May 22, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Hill, Mt. Airy still have hardening of the main artery
by JIM HARRIS

The Germantown Avenue construction nightmare continues, with no immediate end in immediate sight. It’s been particularly devastating to businesses on both sides of Cresheim Valley Drive. As one letter-writer to the Local stated last week, “If this was happening in Ed Rendell’s neighborhood of East Falls, do you think the main road would have been completely sealed off for so many months?” (Photo by Erin Vertreace)

Construction on Germantown Avenue continues as local residents try to survive without full use of their main artery. The work is being carried out in four-foot segments, with segment number 12 (of 700) beginning this week. Within each segment, PennDOT is tearing out the “invasive” Belgian blocks and the trolley tracks, then installing “native” blocks and new “symbolic” trolley tracks to appease Blockheads and Messianic Trolleyites (as opposed to Trotskyites and Troglodytes).

Crews are also replacing a century-old sewer. A section of the sewer, along with several specimens of century-old sewage, will be put on display at the Chestnut Hill Historical Society’s “Scraps of the Past” exhibition.

Northbound traffic to the Hill is being detoured over Roumfort Road, down Devon Street, along a section of railroad track, through several backyards, then back on to Roumfort and out onto Stenton Avenue. Unfortunately, this takes so long that cars are actually going back in time and coming out in Chestnut Hill in the year 1958. All of this, of course, is hurting businesses on both sides of the detour.

Business at the Train/Bicycle Diner is down significantly, in spite of the owner’s attempt to lure cars in with a large canvas screen placed in front of the construction, painted with a mural of the Avenue running up into Chestnut Hill. “I got the idea from Wile E. Coyote,” he said, “but cars just kept crashing through it and frightening the construction workers, so I had to remove it.” He went on to say that “We’ve only had seven customers all year, and one of them skipped out without paying.” When pressed, he admitted that the deadbeat was visiting Councilwoman Miller, but said he didn’t want to discuss it, lest he wind up “as part of the permanent roadbed.”

Brewer’s Inlet seems to be suffering less than other businesses, probably due to the fact that men are willing to tunnel through granite with their bare hands to get to cases of beer, even when nonalcoholic beverages are readily available.

On the other side of the blockade, proprietors of the shops in Chestnut Hill Plaza have stationed a trained Collie and an elderly actor at Germantown and Willow Grove Avenues. When cars stop at the light, the dog barks incessantly, and the man yells “Timmy’s stuck in the well!” while pointing frantically down towards the plaza. When concerned motorists drive down there and find that sharp treadles prevent them from leaving, they often stick around to have some Chinese food and rent a movie.

Roadwork was stopped temporarily in February when a family of three endangered Eastern Mud-Moles was discovered along a stretch of road, but USDA sharpshooters were called in to cull the herd down to a more manageable size of zero. The moles were made into castanets and sold at Thirty Thousand Villages, with the money going to bipolar Ecuadorians. (Note: it is especially painful to be bipolar at the equator.)

According to the chief engineer, Mack Heavy, when completed, the new roadway will be wired to melt snow, change color (“for things like Restless Leg Awareness Week”), play Muzak and emit a death ray to deal with the anticipated resurgence in bank robberies.

Plans are being drawn up for a grand reopening of the Avenue sometime this century. A ceremony will be held in front of the last remaining construction barrier, during which Mayor Michael Nutter will bellow “Mister Gorbachov, tear down this wall!” Upon hearing that, Mikhail Gorbachov himself will drive a forklift into the barrier, which will then topple and crumble to the strains of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

Reached by telephone, the former Soviet president, now a confirmed capitalist, said he is happy to be coming to our area to “liberate the long-suffering people of Northwest Philadelphia.” He noted that, since the fall of the Soviet Union, he has been busy officiating at various corporate and municipal events around the world. He shared that, at these events, he has heard the catch-phrase “Mister Gorbachov,” followed by punch lines like “Cut this ribbon,” “Light this Christmas tree,” or “Implode this parking garage,” about a million times. “Since 1990, I’ve played foil to every two-bit bureaucrat west of the Volga,” he said, “but, hey, it’s a living, and I owe it all to good ol’ Ronnie Reagan.”

When questioned by this reporter, shoppers in Germantown and Mount Airy seemed genuinely distressed over not being able to get to Chestnut Hill. “I don’t even know what the latest fashions are” said Marge Twembly of Mount Airy. “I’m still wearing the fantasy peasant look, for God’s sake. And when our out-of-town friends come to visit, we have nowhere to take them to stroll. The Mount Airy strip is only two blocks long, and the high points are Don’s Barber Shop and a taco stand. Please, PennDOT, open the border. We beg you.”