Brewerytown

PUTTING HIS money where his dream is, Marathon Restaurants CEO Cary Borish is investing $100,000 to turn a long-vacant, blighted Brewerytown lot into Marathon Farm, which will supply his six Philadelphia eateries with fresh vegetables and feed the residents of a neighborhood that has seen its share of hard times. Although the third-of-an-acre lot on the corner of 27th and Master streets is still bordered by the ancient redbrick walls of a city warehouse that collapsed 20 years ago, Borish watched happily Sunday as blight gave way to beautiful on its way to bountiful.

THE DISC jockey sat in his SUV Sunday afternoon and shook his head as cops removed yellow crime-scene tape that had cordoned off the block in Brewerytown where a half-deflated pink balloon, tied to a house railing, bounced pathetically on the sidewalk.   Just 12 hours earlier, about 2:30 a.m., the DJ had been winding down his gig, playing just the right party songs for a woman known only as Kia who was celebrating her 25th birthday inside her home on Thompson Street near Hollywood.

When Christian John Muller, the big beer distributor in Northeast Philadelphia, was a spry 10-year-old, he and a Brewerytown pal by the name of Charlie Kraft were headed for a baseball game in Fairmount Park when a light went on in "Chonny" Muller's head. "Charlie," Chonny Muller said to his pal, "Let's stop at my Pop's brewery before the game and have a beer and a pretzel. " Such behavior by a 10-year-old might seem shocking by today's standards, but such were the values of the people of Brewerytown, a near all-German settlement just north of Fairmount in North Philadelphia, in wartime 1918.

It was almost by accident, the way City Council President Darrell L. Clarke shared the news with his mentor, former Mayor John F. Street. But in a big city where battles over business can be complex and too numerous to count, even a rare victory like this one in Brewerytown can become an afterthought. The duo were on the phone Thursday morning when Street's onetime right-hand man said he had to dash for 31st Street and Girard Avenue. There, a construction crane would soon load a steel roof onto a new cinder-block building in a neighborhood that had once been the city's beer-brewing capital.

The rich aroma of malted grain once hung over Brewerytown like a genial fog. A century ago, 14 breweries operated in this wedge of North Philadelphia east of Fairmount Park. The breweries produced millions of cases of beer a year and employed thousands of people. Workers lived in nearby rowhouses. The breweries closed long ago, but the rowhouses remain. Today, only a few of their owners remember when Brewerytown was known as "the beer capital of America. " Several of the buildings in the once-sprawling brewery complexes sit empty.

James R. Bell, the bond trader and investment banker who founded Red Bell Brewing Co. amid the heady days of the microbrewery craze, has resigned as the Philadelphia company's chief executive officer. Replacing him is Martin F. Spellman, a contractor who had received 300,000 stock options in 1995 for work on the company's headquarters and brewery on Jefferson Street in the Brewerytown section of the city. He also will take Bell's positions as chairman and president. The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday that the state had ordered the closing of its brewery, effective Jan. 1, because Red Bell owed about $80,000 in back taxes.

Edward "One-Eye Eddie" Montgomery, who has vexed Philadelphia law enforcement in numerous gun cases, was sentenced Monday to 21 months in federal prison for violating his supervised release by allegedly shooting two people only three weeks after getting out of prison. Montgomery, 35, who got his street nickname because he is missing an eye, was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison in 2009 for dealing crack cocaine in Lewiston, Pa. Soon after his release last year, Montgomery allegedly fired shots at a group of men in Brewerytown, wounding two. Court records show that the prosecution withdrew the case in December after witnesses failed to appear in court.

William F. Goepfrich Sr., 86, of Somerton, a retired accountant who played college football and took part in the 1946 Orange Bowl in Miami, died Sunday, March 24, at home. The cause of death had not been determined. Mr. Goepfrich was a guard on the College of the Holy Cross football team. He played with the Crusaders in the 1946 bowl game against the University of Miami. His team lost to the Hurricanes, 13-6. Mr. Goepfrich later coached youth teams in Northeast Philadelphia. "He loved football," said his son, William F. Goepfrich Jr. "And he loved coaching it. . . . That was his passion.

Elizabeth Baltz Brooke, 77, a fashion model in the 1930s and great- grandaughter of the founder of a Philadelphia brewery, died last Sunday at Bryn Mawr Hospital. She was a Main Line resident for more than 50 years. Mrs. Brooke modeled designer clothes in New York City during the 1930s after graduating from the Agnes Irwin School in Rosemont. She was a descendant of Jacob Baltz, who established J & P Baltz Brewing Co. in 1850. The brewery remained a premier producer of lager beer in Brewerytown in Philadelphia until the time of Prohibition in the 1920s.

Gloria M. Harris, 68, of Philadelphia's Brewerytown section, a retired customer service representative for several area companies and department stores, died of cancer on Friday, March 29, at home. Ms. Harris was known among family and friends as a good cook who prepared favorite meals for holidays and special occasions. She was an outgoing woman who was "very welcoming to anyone she met. She was a very quiet and sweet person," said her sister Miriam Harris. Ms. Harris was raised in Brewerytown and lived there much of her life.

Edward "One-Eye Eddie" Montgomery, who has vexed Philadelphia law enforcement in numerous gun cases, was sentenced Monday to 21 months in federal prison for violating his supervised release by allegedly shooting two people only three weeks after getting out of prison. Montgomery, 35, who got his street nickname because he is missing an eye, was sentenced to 60 months in federal prison in 2009 for dealing crack cocaine in Lewiston, Pa. Soon after his release last year, Montgomery allegedly fired shots at a group of men in Brewerytown, wounding two. Court records show that the prosecution withdrew the case in December after witnesses failed to appear in court.

Gloria M. Harris, 68, of Philadelphia's Brewerytown section, a retired customer service representative for several area companies and department stores, died of cancer on Friday, March 29, at home. Ms. Harris was known among family and friends as a good cook who prepared favorite meals for holidays and special occasions. She was an outgoing woman who was "very welcoming to anyone she met. She was a very quiet and sweet person," said her sister Miriam Harris. Ms. Harris was raised in Brewerytown and lived there much of her life.

William F. Goepfrich Sr., 86, of Somerton, a retired accountant who played college football and took part in the 1946 Orange Bowl in Miami, died Sunday, March 24, at home. The cause of death had not been determined. Mr. Goepfrich was a guard on the College of the Holy Cross football team. He played with the Crusaders in the 1946 bowl game against the University of Miami. His team lost to the Hurricanes, 13-6. Mr. Goepfrich later coached youth teams in Northeast Philadelphia. "He loved football," said his son, William F. Goepfrich Jr. "And he loved coaching it. . . . That was his passion.

Bottom Dollar Food opened a new supermarket Thursday in Philadelphia's Brewerytown neighborhood, filling a void that had rendered the community a food desert for some 15 years. The store, built partly with municipal subsidies, opened at 8 a.m. at 31st Street and Girard Avenue, after a ceremony that featured the chain's president, Meg Ham, and local elected officials. The 18,000-square-foot store is the latest to debut across Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Bottom Dollar's inaugural markets.

Three men were killed Monday in unrelated shootings within blocks of each other in North Philadelphia and the city's Brewerytown section, police said. At 3:54 p.m., police found a 19-year-old man with two gunshots wounds in his chest inside a car in the 1700 block of North Hollywood Street, police said. The victim was transported to Temple University Hospital where he was pronounced dead at 4:23 p.m. No arrests were reported in that case. Shortly after 5 p.m., a 51-year-old man was shot in the mouth in the area of Ingersoll and 25th Streets, police said.

It was almost by accident, the way City Council President Darrell L. Clarke shared the news with his mentor, former Mayor John F. Street. But in a big city where battles over business can be complex and too numerous to count, even a rare victory like this one in Brewerytown can become an afterthought. The duo were on the phone Thursday morning when Street's onetime right-hand man said he had to dash for 31st Street and Girard Avenue. There, a construction crane would soon load a steel roof onto a new cinder-block building in a neighborhood that had once been the city's beer-brewing capital.

THE DISC jockey sat in his SUV Sunday afternoon and shook his head as cops removed yellow crime-scene tape that had cordoned off the block in Brewerytown where a half-deflated pink balloon, tied to a house railing, bounced pathetically on the sidewalk.   Just 12 hours earlier, about 2:30 a.m., the DJ had been winding down his gig, playing just the right party songs for a woman known only as Kia who was celebrating her 25th birthday inside her home on Thompson Street near Hollywood.

A Brewerytown man with a history of mental illness and assault pleaded guilty Thursday to an attack in which a 65-year-old Camden man was stabbed and seriously wounded in a restroom robbery in a Center City commercial building. William Berrioz, 23, pleaded guilty in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court to attempted murder, robbery, and a weapon charge in the Jan. 6 attack on Ben Davis in a restroom on the concourse level of the Mellon Independence Center on Market Street between Seventh and Eighth Streets.

PUTTING HIS money where his dream is, Marathon Restaurants CEO Cary Borish is investing $100,000 to turn a long-vacant, blighted Brewerytown lot into Marathon Farm, which will supply his six Philadelphia eateries with fresh vegetables and feed the residents of a neighborhood that has seen its share of hard times. Although the third-of-an-acre lot on the corner of 27th and Master streets is still bordered by the ancient redbrick walls of a city warehouse that collapsed 20 years ago, Borish watched happily Sunday as blight gave way to beautiful on its way to bountiful.