I've been biking down Frankford Ave and have noticed a stark difference over last year in the # of rehabs. For example, look around not far from Rocket Cat Cafe.

Is anybody on here selling rehabbed RE in the area?

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I think the West side of Frankford ave is due for some redevelopment especially with the housing prices in immediate fishtown going higher and higher. More people will want to go over to the other side of Frankford ave. Houses are much cheaper but the area is also alittle shaddy, hopefully once the old 26th police district is rehabbed it will really be a cadalist for the area, but since the ecomony sucks now i think revitilization will slow down a bit. The area has great potential though.

Hi I'm a gentrifier in that very neighborhood! I'm a white professional who was an English major. I've been living in "Old" Kensington for 4 years. Me and hubs decided to buy a house. We looked extensively in our neighborhood, and slowly came to the realization that we were priced out. But... two el stops up we could afford a nice house on a nice block. So. There you have it.

I felt guilty about being a gentrifier when I was 20, but now I'm just living the lifestyle I can afford and my skin is a shade different from some of my neighbors. Am I a mass conspiracy to push lower-income people northward? I don't think so.

Well at least you have some feeling about it.Most of that type come in with this land is my land tude..And could care less about the people that have been there.Read some of the post about Old city.How it has gone to the dogs because black people hang down there now..

reverse-gentrification?

This whole "anti-gentrification thing" strikes me as over-simplistic. I mean who built these homes in the first place and whom lived there before the current generations? Immigrant factory workers from Ireland, Poland Yugoslavia and various other places who worked in the long gone factories. Cities are about change despite what people seem to think. Neighborhoods come and go and different races and immigrant groups come and go over the years. Frankford Avenue was originally a indian trail... then a unpaved wagon road called Frauford with farmland along it and then a semi-paved road to new York with wood houses along it and then a paved road with brick houses and factories and steam train rails brought into the area to service the factories. 250+ years of history of different peoples along that road... I have mixed feelings about about gentrification as it is a part of the long and continual evolution of cities but I am more for it than against it in most cases. The government if it cared about the people it should serve would see to it that people without means would not get taxed out of the homes they live in but as well all know it works for business interests.

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Guilty?!? Really? Huh.

I think that "due" has arrived. It seems that most of the presentations that have been made to the Kensington South Zoning Committee over the past 6 months or so are mostly for larger luxury condo developments around Front & Jefferson-Oxford. Good ol' Feast Your Eyes Catering, which has been in Northern Libs for what . . . decades? . . . is moving north (1800 block of Front, I think.)

The economy may certainly have some effect on building; y'all stay tuned now.

I've been living in E.Kensington(the area you are talking about) for alittle over four years now.
And yes, the neighborhood is getting better..
I myself can't really take any credit for it. Other than keeping the front of my rowhouse clean. But I've gotta say that 10 years ago , I wouldn't have set foot on the block I currently live.
I've seen the alot of the crackheads/dirtbags move out, and quality people move in.(and no, "quality people" is not code for "white people" in case you thought that.)
I've seen an annual arts festival become a huge hit within two years, on a part of Trenton Ave where there was once just piles of short-dumped trash.

I don't see E.Kensington having the same kind of overnight property value explosion as Fishtown did.
For one, its a different time now. Nobody, not even in "hot" neighborhoods is making tons of money on their properties.

Maybe its this more realistic climate that will continue to bring new people to E. Kensington. I've always thought that for creative types,(which I am not) Fishtown-proper got too hot , too fast...Creative-types are usually looking for cheap space to live/set up studios and, well, create, right?.

.It seems that E.Kensington's lack of any real fishtown-style hype might be the very thing that keeps places affordable west of Frankford for a little while longer than east of Frankford was..Also,the real estate crash, coupled with a likley US recession could equal less rampant speculation...Controlled growth ,rather than the frenzied property-grab that hit fishtown..

I seem to have rambled off of the point..
Oh yes, your original query about the area..Yes, good stuff is happening over here..Plus we've got the Philadelphia Brewing Company over here..

I just finished a house at 2207 Martha thats going up for sale. Susquehanna and Frankford area. www.2207Martha.com website will be comepleted in a day or soon.