Eight minutes, a little under two miles. Swampoodle is the small triangle of streets between Glenwood Avenue, Twenty-second Street and Lehigh Avenue, cut through by the rail lines, and it is close enough that most people here drive in rather than wait for the van. Side and rear glass is $200 to $500 fitted, windshields $250 to $450, chip fills $60 to $130. We are at 3115 Germantown Avenue. 215-608-1108.
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Swampoodle is one of the smallest named neighbourhoods we cover, a wedge of blocks hemmed in by Glenwood Avenue, Lehigh Avenue and the railway, and that shape is the whole story. Rail embankments and bridges cut it off on more than one side, several streets simply stop at a wall or a fence, and the traffic that does pass through is mostly people using it as a short cut between Lehigh and the Boulevard end of Broad. Small neighbourhood, plenty of through traffic, very few eyes on the kerb after dark.
That combination produces a specific pattern of work. Broken side windows, weighted toward cars parked on the dead-end stretches and next to the open ground the rail lines left behind. Chipped windshields collected on Lehigh Avenue and Glenwood Avenue rather than on any expressway. And a fair share of older vehicles and work vehicles, which are exactly the ones where a cracked screen tends to get lived with for months. It does not need to be lived with. A fill is $60 to $130 and takes half an hour, a replacement is $250 to $450 fitted, and the shop is eight minutes away on roads you already use. 215-608-1108, 7:30 to 4:00 weekdays.
Glenwood Avenue runs across the neighbourhood on the diagonal, which is unusual around here and means the junctions where it meets the numbered streets are angled and awkward. Lehigh Avenue forms the southern side and carries the through traffic and the trucks. Twenty-second Street takes the north-south movement toward Allegheny. The railway does the rest: embankments, bridges and cuttings that end several streets abruptly and leave the roads that do pass under them with a settled dip at either end. There is more open ground here than built ground on some blocks. Parking is kerbside and, unusually for North Philadelphia, not especially hard to find, which is exactly why cars end up standing on quiet, unlit stretches.
“I had a great experience with this glass replacement company. They were quick & very professional throughout the process, and the pricing was extremely reasonable compared to others I contacted. The work was done efficiently and the quality was top-notch. Highly recommend them for anyone looking for affordable and reliable glass repair or replacement!”
One: break-ins on the quiet edges. It is a small neighbourhood with a lot of open ground and dead ends, and a car parked against a fence or an embankment has nothing overlooking it. Rear door glass is the usual loss. Two: the rail underpasses. The road settles either side of every bridge abutment, and dropping into that dip is the most common way a chip in a car from these blocks becomes a crack. Three: Lehigh Avenue and Glenwood Avenue stone, both carrying trucks over a patched surface. Four: cars that sit for a while. Vehicles parked up for weeks here go through freeze and thaw with nobody watching, and a small chip in November is a screen-wide crack by the time somebody starts it in February.
Lehigh Avenue east is the simplest route: pick it up at Twenty-second Street, cross Broad and carry on until Germantown Avenue cuts across on the diagonal, then turn north-west up the Avenue for a short run to 3115, just below Allegheny. Eight minutes. If Lehigh is backed up at Broad, come north on Twenty-second to Allegheny Avenue, take Allegheny east across Broad and turn down Germantown instead. Either way you are on two roads, not five. Ring 215-608-1108 first, particularly if the car needs a specific windshield, because it saves you the trip if the glass has to come in.
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Photograph it before you touch anything, in case you decide to report it or claim, then leave the glass where it is. Sweeping the seat pushes fragments into the rails and the vents and makes the job longer, not shorter. Take valuables out, tape a bag over the hole if it is going to rain, and ring 215-608-1108 with the year, make, model and which window. Most common side glass is fitted for $200 to $500 and turned round the same day.
It usually is, and not for sentimental reasons. The windshield is bonded structure: it stiffens the body shell and it is what the passenger airbag pushes against when it deploys. A screen with a crack across it is also a straightforward inspection failure. At $250 to $450 fitted it is one of the cheaper things you will ever do to an older car, and it is the one that makes the most difference to whether the car is safe and legal to keep using.
Often, and the honest variable is stock rather than diary space. If the glass for your car is on the shelf, a side window is usually a couple of hours from arrival to keys and a windshield is most of a morning. If it is not, we order it and you come back, normally the next working day. Call early on 215-608-1108, because we open at 7:30 and the first hour is when the same-day slots exist.
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