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The deli case at the Good Food Market has become a zoning issue. (Photo by Pete Mazzaccaro)

Last week Jennifer Zoga reached a new low in her effort to operate a quality grocery store in Chestnut Hill. Zoga, owner of the Good Food Market, received her second visit from a city inspector in a month.

Attorney General ends investigation of CHCA/CHCF
by Pete Mazzaccaro

An investigation of the Chestnut Hill Community Association and the Chestnut Hill Community Fund by the state Attorney General’s office that began in mid-2008 appears to have concluded.

A final agreement between the Attorney General’s office, the fund and association will be discussed in detail at the next meeting of the association’s board of directors on Thursday, March 25.

Tom Hemphill thinks that working as a member of the Chestnut Hill Community Association is an important thing to do.

“Rather than sit around and complain,” he said, “you’ve got to get in the game.”

He’s been in the game for a while now. A retired ad man with an agency background in creative content (mostly for banks and financial institutions), he joined the CHCA almost immediately after moving to the neighborhood. He’s been a Chestnut Hill resident for more than 15 years, having moved from the Fairmount section of the city with his wife when they decided they needed more space.

The first thing one might think when picking up “Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love,” (History Press) the latest book by Lafayette Hill author Thomas Keels, is that it seems awfully light. For a city renowned for its corruption since (at least) the days of the Civil War, it seems impossible that any 122-page book could possibly cover the city’s rich history of vice and misbehavior.

But readers shouldn’t be fooled by Keels’ brevity. “Wicked Philadelphia” might not be a thorough history, but it’s a compelling one. Keels has culled some of the most sensational stories from the annals of Philadelphia’s most notorious crooks, pimps, grave robbers and scam artists.

Keels covers a lot of ground in “Wicked,” opening with a tale of British officer and reputed lothario Major John Andre who helped British general Sir William Howe party with the city’s elites during the winter of 1777-78, while Washington’s troops hunkered down in Valley Forge. Andre, who counted Margaret “Peggy” Chew as a mistress, was eventually hanged as a spy in 1780.