Tag Archives: Main Line

no people, malvern is not the main line and never will be.

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So someone posted in a Malvern Facebook group about “is Malvern the Main Line?”

Eyes rolling, not this again.

No people it’s Chester County and always will be and that is totally fine and accurate to the history.

Saying Malvern is the Main Line is merely realtor/developer marketing by those who don’t know any better and/or don’t care.

The “Main Line” got the nickname from the main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad mid-19th century. In the early 20th century it was attached more kind of socially and socioeconomically to the area beginning at the city line of Overbrook and ending in Paoli for social and historical reasons .

Malvern is part of the train line headed west but no more a part of the Main Line than Thorndale or Lancaster and Harrisburg are, which are also part of the same line that headed west.

It is like saying Downingtown and the edge of Coatesville is Chester Springs, which is also part of current day developer and realtor spin. And like Malvern should just be proud to be “Chester County”

Another example? People from Northeast Philadelphia don’t say that they live in Chestnut Hill do they? Or confuse Society Hill with West Philadelphia? Or say South Philadelphia is Rittenhouse Square? All of these places, including the Main Line and Chester County have their own unique history.

Those who didn’t grow up here also like to misstate the history, especially where the Main Line is concerned.

I grew up on the Main Line and lived there as an adult until I moved to Chester County to be with my husband, so I actually know the history and FWIW would rather be in Chester County because the Main Line isn’t what it used to be.

Of course for my efforts in attempting to explain this some turdsticker in that group called me a Karen. That is not a pejorative term that can be applied to me except by someone who is pig ignorant, but it helps him get through his day as an angry mansplainer.

I am glad Malvern and Chester County have their own identities and towns in Chester County can and should have their own individual and unique identities and don’t need to be plunked into inaccurate Stepford real estate marketing.

How come we have to keep discussing this?

People. Learn your railroad history.  It is how these towns were built.

The Philadelphia Main Line, known simply as the Main Line, is an informally delineated historical and socially pretentious and ridiculous region of suburban Philadelphia, as freaking created by old railroad lines. These towns became more cohesive along the Pennsylvania Railroad’s once prestigious “Main Line”, which ran northwest from Center City Philadelphia parallel to Route 30 (Lancaster Ave to some Lancaster Pike to some Lincoln Highway to others.)

The railroad first connected Philadelphia to the Main Line towns in the 19th century.

They became home to sprawling country estates and hotels belonging to Philadelphia’s wealthiest families, and over the decades became a bastion of “old money”.  People built their summer homes out here at that point.  In the 18th century wealthy Philadelphians summered in places like Fairmount Park.  In the 19th century the railroads moved them further west.

Seriously, don’t forget there were grand hotels too.  One is what is now the Baldwin School was once the Bryn Mawr Hotel. 

The Main Line has this fabled history. I lived there until coming to Chester County.  My parents moved us there when I was about 12.  So yeah, I know the history.  In some regards I think I lived there in the sunset of it’s greatness.   The Main Line as it exists today I find distasteful and gauche sometimes because well, the nouveau Main Line neither gets nor appreciates nor really cares about the actual history.

Until the railroads, the Main Line was a lot of country. Farms, quarries, mills, even factories.  It became genteel versus rural/copuntry living by it’s very history.  The Pennsylvania Railroad and 19th century real estate developers and speculators truthfully get the credit here.

Like Wayne, PA which was essentially a developer planned community of it’s day.  Don’t believe me? Visit the Radnor Historical Society Website.  

When this topic of what the Main Line actually is and what the actual historical boundaries are crops up on social media, someone always leaves a conversation feeling offended.

Sorry not sorry but Malvern isn’t and never will be the Main Line.  As I have said before, it’s Chester County and everyone in the Malvern area should be ok with it as Malvern already has a wonderful identity and history.

One of my dear friend’s grandfathers was an executive with the Pennsylvania Railroad.  He moved his family from the city to Haverford near Merion Cricket Club.  The road they settled on had several homes built as a direct result of the railroad.  Like many of the homes in Wayne, it was desirable because one could walk to the train station.

Growing up, we never thought the Main Line was one centimeter past Paoli…because we knew the history.  Today it’s like saying you are from Greenwich, Connecticut or similarly affluent and storied suburbs… when you are not.  Or even what defines Manhattan, versus living in the other boroughs of New York City but saying you live in Manhattan.

( see: Pennsylvania Center for the Book: Philadelphia’s Main Line: It’s Not Just a Place – It’s a Lifestyle  By Casey Murray, Spring 2014 )

When we were growing up there was this little thing we did to remember the order of the train stations.  Old Maids Never Wed And Have Babies. Overbrook, Merion, Narberth, Wynnewood, Ardmore, Haverford, Bryn Mawr.  You can find this mentioned here on this blog which I find amusing because they say they think the ditty ends with Bryn Mawr Station because it was thought of possibly by a Bryn Mawr College girl. This blog is called Philadelphia Reflections and I love it because they write about the most interesting stuff!

Growing up, we never thought the Main Line was one centimeter past Paoli…because we knew the history.  Today it’s like saying you are from Greenwich, Connecticut or similarly affluent and storied suburbs.  Or even what defines Manhattan, versus living in the other boroughs of New York City but saying you live in Manhattan.

And just so we are clear, I am not some old Main Line trust fund baby.  We lived there because my parents decided to move us there as we got older for access to better schools and a way of life that included being able to play outside whenever we wanted.  However, where I grew up was close to where one of my great-grandmothers was in service.  Rebecca Nesbitt Gallen.  She was a summer housekeeper for the Cassatt family(think Merion Cricket Club) at their Cheswold Estate.   Of course Alexander Cassatt was also famous for his Chesterbrook Farm in Berwyn.  We of course know Chesterbrook today as the giant development that popped the cherry of suburban density development.  It’s hard to believe that Chesterbrook today was once a glorious 600+ acre farm, right?

And yes, Chesterbrook Farm was in Berwyn…yet Chesterbrook the development today has a Wayne post office zip code. Yup even Chesterbrook wasn’t o.k. where it really was, was it? Again, real estate/developer marketing.

The fight over the Chesterbrook Development went all the way to the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court. Chesterbrook is I think actually over 800 acres if you count the other land parcels that went into it.  I still view it as planned development at it’s worst.  My late mother in law was one of the many, many residents who fought it for years.
(See from the Lower Merion Historical Society) Chesterbrook retells the story of Wayne for the 20th century
Finding homes for people drawn here by technology isn’t anything new)

Yeah, I know this has been quite the ramble. But I just don’t think Chester County needs to be completely annexed to the freaking Main Line. It’s preposterous.  Stick to the history. It tells you the boundaries.  And yes, there are several towns (and townships) that have parts of themselves which are part of the Main Line historically, although not in their entirety. Like parts of Chester County.  Chester County has a rich history that is far more interesting than the mere history of the Main Line which was created by the railroads.

Thanks for stopping by….writing today as always from beautiful Chester County, PA. (NOT the Main Line.)

Yes, Virginia, there may indeed be a Santa Claus, but Malvern will always just be Chester County and not the Main Line. This is another example why actual history matters, not what revisionists wish to reimagine it as.

just HOW MANY houses on the main line are air bnb???

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I went down a rabbit hole this morning and hopefully they’re all legal? I have no idea, do you?

It is municipality to municipality and I just randomly decided I’d go nose dive into the Main Line and I have to ask how many houses on the Main Line are Air BnB now?

From mansions to rooms for rent to small little older houses that don’t interest developers, but might interest a regular family if they could afford to live in the neighborhood, I just have to ask how many houses are Air BnB?

I didn’t go diving into Chester County per se. I really kept it to the Main Line because I was more curious there. And the reason I’m curious is it is so hard for people to find affordable rentals let alone affordable houses to buy and I think this is part of the problem.

Anyway, it make sure understand how people can afford to live on the Main Line now, right? They can just Air BnB it, right? Are these people paying taxes to the municipalities that their short term rentals, whether it be a Air BnB or VRBO are in?  in places where this is allowed in their code, it’s kind of like a missed revenue stream, isn’t it? 

Sign me gobsmacked. I did not know this was such a cottage industry on the Main Line.

Happy Friday!

sometimes you can only shake your head ….

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“Have you seen this?”

…was the text message I received this afternoon.

(FFS. Truly. FFS. Are Only Fans portfolios next?)

My response was honestly no because I try not to follow what this person does because I just think sometimes it’s a little too left of center for my brain.

But, alas, here we are and now none of us can see it. Apparently this has been flying around the Internet and social media locally.

I will state for the record that I have zero problem with what they call “boudoir photography.” I know make up artists who have done it as a partnership with photographers etc. But this? You’re going to potentially pay this woman to take a picture of your naked ass with her iPhone?

Ummmm 🤨?

To me, this is a hard pass because this is the same person who charges for “photo shoots” going around the public parks to do photo sessions with her cell phone with people. Boudoir photography is also something that has been done for a while, so why would you choose this person to begin with versus a professional photographer?

Photography is an art form. I am a digital photographer but I am not a professional photographer. I am good but I will never say I am a professional photographer, because I’m not. I have done plenty of private events and occasional head shots, mostly for people I know. I have also had my photography used occasionally over the years to various publications regionally and nationally, and even some people who were using them for books or blowing them up for wall art as was the case of a photo I took almost 10 years ago of Malvern Train Station.

My photo taken for the Ardmore initiative and it became the cover of this
magazine May, 2009.

But I’m not using my cell phone. I’m using a real, grown-up camera.

I used to second a rather talented wedding photographer. I actually apprenticed with her so to speak. She saw photos I took just as a hobby and said to me one time many many years ago that I could actually do this, so she trained me and she’s a professional photographer. A photographer who went to art school. I won’t misrepresent myself. I am a digital photographer. In that vein, I humbly swear that I will not take a photo of your bare ass! 🤣

I will note I thought of photographs along this vein before my breast cancer surgery years ago and then after with the scars and I just never did it. I only point that out so that you understand that I don’t have an aversion to nude or partially nude photography, essentially. It’s all about who does it and if you’re going to do it, use a professional that you can trust. In a setting where you are comfortable.

I took this photo years ago from a hot air balloon shaped like an
American flag in Chester County on the anniversary of 9/11

So this new age where often random people call themselves a “photographer” on social media bothers me because a lot of these people aren’t actual trained photographers, and I think that’s very unfair to the photographers that actually are real and trained.

But if you’re going to get down to the brass tacks of actual boudoir photography, it is an art form. It’s not photos taken with somebody’s cell phone. However, I’m wondering if they can be combined with a Main Line Easter Bunny photo shoot?

Yes, this is the same person who years ago why don’t you to buy dinner for her family on Christmas Eve if you were a local restaurant, etc. etc. and when I have bought this person up in the past based upon their public posts as a public figure I’ve gotten some messages from them. When you post publicly as part of your “business model”, public comments are part of the deal. When you also post as a “public figure” public comments are part of the deal.

People are going to do their hustle, who are technically sort of gig workers or self-employed. But I can still say this kind of gives off Eau de Creepy. If this person was a legitimate photographer, maybe I would not find it so giggle worthy. But as long as these are photos taken with someone’s cell phone or iPhone, it’s kind of like capturing the moment as an upskirter IMHO. Or just a waste of good lingerie and make up.

Ick factor = high

Here’s How to Get Your Restaurant Publicity On AroundMainLine.com, Or: How Bad PR People Ruin the PR Industry
by VICTOR FIORILLO· 12/10/2013, 4:54 p.m.

Eater: Philly Blog Publisher Asks Restaurants for a Free Dinner
by Raphael Brion Dec 11, 2013, 8:30am EST

The Worst Blogger in Philly is at it Again
misplaced christmas spirit: save the righteous indignation
Worlds’s Most Desperate Blogger (and It’s Not Me)

So whatevs’ I guess this is the evolution of this person from publicity on Christmas Eve to photo shoots with her cell phone to the energizer bunny with a flat Hal faced Easter bunny costume. That’s their jam. However, the budding boudoir photography career does make me throw up a little in my mouth. And I am allowed to have that opinion, as to many others who have seen the same posts. I mean people are talking about it.

If you are going to do this, leave it to the professionals….not low budget. Besides, how do you know your photos wouldn’t be used on their social media platforms as advertising?

IMHO this is not about empowering anyone, this is a way to make money so why not just be honest?

Xmas Eve Dinner + Flat Hal – faced Ether Bunny + Cell Phone Photo Shoots Venmo OK + Cell Phone Boudoir Photo Shoots? Damn…. so not my jam…

hey tredyffrin: remember mt. pleasant in the panhandle? it’s blue tarp party season.

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Giant college party going on in Mt. Pleasant since 1 PM. Kids keep ubering in. Police as per residents have been called at least 5 times, and well here, read the screen shots off of social media:

Tredyffrin Police? Are you so busy you can’t deal with this, or is it you do not want to deal with it? Tredyffrin Supervisors? Do you have a collective pulse?

So Tredyffrin we KNOW you like to pretend Mt. Pleasant doesn’t exist, except when you and Upper Merion approve ridiculous land development that is. And is that development for college student rentals? Seems a little overpriced for that maybe?

I don’t want to say Tredyffrin is prejudiced or biased against some residents, but hey the optics? Sleazy at a minimum here? These people aren’t good enough to care for or something?

These people, as in the people raising kids and living like normal people in Mt. Pleasant have an expectation of quiet enjoyment legally, correct? I don’t think that includes blue tarps to block keg view for the neighbors etc is part of quiet enjoyment?

How about do your damn jobs Tredyffrin? And media? If you are interested in Mt. Pleasant I can hook you up. It is actually in Chester County, PA.

For years, virtually throughout it’s history, Mt. Pleasant is treated poorly, and poorly is a polite descriptive adjective.

Oh here’s a blue tarp party photo from September. Tredyffrin quite a few OUTSIDE of Mt. Pleasant have been keeping tabs. We want better for them. Even if you don’t give a good god damn.

don’t stop believing?

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Is Instagram now really The Diary of a Malignant Narcissist? High on the hog of her Main Line Tonight interview, she’s back on Instagram proclaiming not sure exactly what?

My true unfettered amusement on this first screenshot is she still doesn’t get how the Main Line works. Not my job to educate. Also, what is she responding to? My opinion?

This above? Just wow, right? Words are cheap and she sure is slinging them like mud, oui? Like at our local journalist and all around wonderful lady, Caroline O’Halloran? For real? You are going after her too? All those court dockets are just lies too? Police reports? Does she live in an alternate universe or does Melissa Jacobs have it right when she refers to her as Hillary White Jean: The Main Line’s Anna Delvey? (Careful, Melissa, you are probably next. as everyone takes a turn in her blame game, don’t they?)

Big-PileDownload

Certainly more to unpack, yes?

My post yesterday might explode if I added more, hence the new post.

Yesterday’s post:

the fantastical life story of a legend in her own mind?

Back to the screenshots:

I’m not quite sure what the point is with the posts about Tehrani brothers? She’s not exactly the wounded party here, is she? I mean this is just one of two retail store leases she skipped out on in Wayne isn’t it? Did they have to accept what she purportedly proposed?

I don’t really know Nancy Volpe Beringer, other than who she is and I watched her on Project Runway and cheered her on. But what do these posts prove? Because if you think about it, of course, Nancy can wear her own pieces. She either designed them, or actually owns them, correct?

And once again, she pivots back to a subject of some obsession doesn’t she? Why so obsessed with publicist, Sarah Doheny? After all, if you bounce checks to someone and stiffed them on the total amount of what you agreed to pay them, how is that other person supposed to feel? Wasn’t there someone different as a publicist down in Glen Mills? Seems a wee bit stalkeriffic as a whole, doesn’t it?

I don’t pretend to have the answers here, I am following along with popcorn like everyone else. But I just don’t get it and I have to wonder if victims are feeling victimized yet again?

First Savvy Main Line then Main Line Tonight seemed to have established that what happened in Wayne is a repeat pattern from other businesses in other places, right?

Also curious? Why she leaves out text messages like to her former publicist, Sarah Doheny? Like these two (she does all of the talking it seems except for a polite blue reply which is Doheny?) :

Curiouser and curiouser. Where are you hiding Keith Morrison?

Savvy Main Line: The swift rise and steep fall of a Wayne shopkeeper; Top-shelf shooting at Main Line Armory; Walk-in pet care; New Joey Chops & Thrillz adventure park; All-weather pickleball (!) & much more

FEBRUARY 28, 2023 / BY CAROLINE O’HALLORAN 

Court and police records show that Jean:

  • has declared bankruptcy five times in three states since 2011, most recently on Jan. 30 of this year.
  • has been repeatedly sued for alleged nonpayment of bills and has had at least four court judgments entered against her since 2021.
  • has been arrested three times since arriving in Wayne: twice last summer for passing fraudulent checks and once three weeks ago for witness intimidation, harassment and other charges at her preliminary criminal hearing before Radnor District Judge Leon Hunter. The Delaware County DA and Radnor and Newtown police have all confirmed ongoing investigations of Jean.

To the public, she was a smart businesswoman, a former hairdresser from Haiti with a sharp eye for style and a winning personality who worked hard for the designer clothes she wore and the Range Rover she drove.

Jean marketed herself as both “the first black business owner in Wayne” and a fashion pioneer who was upping the Main Line’s style game. “We’re bringing Rodeo Drive to the Main Line,” she once told SAVVY with a 100-watt smile….

But court and police records and our interviews with multiple sources reveal a woman who repeatedly changed names, addresses and businesses and stiffed people and companies whose fashions she sold, whose space she rented, and whose services she engaged.

In the last two years, Hillary White Jean has opened and closed three stores: Lady M Boutique (M was for millionaire) in Glen Mills, HJ Boutique at 106 E. Lancaster Ave. in Wayne (now the home of Wheelhouse Cards) and JWH Boutique at 209 E. Lancaster Ave. at the former Mattress Factory/Tehrani Rug Co. building, also in Wayne…..In an early January email to customers dotted with all-caps exclamations, Jean called her time in Wayne “phenomenal … We MADE HISTORY. ASK SIRI … We were named the New Beverly Hills Fashion Boutique in Wayne.” She blamed “unfortunate unexpected circumstances” for her store’s closure and invited customers to shop online.

“Perhaps it’s just temporary,” she wrote. “We are in the middle of a renegotiation. We’re NOT sure how it will work out.”

But according to her Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy filing on January 30, 2023, she owes nearly $476,280.42 to her first Wayne landlord, School Lane Holdings Co., with whom she signed a five-year lease with a personal guarantee, and $67,103.42 to her second Wayne landlords, Reuben, Benjamin and Youda Tehrani.

~SAVVY MAIN LINE 2/28/2023

Hillary White Jean: The Main Line Scandal
Hillary White Jean: Check Mate

relevant/irrelevant tomayto/tomahto

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First post.

Oh my, she’s discovered me. Shockers. Give me a minute.

Then it was edited.

So. First things first. I am nobody says the woman who arrived here and expected everyone to lap up her bougie B.S. (Note I said bougie not boujee.)

Alrighty then. To her I am nobody. That’s fine. I don’t know people who do things like what Radnor Police etc. have said what she did. (Refer to Savvy Main Line article.)

The swift rise and steep fall of a Wayne shopkeeper; Top-shelf shooting at Main Line Armory; Walk-in pet care; New Joey Chops & Thrillz adventure park; All-weather pickleball (!) & much more

Now the other day she had plenty to say about Caroline O’Halloran and someone else it seemed like. Maybe now it’s my turn, I suppose? Is she threatening me? Calling me out behind the gym? Why? Did I create her issues? It seems to me she’s a grown woman who made her current choices, oui?

Now she talks about 15 minutes of fame? Maybe just maybe that’s a little light projecting on a Saturday? You see I hypothesize that she wanted her 15 minutes of fame, but this wasn’t the 15 minutes of fame that she probably envisioned, right?

I wonder if she thought after leaving NYC, then going to Delaware, then Glen Mills, PA, that Wayne, PA was going to be the golden mile because it was the Main Line? I don’t know and none of us can get inside her head, but it seems a mite *crowded* hating on people, doesn’t it? Does hating everyone instead of owning her actions make it easier to deal with? Again don’t know, that would be a psychologist’s job.

The Main Line is a funny place. Even more today than it used to be. But one thing has never changed. You can’t just move there to belong. Much like any other affluent suburb. You have to be invited to belong, if you feel you need to sit at the ultimate popular girls table. This is a nuance that so many don’t get.

Hillary doll, I grew up on the Main Line. So I don’t need 15 minutes of anything, nor do I have to seek or do seek relevance. I am sure next you will vaguely or not so vaguely refer to me as, or call me a racist. Do you do that to everyone, I wonder? You seem to have patterns, and for a smart woman, you’re not being smart. And that is my opinion. Just like it is my opinion, that on some level this is a tragedy in many acts. You are a woman who is obviously extremely bright and attractive, so why is this the path?

And oh by the way, my blog doesn’t even have an Instagram presence. That was a fraudulent account God knows who created that was reported to Instagram a long time ago. So you probably should block it to be safe.

Also, the media and police are all watching your socials. And they read my blog. I am sorry for your troubles, but I didn’t cause them and neither did Caroline O’ Halloran.

chester county melting pot?

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The above T-shirts crack me up, although I can’t take credit for their creation. You can buy them through My Chesco.

I thought of them this morning when I saw a post on NextDoor about moving to Chester County but being from Delaware County…and how moving here was a huge culture shock.

Different, yes, but culture shock? Meh, not so much in my opinion.

Now I was a newcomer not so many years ago and it was different. But that for me I think was mostly that I had not only lived in one place before Chester County for so many years, but because I was in my mid-40s. When you are younger or have young kids I think it’s just easier to assimilate and find commonality. I couldn’t have kids and was moving here and becoming a stepparent.

I think what made the move adjustment take time was because I was moving into a very established community, where people had lived for generations. However that was one of the things I liked best about coming to Chester Country. People put down roots and stay. Of course, with all the development these days I wonder if that will stay the same in the future? Because it didn’t stay the same in other places like the Main Line and Delaware County and other parts of Montgomery County.

Now as for the Delco pizza of it all I can’t really comment. Never had Gaetano’s and never understood the religion of Picas. Yes, sacrilege, I understand but I do not hail from Delco, I came from Main Line/ Montco. And I like my own pizza better with the exception of Tacconelli’s and the former Mack and Manco, now Manco and Manco in Ocean City, NJ. And out here Fiorello’s makes amazing pizza too.

What was immediately different for me personally when I moved to Chester County, was simply put, people were just a little nicer. The Main Line was super bitchy with a dash of misplaced entitlement by the time I left thanks to the Nouveau Main Line. Social climbers had created a blood sport, and those folks are exhausting (as well as ridiculous.)

Now I know plenty of people who refer to parts of Chester County as “Delco West” and for some I suppose that’s how they see it. I don’t. I see Chester County as Chester County a place with a rich heritage and am so glad I am here. I could wish for LESS development because that would put it in the category of “Delco West” via that perspective.

I have always known folks who grew up in Delco as quite literally “Delco Proud” and I respect that, it’s where they are from. It’s their Mother Ship so to speak. I wish I could say that about the Main Line but I can’t because the Main Line might have her history and memory pages on social media (where for some odd reason people are obsessed lately about discussing the Pew family and an estate that was broken up decades ago), but it has changed so very much. And not for the positive.

I will always have a lot of great as well as mediocre memories of the Main Line, but it is no longer my homeland and is not my Mother Ship. I do not miss the Main Line. I miss friends, but I do not miss living there at all. I love living in Chester County in spite of the nasty comments I get occasionally about what I write about.

And Chester County feels like home because it is home. Home is where my heart and friends and family are, right here in Chester County.

Thanks for stopping by.

a look back at another community

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I am a big fan of Main Line Parent, Philadelphia Family , Family Focus Media. I love what they do, and actually for a few years I was a freelancer with them. I wrote a couple of articles for them, but mostly I was their calendar girl. That is to say for a few years I hunted down and loaded events into their events calendar. I never talked about it much but it was something that was a lot of fun to do. And the ladies who are Main Line Parent are amazing!

Yesterday one of their folks posted the screen shot above. That mural went up in Ardmore in 2012, after I had moved to Chester County, but had been in the planning stages of a group I belonged to for many years, The Save Ardmore Coalition.

Main Line Media News Ardmore to get new mural

By Cheryl Allison callison@mainlinemedianews.com September 21, 2011

The Save Ardmore Coalition has finally found a location for its long-planned community mural, and the search has brought the group back home.

Lower Merion Township commissioners last week gave the green light to the organization’s application to install a mosaic mural on a wall of the Suburban Office Equipment building at 49 E. Lancaster Ave.

Main Line Media News: Mural dedication in downtown Ardmore

By Cheryl Allison callison@mainlinemedianews.com Nov 4, 2012

The Save Ardmore Coalition celebrated the completion of its Ardmore Mural Project at 49 Lancaster Ave.in Ardmore Sunday The new mosaic mural depicting a street scene has been taking shape this summer on the side of Suburban Office Equipment, across Lancaster Avenue from Rittenhouse Place.

 Artist Jessica Gorlin Liddell was on hand to talk about her work. Special guests included state Sen. Daylin Leach, through whose office a grant was provided to support this work of public art; Suburban Office owners Scott Mahan and Peggy Savery; SAC Mural Coordinator Sharon Eckstein; and other SAC members.

The years have passed on by and those of us who made up The Save Ardmore Coalition have moved on with our lives, and some like me, literally moved out of the area. By the time the mural was dedicated in 2012 I was living in Chester County, and had not been part of Save Ardmore Coalition for a while. But the people I was in that group with will always be dear to me like family.

We accomplished a great deal. We actually won a whole bunch of awards locally, regionally, and even one nationally. We were apolitical and beholden to neither political party. And yes, one year to stop the craziness in Lower Merion Township we changed the faces of who governed us and flipped half of the board of commissioners, essentially. We walked into a room together once upon a time as all strangers with a common goal to want better for our community. We left those first rooms and meetings as friends.

The mural is kind of the last thing many of us did together. Once in a while some of us get together and a lot of us are in touch with one and other. But seeing that mural pop up in a photo reminded me of the good community can do.

Be kind to one and other today and never be afraid to stand together for the greater good.

december demolition

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39 East Montgomery Avenue, 41 East Montgomery Avenue and 108 Glenn Road – all on the Montgomery Avenue side of the Suburban Square neighborhood in North Ardmore.

(Here is an interior tour of one of the homes demolished.)

I remember all of these houses. I used to walk my dogs past them when I lived on the Main Line. This is in Lower Merion Township (see page 29 if you click on hyperlink.) This plan has been around a few years as per a Main Line Media News article from November, 2018.

One of my readers from the Main Line sent me these photos.

Two of these homes were converted into apartments many, many years ago.

These three homes all were built between 1900-1920. These homes housed about 10 residents prior to this demolition from what I was told.

Once upon a time I knew some of the people who lived here. Hardwood floors, amazing woodwork, and architectural details that withstood the test of time. These homes, although rentals, still had gardens. Lovely, established gardens.

I still remember when I first saw inside one of the houses. I was in awe. AMAZING. The tenants were house proud.

But like other cool old houses I have been enamored of in the township I used to call home, they have been demolished.

When completed, There will be 21 three bedroom residences and 42 parking spaces. This is what will replace three once graceful and beautiful homes as per the developer’s website:

The developer describes his project thusly:

Inspired by the stately and legendary architectural heritage of the iconic Main Line, 39 MONTGOMERY offers 21 private residences suited to the way people live today. Gracefully proportioned, the combination of limestone and brick façade harmoniously blends with both residential neighbors and commercial Suburban Square.

I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I just do not see any of that. I did see that description in the three places torn down. They were definitely gracefully proportioned. And well-maintained. Timeless. Elegant.

I have known quite a few people who lived on and around Glenn Road. I wonder what they think?

I remember hearing how the residents of these now torn down homes attended many meetings in Lower Merion Township. It made me so sad. Been there, done that.

Once upon a time when I lived not too far from where these homes stood, my then neighborhood also had a December demolition. I still haven’t forgotten those houses. They were in a “historic district”. December, 2008. Here is an image from that day:

I remember what it felt like that day in December long ago. It was so sad. Like watching a neighborhood get torn apart for someone else’s version / vision of “progress”.

This is what the Glenn Road house specifically looked like:

Maybe my thoughts on “progress” like this don’t matter. Riddle me this however: when does it matter what residents in municipalities facing all this infill development they really don’t want are feeling?

RIP to three really and truly lovely homes.

rambling down memory lane….

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Some weeks I write a lot, other weeks not so much.  As I sat at this traffic light this afternoon headed towards home I realized again how much I do NOT miss the Main Line.  And I smiled again at the presumptuousness of those who refer to Malvern and places like Chester Springs as the “Main Line”. They don’t get it, it’s not the Main Line, and thank goodness.

When I was growing up the Main Line was a far more civilized place until the changes started to seem to appear in the late 1970s .  It was then that I remember my mother remarking about people who had bought a neighbor’s house on Brentford Road in Haverford always lined up their expensive cars right out front like a car lot or showroom, instead of parking them down  behind the stone wall near the garages.

But it was true, it was the little changes. At first you didn’t notice much.  But as the old families moved out, and new people moved in and old homes started to get torn down or bumped up to what we would come to call McMansions, change was coming.  Long time businesses closed, new businesses came in, some good some bad.

Movie theaters started to close. First I remember was the Suburban in Suburban Square.  That was a grand old theater once upon a time. I can’t even find photos of it anymore.  The next movie theater I remember closing was the Wynnewood theater. Then in more revent times the Ardmore Theater on Lancaster Avenue which has yet another horrible fate planned for it.

Then the department stores. I am not sure of the order but Bonwit Teller, B. Altman, Wanamaker’s, then ultimately Strawbridge & Clothier. For me Bonwit Teller and B. Altman were particular favorites. Followed by Wanamaker’s.  Strawbridge’s in Ardmore was always hit or miss I thought.

Then old time restaurants and diners.  Now I am not saying a lot of these places were culinary masterpieces, but they were the everyday “joints”.  The Viking Inn and Smorgasbord in Ardmore, for example. It opened in 1930s and was the only Scandinavian restaurant around.  I forget when it closed exactly, but it died a slow and horrible death.  And all of the diners that used to be around. I remember some were even those silver metal diner buildings.  Like the one which was in Rosemont once upon a time.  Now there is a McDonald’s where it once was.viking

I remember as even a teenager, out here, where I live now in Chester County, seemed so very far away. Today, I can’t imagine being anyplace else.

I had medical appointments today and had to venture to the Main Line to go to Penn Medicine in Radnor. It’s amazing that we live in and around affluent areas because the roads are in such terrible shape.  And the drivers.  Cutting people off, angry honking, lights and stop signs are all apparently optional.

Every time I go to the Main Line now I feel like I can’t breathe.  There is so much more density and traffic and I feel about a million years old when I pass by what was someone’s house I once knew.  You drive by and you remember who used to live there and the house wasn’t a McMansion or a townhouse or apartment building.  It was just a nice house.

When I was growing up after we moved to the Main Line I remember summers coming back from the beach.  My parents’ early cars had no air-conditioning so I remember the searing end of summer city heat as we came over either the Ben Franklin or Walt Whitman. When we reached the Gladwyne exit of the Schuylkill the temperature just dropped.   All that verdant green. Not so much anymore because well development, development, development.

134 Cheswold Ln, Haverford, PA 19041Even the august Merion Cricket Club is not safe from development and supersizing. Truly lovely when growing up, today, it’s a shell of what it was.  Changes to the original dining rooms, elimination of the casual and teenager friendly Cricket Room and a series of chefs who aren’t remarkable except for how the food has declined in spite of the tarting up of dining rooms. Plans exist to turn Merion into a suburban country club.  These plans would include some of my favorite houses around the club. I especially loved the pink stucco house at 134 Cheswold Lane.  That was the house my parents house sat in the summer of 1973.  The summer the Haverford Hotel was torn down .

I have written about this house and the Haverford hotel before. It was at this pink house on Cheswold Lane that my younger sister learned how to swim in the pool behind the house in the secret garden you could not see from the street.  The garden had the first blueberry bushes I had ever seen.

I also remember spending Saturdays in Bryn Mawr with my friends. Going to Katydid and the bookstore next to it. The Greek diner down from the movie theater. Maybe buy candy at Parvins Pharmacy.

Katydid was originally in Bryn Mawr before moving to Wayne .  They had these little mice in little dresses that were real fur. We used to collect them.  I think some of them are still in my dollhouse from growing up that my sister has in storage somewhere.

It was nice being a kid then. Summer nights were for kick the can and other games we actually were able to play in the road without anyone hitting us.  Certainly can’t do that on Main Line streets now.

When my friends and I were growing up, we always thought we’d grow up and live where our parents lived. HA! It was a nice thought, but between the home prices and ridiculous real estate taxes most of us either can’t or choose not to.

There are so many businesses that are gone. Restaurants. Bakeries. Book stores and who remembers The Owl at Bryn Mawr College? I loved, loved, loved that store. Second hand and antique and out of print books. The Owl bookstore was I think founded to support the college’s scholarship fund. And the older ladies who ran The Owl were amazing.  That place was floor to ceiling books, and several floors of books. It was dusty and sometimes dim in the lighting department but you could get lost for hours looking at books. It was heavenly! (Especially on a rainy day.)

Driving around today I wondered if half of these people in their giant SUVs on their phones ever paused to breathe?  Did they enjoy where they lived? Or was it all back and forth and maybe push someone out of line at the Starbucks drive thru?

Thanks for the memories old Main Line, but nouveau Main Line? I just don’t miss you.  You don’t get yourself anymore. History and tradition and genteel living, all memories.

Thank you Chester County for the new memories.  And being able to find spindle back rocking chairs from Maine in old barns.

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