Frankford Y to close today, ending nearly 70-year reign

By Christopher Wink

In 1941, the New Frankford Community Y opened its doors. Today, 68 years later, it will close.

The center, a big brown mansion with an addition that includes an indoor swimming pool, is self-funded, depending largely on state grants. One grant for a cool $200,000 never came through last year. Employees haven’t been paid for a month, as reported by 6ABC.

The center sits at the corner of Leiper and Overington streets.

“I was doing everything we could possibly do to try and stay open,” Terry Tobin, the center’s executive director for the last 12 years, told the station. “We were grasping at straws and that didn’t work, so we had to make a tough decision.”

Thirty children are enrolled in the center’s preschool program, and another 30 are in an after-school program.

More than 800 Y members who use the center’s facilities, which includes the pool and fitness equipment, will need to find someplace else to go, too.

The center was a YWCA until the mid 1990s, when it became independent with the help of Frankford Hospital.