment soon.

Straddling the Delaware River in the southeast corner of Fishtown, the SugarHouse Casino is expected …

Bill Kearney is a self-described “former compulsive casino gambling degenerate.” And even though he stops short of the word addict, many who are seduced by lure of fast money and big winnings find themselves in the clutches of an often misunderstood and underreported form of addiction.

Take Kearney’s story. An entrepreneur in his twenties, he lost his self-made fortune at the hands of casino dealers.

“I started going to Atlantic City in 1984,” recalls Kearney, on the beginning of a downward spiral that would forever change his life. “Within six months, I had …

Imagine, for a moment, you are back in elementary school. You are the kid who is always being bullied around and picked on. Perhaps you were. You know what it feels like, and it isn’t a good feeling.
The people of the Fishtown community in Philadelphia could make a case for being bullied. The only problem with this particular case of bullying is that no …