Northern Liberties

On paper, the proposed Soko Lofts project promises to do for its South Kensington neighborhood what the Piazza at Schmidts did for Northern Liberties. Like its paradigm-shifting predecessor two blocks south, Soko Lofts would rim its large block with a dense array of mid-rise apartment buildings, smartly broken up into manageable segments. The spaces between the buildings would become passageways, beckoning the public into a landscaped interior courtyard. It is a pretty good plan, but it is no Piazza.

On the 1200 block of North Orianna Street, a narrow, almost alleylike road that juts off from Girard Avenue on the edge of Northern Liberties, the walls facing a grassy plot of land have been brightly painted with colorful flowers, butterflies, and stars. The grass is mostly clear of litter, the plantings around the trees are well-maintained, and the air smells sweet and floral. The spot is oddly quiet. Girard Avenue is just a few steps away, but the sound of traffic is faint, even in daylight.

DEVELOPER Bart Blatstein is the driving force behind much of Northern Liberties' latest population growth. His Piazza at Schmidts apartments, which surround the open-air Roman-style plaza on the former Schmidt's Brewery site, near 2nd Street and Germantown Avenue, opened in May 2009 and have added about 800 residents to the neighborhood. His Liberties Walk apartments, near 2nd Street west of the piazza, which opened in stages over the past five years, plus apartments in his other buildings, have added an additional 400 people in the past seven or eight years, Blatstein said.

A woman was reported injured late Tuesday night as fire struck a Northern Liberties building. The fire was reported at 860 N. Fifth St., at Poplar Street, about 11:30, and a second alarm was declared 20 minutes later. Medics reported that a 40-year-old woman was taken to Temple University Hospital with burns to her head, neck, and hands. - Inquirer staff

There should be applause. Projects Gallery's "Northern Liberties: A Transformation" features artists who, taking their cue from sculptor William Rush in the Federal era, live and/or work in a neighborhood that's been distinct in identity since William Penn's time and are part of its revival in recent decades. Spontaneity stamps this show. The hearty, rugged dignity of the locality belongs especially to artists who don't confine their interest to their studio interiors - painters like Jennifer Baker, who since 1978 has visually chronicled the cycle of decay, destruction, and revival of Northern Liberties' industrial traditions and vibrant creative life.

On any given night, Second Street in Northern Liberties is a bustling, lively scene. The young and tattooed dine alfresco at Cantina Dos Segundos. Beer nerds pop into the Foodery for a six-pack of hard-to-find-elsewhere brews. Couples stroll leisurely along Liberties Walk or in Liberty Lands Park. Masochists take in a Phillies game on the big screen at the Piazza at Schmidts. That wasn't always the case. William Reed, owner of Standard Tap, recalls a time before the neighborhood's still relatively recent renewal took hold.

A man with a sawed-off shotgun robbed a pedestrian of an iPhone and $900 cash on Fairmount Avenue near Fourth Street in Northern Liberties just before 10 p.m. Wednesday, police said. The gunman was described as black, 6 feet, 3 inches tall, weighing about 250 pounds, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, white sneakers, and shorts. He was last seen running south, police said. - Staff report

Sculptor Joseph Greenberg has seen it happen before to places that he and fellow artists "discovered. " It happened to New Hope, a bustling shopping center now but a bona-fide art colony when Greenberg lived there as a young man. Now, the same sort of thing is happening to Northern Liberties, a North Philadelphia neighborhood that was largely barren and desolate when artists began settling there in the 1970s. Today, thanks in part to path-clearing artists, the neighborhood hums and buzzes with workers who are renovating, constructing and prettifying what some real estate interests describe as the hottest neighborhood in town.

Police said Monday that robbery appeared to have been the motive in a double shooting in the city's Northern Liberties section that left a woman, 65, dead and a second person in critical condition. The victims' names were not released pending family notification, but Officer Tanya Little said the 65-year-old woman was "the mother of the 41-year-old transsexual surviving victim. " The shooter was still at large. On Sunday night in the 700 block of North Third Street, the older woman was shot in the head and the second victim, whom police initially described as a man, was shot in the face.

The fire alarms in the three-story Northern Liberties apartment building go off all the time. But Kimberly Hollingsworth, 34, has two school-age children, and when she was awakened shortly after 3 a.m. Saturday, she decided to check the hallway anyway. "It was just dark, black space" filled with smoke, she said. "This is it. I thought me and my kids were going to die, pretty much. " Hollingsworth and her fiancé grabbed her two children and rushed out of their third-floor unit to the fire escape.

S EUN OLUBODUN , 31, of Northern Liberties founded Duke & Winston, a line of casual tees, polos, hats and ties ranging in price from $24 to $68. He launched the company in 2009, and last December raised $30,000 on Kickstarter.com. The money allowed Olubodun to hire a full-time assistant and a part-timer, and to begin attracting wholesale buyers. The Temple grad was born in Great Britain and moved here with his family when he was 10. Q: How did you come up with the idea for Duke & Winston?

On paper, the proposed Soko Lofts project promises to do for its South Kensington neighborhood what the Piazza at Schmidts did for Northern Liberties. Like its paradigm-shifting predecessor two blocks south, Soko Lofts would rim its large block with a dense array of mid-rise apartment buildings, smartly broken up into manageable segments. The spaces between the buildings would become passageways, beckoning the public into a landscaped interior courtyard. It is a pretty good plan, but it is no Piazza.

Parents at the flagship school of Dorothy June Brown's charter network in Philadelphia are fighting for the school's survival, and say the greatest obstacle may be the school's own board. More than 30 parents from the Laboratory Charter School packed a trustees meeting Monday night to question a recent decision to increase the defense fund for the school's chief executive, Michael Slade. Slade was suspended with pay in July after a federal indictment charged him, Brown, and three other administrators with defrauding the charters of more than $6.5 million.

THE CITY administration has declared AVI "fair and accurate. " They say that the new property assessments are closer to the mark than the old ones, that it will take time to iron out the kinks, and that problems can be solved case-by-case, via the appeal process. These claims all rely on an underlying assertion: The Office of Property Assessment used sound methods to calculate the new assessments. This assertion is at best premature. It might turn out that OPA got it right, but there are valid, and troubling, reasons to worry.

* There's a good reason to head out of town this weekend - the Berks County Wine Trail's anniversary celebration, this year with a "Grape to Plate" theme. Eight wineries will participate noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. It's mostly free, too. Details at berkscountywinetrail.com. * Take the pain out of waiting for the train as The Porch at 30th Street Station and Bridgewater's Pub host a Beer Garden, 3-8 p.m. Thursday and Friday. With swingin' sounds by Evan Cory Levin & Co., 6 to 8 p.m. * It's first-birthday time for Rex 1516 (1516 South St., 267-319-1366, rex1516.com )

DEVELOPER Bart Blatstein has set his sights on a new property: a fixer-upper. Blatstein recently bought, and will himself live in, the massive house on the southwest corner of Rittenhouse Square, according to architecture blog Hidden City Philadelphia. "It's an incredible location," Blatstein told me, joking that I should move in before he gets to renovating so I can claim squatters' rights after I expressed how much I loved the spot. "It's a jewel in the city. " The house is commonly known as McIlhenny Mansion and spans 1914-16 Rittenhouse Square and 1915–21 Manning St. The 8,600 square-foot house, which Blatstein bought for $4.2 million, has been vacant for 30 years.

RAY JANNELLI, 49, of Hammonton, N.J., is the president and owner of Pro League Authentics, a sports-apparel company on 13th Street near Walnut. He founded the company in October 2011 after he left sports-apparel retailer Mitchell & Ness Co., where he had been a retail manager and buyer for 20 years. Q: What led you to start your own business? A: In 2007, Mitchell & Ness got sold to Adidas Group, and there was a void in the city for a locally owned, authentic pro shop like the original Mitchell & Ness.

TO PARAPHRASE the movie "Network," Philadelphians are confused as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. They're confused, often angry, about AVI - the Actual Value Initiative that Mayor Nutter is using to: 1) establish true market value for property and 2) apply tax at that value. It is a massive task no other city has voluntarily attempted. Over the past two years, all 579,383 pieces of city real estate supposedly were eyeballed by experts for reassessment. Some city residents now find their property is worth far more than it used to be, others much less.

IT'S A COLD winter day. People are hurrying along the sidewalk, heads bent against the wind, when they spy a familiar figure at the corner. "Hey, I like your new coat," the man calls to a woman passerby. "You should be wearing rubbers," he calls to a man. The cheerful greetings, uttered from the southeast corner of 3rd and Green streets, in Northern Liberties, never failed to perk up the passing pedestrians. That's where the Joe Hand Boxing Gym is situated, and the friendly man at the corner worked there.

A 31-year-old man was in critical condition Saturday after being stabbed in the back three times, authorities said. The victim was attacked shortly after 2:30 a.m. near North Front Street and Fairmount Avenue at the border of the city's Northern Liberties and Old City sections, investigators said. He was taken by private car to Hahnemann University Hospital. No arrests have been made, police said. - Jonathan Lai