Home Care In Wyncote, PA

The Jenkintown-Wyncote Train Station at 2 Greenwood Avenue is home to several iconic buildings designed by renowned architect Horace Trumbauer, multiple transient restaurants, a National Register of Historic Places designation, and forthcoming ADA-compliant platforms and a Pedestrian Tower.

Built in 1872, Jenkintown Station was originally the home of the North Pennsylvania Railroad until it was taken over by the Reading Rail Company in 1932. The outgoing and incoming benches still bear the carved Reading Railroad symbol.

According to local historian Mike Leibrandt, part of the original complex included facilities related to coal shipping businesses. The SEPTA office building was formerly utilized as a scale building by Nicholson’s Lehigh Coal Company.

To the southwest of Greenwood Avenue is a large parking lot formerly occupied by Nicholson’s and the Reading Company freight facility known as “team tracks.” This land was used by the company to allow a team of horses to drive up alongside a railroad car to receive a consignment directly from the train.

From the July 26, 1931 edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer:

The 1932-built structure remains to this day and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014. The rare stone station, built in the Queen Anne-style, is “one of the last traditional passenger stations constructed in the region before World War II.” An excerpt:

The 1932 Jenkintown Wyncote Train Station is a complex of buildings and structures at a junction point for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) local passenger rail service. It is situated in the valley of Tookany Creek and is adjacent to Ralph Morgan Park in a suburban setting north of Philadelphia. Two traditional railroad suburbs are located to the east and west of the complex. One, the Wyncote neighborhood of Cheltenham Township, is to the west of the creek and to the east of the station is the other, the Borough of Jenkintown. The station complex consists of four contributing buildings and one contributing structure, and includes the main rectangular stone Tudor Revival style depot located on the west (inbound) side with long, prominent steel and wood umbrella sheds over the platform. The northend of the platform is terminated by a formidable stone, brick, and wood interlocking tower (the contributing structure). The east side (outbound) platform features a stone waiting room designed in the Tudor style, the former baggage/express rooms and metal and wood umbrella sheds. Part of the original complex included facilities related to coal shipping businesses. The remaining contributing building is a former office and scale house of Nicholson’s Lehigh Coal Company, now used by SEPTA for offices. The complex is in reasonably good repair with sensitive alterations made to the main depot during a partial conversion to a restaurant, coffee shop and bar. The entire ensemble is a gracious “front door” to the two communities it serves. The station is also a contributing resource within the National Register listed Wyncote Historic District. (That inventory identifies five contributing resources—the station, waiting room, baggage room, office building [former Coal Company building], and tower—and so the buildings and structure that are nominated here are not counted again above in Section 5. See pages 1 and 2 of theWyncote Historic District Inventory.) Uncounted landscape features that complement the property’s integrity include remaining stone walls, lighting, track alignment, and similar elements that date from the period of significance and help convey the complex’s integrity, function, and significance.

More recently, the station has been the home of several restaurants, including Greenwood Grill, Stazi Milano (closed in 2001), Jonathan’s American Grille (closed in 2007), Mio Pomodoro (2008-2010).

In 2016, SEPTA completed an exterior restoration of the building which installed a new roof and repaired the masonry. In 2017, it was included in Curbed Philadelphia’s article “9 beautiful and historic train stations along SEPTA Regional Rail“.

SEPTA is planning to make the station wheelchair accessible, but construction has not been implemented to date. From the Cheltenham Chamber of Citizens:

SEPTA’s project to bring the Jenkintown Train Station into ADA compliance remains in the design phase with construction scheduled to begin some time between 2023 to 2026. The plan calls for the installation of high level platforms and a Pedestrian Tower located in the South Lot that will serve as the new center of the station. The Pedestrian Tower will have both stairs and an elevator as well as a drop off area in front. The existing drop off area on West Avenue will also be modified. SEPTA estimates the cost of the ADA modifications at $23.52M.

Renderings courtesy of SEPTA

Because of its status as a historic site, any improvements to the site must go through the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.

The station has been impacted by numerous flood events in recent years, prompting Johnson, Mirmiran & Thompson, Inc. (JMT) helped SEPTA with a comprehensive flood mitigation strategy.

Before the pandemic, Jenkintown-Wyncote hosted 1,246 daily passenger boardings. It serves the West Trenton, Lansdale/Doylestown, or Warminster Regional Rail lines.

Photos courtesy of Wikipedia

For more on the station, including office hours, routes, and related information, you can click here. You can also watch this Youtube video from 2019 which shows multiple trains passing through the station’s tracks:

For all the latest news, follow us on Facebook or sign up for Glenside Local’s “Daily Buzz” newsletter here.

Feature photo courtesy of The Philadelphia Inquirer circa 1932

The former home of a shuttered Archdiocese of Philadelphia high school will soon be incorporated into Arcadia University's growing campus in Montgomery County.

The private college reached an agreement Tuesday with the archdiocese to purchase the property that once housed Bishop McDevitt High School before it closed at the end of the 2020-21 academic year due to declining enrollment and rising financial deficits.

The property sits on 18-plus acres at 125 Royal Ave., in the Wyncote section of Cheltenham Township. It currently includes a 95,700-square-foot, four-story structure, athletic fields and a parking lot located behind the building.

The archdiocese and Arcadia entered into a shared use deal in 2014 over the high school campus. The agreement allowed for the establishment of dual credit enrollment programs and other academic initiatives for both institutions.

As part of the agreement, the archdiocese granted the university a right of first offer if the property were ever to be up for sale. Arcadia's purchase of the property totaled $6.5 million, the Inquirer reported.

Arcadia said that the former high school, which is located less than a mile away from the university's main campus in Glenside, will help further expand its academic footprint in Montgomery County.

Details regarding the specific use of the property and opportunities for community engagement will be made available at a later date, the university said.

"We are grateful to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for our years of a mutually beneficial partnership and for this extraordinary opportunity," Arcadia University President Ajay Nair said. "The acquisition of this property will afford us the space to continue to advance our esteemed academic programs while enhancing the educational experience for Arcadia students."

Bishop McDevitt High School closed its doors last spring after more than six decades. The school was operating at a 40% enrollment capacity last year and would have had to implement significant tuition increases to cover its operating costs. That would've prevented the school from continuing to offer affordable, high-quality education, the archdiocese said.

The school was recommended for closure after a sustainability study was conducted by the archdiocese to examine enrollment totals, student retention rates, regional demographic trends, capacity figures and the financial solvency of each of its 17 high schools.

While the school's closure was not solely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the archdiocese said that the public health crisis accelerated its dissolution.

The archdiocese worked to transition students, teachers, staff and administrators to other nearby Catholic high schools for this academic year.

"Bishop McDevitt High School served the community for more than 60 years as an archdiocesan high school," said Kenneth Gavin, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's chief communications officer. "We believe that the sale to Arcadia University, an institution well-rooted in Glenside and Cheltenham Township, will help preserve the building and enable it to continue to serve the community as an academic institution for years to come."

Follow Pat & PhillyVoice on Twitter: @Pat_Ralph | @thePhillyVoice Like us on Facebook: PhillyVoice Add Pat's RSS feed to your feed reader Have a news tip? Let us know.

Pat Ralph PhillyVoice Staff

[email protected]

Videos

Lisa Gratz, a Cheltenham native, founded the Glenside & Wyncote PA Community Facebook group in April of 2020, and began Marketing Mondays in early 2021.

For those unacquainted, the idea behind Marketing Mondays is to provide a public space for residents and small business owners to locate one another for goods and services.

“At the beginning of the pandemic when precautions and lockdowns had many of us feeling separated and isolated, I wanted to find a way to bring the local community together,” Lisa said. “Since there was no Facebook group page for Glenside, it made sense to start one. I could not be prouder of what it has become.”

Today the group is 7,000 members strong, and the key, Lisa says, has been “keeping the feed clear” by limiting ads to a single day.

“Facebook groups can get flooded with spammers and ads to the point where neighbor-to-neighbor communication gets impeded, and I was determined to avoid that while still finding a way to support local businesses,” Lisa said.

Rhonda Genzick Isser agreed to join Lisa as a co-administrator in September 2020.

“Rhonda was instrumental in setting up Marketing Mondays, and Tom Hendel has been wonderful in continuing it. We also had generous help from community member Merle Rosenberg Slyhoff,” Lisa said.

“We sometimes make exceptions and leave posts from hyper-local family-run businesses, especially those that are just getting off the ground, because it just makes sense to help in that way, but limiting almost all advertising to one day guarantees a space where neighbors can speak with their neighbors,” she said.

Tom Hendel, a local Realtor, has been helping to maintain Marketing Mondays since July. A Glenside native and Bishop McDevitt graduate, Tom came on as a moderator for the group after Rhonda gradually stepped out of the role.

“Lisa cares deeply about the community,” Tom said. “I saw how important Marketing Mondays was to these local businesses and the residents around town, so I took it over and told them that it’d be run properly. Rhonda was amazing, so now it’s just Lisa and I.”

“The businesses love it and they thank us for helping them out. A lot of local pages don’t allow advertising,” he said. “Everyone steps up to help each other. We think that doing it one day a week helps support local businesses.”

Tom noted that the page is routinely helpful in other ways. Residents find housing, jobs, and lost pets. Mondays, however, are wide open for business promotion.

“That way, the rest of the days of the week can be about everything else,” he said. “Everyone treats each other with respect. We’re just trying to keep the page running, and the group members make it easy for us.”

The son of two realtors, Tom is in his third year with Keller Williams Real Estate, and loving the family business.

“It was a great fit for me. I chose Keller Williams because my parents were Realtors for over 35 years, and the second half of their careers were with KW. They’re part owners of three of the KW offices, and I followed in their footsteps,” he said.

“Keller Williams does a great job training new Realtors and also has the best technology. I love Real Estate because I’m a big people person, and every day I get to meet new people. Buying and selling can be complicated, so I try to take the stress out of it. Nothing makes me happier than seeing my clients achieve their Real Estate goals.”

Tom notes that Real Estate markets are very local.

“With rates going up, the market has eased some for buyers, but mostly in areas that have a lot of inventory. As for sellers, if inventory is low in their area, they can still expect a considerable amount of interest and multiple offers, if you price your home correctly,” he said.

For more on Tom and Keller Williams, you can click here. For more on Marketing Mondays, you can check out Glenside & Wyncote PA Community’s Facebook page here.

By Mike Dougherty

WYNCOTE, Pa. (CBS) - Efforts are underway in Montgomery County to help residents displaced by Friday night's fire at The 1600 Church Road Condos (see related story).

The entire complex in Wyncote was evacuated. One family is staying at the Red Cross shelter and many others will not be able to return home for quite some time as building B was all but burned to the ground.

The Red Cross came to provide immediate support, food and shelter. Then they turned relief efforts to community volunteers.

"Those folks will be putting organizations together with individual families to see those families through all of their needs in whatever way they can. We don't know how many of these people will have had insurance," says Nancy Bower, who, with some help from the Red Cross, is guiding the eager but inexperienced volunteers through a long-term relief project.

Bower says it will likely be awhile before the victim's lives return to normal.

"I would imagine it's going to be months until these people are back into their homes."

She says many of them lost everything in the fire and she is compiling a list of family demographics to determine who needs what.

"Their needs are going to vary," she said. "They're going to have immediate needs right now for things like food and toiletries. And then as time goes by, they're going to need larger things like furniture. They're going to need silly little things like aluminum foil, which you don't think about. But to replace all of those things is going to cost an awful lot of money."

For information on how you can help with volunteer efforts or to make a donation, visit cheltenhamhelps1600.org.

WYNCOTE, PA. (WPVI) -- Dealing with chronic back and neck pain can be frustrating.

Some people don't seek help, afraid they'll be told to have surgery.

Experts at Temple Health say in fact, there are many non-surgical options for managing pain and getting back to life. However, many sufferers may not be told about all their options.

Pamela Daskus of Wyncote vividly recalls when pain set in one day before work.

"I was just getting ready for, getting dressed. And I had this sharp pain in my neck that went down my arm," recalls Daskus.

When oral medications didn't help, Daskus was referred to Dr. Gary Trehan, an interventional pain specialist with Temple Health.

Dr. Trehan, the section chief for acute and chronic pain, says the first step is finding the cause, to separate acute from chronic pain.

"50 to 60% of the acute back pain, which tends to be mainly muscle spasms, muscle and tendon strains, they resolve within a week or so. Most of it, 90% of it gets better in about 6 to 8 weeks," says Dr. Trehan.

Dr. Trehan says a conservative approach - anti-inflammatory medications, muscle relaxants, heat, massage, and physical therapy - usually help those.

If the pain continues toward the three-month chronic stage, some other medications can help.

"Such as anti-epileptics, as we call them, such as Lyrica, gabapentin, or antidepressants," Dr. Trehan notes.

But the herniated disks in Daskus' neck needed the next step in intervention.

"He treated those with a steroid injection, which helped. And then we started doing that about twice a year," she says.

Dr. Trehan says misinformation and fears about injections keep some patients from exploring this option, which he says is especially good for those unable to take anti-inflammatories or muscle relaxants.

"2 to 7 days when they start kicking in. And then we expect them to last 3 months or so," he says.

The medication can also be tailored to the exact problem. He doesn't use the same for all injections.

Daskus is now also receiving injections in her back for spinal arthritis.

The alternating treatments enable her to do daily exercise such as yoga and pilates, which really keep her on top of the pain.

"I'll move my body in ways that I couldn't before and it feels better," she says, adding, "Even with the injections and everything, you need to keep moving."

In addition to injections, Dr. Trehan says acupuncture, radiofrequency ablation, and medical marijuana are also good options to get for less pain and better function.