Pride was palpable on the block Sunday.
"It's fantastic," said Harvey, as she showed off the giant ceremonial check. "My feet haven't touched the ground yet."
Up the block a ways, Yvonne Minter-Smith, 46, and her husband, Butler, 50, were doing something typical - sweeping and raking. Butler was also raking leaves from his neighbor's plot of grass.
"The beauty of this block is that we all look out for each other," said Butler, a SEPTA Paratransit driver. "The men get together and talk about what we can do for the community."
Their son, Justin, 21, a scholarship student at Shippensburg University, was so proud of the block's triumph that he posted the news on his Facebook page.
"This is the most respectful and friendly block you'd want to live on," said his mother, Yvonne.
"Everything has to go back to her," said Butler, referring to block captain Harvey. "I give her 110 percent credit. She walks door to door, meeting and talking to people, handing out fliers. She stays on top of things."
Butler called Harvey "the driving force," "the backbone," "the mother of the block."
Harvey, 54, a retired paralegal and the widowed mother of a grown son, smiled at the description.
"I call it the Franklin Street Family," said Harvey, who says she went down a pants size from all her house-to-house outreach and organizing.
The 60 or so dwellings on the block were built in the late 1930s and after World War II. On one side of the street they are faced in red brick; on the other, in gray stone, at a time when suitable attention was paid to quality and aesthetic appeal. The street has virtually no trees, an absence that allows abundant sunlight for the many gardens, flowers, and shrubs.
