it's what you want to know
Developer Eli Kahn’s 60-foot high hopes have been officially and forever dashed.
After huddling with disgruntled Devon neighbors, he’s just unveiled a new plan that lops off the top floor of his proposed Devon Yard apartments and cuts the number of units from 135 to 100.
Was it the blue yard signs that sprouted like spring weeds along adjoining streets after that very vocal public meeting?
First, some seriously scary stuff.
A guy wearing a creepy Halloween mask appeared at the foot of a woman’s bed in her Strafford home (100 block of Crestline Ave.) around 1 a.m. last Saturday, bound her with duct tape, then ransacked the place, taking her car keys, jewelry, radio and ATM card. After the invader threatens her with what looks like a stun gun, the woman gives him her ATM pin code. Creep hops in her car and hits up the Devon Square Wells Fargo ATM machine, where this nightmare-clown photo was snapped.
Reilly McCloskey is clear-eyed. At last.
An addict through his teens, Reilly, 23, is clean and sober, his vision fixed and in focus, the grayscale blur of his Conestoga days turned radiant.
And like Dorothy in Oz, Reilly is relishing every last pixel, capturing them with his Canon D in all their Technicolor glory.
Indeed, the first show of his photography (“Interaction of Color” at Bryn Mawr’s New Leaf Club through March) is an explosion of hue and light.
A celebration of seeing. For the first time.
Wayne is getting its first whisky bar and pub. The Goat’s Beard, a hit since it opened in Manayunk a few years back, will open in the old Xilantro space on N. Wayne Ave. in May.
Owners are Wayne guy, Sean Coyle (whose family owned the old Binni & Flynn’s in Gateway), and biz partner Michael MacCrory.
Expect the same locally sourced pub menu, small-batch craft cocktails and no fuss vibe. Xilantro went dark last week.
Take every notion you’ve ever had about yoga, then flip it – like your best downward-facing dog.
What do you get? Bulldog yoga.
Debuting its flagship this Friday, Feb. 19 in stunning space in the new Villanova Center, bulldog aims for Top Dog status. If it hits the bull’s eye, it will become nothing short of the SoulCycle/FlyWheel of yoga.
A breed apart AND a breed above.
A new H-O-T spot for your restaurant radar: Maya.J.
After cooking his way ’round the world, Main Line native Craig Wilson has brought his sizzling sauté pans home.
Lucky us.
Open since Feb. 3, locals are flocking to Wilson’s Maya.J in Manayunk. (The ‘Yunk being where the Main Line schleps when we’ve had enough Estia chips already).
The eastern Main Line is pouring into the 100-seat BYOB in the former Mel’s Italian in Belmont Hills. (Even Mel himself showed last weekend to toast a pal’s 70th!)
The draws: rustic Italian fare and allegiance to owner Beth Amadio, the Penn Valley mom whose last culinary caper, Homemade in Narberth, closed in 2014.
“People really love Beth and missed her excellent food at Homemade,” says Nicole Dresnin Schaeffer, one of many FOBs dining at Cotoletta last Saturday night.
You drive by it all the time, barely taking note: a charming, undoubtedly very old shop on a bustling, modernized stretch of Rte. 30 in Strafford.
Next time, do a double take.
For this is The Little Building That Could – all 1,200 sq. feet of it.
The Little Building that could stop a big-time developer in its tracks.
That could force a multibillion-dollar corporation back to the drawing board.
That could be the engine that pushes a certain Main Line township to add muscle to its wimpy historic preservation laws.
For years now, we’ve been panting to be let loose in Devon Yard. (Terrain! Anthropologie! A Terrain Garden Cafe! Pizzeria Vetri! Amis!)
So what’s the hold up?
Postponing our grazing pleasure is the project’s residential side – specifically, a proposed five-story mixed-use building that’s giving some folks fits. (Too tall! Too dense! Too out of character!)
SoulCycle – the coolest workout on one wheel (just ask ’em) – is rolling our way.
The indoor cycling company with the celebrity-soaked clientele will open in Ardmore this spring, its first Philly location after recent debuts in DC, Boston, Miami and Chicago.
Soul’s signature yellow bikes will be installed in the 3,400 sq. ft. former Corner Bakery space in Suburban Square across from Ruby’s Diner. (Still no takers for the rest of the building’s first floor, vacant now that the holiday pop-ups have departed.)
