Stuart Bogom

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Stuart Bogom

The Allens Lane Train Station Renewal project simply would not have happened without Stuart Bogom's years of dogged effort on its behalf. Stuart has no special architectural expertise. But, as he explains, “I take the train. And I got sick of the station being a mess. It is a beautiful station and it was literally falling apart through neglect. I used to live in the neighborhood a long time ago. So I remembered the station when it was much better.”

Stuart’s first efforts were devoted to sprucing the station up. “I started by organizing neighborhood clean-ups. We would come out once or twice to clean up the trash and do some plantings. We got some money from State Senator Allyson Schwartz to buy light bulbs and trash bags. Then we started talking to SEPTA and developed a relationship with the people responsible for the station.” Soon the idea of making bigger improvements was born. “It turned out that there was some Federal money available for this purpose. We had some people in the community with experience writing grants and we put together a grant proposal for SEPTA. We got endorsement letters from some local political people. So we got the money.”

That was not the end of matters. “Then it took forever to actually make that money turn into something.” There were many problems still to be solved. Stuart says that completion of the project was “a matter of just time, determination, patience and a willingness to work through the system and figure out what the appropriate levers were at the appropriate time. A tremendous number of people took on roles in the project: the local town watch, politicians, SEPTA itself.”

In addition to his work on the Allens Lane Train Station, Stuart has contributed to the community in other ways. He is on the 9th ward Democratic Committee and he is actively involved in Mishkan Shalom. In the past Stuart has been a member of the WMAN board and of the board of Weaver’s Way credit union.