Under construction: The Philadelphia Water Department is currently digging up Orthodox Street to install new mains. There are numerous potholes and the street surface is uneven. Hundreds of residents have signed a petition calling for repaving.
Go to civic association meetings in Frankford and Northwood and you’re sure to hear someone bring up Orthodox Street. To say the street has been battered by the years would be an understatement, and right now the Philadelphia Water Department is digging it up to install new mains.
A layman’s eye can see Orthodox needs work. There are potholes, of course. Probably the most evident ones are under the railroad bridge east of Worth Street. The street surface is just uneven — or lumpy and bumpy, as one Northwood resident described it.
Frankford resident Anthony Smith said Orthodox Street has been neglected for too long and he wants the city to fix it up. He is gathering signatures on a petition calling for repaving. Hundreds have already signed, said Smith, who also is the president of the Frankford Parks Group. During an interview earlier this month, Smith said he doesn’t ever recall seeing Orthodox repaved.
A Streets Department spokeswoman told the Northeast Times on Dec. 22 that the department’s Highway Unit will pave when all of PWD’s work is complete.
That won’t be for several months.
Worse case scenario, according to John DiGiulio, a department spokesman, is that the PWD work on Orthodox Street will continue until July.
The contract to put in new 8- and 12-inch water mains from Oakland Street to Mulberry Street allows for the work to be completed in 280 days, DiGiulio said in a Dec. 23 interview. The work began the end of October.
Motorists have had to use detours around some of the work on the west side of Frankford Avenue. Two blocks have been completed so far, DiGiulio said, adding that the work temporarily stopped right before Christmas and resumed Dec. 29. He said the contractor will work across Frankford Avenue with a minimum of disruption.
To install mains, the water department’s contractor will dig a 3-foot trench, DiGiulio said, and that area alone is all the department will resurface. ••
Under construction: The Philadelphia Water Department is currently digging up Orthodox Street to install new mains. There are numerous potholes and the street surface is uneven. Hundreds of residents have signed a petition calling for repaving. MARIA POUCHNIKOVA / TIMES PHOTOS
