Top 7 stories to look for in Northwest Philadelphia

Here’s a look at stories NewsWorks will cover this upcoming week in Northwest Philadelphia…

1. With year’s end rapidly approaching, we’ll bring you the Top 50 photos from NewsWorks’ Northwest Philly coverage in 2014. With 10 photos a day, we’ll reach what we believe to have been the best photo of all on Friday.

2. On Wednesday, the Philadelphia Housing Authority will ceremonially mark the start of construction at the Queen Lane Apartments site in Germantown. Among the dignitaries expected to attend the afternoon event: Mayor Michael Nutter, City Councilwoman Cindy Bass, state Rep. Rosita Youngblood, PHA President and CEO Kelvin A. Jeremiah and Queen Lane Resident Council President Corliss Gray.

3. In a section of Manayunk where on- and off-street spaces are tough to find and getting tougher, even the small lot at 147 Gay Street — which offers spots for 30 vehicles — has become a flash point pitting residents against developers. We’ll tell you more next week.

4. A stone wall constructed in the late 1920s is coming between neighbors on Penn Street and Midvale Avenue in East Falls. A stone-masonry retaining wall is leaning, cracked and unsafe, according to a structural report by the Streets Department (PDF). This summer, residents along the affected blocks were asked to pick up the estimated bill of $450,000 to make the repairs that would secure the wall and prevent further deterioration. City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. is scheduled to pay them a visit next week.

5. The second annual Chestnut Hill Community Parade was held Saturday morning, and it featured “pep bands, jazz bands, church choirs signing carols and hundreds of children from our community holding banners and marching with their schools, sports teams, or scout groups, all waving, throwing candy to the spectators along the route.” We’ll have a gallery of photos from the event early this week.

6. A Philadelphia University student has a passion project of sorts that’s left him working to create a prototype of a Batman suit as seen in the recent triology of superhero movies. We’ll let you know how he used Kickstarter and ingenuity to turn his visions into realities.

7. With the future of The Fallser — East Falls’ monthly community paper — in flux, NewsWorks has taken a look at the state of community media throughout Northwest Philadelphia over recent weeks.