Lawncrest Community Association last week held its annual Christmas party, with the highlight being a recognition of longtime neighborhood activist Margie Simon.
City Councilwoman Cherelle Parker delivered a citation, and the office of U.S. Rep. Bob Brady brought an American flag.
State Sen. Tina Tartaglione and state Reps. Jared Solomon and Isabella Fitzgerald also honored Simon.
Simon, who’ll turn 85 on Thursday, lived as a child on Elfreth’s Alley, the oldest residential street in the United States. She lived in Fishtown and attended Holy Name of Jesus Grammar School and John W. Hallahan High School. She moved with her late husband Ed to Lawncrest in 1961. She worked as a registered nurse at Jeanes Hospital and American Oncologic Hospital, which later became Fox Chase Cancer Center after a merger.
Simon was vice president of the Lawncrest Community Association and has volunteered for Cardinal Dougherty High School, Presentation BVM, Jeanes Hospital and the Philadelphia Protestant Home, where she recently moved.
In other news from the Dec. 19 meeting:
• St. Cecilia fifth-grader Melanie Huynh sung The First Noel.
• The group approved plans to legalize a daycare/duplex at 6444 Rising Sun Ave. and to complete a deck on a house on the 600 block of Van Kirk St.
• Trinity Church, Oxford has appealed its historical designation to Common Pleas Court. The church wants to lease part of its grounds to Royal Farms, but neighbors have successfully blocked that idea by having the property deemed historic.
• Parker said the School District of Philadelphia has no plans right now to sell or lease the former Fels High School property, which will be demolished in early 2018.
• Jim’s Automotive Supercenter, 6300 Oxford Ave., has closed, and the business is now known as Preferred Automotive.
• Lawncrest Community Association will meet again on Tuesday, Jan. 16, at 7 p.m. at St. William parish hall, at Argyle and Robbins streets. The owner of a hair salon will ask to add a daycare to the top two floors of a property at 537 Sanger St. (at Colgate Street). Neighbors groaned when they heard the plan. ••
