Monday Update: Scranton’s Hill Secton Neighbors Want To Tackle Blight

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lackawanna County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some Hill Section residents have an ambitious plan to combat ugly, vacant properties in the neighborhood, but their solution would need approval from city officials.

The Hill Neighborhood Association, a nonprofit with the goal of improving that section of Scranton, wants the city to turn several small, vacant properties over to the organization. On Thursday, Ozzie Quinn, association president, went before city council and asked that the city resurrect a vacant properties committee to review blighted properties and sell those in the Hill Section to the association for a nominal fee.

This summer, the neighborhood association approached the city about many of the overgrown, vacant lots they wanted to mow and trim back to respectability. City solicitor Jason Shrive told the association it needed to sign waivers and have liability insurance to work in the vacant lots.

The Hill group got insurance, Mr. Quinn said, but was then told it would need to sign right-of-entry agreements with landlords before cleaning properties.

Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/monday-update-hill-secton-neighbors-want-to-tackle-blight-1.1766117

Scranton’s Burgeoning Indian Community Putting Down Roots And Sharing Culture

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Lackawanna County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The chanting of a Hindu prayer could be heard faintly on the streets of Petersburg Corners in Scranton.  Inside a former Presbyterian church on Prescott Avenue, they lit candles made of hardened butter, sweet-smelling incense and sat with their legs crossed before Shiva and other deities of the Hindu pantheon, chanting in unison a prayer in Gujarati, a language of India.

Years ago, the cross of Christ was the symbol of faith here.  A nearly 70-year-old organ played the hymns of the Christian faith.

That is all gone now, serving as another reminder of the shifting demographics of the city as it continues on a new path than the road taken by the Italians, Irish, Polish and other European immigrants.  During the immigration waves of the 19th and early 20th centuries, they built the churches and laid the foundations of the city.

Petersburg Corners and the surrounding area reveal a new direction, a community undergoing change, where another wave of immigrants is now building a place they, too, can call home.

Today, the growing Indian community in this neighborhood, the surrounding Hill Section neighborhood and nearby parts of the city flock to the Shree Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu temple at 933 Prescott Ave.  Harikrisna Patel, 57, is a spiritual leader at the temple, where roughly 300 adherents of Hinduism gather for prayer and meals.

Read more: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/scranton-s-burgeoning-indian-community-putting-down-roots-and-sharing-culture-1.1556987

More Copper Thieves In Scranton

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There is no substitute for hard work and common sense.  Some people try to take the easy way out by resorting to crime for a big payday.

Two men were apprehended by Scranton police after burglarizing several homes in the Hill Section of the city.  Police could see copper sticking out of a backpack in the car and were obtaining a search warrant.  The two men tried to elude police on foot but were captured in short order.

Two homes were burglarized and a third had the front door kicked in but the perpetrators left the scene before taking anything.