One morning in late August, Elaine Thomas answered the knock on her North Philly home. It was a worker telling her a crew was getting ready to build a house next to hers.
“He said, ‘Ma’am I’m going to knock the side alley down,’” the 86-year-old homeowner recalled, referring to the shared covered alleyway between her home and the lot next to it.
Later that morning, the right wall of her home came crashing down, with much of her furniture ending up in a pile of rubble. The city’s Department of Licenses and Inspections ordered Thomas’ home be demolished…