We’ve moved! Come join us

By Shannon McDonald

NEastPhilly.com has moved! This site, neastmag.wordpress.com, will no longer be updated, but everything you’re looking for is now on NEastPhilly, a self-hosted site.

Aside from your old favorites, we’ve got updates and new additions, like advertising space.

If you subscribe in a feed, please make the switch to NEastPhilly.com, and tell everyone you know. The shiny, new site means we’re basically starting from scratch.

See you over at NEastPhilly.com!

Under construction

By Shannon McDonald

NEastPhilly is undergoing some construction so we can make the site better for our readers. No worries, we’ll be up and running by Monday — look for a new Right NEast/Wrong NEast!

Northeast (OK, Mayfair) makes Philly mag’s ‘Best of Philly’ list

By Shannon McDonald

The August issue of Philadelphia magazine is out, complete with the 2009 Best of Philly Awards. And believe it or not, a few Northeast spots made the list. Though we often rag on Philly mag (and others) for ignoring the NEast, there’s no denying the editors over there paid us some well-deserved attention in this issue. Maybe it’s got something to do with the fact that Michael Callahan, who hails from the Northeast, edited the list. Either way, we’re honored.

One thing we have to make note of though: all these places are in Mayfair. And they’re all on or right off Frankford Avenue. Though two of the winners straddle the Mayfair/Wissinoming border, they usually get pegged as Mayfair for their proximity to the avenue. We love Mayfair, but the rest of our region has plenty to offer. Just ask Donna Ward, resident restraunt reviewer, or Pat McNally, who has probably explored every inch of our region with his kids. This year’s winners are among the best, but they don’t represent all of the Northeast.

The list of winners is below. How do you think they stack up?

City Paper includes three NEast stops in its “10 Best Cheesesteaks” story

By Shannon McDonald

This week’s edition of CityPaper featured a cover story about cheesesteaks – The Ten Best Cheesesteaks You’ve Never Had, in fact.

Among the top 10, which are included in author Carolyn Wyman’s Great Philly Cheesesteak Book, are Frusco’s, Mr. V’s and Steve’s Prince of Steaks, coming in at numbers four and five, respectively.

Frusco Steaks ranked No. 4, while Mr. V’s and Steve’s Prince of Steaks tied at No. 5. The three eateries have ties to each other, which Wyman explains in her article:

Iliescu (of Steve’s Prince of Steaks) was best man at Marlene Frusco and Varanavage’s wedding. But Varanavage and Iliescu have barely spoken since Varnavage left Steve’s and Frusco opened her steak shop in 1994. Varanavage opened Mr. V’s just outside the Franklin Mills Mall shortly after he and Frusco went splitsville two years ago.

Which of these three places do you think makes the best steaks? How do you feel about other Northeast locations not making the cut?

The Parent Trap: “Parking Wars” with the kids in tow

I can’t help it – I like Garfield.

Faithful viewers of the A&E cable television series Parking Wars know of whom I speak. Garfield is one of the many interesting and loveable – yes, I said lovable – characters whose day-to-day lives working for the Philadelphia Parking Authority are put on display for the viewing public. Garfield and his partner Sherry travel the streets of Philadelphia, booting vehicles owned by motorists who owe a lot of money for parking and other violations. Needless to say, they encounter their fair share of angry citizens along the way.

It is the televised altercations that are captured on video while booting, towing and waiting in line at the impound lot that has brought the Parking Authority and Parking Wars under fire in recent weeks. The show was blamed Sunday in a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial for potentially hurting the city’s tourism industry. One angry reader called the Parking Authority a “disgrace,” and demanded that it be overhauled.

I understand being mad at the Parking Authority. I’ve been there.

What do you like best about living in The NEast?

By Shannon McDonald

You obviously love Northeast Philadelphia already, or you wouldn’t be on this site. But what do you love best about living in The NEast?

A recent post on PhillyBlog posed the same question to its NE users, and the answers were varied, but unsurprising.

Responses ranged from specific things like Pennypack Park to more general things like our many restaurants and central locations. Here are a few great replies:

Right NEast/Wrong NEast: Frankford and Frankford Ave. not the same thing

Outside media don’t care about the Northeast. We have all seen them misuse, misspell and mistake our neighborhoods and our streets, so we at NEast mag wanted to do something about it. When they get it wrong, we set it right in a segment we like to call Right NEast/Wrong NEast.

Courtesy of FOX29

By Shannon McDonald

The terrible thing about this story is, you can even tell from the picture FOX provides that they got mixed up. The photo is clear: the man police are looking robbed a bank in Mayfair – right in front of Mayfair mall, to be exact – not in Frankford, as FOX29 reported last week.

Someone should put out a memo to city’s media outlets and let them know that Frankford Avenue doesn’t necessarily mean Frankford the neighborhood.

No press is bad press? Philadelphia blog calls out the Northeast

Northeast Philly, meet your signature hairstyle

By Shannon McDonald

If they’re covering us, they’re either getting it wrong or making fun of us.

Not that I’d call Philebrity “big media,” but they gave the Northeast a little attention today, and not the good kind. In a post about Kate Gosselin’s hair, the Northeast takes a beating:

We’ve seen that hair before. We know that hair. We’ve seen it in the Wawa, buying smokes; we’ve seen it at Target, verbally abusing its children; and we’ve seen it at events, whispering mutedly racist tropes. In fact, anywhere where the Curiously De-Feminized Women Of The Northeast doth roam, so too does That Hair.

You read correctly folks, we’re being called low-class, child abusing racists. And if you’ve heard the recent drama surrounding Jon & Kate Plus 8, you’re all bad parents, too.

What do you think? Is this good-natured fun, or is Philebrity giving the Northeast a bad rep?

The Parent trap: better living through dentistry

My daughter’s dentist has three vehicles parked in his examining room. True, there is a wall of clear Plexiglas that separates the brightly colored ambulances from the rows of examining chairs, which all seem to be inhabited with young, cheerful technicians. I understand that the proprietor of this pediatric dental factory in Bustleton regularly takes one of the ambulances to local schools, promoting dental care.

Oh, and did I mention that they have neon? Bright neon signs adorn the entire room, sometimes advertising food products that, if eaten too much, could have an adverse effect on your teeth.

Before going any further, I want to reassure the dental community that this is not an anti-dentist story. Far from it – if my childhood dentist had anything like this place, I probably wouldn’t have avoided making an appointment for, oh, 15 years. Back then, the children went to the same dentist as their parents. Ours was an elderly gentleman with an office down the street from Our Lady of Calvary Church. He was a competent dentist – he fixed all four of my cavities – but he did not believe in any anesthesia or Novocain.

The Northeast’s only money from the federal stiumulus plan isn’t in the Northeast

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By Christopher Wink

Local governments across the country have anxiously awaited the influx of federal dollars as part of the Obama administration’s nearly $1 trillion stimulus plan. In the end, Pennsylvania received some $16 billion, a health portion of which went Philadelphia’s way.

The city’s cut included more than 200 individual projects that will get funding within the next 18 months. Many were citywide and included portions to the city’s housing authority, education, food stamps and between $30 million and $50 million in community development block grants, according to a report by Gov. Ed Rendell, who was actively involved in lobbying for funds.

Of all the neighborhood projects for Philadelphia, though, it seems just one is in Northeast. But, then, it’s not really in the Northeast at all.