Fire station is a hot topic
for folks in Tacony

By Diane Prokop
Times Staff Writer

Philadelphia Fire Department Chief Lloyd Ayers and other city representatives returned to Tacony last week to update community residents on plans for relocating the Engine 38 firehouse.
A new southbound on-ramp for Interstate 95, which will be part of a highway project to reconfigure the Cottman and Princeton avenues interchange, is forcing the relocation of the firehouse at 4960 Longshore Ave.
The city last May proposed relocating the firehouse just two blocks to Unruh and Keystone streets, adjacent to the train tracks and directly across the street from the former St. Leo Catholic School. Since then, Planet Abacus Charter School has moved into the location.
After listening to community concerns about traffic and safety concerns, the city moved the proposed site another block south to Keystone Street and Magee Avenue.
The proposed $8 million firehouse will be more than 12,000 square feet and have four bays instead of two, as well as a second-floor multipurpose room that may be used by community organizations for educational purposes. The current firehouse is 6,800 square feet.
According to Richard Tustin, a director with the city’s capital program office, the time line depends on Pennsylvania Department of Transportation approval, after which it will take about 12 months to design the firehouse and solicit construction bids. It could take 18 months to two years to build it.
With the move, Engine 38’s coverage area would decrease from 1.6 miles to 1.5 miles. Its response time would stay within nationally accepted times of two to four minutes.
While a large majority of the 100 or so in attendance were in favor of the location, about a dozen or so wanted it somewhere else — not on Disston Park land.
In other business, the civic said goodbye to its longstanding president Anthony Naccarato, as well as a longstanding legal bill.
In January, Naccarato stepped down from the post he’s held since 1999. He’ll stay involved with the community through his role on the board of directors of the Tacony Community Development Corporation and the civic association’s public works committee.
"Thank you for all you’ve done for us," the civic group’s acting president, Lou Iatarola, told his best friend before presenting him with a plaque of appreciation.
The civic group was also grateful that the CDC not only stepped up and negotiated with attorneys to cut the group’s Disston deed defense legal bill in half from $14,000 to $7,000, but paid it as well.
The civic group has been making regular payments on its share of a $100,000 legal bill following a successful battle with the former Foodarama, 4700 Longshore Ave., which had sought to break Henry Disston’s will forbidding the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages within the boundaries of the Disston Estate.
The civic association and historical society took that fight all the way to Pennsylvania Superior Court, where it won a permanent injunction in 1999. ••
The next Tacony Civic Association meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 13, at 7 p.m. at the Disston Memorial Presbyterian Church, 4500 Tyson St. For more information, call 215-338-2575 or visit www.taconycivic.org
Reporter Diane Prokop can be reached at 215-354-3036 or dprokop@phillynews.com