February 21, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local News

Oreland soldier learns life, death not far in Iraq
by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.

Private First Class Dan Prior of Oreland. (Photo by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

We’re lucky people, living on the Hill. While many of our lives involve personal problems and quiet desperation, we somehow get by, dealing with our own dramas. When we wake up, there are seldom issues that face us daily that involve choices in life and death. For one man, Private First Class Daniel Prior of neighboring Oreland, one of his life dramas involved just that. Every second of his life was tenuous — the mere fact that any minute he could die was a reality.

Pvt. Prior has the face of a soldier. The harsh angles of his bones, constantly hidden smile, lend him a fiercely masculine intimidation that gives the outward appearance of a man bent, twisted and shaped by weeks of basic training and months of living — of surviving — in the desert of Iraq.

Business leaders optimistic despite Avenue store closures
by Kristin Pazulski

Evangeline is one of two Avenue boutiques to close in the last month. Despite closings, local business leaders are optimistic. (Photo By Erin Vertreace)

The Avenue’s retail variety continues to be an overriding concern for community and business leaders and residents in Chestnut Hill, especially with the recent loss of two shops and the upcoming sale of Caruso’s Market.

Just last week, at a meeting of Weavers Way held to discuss the possibility of the co-op opening a second location in Chestnut Hill, people expressed their frustration over the number of local bank branches; it was clear that those in attendance preferred the grocer.

And more uncertainty is likely.

The sale of Caruso’s Market has people wondering if the grocery will remain open (the market’s owners, the Marano family, insist that the store will remain a grocery store, although they will not reveal the identity of the buyer) and the recent departure of two women’s boutiques leaves the Avenue with two more vacancies, adding to the nine vacant store fronts, according to the Chestnut Hill Business Association already on the Avenue between Cresheim Valley Drive and Chestnut Hill Avenue.

In August, the Local discussed the Avenue’s changing retail mix, and the many bank branches that have reduced that variety. At the time, business leaders had said women’s boutiques were the most requested use for the Avenue’s retail storefronts, but in the past few weeks, two women’s boutiques, Evangeline and Lamaj De’Amor have left.

New Web site makes space for small businesses
by Jennifer Katz

Thanks to Wesley Michel’s marketing Web site, Local Index, local and independent businesses on the Avenue and elsewhere will have the ability to compete with big box stores while increasing traffic to their own businesses. (Photo by Erin Vertreace)

At first glance, 24-year-old Wesley Michel hardly looks the part of a steadfast advocate for small, locally owned businesses. Clean shaven, sharply dressed in casual business attire – wearing a black jacket with a white button down shirt underneath hanging loosely over his jeans and a striped tie, knotted but not tightened, around his neck.

Yet in 2004, when Michel learned that his aunt, a retail business owner in Tampa, had been put out of business after Wal-Mart opened a store in her neighborhood, he decided to scrap his plans to go to law school and to focus instead on creating a marketing tool that would allow his aunt and other small business owners to compete with large box stores via the Internet.

“I wanted to create a Web site that allowed local businesses to promote themselves online,” said Michel, who graduated from Arcadia University in 2002 with a business degree.

“Talking to my aunt, I became aware of the difficulty small businesses face in competing with larger retailers,” he said.

Michel, a Cheltenham resident, has spent the last eight months creating the Local Index, an Internet-based social gathering and marketing Web site for small, locally owned businesses. He has focused mainly on the South Street corridor in Center City and Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill. The Diamond Spa, 3000 BC, Osaka, Sanctuary and the Candle Shop are among the 100 that have listed on the Local Index thus far.

What is that thermometer all about?

The Chestnut Hill Community Association is enthusiastically working to raise funds for this year’s Chestnut Hill Community Fund Drive. As you walk past Borders, you will notice a large thermometer hanging in the Volunteer Memorial Garden. The thermometer indicates our fundraising progress to date.

We want the fund drive “temperature” to resemble winter in sunny Florida, not chilly Philadelphia. Please donate today.

With an impressive goal of $100,000, the Chestnut Hill Community Fund Drive has received donations from over 490 donors totaling $52,101 thus far. The fund drive concludes March 31, and we need your help to reach our goal.

The fund drive is an annual campaign aimed at every member of this community and beyond to raise funds for local programs and organizations. All of your contributions to the fund drive are directly reinvested into the Chestnut Hill community.

Grant requests were submitted by 21 local organizations this year. The combined dollar amount requested by these programs is in excess of $120,000. The total amount of funds available to answer these requests relies entirely on contributions collected through March 31.