Andy Maher (left) and Danny Fisher will open the Pastorius Park concert series on June 17.

Local talent will be featured when the 61st annual Pastorius Park Summer Concert Series opens on Wednesday, June 17.

The summer concert series has always brought a parade of regional talent to the stage in Chestnut Hill’s Pastorius Park for concerts of every stripe. This year’s series will be as diverse, but a key change for this year is a focus on local talent. Musicians and groups are all from Northwest Philadelphia.

“We were sitting in Starbucks, planning, and the idea just came to us,” said event organizer Janine Dwyer. Her coffee partner was concert co-chair, Grant MacAvoy, a local professional musician.

MacAvoy and Dwyer took over the job of organizing the park concert series three years ago.

East Mt. Airy Neighbors has announced the sale of more than 21 group homes, currently operated under the subsidiary EMAN Community Living, to Special People in Northeast Inc., an established service provider for adults and children with mental disabilities.

City Hall renews Hill BID
by Joel Hoffmann

Philadelphia City Council has reauthorized another five-year term for the Chestnut Hill Business Improvement District, a community nonprofit responsible for collecting assessments from property owners and allocating that money toward the “maintenance, improvement, beautification and safety of the Germantown Avenue business corridor.”

Craft beer sales OK’d at Roller’s Express-O
by Joel Hoffmann

The Chestnut Hill Community Association’s Land Use, Planning and Zoning Committee last week agreed to support plans by Hill restaurateur Paul Roller to sell individual bottles of microbrewed beer at Roller’s Express-O, 8341 Germantown Ave., for take-out consumption.