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With an eye for development, Tim Lidiak is trained to see opportunities to improve an urban landscape. He has served as deputy director of the Avenue of the Arts Inc., which helped to revitalize South Broad Street, and volunteered for the East Passyunk Avenue Business Improvement District, 1904 E. Passyunk Ave. Now he’s as a project manager at the Federal Transit Administration, but he spends much of his free time as president of the Newbold Community Development Corp., using his skills to revitalize his Newbold neighborhood.
Lidiak arrived in Philly as a University of Pennsylvania grad student. After receiving his master’s in city and regional planning, he lived in Bella Vista and East Passyunk Crossing before settling in at South Hicks and McKean streets.
When he learned the Streets Department would be revamping West Passyunk Avenue to improve the traffic flow by creating extended sidewalks, he worked with the City in order to beautify the spaces and promised to maintain them.
“By the time I moved over here to Newbold … I had some good background in community corridor revitalization,” the 54-year-old said. “We also knew that if we would have left those plazas, it wouldn’t have looked nice. … It would have accumulated hubcaps.”
He recalled one positive piece of feedback he received after 250 daffodils bloomed in a sidewalk garden. An elderly man told him, “I come out and see these gardens. It makes me happy.”
“I think it was more than the flowers,” Lidiak said. “He could see the renewal in this neighborhood, positive renewal. It made me happy.”
Other greening efforts have been ongoing, but trash has proved to be a challenge.
Newbold raised about $15,000 within a year to start a street cleaning program. That goal came to fruition April 14. University City’s Horizon House provides 12 workers who, collectively, do 32 hours of cleaning each week.
Lidiak hopes to attract more businesses and get existing ones more involved in community happenings. To assist him, he launched the Newbold Business Council, which he hopes will complement the community development corporation.
“The CDC can’t do it alone,” he said. “We can’t, every year, keep begging people for money.”
However, Lidiak has excelled with obtaining grant money to push his ideas forward. A $25,000 gift from the Commerce Department is funding street cleaning for a year while a Water Department grant will enact stormwater infrastructure projects. Another $6,000 Commerce grant will fund “Welcome to Newbold” banners that will be hung later this year on the two main avenues.
Lidiak attributes his success to his board, businesses, civics and politicians, but appreciated the honor.
“It’s been a lot of hours out there volunteering,” he said. “It’s nice to be recognized. Every day I’m doing something to improve the avenue, this community.”
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
2014 Difference Makers
/ L. Jay Agnes / Christine M. Beady / Jessica Calter / Mikki Capo /
/ Barbara Capozzi / Giovanna Cavaliere /
/ Christopher DiCapua / Marlo and Jason Dilks / Marie DiStefano / Beth Dougherty /
/ Cornell Drummond / Maureen Fratantoni / Etrulia (Trudy) Gay / Jess Gould /
/ David and Lisa Grainge / Richie Lazer / Tim Lidiak /
/ Shane Martin / Laura McColgan / Akhenaton Mikell / Russell Shoemaker / Lionel Simmons / Tom Wyatt/
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