Avenue landmarks

THE ILLUSTRIOUS history of Frankford Avenue touches on most of Philadelphia's core themes - from William Penn's land grant to the manifest destiny of row house development across the Great Northeast - with cameo appearances by key national figures like Walt Whitman, George Washington and Paul Revere.

Then there's the avenue's ambitious future. As you read this, a fine arts corridor is arising in the hardscrabble stretch between Girard and Lehigh avenues - and it looks like the dreamers behind this cockeyed notion might actually pull it off.

Meanwhile, a real-estate developer with optimism to beat the band is bent on resurrecting the retail strip under the El tracks in the Frankford neighborhood.

We'd laugh, but he's already rehabbed four buildings with downstairs retail space and upstairs apartments, transplanted a cadre of working artists to suddenly quaint Gillingham Street and attracted a classy restaurant/jazz bar.

Farther up the avenue, community leaders are looking to spark a Mayfair revival with the reopening of the Devon Theater, on Frankford between Robbins and Levick streets, as a 600-seat live-performance space. A new marquee, courtesy of Drexel University, is lighting the way, and planners hope to be programming live music and theater within about two years.

Whether it's the Fishtown/Kensington hipster scene or Civil War history that floats your boat - and we're talking gen-u-ine DNA samples from none other than Abraham Lincoln - the avenue has it.

Drugs? Prostitution? A motorcycle gang? In pockets, it has those, too - and we're talking a gen-u-ine Warlocks clubhouse. And soon to join that happy trifecta is gambling: The Delaware River site of the future SugarHouse Casino is where Frankford Avenue begins. But let's leave the vice to the vice squad and highlight the good stuff, since there's a lot of stuff along the 11 1/2-mile avenue that's secretly - sometimes shockingly - good.

Frankford Avenue's most open secret is a new critical mass of hip destinations in Fishtown and Kensington for eating, shopping, art fancying, and (oddly) parking your bike.

Frankford Avenue's most open secret is a new critical mass of hip destinations in Fishtown and Kensington for eating, shopping, art fancying, and (oddly) parking your bike.

As part of its push for a distinctive streetscape - and eventually, a full-blown arts corridor - the New Kensington Community Development Corp. recently commissioned local artists and metal workers to design bike racks that look like Pop Art sculpture, including a playful red construction at Frankford and Girard avenues by Fishtown's Robert Phillips, best known for the metal butterflies near the zoo.

"Some nights you'll go by and the bikes are just stacked up," says Yards Brewing Co. co-owner Nancy Barton, a Kensington community leader. "They're a sculpture themselves."

Among the pioneering businesses in this southern neck of Frankford Avenue are Ida Mae's Bruncherie (2302 E. Norris St., two short blocks off the avenue), a cute new restaurant where Irish breakfasts are the specialty of the house, Circle Thrift (2007-09 Frankford Ave.), with a good selection of retro clothes and household castoffs, and the Bicycle Stable, specializing in Bianchi bikes from Italy, including hipster favorites with "animal" saddles. (Decorated with a dashing stripe of faux leopard.)

Other hidden gems are sprinkled lightly among the rundown buildings and empty lots that still predominate here. To find them, pick up the helpful NKCDC's 2007 business directory, available at Rocket Cat Cafe (2001 Frankford) and some other neighborhood shops. It has a full list of who sells what, along with where to eat and drink.

This local treasure map also lists Fishtown and Kensington's many artists and artisans, including Phillips, the painter Mike Geno and the jeweler/bookbinder Minna Aaparyti

Most labor behind closed doors. "There are a lot of hidden workshops around here," says local businessman Michael Tonuci, of Michael's Decorators (2214 Frankford Ave.). But dozens will be part of the big Philadelphia Open Studios Tour this fall, if you're curious to see what goes on inside Frankford Avenue's boarded-over storefronts and converted factory buildings. Visit www.philaopenstudios.com for details.

Further up the avenue, destinations are more spread out, and a car's a better way to get around than a bike. Or take SEPTA's Market-Frankford El to the Church Street station, where Frankford Avenue's important colonial history meets a small but sure gentrifying force of its own.

Further up the avenue, destinations are more spread out, and a car's a better way to get around than a bike. Or take SEPTA's Market-Frankford El to the Church Street station, where Frankford Avenue's important colonial history meets a small but sure gentrifying force of its own.

This area of Frankford Avenue, on and around the retail strip that's under the El in the Frankford neighborhood, was once the independent colonial town of Frankford, settled in 1660. At the time, Frankford Avenue was called the King's Highway.

Famous passers-by included William Penn, who traveled the road between Philadelphia and his summer place in Bristol, George Washington, who came through en route to his victory at Yorktown, and Paul Revere, who passed back and forth on the mail route he rode between Boston and North Carolina. "He rode this road many, many times," says Northeast historian Harry Silcox.

The Church Street stop has three important historic churches: the Presbyterian Church of Frankford (4301 Frankford Ave.), known as "the pink church" and designed by John McArthur, the architect who designed City Hall; Campbell AME (1657 Kinsey St.) 200 years old and known colloquially as "Second Bethel" and Saint Mark's Frankford (4442 Frankford Ave.), home to a 174-year-old Episcopal parish.

To marvel at how very progressive Frankford's people of faith could be, visit St. Mark's and ask the Rev. Jonathan Clodfelter to turn on the lights in the "Lady Chapel" to the left of the altar, where stone carvings of six women who aren't saints - including Florence Nightingale and World War I nurse Edith Cavell - surround a carving of the Virgin Mary.

Another small miracle for womankind is a stained-glass window showing Moses' sister, Miriam, dancing and shaking a tambourine. Clodfelter is a proud caretaker of these rarities. "You just don't find Miriam dancing in windows," he says.

Once you've had your fill of the old faithful, walk north a few blocks to where Frankford Avenue intersects Gillingham Street, and marvel at a new Frankford breed: the hopeful. The sleek new restaurant and jazz venue Mozaic (4524 Frankford Ave.), anchors this up-and-coming corner, which developer Jim McCarthy has begun to gentrify one graceful old building at a time.

Around the corner is McCarthy's apartment complex for working artists, and the Karlie Corporation (1535 Gillingham St.), a serious fine-arts gallery specializing in Latin American artists and promising young Philadelphians like the painter Nhan Phung.

Then, for the best souvenir in all of the realm, cross the street to Just 4 U Printing, (4601 Frankford Ave.), where screen-printer Angelo Moore sells his exclusive "Frankford 19124" T-shirts ($20), also available in "Germantown 19144," "West Philly 19139," and other neighborhood versions.

Moving northward through the Great Northeast, Frankford Avenue passes through Wissinoming, Mayfair, and Holmesburg, then over the Pennypack Creek into Torresdale and finally over the Bucks County line - think of it as the Oregon trail of Philly row house settlement. It ends six miles above the El's last stop, becoming the Bristol Pike at the Bucks County line.

Moving northward through the Great Northeast, Frankford Avenue passes through Wissinoming, Mayfair, and Holmesburg, then over the Pennypack Creek into Torresdale and finally over the Bucks County line - think of it as the Oregon trail of Philly row house settlement. It ends six miles above the El's last stop, becoming the Bristol Pike at the Bucks County line.

For refreshment as you journey onwards and upwards, the original Chickie's & Pete's, a standard neighborhood taproom, is tucked away at 4010 Robbins Ave., a half block off the avenue in Mayfair. And to set the record straight, it's not named for two drinking buddies: The original Pete and Chickie were husband and wife.

For sustenance, the original tomato pie, invented not long after World War II, is still served in all its crisp-crust glory at Tony's Place (6300 Frankford Ave.), another Mayfair taproom. Over the years, they've added cheese to the recipe, although they layer it under the sauce. If you want the original original tomato pie, with just dough and sauce, you need to specify "no cheese."

There's a wealth of unheralded Philly history along the way. Silcox, a former principal at Lincoln High School, confides that state Rep. John Perzel, a former Lincoln High student, learned the value of an honest day's work busing tables and mopping floors at Moe's Deli in Mayfair (7360 Frankford Ave.) Walt Whitman wrote some poems alongside the Pennypack Creek in what's now known as Pennypack Park, which intersects with Frankford Avenue just above Welsh Road in Holmesburg. John James Audubon did some of his bird sketches there, too.

The German-American Steuben Parade, scheduled to go down the avenue on Sept. 22 this year, is an emerging neighborhood tradition, with a 1 1/2-mile route from Holmesburg deep into Mayfair. It's named for General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, who helped Washington whip the ragtag Continental Army into Brit-kicking shape at Valley Forge, and it may retrace some of von Steuben's very steps.

"It's very, very possible, because Washington's troops went by there," says Al Taubenberger, who's chairman of the parade, president of the Greater Northeast Chamber of Commerce and, of course, the Republican candidate for mayor of Philadelphia. ("Not everybody knows that," says the good-natured Taubenberger. "I'm the underdog.")

A singular tourist attraction in these upper precincts is the Insectarium at Steve's Wildlife Management, (8046 Frankford Ave.) a pest control company.

A creepy-crawly twist on the Please Touch Museum, the Insectarium has become a staple of childhood for kids born after 1992, when it opened. Its "cockroach kitchen" exhibit, with live bugs, is macabre in a way that only a 9-year-old can appreciate; parents quietly scurry away.

For more mature sensibilities, the wall of insect photos in the lobby (mostly supplied by the companies that make chemicals to kill bugs) is as outstanding in its own field as Audubon's work, cataloging every rogue from the blood-thirsty deer tick to the new scourge of high-end global travel: the bed bug. "If you flew to Europe and you brought your bags with you, you probably brought some home," says Dave Steiger of Steve's Wildlife. "All the good hotels and all the best universities have them. All the high-quality apartments have them, too."

Steiger, an exterminator by trade, curates the exhibition - "It just got collected over the years," he says - and manages the Insectarium. "I love bugs," he says. "They're what puts food on the table." *