I love a good phone solicitation don’t you? No, not really, right. Yes, I get it and neither do I, was just being sarcastic.
I received one yesterday. Another fake roofing inspection one. Ever since some in the area had hail, they have been relentless. Door to door people but mostly phone solicitors.
It’s always Philadelphia roofing something or other or Pennsylvania roofing something or other. And when you pretend to be hard of hearing and ask them to repeat the company name, it’s another company name (that doesn’t exist and none of them exist.)
This turdsticker yesterday started again with the tired old “we are doing work for your neighbors.”
Yeah umm no you are not anymore than the summer seasonal driveway sealing gypsies.
Well this one told me to shut up as in shut up stupid woman I’m speaking.
Yeah that didn’t work so well and this time I called back. Told them off and told them that I was recording the call.
Don’t fall for this BS and I know some people do. Legitimate businesses don’t operate this way, pure and simple.
Kelly’s from his history, didn’t start out life as a college bar.
Further back in the 19th century it was originally called the Ivy Inn. Located on the corner of Roberts Road and Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, it’s always just kind of been there.
The building it is today is kind of a flat roof monstrosity that I’m not quite sure how it ever got built. I remember when the Biggins brothers wanted to expand it and make it something different. All of a sudden it was this unfinished monstrosity and the place that gone belly up. Then the current owners bought it.
Honestly, I swear I’ve heard more complaints about that bar under the current ownership than the prior ownership.
There were lots of joints in Bryn Mawr years ago. Not fancy or pretentious, just bars. Like the Erin Pub and then I swear there was a place called Bob’s Mystical Garden. And also a place called You Bet Your Life we called You Beat Your Wife (then it became Mallory’s and is now and still The Grog.)
Kelly’s seems like it has had a growth of issues with the reincarnation of what was once a dive bar with pool tables in the back. When I knew it. that was fine. It was a joint.
Once the students cleared out for the year, or even certain times of the week there were local characters, some quite sad. One I met by accident once. It was while I was interviewing for first “real jobs” a million years ago. You know those in between days before true adulting started? I will also note that I never got in there underage because I never had fake ID etc.
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Anyway, I literally went this one random day many, many years ago to Kelly’s with one of my friends. Yep we went to check out what they call “day drinking” today. I don’t like beer, so for me not so much drinking. It seemed quite scandalous to do that, and I remember thinking at the time how pissed of my mother would have been – who didn’t like those places to begin with – so that is probably why I did it.
There were some older locals in there that day. There was also a somewhat more refined older and really, really drunk Main Line-ish woman. Blondish hair flirting with the bartender. She was too wasted to drive. Came in that way apparently. I still think she was doing her own crawl. We hadn’t been there that long so we drove the woman home. She lived down College Avenue, on the other side of Haverford Road where the houses get more grand again closer to Merion Golf.
We made sure that she got into her big, overly quiet house and left. Seemed very lonely. Wanted us to come in and have a drink with her and that kind of killed us on the day drinking experience. We figured that when she sobered up, she would call a cab to get her car or maybe a family member would help her. My friend and I commented at the time to each other after we had left of how that could’ve turned out very differently for her if a pair of women hadn’t helped her get home.
That was like 40 years ago and I never forgot that. A lesson learned- what not to become. A very sad and lonely bar fly, whomever she was. And that was a beautiful house she lived in.
But that was old Kelly’s. I was not ever a regular, it was just an occasional place for me. So many people were these devotees of this place and that’s the only place they would ever go. They definitely had a devoted following back in the day. I remember like a giant moose head and a really big jockstrap hanging up. I also remember the old bar and always wondered what it would look like if it was truly cleaned up?
It was of course also a fun place to play pool once in a while. I am and always will be a less than mediocre pool player, but back then it was still fun. However, even my younger self knew residents and small businesses didn’t love the Kelly’s crowd. But I don’t remember the place getting as bad a rap until the current ownership. Or maybe none of us were aware of prior issues because it was before social media and everything all over the Internet?
I remember there was this roof deck thing when it first reopened and I remember there were actually pictures that the neighbors had taken because it was so loud at night and lots of people on these roof areas, and I think the Bryn Mawr Civic Association was trying to deal with it and I know this is actually true because I found an old email that I had been sent. It’s completely random that I had this email because it was from 2011. Not sure if it was prior or current ownership, but there were a flurry of court cases back then.
Recently I noticed in the media coverage of Kelly’s issues at present, they (the owners) feel like they’re being targeted, but are they really? Or is this just a continuation of past issues?
And the college-age behavior (and bars) is something that has always existed, but the attitude of some of the students now I think is different. Big senses of entitlement, yes? I also still think this has to do with the school, in this case Villanova University, because in my opinion they’re rather hands-off about their students off of campus and they’re a big presence in the area so I don’t know that they really can be anymore can they?
And do the students behave the way they do off campus because they feel that the school does not really care about their behavior in the community anyway? I mean, look at Mount Pleasant in Tredyffrin? It’s back to business as usual over there with new student rentals. Delta Chi frat bros in some of the rentals, and oh the richness of the other fact that a couple of the ones charged with disturbing the peace from the last round pled not guilty and are taking this to court because you know it’s fine to scream whore (among other behaviors) at a full time resident in the middle of the night, right?
Now to be honest, we tried going in there a couple of times over the past few years because new look Kelly’s advertises themselves as a pub and you can get lunch, etc. etc. Well I thought the food sucked. Both times we went there was like a Saturday and it was also empty. I don’t think school was in session both times we were there.
So maybe the people that own the place should be honest as you know people aren’t going in for the food and gastropub-ish ambiance, and it’s not really catering to the entire community just the student community, correct?
The bottom of their online menu says it’s the only place you’ll ever want to be. No, not really. And if they actually really tried to make them themselves an all age more inclusive feeling pub, maybe they would have different reception from the community and the police and the local townships?
I also had to giggle at the bar’s recollection of the history on that site when it opened as “The Ivy Inn” in the 19th century. I don’t know that it was ever completely respectable, and you weren’t going to find people on the Main Line staying in their “summer cottages” there in my opinion. I mean maybe the gents on occasion but definitely not the ladies as it would not have been socially acceptable. I kind of mentally did an eye roll on that. Yes the place started in the late 19th century but to me it was probably more of a location for the average Joe working man, versus fancy-schmancy.
I do remember reading a thread online at some point in time where somebody had a elderly relative that remembered it had a side door for ladies.
And it’s a bummer because I can’t seem to find any oldexteriororinteriorphotos or anything of even the late 20th century rendition of Kelly’s before they turned it into what it is today. And I honestly do think these old joints play a part in local history not just the fancy houses. I’m not looking for people partying it up in there, I was looking for what it looked like inside. When I was cruising around the Internet for old shots, I found one random photo from 1985 and you can’t even really see the bar or anything it’s just a bunch of people.
Now, when I was looking to see if I could still find some of these old threads about the history, I came across a guy remarking about something that happened in 2018 and it was some kid basically was followed from the bar and stabbed in Bryn Mawr.
College bars are college bars. Yet they need to co-exist in the regular world which they are a part of. If Kelly’s Taproom has a bullseye on it then they need to take some responsibility don’t they? Based on the past it’s nothing new.
(Ummm it’s about the Pope picture 🤮🙄)
Maybe Bryn Mawr doesn’t want college bars anymore? What about hookah bars? Are they still in existence?
I am going to share the recent media. But in my humble opinion it is not so simple as a college bar merely being targeted. Lower Merion’s s current police superintendent doesn’t start these things unless he has proof. I might not know what the heck is really going on, but I do know that much.
Also as I went this morning to noodle around for more for this post that there is a petition circulating by the owners to stop foreclosure. Didn’t know there was a current issue with foreclosure? Also a bit of a Hail Mary?
And again, I don’t have a problem with the old joints so to speak. Like one of the best hamburgers you will still ever get anywhere is Roache and O’Briens in Haverford. Somehow they have managed to survive just the way they are since 1933. Kelly’s should take a page out of their book.
It just doesn’t seem possible. And I shed quite a few tears over this news when I wasn’t on the phone with Sherry Tillman.
Once upon a time and 50 years ago, a young artist named Sherry Tillman had an idea. That idea came to be Past*Present*Future.
It started as a one of a kind cool place for special handmade toys and creations and it became the business we have loved for so long.
Sherry is retiring and the business will be closing, so stay tuned for special opportunities to come in for one last visit and shop and reminisce.
Sherry has been such a part of all of our communities (and lives) and she will continue to be in Ardmore, it’s just for the first time in her life, I think she might actually relax for a little bit!
Sherry has been a big part of my life personally for so many years and I love her so very much and I wish her the best and I hope all of you go in and shop when she starts her sale and if you have any questions, just hit her up.
Special sales in advance of a well-deserved retirement start June 8th at 11 AM!
We went to brunch at the Desmond Hotel in Malvern. We used to go there years ago. They had a fabulous brunch back then and the hotel has been for sale for a year, and it’s clean and it’s still wonderful staff (they have always had really nice staff.)
But although the place was clean and fresh, it was kind of a pedestrian brunch and I expected better.
Now, maybe that’s my fault for going with the brunch on display instead of ordering right off of the menu, but the eggs were cold, the French toast was barely lukewarm, the bacon and sausage were cold, the salad dressings were too processed and pedestrian, the pork loin they served at their meat station should’ve been wonderful, but my husband had it and it was dry and I didn’t even go near the turkey because you could see that that was dry.
They had these shrimp that had been roasted in some kind of a chili sauce and they were actually delicious.
The salad bar had some nice fresh options, but again the salad dressings were over processed and just blah — for example the balsamic vinaigrette was so over emulsified it kind of gelatinous and it was a mixture of being really sweet and too salty so in other words, it’s a super processed dressing. I suggested they add plain old oil and vinegar for people as an option. The fruit salad wasn’t anything to write home about as it was very institutional.
I ended up having a salad because when I had first gotten my plate, I wanted breakfast food and because it was cold, it kind of lost its luster so I got something else.
The pastries looked good, but I suspect again more institutional quality versus a pastry chef in the kitchen.
Now the prefixe buffet was like $29 a person which is I guess modest, but for charging close to 30 bucks per person they should’ve had more attention to detail to the food. And again, it’s really a shame because they really have nice staff.
The hotel is for sale and has been for a while so I don’t see them realistically putting more into it except they really should because it might be a better return on investment.
We used to go there for years for brunch and it was fabulous and it’s just a shame that it’s not the way it was.
And again, they are taking the time for presentation, etc. but the taste and things like basic food temperature and taste just aren’t there.
They had a young kid running the omelette station, and he kind of knew what he was doing. I was watching him, but he was very chintzy about what he was putting in the omelettes. I mean, nobody wants an omelette that’s so over-stuffed that it falls all over a person when you’re eating it, but still you need enough cheese, for example, to make it do that little gooey thing when you cut into it.
But if this is their food these days, I wonder how many weddings they are actually booking because they talk a lot about their wedding business and brunch something that should kind of be a no-brainer.
Went to White Horse Farm in Willistown yesterday to pick up an order. We are part of their Butcher & Cream Club and have been for about a year now.
It’s nice to know your farmer and literally know where everything is coming from. This is a spectacular property in Willistown. You can’t just wander up the driveway, we were invited as we were picking up an order.
This. Finally. People all over now understand what the residents of Mt. Pleasant have been dealing with for YEARS.
Anyway, my cup runneth over in gratitude for Philadelphia regional media digging in to what has been going on for far too long in this historic old neighborhood in Tredyffrin. It is gratifying to know that they care about people in the region enough to hang out and talk with these people for a while because basically no one else has.
Perhaps somewhere up above Miss Mazie Hall and her pal Margaret Collins are smiling? I mean developers could tear down Mazie’s house, but neither predatory developers nor animal house college students have a right to destroy this neighborhood. It isthat simple.
So Tredyffrin Township, it’s time to get off your collective asses and stop ignoring this neighborhood because everyone knows if this was an expensive McMansion district you’d be hopping to PDQ. Yes I am in fact saying that if this wasn’t a historically black neighborhood, this problem would have been dealt with years ago. And by the way, the McMansionette dwellers in the new big huge town houses are not happy with this issue either.
And Villanova University, walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk.
Courtesy of those amazing East Whiteland residents protesting data centers
Welllllpppp…the litigation trains have left contemplation station. Residents have filed against East Whiteland Township. The topic? DATA CENTER planned for Swedesford.
Can’t say I am surprised but I bet the township is. Wake up over there on Conestoga Road in the township building. It’s never too late to do the right thing for residents is it? Mebbe Captain Green Fig can move the data center to his back yard in Willistown?
Sarcastically yours while telling East Whiteland I told them so. I told them this was a bad plan…..around 2018 for the first time….and continually since….
Has a rainbow come to Mount Pleasant in Tredyffrin? Not sure exactly, but a mighty fine centerpiece article from The Philadelphia Inquirer has arrived.
I am so happy for the very beleaguered residents of this small historic neighborhood. I am honestly really happy that a bona fide reporter listened to what the residence had to say and wrote about it fairly.
See Tredyffrin? Told ya.
See Villanova University? Others do care about Mount Pleasant, even if your off-campus students and student rental slumlords there do not and just out of curiosity how many of those student rental landlords are alumni?
Yes there is a paywall but I actually know someone who subscribed today just so they could read this article. Tredyffrin’s inactive chickens are coming home to roost in Mt. Pleasant with this article. A reporter, the photographer to look into what has been even documented on social media.
This is a large article and I hope the message has been received that it is time to stop offering lip service, and deal with this.
As for Tredyffrin Supervisor Carlotta Johnson-Pugh who was quoted? She really shouldn’t dance. She should just say what the residents tell her: if this wasn’t a historically black neighborhood, people would care more. THAT is the truth and reality.
I don’t know where half of these Tredyffrin Supervisors were years ago when the original student housing ordinance was coming in to play, but I remember quite clearly how much it took them just to get around to doing an ordinance. It was somewhat disgraceful it took so long. And maybe the police department only has a certain number of calls on the books for the school year 2025 to 2026, but I have to ask were all of the calls investigated? Are the residents taken seriously?
📌 “When the parents aren’t getting on them, the college is not getting on them, the police are not getting on them, and then you got the neighbors, and all we can do is make a little fuss, but there’s not a lot we can do,”📌
This is a centerpiece article IMHO. The curtain has been lifted beyond a curtain raiser. Tredyffrin’s zoning officer is lazy at a minimum and could be doing more.
Allow one more (brief) quote from the Inquirer article today from Villanova University:
📌“Students are subject to the University’s Code of Student Conduct whether they are on- or off-campus, and the University follows up on all reports it receives from local municipalities,” the spokesperson said in a statement.📌
Ok good to know based upon this familiar email. I say familiar because I’ve been told people have received variations on the same theme:
Now to be fair, in the past I have found Villanova’s security folks helpful to residents to the best of their ability. But heavier lifting needs to come from Villanova University decision makers. I think they promised to be better during that meeting last year with residents once they acquired Cabrini?
A lot of schools in this country have directories on file for where all of their off-campus students are residing correct? Why can’t Villanova do this? I think I’ve been asking this for like over 20 years haven’t I? Why can’t they have a better grip on where these kids are living and how they are behaving vis à vis their policies they have in place for their students in general?
You know when you talk to these residents, they understand the college students want to have fun because a lot of them were college students once upon a time. However, these are literally animal houses that Mount Pleasant has been dealing with for far too long. And there needs to be palpable culpability on the part of the property owners who are renting these houses, perhaps?
I think this is a big stay tuned thing because I think this is a story that’s going to keep growing until the problems are solved in Tredyffrin like in Mount Pleasant.
Oh Honey Brook Township Liberty Biberty mush mouth Steve-O 🤣 is at it again (must’ve lost his binky and needs attention) and he really shouldn’t give up his day job, but nobody’s really sure what it is right now because he’s doing all this stuff again, right??
It’s all of the same lame arguments that they tried to apply to Valerie Shultz before she beat the pants off of him (frightening mental visual BTW) in the fall election as a Republican.
There is even a pathetic attempt to resurrect the kids are unsafe issue because Scott Stilson as a Republican committeeman asked a school if they would consider being a polling location because the polling location that serves their precinct is outgrown for the most part. That’s common and happens all across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania every year and all across the country, and it doesn’t mean the kids aren’t safe. That is a fear mongering lie, and it’s like the other lies.
You know it’s all being spread thicker than pig manure on a cornfield out there because they are THAT desperate.
And then when blather hoodie wants to talk about his close personal friend, Gary McEwan who’s been on the school board for how many decades at this point (is it like 33 years?) and involved in politics for how many decades at this point like his dad before him and that’s a reason for term limits is it not?
And then Steve mentions John Burdy the toady (his wife is Laura Burdy the toady who is a supervisor and isn’t it all so cozy?) who is running for Republican committeeman who is also just a yes man warm body for the status quo on the Twin Valley School Board along with Sally Dee Gee’s son Baby Nicky (or maybe he still wants to go by his sock puppet account on Facebook called Jack Wilson?) who is a college student, so they want to set him up not only on the school board where he’s just a warm body to say yes to whatever the school board president wants, but then they can set him up to keep the political control going of Tammy Hall in the cornfield in Honey Brook, right?
People, is time for change in Honey Brook and this is a small but important opportunity to keep that mission going.
Be the change you want and don’t vote for any of these people. I mean, come on they’re even slashing political signs and destroying them, which is something that they swear they don’t do right? And then there’s the whole question of debate, this time they asked for it and now apparently they’re not doing it?
Be the change. End Tammany Hall style politics in Honey Brook.
PS to address one of drama hoodie’s erroneous claims of last week was insinuating that there was something wrong with the Honey Brook Township Manager leaving? No state secret, just MONEY…
Gladwyne is a wonderful place with a historic village. The nouveau and uninformed see it as this money-laden Main Line place to be conquered. Yeah, so they have done that enough in general to the Main Line, but there are some places that they should just leave alone. That includes the literally historic village in Gladwyne.
Yesterday was Azalea Day at St. Christopher’s in Gladwyne. It was the 73rd year.
I went to Azalea Day from the time I was 12 pretty much until I moved to Chester County. It was and is a perfect example of the magic of the village and surrounding environs which just don’t need tarting/messing up.
Historic preservation and adaptive reuse YES.
A zoning change and development circus? NO.
Gladwyne doesn’t need to be other than it is. Maybe people can’t stop Lower Merion from approving horrible out of place LEGO infill development McMansions, nor keep predatory development out of Ardmore with BS plans every few years for Schauffele Plaza, etc., but Lower Merion needs to be proactive with stopping the madness in the 19035.
It’s like Groundhog Day in Gladwyne every few years when a bad plan arises. The only thing now is that they neither have a civic association with people willing to protect the historic village, nor elected officials who are willing to do so and did you ever think Gladwyne would be in this predicament? Honestly, I did not because all of my observing prior to this was admiration for Gladwyne sticking up for Gladwyne.
Historic preservation and adaptive reuse YES.
A zoning change and development circus? NO.
Now there are still some people on Gladwyne Civic who were part of the magnificent years where they STOOD UP and fought for Gladwyne and the historic village. But they are the minority and probably tired. And my so much civic “leadership” yet where IS the leading? Oh I am sure they don’t care for my opinions and they even tossed me out of the closed Facebook group started by a friend. They have social climbers from Chester County in the group, but I am a threat. They tried once before this to remove me unsuccessfully.
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So I am out of the group now, which is no great loss as it is quite the insipid government ass kissing shadow of the group it once was….and civic it once was.
They will say that I am talking about this because it is merely sour grapes and no it’s not. If they kept such close tabs on my activity there before the co-prez removed me, they would see that I really did not visit much as the involvement of my friends lessened. That and knowing that I could not keep my mouth shut over the insipid nothingness that was being posted. Gold foil stars for all, and the nerve of that horse for not picking up its poop!
I had posted about what was happening in the historic village district because THEY WERE NOT. And it was and IS important. But now I realize WHY they aren’t and it’s sad that I realized it’s in my opinion a combination of a lack of spine and it would mean actually working for the community, right? For these people it’s easier to have a “greenspace” and gazebo that is not needed and for the historic village district to lose protections with a zoning change and an overlord they can bow and scrape to isn’t it? And if this goes through like this, history in my opinion, will not remember them fondly.
Again, for the cheap people in the expensive seats: historic preservation and continued adaptative reuse is a GREAT thing. Creating a fake narrative and a Peddlers Village/Disneyesque landscape is NOT. Potentially changing the zoning, tearing down houses and undoubtedly trees is also a BIG MISTAKE.
I can indeed have these opinions. My opinion remains the same: yes to historic preservation, tree preservation, and adaptive reuse. No to zoning changes and the ensuing circus. It’s still supposed to be a historic 18th/19th century crossroads village and THAT is ok.
The Gladwyne Civic needs to recover where they left their collective balls.
Lower Merion Commissioners need to not sit on their hands.
Residents can’t depend on either the commissioners or civic association here and they should go to every single meeting possible to save the village.
Historic preservation and adaptive reuse YES.
A zoning change and development circus? NO.
Vanity projects can be useful, this project has many problems. The developers here should use their big money for good….if they are really listening, that is?
