NEast Links: fiOS, Jewish tradition and more

PlanPhilly staff

January 22, 2010

Here’s a summary of the week’s Northeast news we didn’t cover. See others here.

Steven Smink, 47, owner of Pike Lanes Family Fun Center in Deerfield Township, N.J., was arrested at his home on the 9100-block of Veree Road for burning down competing bowling alley Loyle Lanes Bowling Center. Smink, along with Felix Antonio Manzano Jr., 21, and a 17-year-old, both of the 8000-block of Frankford Avenue, was charged with arson for hire, aggravated arson and conspiracy to commit arson. If convicted, they face up 20 years in state prison, according to officials.

Continue reading for a discovered fugitive, possible FiOS in Frankford and more.

Community

Alex Berger, 22, of Northeast Philadelphia, was the youngest of more than 50 people to ink in a letter of the restored Torah scroll at a rowhouse synagogue on South Fourth Street.

The Frankford Gazette was informed by a Verizon employee that Frankford could be getting FiOS soon. Though a call to Verizon proved unhopeful, Gazette writers spotted the trucks just last week. The southern-most Northeast neighborhood could host fiOS in the next couple years.

Operation Smooth Streets, launched by the Streets Department, is designed to improve roadways throughout Philadelphia. Through the website, people can report street defects like potholes or roads in need of repaving.

Crime

Richard McLaughlin, 35, a fugitive accused of raping an 18-year-old woman in the Northeast last May, was discovered in a basement crawl space inside his home. U.S. Marshals were given a tip by a Daily News reader regarding McLaughlin’s whereabouts after the reader aw a photo of him in the Jan. 4 issue.

Four men who broke into the Sewell, N.J. home of Juan Cuevas to beat him to death in Jan. 2006 and have since eluded police may have ties to Northeast Philadelphia. Any information on the case can be given by calling 856-384-5608.

Our best-read story this week – Wissinoming woman mistakenly told her husband died

Every Friday morning, we make sure you didn’t miss any Northeast Philadelphia news with NEast Links.

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