4233 Chestnut Street

Urban development is a delicate balancing act, and sometimes we must say goodbye to cherished local destinations in order to make way for a plan that is ultimately more beneficial to the community and to the city at large. One of such trade-offs is slated to occur at 7619 Germantown Avenue in Mount Airy, Northwest Philadelphia, where the Trolley Car Diner is set to meet the wrecking ball, to be replaced by a six-story, mixed-use residential development designed by Morrissey Design. Although the charming chrome, neon, mural, and freestanding trolley of the diner will be missed, the proposal at hand makes for more effective use of the site, bringing significant residential density within a two0-block walk of the Mount Airy Station of the SEPTA Regional Rail and replacing the auto-centric restaurant with pedestrian-friendly retail.

Philadelphia YIMBY’s First Anniversary Countdown, which looks at the most frequently mentioned article categories over the course of the past year, briefly took a backseat to hot-off-the-presses content we shared with our readers. Today, we resume the series by looking at the 19th place in the countdown, which goes to North Philadelphia East, which has garnered 40 category mentions. To be more precise, this entry also includes North Central Philadelphia and North Philadelphia West, which have amassed 36 and 34 mentions, respectively. We are grouping all three in a single publication due to significant overlap between the categories.