I think that if they ever finish the improvements to the 46th St. stop itself and if they ever figure out what the heck they are going to do with the old Provident Insurance building at 4601 Market the area around that El stop will improve dramatically in terms of safety because there will be more people willing to use it and more people around. Ironically I often feel safer at the 52nd St. stop because at least there are lots and lots of people around. When I used the 46th stop a few years ago, I would always ride a non-steal worthy beater bike and lock it up outside the station. In the morning it was fine but leaving at night it always felt kind of sketchy.

Agree. We live in between 46th and 52nd, and even though the rest of our interactions take us east, not west, most of the time I'll ride the line past 46th Street to 52nd. The illegal activity there is usually confined to people in activities I don't participate in, and there are usually too many people out for muggers to feel safe. 46th Street station is a mugger's paradise right now.

I just checked out Aldi the other day and I pretty much felt fine until I got to the point where the El emerged and covered Market St. From that point until Aldi, things just scared the crap out of me.

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Zangtron,

In the unlikely event they catch your mugger, please do show up to testify. I'll spare you the list of societal reasons you should do it, and just say that I don't think you have much to worry about when it comes to "no snitch" retribution, for a few reasons: 1) by then, this kid will have been pissed off far worse by scores of people, 2) I'm assuming you don't hang out with this kid's crowd, so he'd have to work pretty hard to use violence against you as an effective deterrent for other would-be snitchers, and 3) he'd be risking very heavy jail time for something of little or no benefit to him. We all have an obligation to help out each other by getting these chumps off the street, and most of all to help dissuade other kids from entering into what can sometimes look like an easy life of crime. Whoops, I said I wouldn't bring up societal reasons. Oh well, suffice it to say I'm not asking you to do anything that I haven't already done myself.

On a different note, has anybody noticed the sign posted by the little playground while "running the gauntlet" down that stretch of Farragut? It complains about a joint conspiracy by Penn, the Enterprise Center, the city, etc., to shut down the playground. How much of that block is going to be absorbed by the 46th Stn. renovations? Or is this something unrelated?

-m

I feel lonely and left out...I have yet to be "fully" mugged.

If that little kid flashed me his "gun", I wouldn't have given nothing up. I just would have flashed my gun right back and said, "mine's real" with a big smile on my face :-)

Is this the problem house on the 700 block of S. 49th that has been talked about here before?

Woman slain in W. Phila. shooting
By Lloylita Prout
Inquirer Staff Writer

A suspect is in custody after a fatal shooting in West Philadelphia this morning, police said.

Gloria Seals, 33, was shot in the head shortly before 1:30 a.m. while she was standing in her doorway in the 700 block of 49th Street.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

Police believe a neighborhood altercation lead to the shooting. Charges have not yet been filed.

This is just bad reporting at the Inquirer. This was on the 500 block of NORTH 49th St in Parkside.

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The previous threads were about a rap recording studio run out of a small office on the side of the storefront building there. The guy who runs the studio now seems to be interested in reaching out to folks in the neighborhood and showing that his music biz is legit. I'm personally pretty darn sure that some of the recording talent or the recording talent's entourage, especially early on, are/were not 100% legit, i.e. could not put down the side business in the "distrubution biz" while working on the albulm or what have you. Regardless the guy in charge genuinely seems interested in protecting his business's image and is probably doing a better job of keeping tabs of what the posse is doing at the door to his studio, these days.

I'm glad this shooting was not so close to home.

Sounds like the 49th St shooting was a domestic dispute type situation. The article I saw in the Inquirer earlier made it sound like a really nice girl who just got involved with the wrong person. Sad.

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Yes and to be clear the victim was in Parkside. Mother of 4. Sad.
http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/15347056.htm