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Author: Stephanie Farr

  • 14 events to look forward to in Philly this year that aren’t the World Cup or the 250th

    14 events to look forward to in Philly this year that aren’t the World Cup or the 250th

    You can’t turn around these days in Philly without someone telling you this is going to be a big year for the city, including me. You get it, things are happening, people are coming, but I bet you mostly just want to know how you can either join in on the parties or figure out how much they’re going to annoy you.

    I usually try to temper my expectations — one, because I’ve learned a few things in 18 years here and two, because I like to be pleasantly surprised. But I’ve recently found myself imagining what the big moments will be like: the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament in March; the PGA Championship in May; the FIFA World Cup and MLB-All Star games this summer; and the yearlong celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

    Antoine Watts, back left, and Michael Clement, front center, participate in the Red, White, and Blue To-Do Pomp & Parade at Independence Hall in 2024.

    I have big hopes and some worries for Philadelphia, just like I do for everything I love.

    And while the stuff above is a lot, it’s not everything going on here this year, not even close. So if you’re seeking alternatives to the big to-dos, looking to keep your calendar full all year long, or just hoping to run into Mark Ruffalo, here are 14 more Philly happenings to look forward to this year.

    (Dates are subject to change. Check related websites for updates.)

    Jan. 30: Philly is Unrivaled

    The first big event features incredible athletes you won’t see in any of the major sporting events I mentioned above: women.

    Unrivaled, a three-on-three format women’s basketball league, is holding a doubleheader at Xfinity Mobile Arena to kick off its first tour later this month.

    Rose BC guard Chelsea Gray (12) drives past Lunar Owls wing Rebecca Allen (9) in their Unrivaled 3-on-3 basketball game Jan. 5 in Medley, Fla.

    The games will undoubtedly hype up fans for when Philly gets its own WNBA expansion team in 2030 and prove to any doubters that Philly is a women’s sports town (we even have a shirt that says it).

    Some tickets remain. The games will also be televised on TNT and truTV.

    Feb. 6 — 22: The Winter Olympics

    The Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics in northern Italy will feature a host of local athletes and at least one famous Philly podcaster. Watching it also doesn’t require you to leave your house, so win-win.

    Four Philadelphia Flyers will be playing Olympic hockey: Travis Sanheim for Canada, Rasmus Ristolainen for Finland, Dan Vladar will represent Czechia, and Rodrigo Abols will take the ice for Latvia.

    People take photos in front of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and Paralympics rings, in Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy.

    Other local athletes will undoubtedly qualify, but I don’t have a full list yet so don’t email me asking why I didn’t mention your cousin-in-law on the U.S. Curling Team.

    Kylie Kelce will also serve as a digital content creator for NBCUniversal’s Creator Collective and she’ll have on-the-ground access to the games to produce social media content.

    Go Birds. Go Team U.S.A.

    Feb. 14: ‘Universal Theme Parks: The Exhibition’

    How much fun can learning about theme parks be without the roller coaster rides, immersive lands, or concession stands? Philly will find out next month when the Franklin Institute premieres: “Universal Theme Parks: The Exhibition.”

    An artists’ conceptual rendering of the Franklin Institute’s “Universal Theme Parks: The Exhibition,” which is slated to open Feb. 14.

    The new exhibit spans eight galleries and tracks the history and world-building of Universal’s theme parks. It was created by the team at the Franklin, who hope it will introduce young visitors to science and tech careers in the theme park industry.

    I’m hoping there’s a section about whatever alien incantation protects the E.T. Adventure ride, which opened in 1990 and is the last remaining original ride at Universal Studios Florida. The high-tech stuff is awesome, but there’s nothing that beats the nostalgia of that flying bicycle ride and the flashlight-fingered alien.

    March 14: Ministry of Awe opens

    The more I hear about the Ministry of Awe the less I understand it, and the more intrigued I become.

    The permanent, six-story immersive art experience helmed by Philly muralist Meg Saligman inside of Manufacturers National Bank in Old City “transforms an abandoned 19th-century bank into a fantastical, seemingly impossible institution that trades in the many enigmatic facets of humanity,” according to its website.

    Guests will be encouraged to question what they value and to wander the multimedia art space, which will lean into a banking theme and includes a room for counterfeiting. Actors will be on hand to enliven their experiences.

    Muralist Meg Saligman inside of the still-under-construction Ministry of Awe in November. Opening date is March 14.

    “There’s a teller that smells you. You will walk through and be delighted and surprised along the way,” Saligman told The Inquirer.

    The Ministry of Awe says we all already have accounts open there and one thing is for certain, my interest rate is sky-high.

    April 14 — May 31: ‘1776 The Musical’

    There are not many musicals set in Philadelphia and the one thing you can say about 1776 is that it’s one of them.

    The production about the events that led to the signing of the Declaration of Independence never became a juggernaut like Hamilton and didn’t produce any smash songs. But after rewatching the film version last Independence Day, I can safely say it’s still a pretty good musical. Especially if you hate John Adams, or love watching people hate on him.

    While it would have been epic if this production could have been staged at Independence Hall this year, seeing it at the Walnut Street Theatre — the country’s oldest theater, which opened just 32 years after 1776 — is a close second.

    April 16: Cruise ships begin sailing out of Philly

    For the first time in nearly two decades, cruise ships will return to the region this spring, offering locals a chance to seas the day with an aquatic trip abroad.

    Construction of the Port of Philadelphia (PhilaPort) Cruise Terminal began last month in Tinicum Township, Delaware County, at a site adjacent to the Philadelphia International Airport that was formerly known as the Hog Island Dock Terminal Facility.

    (How’s that for a local word salad — a Philly port in Delco at a dock named after the place that may have inspired the word hoagie.)

    A conceptual rendering of the future PhilaPort Cruise Terminal, a 16-acre site adjacent to Philadelphia International Airport.

    Norwegian Cruise Lines has exclusive rights to sail out of the PhilaPort Cruise Terminal through March 2033. According to its website, the first voyage will be a seven-day round-trip to Bermuda.

    Fear not the Bermuda Triangle, my fair Philadelphians, for we’ve weathered far stranger things here following Super Bowl wins, and on an average Tuesday.

    April 18: Monster Jam at the Linc

    If you think the Birds are beasts on their home turf, buckle up, because 12,000-pound trucks are coming to Lincoln Financial Field this spring as part of Monster Jam’s Stadium Championship Series.

    Foam teeth line the front of the Megalodon monster truck at Monster Jam at Lincoln Financial Field in 2023.

    When I hear Monster Jam my first thought is “It’s probably boysenberry,” or “I wonder if it’s as fun as a mash?” but if you have little ones who love things that go vroom — or you do — this auto be wheelie good time.

    May: The Greyhound station reopens

    Slated to come back from the dead this spring like it was Kenny or Jon Snow will be Philly’s intercity bus terminal, formerly known as the Greyhound station.

    The Philadelphia Parking Authority will operate the terminal on behalf of the city, which has gone more than two years without a facility since Greyhound left the terminal at 10th and Filbert Streets in 2023 after 35 years.

    Corner of the former Greyhound station at North 10th and Filbert Streets in 2018.

    In the aftermath, buses used public street curbs to pick up travelers, who were forced to wait outdoors in the elements and had very little access to basic amenities, like bathrooms. The whole situation was bus-ted and I’ll be glad to see it fixed.

    June 12: ‘Disclosure Day’ premieres

    Filmed in parts of South Jersey last year and featuring Philly’s own Colman Domingo, Disclosure Day is an alien thriller from director Steven Spielberg that I can’t wait to get my tentacles on.

    I love good sci-fi and this one has a screenplay by David Koepp, who also wrote the screenplay for Jurassic Park, one of my favorite movies of all time. The trailer for Disclosure Day is intriguing, unsettling, and reveals little about the plot, but I already find the movie authentic: If aliens were to land anywhere, South Jersey seems like a fitting place.

    At the end of the trailer, a nun says “Why would He make a vast universe yet save it only for us?” which hearkens to a famous Carl Sagan quote: “The universe is a pretty big place. If it’s just us, seems like an awful waste of space.”

    Aug. 30: Philadelphia Cycling Classic returns

    If there’s one thing Philadelphians love doing, it’s partying while watching other people exercise and this year they’ll get to do it again at the Manayunk Wall when the Philadelphia Cycling Classic returns after a 10-year hiatus.

    Held for 30 years before it was canceled in 2016 due to lack of sponsorship, the race follows a 14.4-mile course from Center City to Manayunk, where cyclists must climb the “Manayunk Wall,” a stretch of Levering Street with a 17% gradient.

    Women cyclists pedal up Levering Street, aka the “Manayunk Wall,” during the Liberty Classic TD Bank International Championship race in 2011. The race is returning this year as the Philadelphia International Cycling Classic.

    Back in the day, people partied like it was Two Street on New Year’s along the route in Manayunk, particularly at the Wall. As bikers cycled through the course, spectators cycled through kegs and cowbells, with some folks on Levering Street charging admission to their house parties and others hanging beer banner ads on their porches for a fee.

    Also slated in 2026, but dates remain unknown:

    A conceptual rendering of FloatLab, set to be installed at Bartram’s Garden on the Schuylkill in 2026.
    • Opening of Mural Arts’ FloatLab: Located in the Schuylkill at Bartram’s Garden, FloatLab is a 75-foot installation and environmental center that will be “a convergence of art, architecture, and nature,” according to its creator, J. Meejin Yoon. The sloped, ADA-compliant circular platform, which allows visitors to look eye-level at the river while standing in it, will serve as both an educational and artistic space.
    • Gimme my Philly money: To mark the nation’s 250th, the U.S. Mint is releasing quarters with Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell on them this year and I’m going to need some of those for my piggy bank. Just to be clear, this does not change the fact that I’m still salty at the Mint for stopping penny production. What will people put in their loafers? How will Penny from Pee-Wee’s Playhouse see? It’s just cents-less.
    This new design for the quarter commemorates the U.S. Constitution and depicts Independence Hall in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed. The other side of this quarter has a depiction of President James Madison.

    Rumored in 2026, but in no way confirmed:

    From left: Thuso Mbedu (Aleah Clinton), Fabien Frankel (Anthony Grasso), Alison Oliver (Lizzie Stover), and Mark Ruffalo (Tom Brandis) in “Task.”
    • Task season 2: The Delco-set HBO thriller starring Mark Ruffalo was renewed for a second season and I’m hoping they start filming around Philly’s weirdest suburb this year (though creator Brad Ingelsby may have to write the script first). While it’s unclear if Ruffalo will reprise his role as FBI agent Tom Brandis, one of my resolutions this year is to frequent more local hoagie shops in the hopes of running into him, but also because I love hoagies.
    • Stranger Things spinoff?: Philly was named-dropped in the finale of the beloved sci-fi show, which got fans hypothesizing that the home of one of the greatest urban legends of all time — the Philadelphia Experiment — might be the setting for one of the confirmed spinoffs. Or it could just be subliminal advertising for Netflix House Philadelphia (which is actually in King of Prussia). An Instagram post from the show and Netflix on Wednesday only fueled rumors, with its caption: “meet me in philly.”
  • The best things we ate this week

    The best things we ate this week

    Croque madame at Caribou Cafe

    When the server at this long-running French brasserie in Washington Square West delivered my croque madame for lunch Thursday, I was taken aback by its size and beauty. If ever a sandwich deserved a place in the Louvre, this was it. The thick-sliced brioche bread was toasted golden and crispy, the Parisian jambon (ham) and cheese within were grilled to perfection, and a decadent béchamel sauce was drizzled over the bread and spooned in a perfect circle around the entire sandwich. A well-executed sunny-side up egg atop was sprinkled with paprika and julienned ribbons of fresh herbs.

    Of course, once I dove into it, this croque madame went from beautiful to big ol’ mess very quickly — but it tasted delightful. Should I have eaten a salad for my first lunch out of the year? Perhaps. Do I have any regrets? None whatsoever. Not only was the food good, Caribou’s French-inspired decor always has a way of transporting me to Europe while still in Center City. Philadelphia. Caribou Cafe, 1126 Walnut St., 267-951-2190, cariboucafe.com

    — Stephanie Farr

    The salmon buerre bialy at Cleo Bagels.

    Salmon beurre at Cleo Bagels

    On a rainy day in West Philly, I found myself wanting to switch it up from a classic Nova lox sandwich — but not veer too far from it at the same time. The salmon beurre, a recurring special at Cleo Bagels, was the perfect fit. Served on a garlic za’atar bialy (one of my favorite bialys in the city), this lighter sandwich pairs a schmear of fancy cultured butter with lox and cornichon pickles. It’s a pleasant, balanced, and just-filling-enough bite I’m sure to repeat. Cleo Bagels, 5013 Baltimore Ave., 215-282-7292, cleobagels.com

    — Emily Bloch

    Matines Cafe’s default breakfast sandwich features scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese tucked into a croissant.

    Breakfast sandwich at Matines Cafe

    The day after New Year’s was cold and gray, and the prospect of going back to the grindstone was a grim one, and the only sensible salve for that was a breakfast sandwich. (Judging by this week’s other Best Things entries, I wasn’t alone in that sentiment.) So I swung by Chestnut Hill’s Matines Cafe — now in a larger, new-ish space just off the main drag on Highland Avenue — and ordered their signature breakfast sandwich, which comes with scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheddar. And I chose to have it on a croissant instead of a baguette for all of the aforementioned reasons, not to mention Matines’ owners are French and know their way around viennoiserie.

    Split just enough to tuck in a sizable scoop of fluffy scrambled eggs, crispy strips of bacon, and a scant layer of cheddar, the croissant sandwich scratched my itch for something savory and slightly decadent — and managed to do that without flaking or falling apart. Paired with a big mug of black coffee and its accompanying tuft of balsamic-dressed side salad, it got the first workday of the year off to a very satisfying start. I’ll be more than happy to return to try one of Matines’ other breakfast-sandwich varieties, including avocado with turkey and Swiss, salmon with brie, and black truffle-parmesan-prosciutto. Matines Cafe, 23 W. Highland Ave., 215-621-6667, matinescafe.com

    — Jenn Ladd

  • 2026 is a huge year for Philly. Here are your ideas for how we should tackle it.

    2026 is a huge year for Philly. Here are your ideas for how we should tackle it.

    Last year, I asked for your suggestions for what Philadelphia should create, destroy, or fix in advance of everything — and everyone — coming to our in our city in 2026.

    More than 600 ideas were submitted to The Inquirer for ways to improve the city as we prepare for the nation’s 250th anniversary, the FIFA World Cup, the MLB All-Star Game, and the NCAA Division I college basketball tournament next year.

    In other words, Philadelphians had thoughts. Of course, there were recurring themes that arose (more on those later), and there were folks who submitted suggestions well beyond the scope of the assignment. While I appreciate people’s visions, I don’t think we’re going to solve school funding, stop gun violence, end courtesy towing, or turn Regional Rail into a German-style S-Bahn by next year.

    But there were a lot of great ideas, and so, I now present this edited list, because if I included every suggestion, we’d be here until 2027.

    Simple things that are easy, free, or cheap to do

    • Cullen Kisner: “Drive around the city, literally section it off like trash trucks do, and remove any unnecessary traffic cones/street work signs/construction barricades/etc. It just [clogs] up the city and makes it look like a perpetual construction zone (which it is, but the tourists don’t need to know that).”
    • Brendan Yuhas suggests charging $17.76 for SEPTA passes and Indego bicycle rental passes during the week of Independence Day. He’d also like to see restaurants offer meals for $17.76.
    • Brian Smart suggests illuminating the William Penn statue atop City Hall at night.
    • Beth LaPiene: “We need longer pedestrian crossing times on Center City streets. How does anyone cross Broad Street in 15 seconds, especially if it’s crowded?” (Another reader raised this issue with Vine Street as well.)

    Things that take some amount of time and/or money to address

    • Jason Berkhimer and Rogelio Ayllon separately requested that Philadelphia adopt a new city flag, an idea previously explored by The Inquirer. Berkhimer wrote that a new flag is “incredibly important to sew unity in this partisan time” (his pun, not mine), while Ayllon said it could be marketed on merchandise, making it “a win for vendors … and a win for the city in tax dollars.”
    • Anonymous: “Install compass roses outside of all El, trolley, subway, PATCO, and Regional Rail access points so people can quickly get an idea of which direction they need to go when reaching the surface street.”
    • The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides and numerous readers who submitted their ideas independently would like to see the following reopened for 2026: City Tavern, the Declaration House, the LOVE Park Saucer, and the Second Bank portrait gallery.
    • Of course, Philly is all about the Benjamin Franklin too. Tom Rosenberg suggested rehabbing the exterior of Franklin’s post office on Market Street. “It’s dilapidated and looks awful,” he wrote. Rich Armandi bemoaned the fact that a plaque at the Second and Market Street subway stop in Old City that marked the site of Franklin’s first print shop has been missing since 2024. He wants it replaced, and he’d like a mural there that envisions what Franklin’s print shop might have looked like.
    • The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides (who submitted a lot of great ideas in a well-curated slideshow) would like to see the Franklin Court Printing Office, a replica of an 18th century printing office, open seven days a week, instead of just weekends.

    Big things that take time, money, and cooperation

    • Several people asked for the city and the National Park Service to work together to make Independence Mall “more than a desolate lawn.” One suggested that an “easy change would be to move some existing statues or art installations from more obscure/lower visibility places (like Fairmount Park and Kelly Drive).” Other readers proposed adding trees, benches, and water features.
    • Jack Bellis would like to see the concourse below Broad Street (from Market to Locust) turned into a rainy-day attraction with Philly vendors and a centerpiece mini-golf course “created either in part or wholly by school students, in which each of the holes highlights a Philadelphia tourist attraction.”
    • Pete Silberman: “My idea is to repurpose the Southwark Piers, also known as Piers 38 and 40, to be playing fields and sports facilities.”
    • Mark Methlie’s idea is to “follow Boston’s lead” and create our own version of the Freedom Trail, a trail embedded in roads and sidewalks that leads to notable spots (which I also proposed after visiting Boston in 2024). Methlie, however, suggests multiple trails leading out of the Convention Center, including ones for history, art, science, cultural institutions, and food.
    • Bob Dix: “I would love to see the water taxis languishing under 95 to be taken out of mothballs and used for tours or transport … and they could be used for transit to the FIFA events in FDR.”
    • Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides: “Create an introduction park to Elfreth’s Alley at Second Street in the empty lot. Design it to include native shrubs, shade, colonial lamps, benches, and information displays.” (Note: In late November, it was announced that this one is planned to happen!)

    Fun activities and events

    • Tori Beard: “I’m a big fan of a Colonial Day Fest idea. Think Ren Fest, but for colonial-style activities and dress. Bonnets, butter churning, powdered wigs. Could even be held in the Independence Hall area.” (Note: The Museum of the American Revolution hosts an annual living history interpretation weekend called Revolutionary Philadelphia, but it would be great to see it expanded for 2026.)
    • The Association of Philadelphia Tour Guides suggests creating a tour and a music festival highlighting The Sound of Philadelphia artists like Teddy Pendergrass, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, and Tammi Terrell. I’d like to take it a step further and suggest a music festival in which current Philly musicians pay homage to Philadelphia musicians who came before them, regardless of genre. I’d love to see The Roots play the O’Jays, Jill Scott perform Bessie Smith, and Dr. Dog pay homage to Jim Croce.
    • Anonymous: “Pepper pot stew cook-off.”
    • Eli Fish: “Turn Headhouse Square into European-style plaza. No cars, tables in the street and under the headhouse cover, live music and outdoor dining. We know this can work because they started to do it during COVID and it was amazing.” (Note: This idea was also raised on Instagram by users who begged the city to “Make Headhouse interesting again.”)
    • Hugh Connelly suggests creating an iconic, solar-powered mural that looks like Philadelphia in 1776 during the daytime, but at night when a system of solar-powered lights illuminate it, the “new night image is one of futuristic Philly, a beacon for liberty for the next 250 years.”
    • Kevin Fennell: “There should be a steal the Declaration of Independence escape room.” Why yes there should be, along with a “National Treasure treasure hunt,” as suggested by one Instagram user.

    Off-the-wall ideas

    • Zach Marcum‘s idea is an official SEPTA cheesesteak joint: “We bring in a real Philly chef who will (for free) design us the perfect cheesesteak for maximum profit and quality balance. We line up sourcing with local suppliers in Philly — and the surrounding areas — I’m talking grain for the bread-type vertical integration — and then set up SEPTA cheesesteak carts throughout not just Philly but the state of Pennsylvania, and hire good local kids paying good wages to cook and distribute these cheesesteaks. As for all the people who are already in the cart business, we bring them in as middle managers or buy them out, or they can sell halal or whatever (sorry … I’m not a genius). With the profits we fund massive infrastructure improvements, spreading wealth and glory to all.”
    • Tom Dougherty proposes something like an “Epcot Village,” to show off the diversity of Philly’s food-and-beverage scene. A potential location could be FDR Park, where Dougherty suggests it could run in conjunction with the Southeast Asian Food Market.
    • Thomas Lake‘s idea is a Schuylkill ferry that would commute people from King of Prussia to the Philadelphia Art Museum and back, with stops in Norristown, Conshohocken, and Manayunk. “Might have to remove some dams?” he wrote. Yeah, a few, plus I’m told the river is far too shallow in spots and some bridges are too low for a ferry to navigate. Even though this one is implausible, it’s fun to dream about.
    • Catherine Robb Stahl: “You know how Tinker Bell flies down from the Disney castle at night on a zip line? Well, how about having Betsy Ross do the same thing from City Hall??? Fun, huh?!?! What a sight to see!”
    • Other off-the-wall ideas submitted without further context included: a community zip line and pool, a Gritty cave, a Gritty statue, secede from Pennsylvania, “Find a better word than Semiquincentennial,” hold a “Band things happen in Philadelphia LGBT concert band performance,” “No city tax for those who live within 1 mile of a pothole,” and “Make it abundantly clear in marketing to other U.S. cities that Philly rules.”

    Recurring themes

    Properly funding SEPTA is integral to Philly and any plans for 2026, as I said in my original column. While there’s since been a measure enacted to ensure it will operate for the next two years, SEPTA’s fate remains murky after that. At least a quarter, maybe more, of the responses I received mentioned SEPTA in some way.

    But people told me they want to see SEPTA more than just funded. They want it cleaned — deep cleaned — from the stairwells to the seats, like the entire system was exposed to nuclear waste (New Jersey commuters would also like their PATCO stations decontaminated too).

    “Tourists Take Transit. Let’s not show the world our dirty underwear,” Tally Brennan said via email.

    Scores of Philly-area residents wrote in asking for more public bathrooms, trash cans, water fountains, trees, shade, benches, pocket parks, trash cans, signage to city sites, protected bike lanes, trash cans, street cleaning, trash cans, programs to assist the unhoused, trash cans, murals, and underground parking lots. And for the love of all that is good and holy can we get at least one permanent pedestrian-only street in this city?

    Readers would also like to see the following repaired: the escalators at Jefferson Station, potholes, the lines on the road “so they’re visible and you don’t have to just guess,” “Fix the roads, all of them!” “ITS LIKE A BOMBED WAR ZONE,” and sinkholes.

    Many people said the entire Market East corridor needs a whole lot of love. Folks lament that it used to be a destination and now it’s filled with shuttered storefronts.

    While we learned in November that Comcast and the Sixers plan to demolish some buildings they own on the 1000 block of Market Street in time for next year’s events, it’s still unclear what they plan to put there.

    In the remaining vacant storefronts, readers suggested putting pop-up shops, art galleries, experiences, or doing a pop-up Philly History Museum.

    Finally, a very sweet reader asked me: “Please can we have the building on Broad Street that has the graffiti ‘Boner 4Ever’ painted over??? It’s truly an embarrassment.”

    Sorry, hun, but that’s a hard no. It’s 4Ever.

  • The 10 weirdest stories from the Philly area in 2025

    The 10 weirdest stories from the Philly area in 2025

    Way back in 2022, when Philadelphians gathered on an abandoned pier to watch a man eat a rotisserie chicken, folks on social media began to wonder: “Is Philadelphia a real place?”

    This year, that question became a declarative sentence.

    “Philadelphia is not a real place.”

    Sure, that perception has a lot to do with an unbelievable event that actually happened in the suburbs (Delco never fails to carry its weight), but Philly also saw its fair share of the bizarre this year, too.

    As we prepare for what may be one of the most important (and hopefully weirdest!) years in modern Philadelphia history, let’s take some time to look back on the peculiar stories from across the region that punctuated 2025.

    Five uh-oh

    Kevon Darden was sworn in as a part-time police officer for Collingdale Borough on Jan. 12 and hit the ground running, landing his first arrest just four days later.

    The only problem? It was his own.

    Pennsylvania State Police charged Darden with terroristic threats and related offenses for an alleged road rage incident in 2023 in which he’s accused of pointing a gun at a driver on the Blue Route in Ridley Township. At the time of the alleged incident Darden was employed as an officer at Cheyney University.

    A Pennsylvania State Police vehicle. The agency provided two clean background checks for a Collingdale police officer this year, only to arrest him four days after he started the job.

    Here’s the thing — it was state police who provided not one but two clean background checks on Darden to Collingdale officials before he was hired. An agency spokesperson told The Inquirer troopers had to wait on forensic evidence tests and approval from the District Attorney’s Office before filing charges.

    Darden subsequently resigned and is scheduled for trial next year in Delaware County Court.

    For the Birds

    The Eagles’ second Super Bowl win provided a wellspring of wacky — and sometimes dicey — moments on and off the field early this year.

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker started the championship run off strong by going viral for misspelling the most popular chant in the city as “E-L-G-S-E-S” during a news conference. Her mistake made the rounds on late night talk shows and was plastered onto T-shirts, beer coozies, and even a license plate. If you think the National Spelling Bee is brutal, you’ve never met Eagles fans.

    Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts at the line of scrimmage during the fourth quarter of the NFC divisional playoff at Lincoln Financial Field on Jan. 19. The Philadelphia Eagles defeated the Los Angeles Rams 28 to 22.

    Then there was the snowy NFC divisional playoff game against the Los Angeles Rams at Lincoln Financial Field; continued drama around the Tush Push (which resulted in Dude Wipes becoming an official sponsor of the team); and Cooper DeJean’s pick-six, a gift to himself and us on his 22nd birthday that helped the Birds trounce the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl LIX.

    As soon as the Eagles won with Jalen Hurts as MVP, Philadelphians let loose, flooding the streets like a drunken green tsunami. Fans scaled poles and tore them down; danced on bus shelters, medic units, and trash trucks; partied with Big Foot, Ben Franklin, and Philly Elmo; and set a bonfire in the middle of Market Street.

    Eagles fans party on trash trucks in the streets of Center City after the Birds win in Super Bowl LIX against the Chiefs on Feb. 9.

    Finally, there was the parade, a Valentine’s Day love letter to the Eagles from Philadelphia. Among the more memorable moments was when Birds general manager Howie Roseman was hit in the head with a can of beer thrown from the crowd. He took his battle scar in pride, proclaiming from the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum: “I bleed for this city.”

    As we say around here, love Hurts.

    Throngs of Birds fans lined the Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the Eagles Super Bowl Parade on Feb. 14.

    A $40 million goodbye

    As far as inanimate objects go, few have experienced more drama in recent Philly history than the SS United States, the 73-year-old, 990-foot luxury liner that was docked for nearly three decades on the Delaware River waterfront.

    Supporters spent more than $40 million on rent, insurance, and other measures to keep the ship in Philly with the hopes of returning it to service or at least turning it into a venue. But a rent dispute with the owners of the pier finally led a judge to order the SS United States Conservancy, which owned the vessel, to seek an alternate solution.

    Workers on the Walt Whitman Bridge watch from above as the SS United States is pulled by tug boats on the Delaware River.

    And so in February, with the help of five tugboats, the ship was hauled out of Philly to prepare it to become the world’s largest artificial reef off the coast of Okaloosa County, Fla.

    If the United States has to end somewhere, Florida feels like an apt place.

    The ‘Delco Pooper’

    While the Eagles’ Tush Push was deemed legal by NFL owners this year, a Delaware County motorist found that another kind of tush push most definitely is not after she was arrested for rage pooping on the hood of a car during a roadway dispute in April.

    Captured on video by a teen who witnessed the rear-ending, the incident quickly went viral and put a stain on Delco that won’t be wiped away anytime soon.

    Christina Solometo, who was dubbed the “Delco Pooper” on social media, told Prospect Park Police she got into a dispute with another driver, whom she believed began following her. Solometo claimed when she got out of her car the other driver insulted her and so she decided to dump her frustrations on their hood.

    A private security guard holds the door open for alleged “Delco Pooper” Christina Solometo following her preliminary hearing Monday at Prospect Park District Court.

    “Solometo said, ‘I wanted to punch her in the face, but I pooped on her car instead and went home,’” according to the affidavit.

    I’ve written a lot of stories about Delco in my time, but this may be the most absurd.

    Solometo, 44, of Ridley Park, entered into a rehabilitation program for first-time offenders on Dec. 16.

    Hopefully, she won’t be clogging up the court system anymore.

    The Delco pope

    Delco is large, it contains multitudes, and never was that more clear than when two weeks after the Delco Pooper case broke, a Delco pope was elected.

    OK, so Pope Leo XIV is technically a native of Chicago, but he attended undergrad at Villanova University — which, yes, technically straddles Delco and Montgomery County — but Delco’s had a tough year so I’m gonna give it this one.

    This video screen grab shows Pope Leo XIV wearing a Villanova University hat gifted to him during a meeting with an Italian heritage group.

    Born Robert Prevost, Pope Leo is the first U.S. pope in history and also a citizen of Peru. He earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Villanova in 1977 and an honorary doctor of humanities from the university in 2014.

    The odds that anyone with Delco ties would become pope are astronomical and folks celebrated appropriately by betting on his papacy, boasting about personal connections, and wondering what his Wawa order was.

    Whiskey business

    Center City Sips, the Wednesday Center City happy hour program, long ago earned a reputation as a rite of passage for 20-somethings who are still figuring out how to limit their intake and want to do so in business casual attire.

    Things seemed to calm down after the pandemic, but then Philadelphians took Sips to another level and a whole new place this year — the streets.

    @its.morganalexis #philly #sips ♬ Almost forgot that this was the whole point – Take my Hand Instrumental – AntonioVivald

    Videos showed hundreds of people partying in the streets of Midtown Village on Wednesday nights this summer. Granted, the parties look far more calm than when sports fans take over Philly after a big win, but the nearby bar owners who participate in the Sips program said their places sat empty as people brought their own alcohol to drink.

    Jason Evenchik, who owns Time, Vintage, Garage, and other bars, told The Inquirer that “No one is inside, and it’s mayhem outside.”

    “Instead, he claimed, people are selling alcohol out of their cars and bringing coolers to make their own cocktails. At one point on June 11, Evenchik said, a Tesla blocked a crosswalk while a man made piña coladas with a pair of blenders hooked up to the car,” my colleague Beatrice Forman wrote.

    In no way am I condoning this behavior, but those two sentences above may be my among favorite this year. Who thinks to bring a blender — with a car hookup — to make piña coladas at an unauthorized Center City street party on a Wednesday night?

    Philly.

    Getting trashed

    Philadelphians experienced a major city workers strike this summer when Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and AFSCME District Council 33 couldn’t agree on a new contract for the union’s nearly 9,000 members.

    Residents with trash arrive at garbage dump site at Caldera Road and Red Lion Road in northeast Philadelphia during the AFSCME District Council 33 workers strike in July.

    As a result, things got weird. Dead bodies piled up at the Medical Examiner’s Office; a striking union member was arrested for allegedly slashing the tires of a PGW vehicle; and for eight days in the July heat, garbage heaped up all across Philadelphia. The city set up temporary trash drop-off sites, which often overflowed into what were nicknamed “Parker piles,” but that also set off a firestorm about whether using the sites constituted crossing a picket line.

    Wawa Welcome America July Fourth concert headliners LL Cool J and Jazmine Sullivan even pulled out of the show in support of striking workers, resulting in a fantastic “Labor Loves Cool J” meme.

    This is my favorite strike meme so far

    [image or embed]

    — Stephanie Farr (@farfarraway.bsky.social) July 7, 2025 at 9:40 AM

    It was all like something out of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In fact, the gang predicted a trash strike in the 2012 episode “The Gang Recycles Their Trash.”

    The real strike lasted eight days before a contract was reached. In true Philly form, AFSCME District Council 33 president Greg Boulware told The Inquirer “nobody’s happy.”

    A large pile of trash collects at a city drop-off site during the AFSCME workers strike this summer.

    97-year-old gives birth to 16 kids

    A local nonagenarian couple became national shellebrities this year for welcoming seven babies in April and nine more in August, proving that age ain’t nothing but a number, as long as you’re a tortoise.

    Western Santa Cruz Galapagos tortoise Mommy, and male Abrazzo, left, are shown on Wednesday, April 23, 2025, at the Philadelphia Zoo in Philadelphia, Pa. The hatchlings’ parents, female Mommy and male Abrazzo, are the Zoo’s two oldest animals, each estimated to be around 100 years old.

    Mommy and Abrazzo, Western Santa Cruz Galapagos tortoises who reside at the Philadelphia Zoo, made history with their two clutches, becoming the first pair of the critically endangered species in the zoo’s 150-year history to hatch eggs and the first to do so in any accredited zoo since 2019.

    Mommy is also the oldest known first-time Galapagos tortoise mom in the world, so it’s safe to say she doesn’t have any time or patience for shenanigans. She’s got 16 heroes in a half shell to raise.

    Western Santa Cruz Galapagos tortoise egg hatchling.

    Phillies Karen

    Taking candy from a baby is one thing — babies don’t need candy anyway — but taking a baseball from a kid at a Phillies game is a deed so foul and off base it’s almost unimaginable.

    And yet, that’s exactly what happened at a Phillies-Marlins game in September, when a home run from Harrison Bader landed in the stands and a dad ran from his seat to grab it and give it to his son. A woman who was sitting near where the ball landed marched over to the dad, berated him, and demanded the ball be given her. Taken aback, the father reached into his son’s baseball glove and turned the ball over.

    The entire scene was caught on camera and the woman, with her Kate Gosselin-esque hairdo, was immediately dubbed “Phillies Karen” by flabbergasted fans.

    While the act technically happened at the Marlins stadium in Miami, Fla., it captured the minds and memes of Philadelphians so much that it deserves inclusion on this list. Phillies Karen has made her way onto T-shirts and coffee mugs, inspired skits at a Savannah Bananas game and the MLB Awards, and she even became a popular Halloween costume.

    To this day, “Phillies Karen” remains unidentified, so it’s a safe bet she lives in Florida, where she’ll have better luck with alligators than with people here.

    Institutional intrigue

    Drama at area institutions this year had Philadelphians sipping tea like we were moms on Christmas morning, and sometimes, left us shaking our fists in the air like we were dads putting up tangled lights.

    David Adelman with the Philadelphia 76ers makes a statement at a press conference in the Mayor’s Reception Room in January regarding the Sixers changing directions on the controversial Center City arena. At left is mayor Parker, at right City Council President Kenyatta Johnson and Josh Harris, Sixers owner.

    It started early in January, when the billionaire owners of the Sixers surprised the entire city by announcing the team would stay at the South Philly sports complex instead of building their own arena on Market East. The decision came after two years of seemingly using the city, its politicians, and its people as pawns in their game.

    Workers gathered outside World Cafe Live before a Town Hall meeting with management in July.

    In June, workers staged a walkout at World Cafe Live due to what they claimed was “an unacceptable level of hostility and mismanagement” from its new owners, including its then-CEO, Joseph Callahan. Callahan — who said the owners inherited $6 million in debt and that he wanted to use virtual reality to bolster its revenue — responded by firing some of the workers and threatening legal action. Today, the future of World Cafe Live remains unclear. Callahan stepped down as CEO in September (but remains chairman of the board), the venue’s liquor license expired, and its landlord, the University of Pennsylvania, wants to evict its tenant, with a trial scheduled for January.

    Signage at the east entrance to the Philadelphia Art Museum reflects the rebrand of the institution, which was formerly known as the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

    Finally, late this year at the Philadelphia Art Museum, things got more surreal than a Salvador Dalí painting, starting with an institutional rebrand that surprised some board members, didn’t land well with the public, and resulted in a lot of PhART jokes. In November, museum CEO Sasha Suda was fired following an investigation by an outside law firm that focused, in part, on increases to her salary, a source told The Inquirer. Suda’s lawyer called it a “a sham investigation” and Suda quickly sued her former employer, claiming that “her efforts to modernize the museum clashed with a small, corrupt, and unethical faction of the board intent on preserving the status quo.”

    Nobody knows where all of this will go, but it’s likely to have more drama than a Caravaggio.

  • This hut at the Christmas Village sells 300 to 500 packages a day. Nobody knows what’s inside of them.

    This hut at the Christmas Village sells 300 to 500 packages a day. Nobody knows what’s inside of them.

    Emma Zielinski wasn’t sure how her business selling unclaimed mystery mail would fare at the Christmas Village in Philadelphia this year, or if she’d even be accepted into the holiday market at all.

    “I didn’t think they’d take us because we’re not handmade, but when I picked up my vendor badge, they were like, ‘We’ve been waiting for you to apply!’” she said.

    As it turns out, thousands of people from across the region have also been waiting for the chance to buy orphaned packages that never found their way home and nobody went to look for — the contents of which remain shrouded to both Zielinski and the buyers until after they are purchased.

    “The Christmas Village has really turned my business upside down,” she told me. “I don’t think anyone realized this was going to happen.”

    Emma Zielinski, owner of Chain Mail Unclaimed, opens for business at the Christmas Village at City Hall.

    From boxes to heavily-taped-up opaque bags, Zielinski is selling about 300 to 500 items a day, each between $10 and $40 a pop, based on weight. On the opening weekend for her Chain Mail Unclaimed hut, which is located in the interior courtyard of City Hall, she sold two weeks of inventory in just two days — and business hasn’t slowed down since.

    Philadelphians, she’s found, are always up for a good surprise.

    “They are down to party and see what’s going on,” Zielinski said. ”It’s a really good vibe in Philly when we do events, people are a lot of fun and up for trying something new and playing along.”

    The element of surprise

    When I arrived around 1 p.m. on Thursday, I was shocked to find Chain Mail Unclaimed had one of the only lines at the Christmas Village, aside from the ever-popular raclette cheese stand.

    “To be compared to the raclette stand is quite an honor,” Zielinski said.

    As I was waiting in line, a young man who’d just purchased a package opened it on the spot and pulled out what appeared to be a spandex elf suit — in a women’s medium.

    “At least it’s seasonally appropriate,” I said.

    When my turn came, I dug in a large bin and rustled through a couple shelves with the crowd, massaging the bags and shaking the boxes to see if I could prognosticate what was inside of them. Unlike Christmas at home, these tactics are totally fair game at Chain Mail Unclaimed.

    Mayumi Burgess takes a guess at what’s inside a package for sale at Chain Mail Unclaimed.

    I was pretty sure one of the packages had wicker baskets in it, and another, a pair of shoes, but beyond that it was hard to decipher the contents. All of the $10 items were gone, so I settled on two $15 packages and one for $20. All three are soft goods in opaque bags secured with clear tape, two of which came from the U.S. Postal Service and one from the UPS Store.

    Beyond that, I know nothing about them. Even the sender and intended recipient’s names have been artfully covered up with Chain Mail Unclaimed stickers by Zielinski and her crew.

    I intend to give one package to my husband (he signed up to deal with the consequences of marrying a total rando) and one each to my Secret Santa recipients at our respective family gatherings.

    I can’t wait to see what’s inside. I’m getting older and by the time Christmas rolls around, sometimes I forget what I’ve bought people anyway, but with this it’s guaranteed to be a surprise for the recipients and for me.

    I mean, these gifts could literally be anything! They could contain lost Inca gold, the French crown jewels stolen from the Louvre, or a heretofore unknown Dunlap broadside printing of the Declaration of Independence.

    Emma Zielinski, owner of Chain Mail Unclaimed, unloads merchandise at her booth at the Christmas Village at City Hall.

    Of course, they could be total rubbish or completely embarrassing. I hope my beloved, self-proclaimed “spinster aunt” isn’t going to open a gift of lacy red lingerie before our entire family this Christmas, but sometimes, these are the chances we take in life, and actually, that would be pretty entertaining.

    Because part of the fun of giving a gift like this is getting to tell the story behind it, which is why I pshawed a fellow customer in line who requested that I open my packages on the spot.

    “Ma’am, these are gifts,” I said, before walking away with my treasures.

    ‘The tip of the iceberg’

    Zielinski, of Lawrenceville, N.J., said she was inspired to create her business after seeing a video of someone on social media visiting a similar pop-up shop at a farmers market in Paris.

    She was already attending vendor events in the region for her permanent jewelry business, Off the Chain Studios, and thought this could be a good companion to it.

    “It’s exciting, it builds a crowd, and it’s also an entirely different crowd,” Zielinski said. “The person who gets a bracelet welded on won’t necessarily buy an unclaimed package.”

    Chain Mail Unclaimed — a name that’s a nod to both her original business and the archaic tradition of chain mail letters — opened in April 2024. Zielinski started with pop-up shops at area weekend events like the Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market and the Northern Liberties Night Market before leveling up to the multiweek Christmas Village in Philadelphia this year.

    At left is Emma Zielinski, owner of Chain Mail Unclaimed, a business in the City Hall courtyard of the Christmas Village, looks on as customers sort through packages.

    She works with a broker who deals with warehouses across the country where mail sits unclaimed, overstocked, or returned and then gets auctioned off.

    “The amount of unclaimed packages is insane. This is the tip of the iceberg, if they don’t get bought, they get incinerated,” she said. “I think we’ve all returned something, but you don’t think what the next step is.”

    Zielinksi said she was already aware of human overconsumption as a whole, having been a fashion school student, but she told me this business gives her a whole new perspective.

    “People question the legality — yes, it’s legal. Where do you think it goes? It doesn’t just go somewhere and live a happy life, it gets thrown out,” she said.

    And suddenly, I was transported to the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and my heart ached. Charlie-in-the-box deserves a happy life too, darn it, especially around the holidays!

    ‘Who ordered these?’

    Zielinski usually orders six months of stock, or 24 pallets, at a time, but the Christmas Village has upended her business and she’s ordered three times that in the last two weeks alone. Her broker is now on stand-by for the remainder of the season and her staffing has tripled to match the demand.

    “People are excited this is here. It also fills a great white elephant gift niche,” she said. “It takes the responsibility off of you if you don’t know what to get someone and it’s a fun talking point.”

    Mayumi Burgess and her husband, Alfonso Burgess, of Philadelphia, look for mystery packages sold by weight at the Chain Mail Unclaimed business at the Christmas Village at City Hall.

    Packages are typically sold through her website as well, but right now that’s on pause as she tries to keep the Christmas Village stocked. Sometimes she’ll get big items she can’t sell in a palette, like furniture, and she works with Habitat for Humanity and local nonprofits to give those things away.

    Zielinski swears she doesn’t open any package before she sells it, nor does she keep any for herself (“I am a total maximalist so once I get started, I could not stop”), but she does love hearing about what her customers received.

    So far, the most impressive find was an 18-karat gold diamond bracelet that retails for $4,000.

    And the strangest?

    “It was a set of animal pregnancy tests, which really took me back,” she said. “Who ordered these? What are the circumstances? I need to know the backstory. That part drives me crazy.”

    Emma Zielinski, owner of Chain Mail Unclaimed, opens for business at the Christmas Village at City Hall.

    Zielinski said what’s considered a good find is also very subjective. The other day, a woman opened a package and discovered a deadbolt inside. She told Zielinski her door’s been blowing open and it was just what she needed.

    “Once, a girl got the perfume she wears,” Zielinski said. “It’s bizarre, but sometimes these items find their way back to where they’re supposed to be.”

  • ‘Delco Pooper’ gets counseling, community service as part of program for first-time offenders

    ‘Delco Pooper’ gets counseling, community service as part of program for first-time offenders

    When it’s time to go, it’s time to go, and perhaps nobody knows that better than Christina Solometo, whom the region nicknamed the “Delco Pooper” after she was captured on video rage-pooping on a car during a roadway dispute in April.

    And so, when Solometo’s time in Delaware County Court came on Tuesday, she went, but instead of bringing her case to trial, she entered into a rehabilitation program for first-time offenders.

    As part of the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program, Solometo must complete 24 months of probation, community service, anger management classes, and not post about her case on social media. If she meets those conditions, the charges against her, which include indecent exposure and depositing waste on a highway, will be dismissed and she could have her case expunged and her record wiped clean.

    In courtroom gallery conversations with her attorney prior to the hearing, Solometo at times seemed torn about the conditions of the program and the facts of her case as detailed by the Prospect Park Police Department. She could be heard cursing and, at one point, left the courtroom in tears.

    This was a marked change in her demeanor from shortly after her arrest, when she smiled in her mugshot and laughed in front of news cameras as she was led away in handcuffs.

    Solometo, 44, of Ridley Park, said little before Judge Richard Cappelli as he agreed to enter her into the diversionary program and she declined to speak to The Inquirer after the hearing, except to say “The truth will come out” and that her story would cost money. The Inquirer does not pay for interviews.

    It was a rather subdued ending to what was perhaps the most absurd local news story of the year.

    Prospect Park Police said it was around 4 p.m. on April 30 that Solometo got into a dispute with another driver at the intersection of Fourth and Madison Avenues in the borough.

    Solometo told police that she was in a line of cars to turn left at a light and honked at a driver in front of her who did not move when the arrow was green.

    According to her affidavit, Solometo said the other motorist mocked her in her rearview mirror. Solometo said she was having stomach issues, so she drove around the car and turned left. She told police she believed the other vehicle started following her, which is why she got out to confront them. The driver of the other car allegedly insulted Solometo, which she told police made her angry.

    “Solometo said, ‘I wanted to punch her in the face, but I pooped on her car instead and went home,’” according to the affidavit.

    Police said she later told them: “It was a clean poop. I didn’t even have to wipe.”

    Cell phone video of the incident was taken by 17-year-old Greg Ferrari who testified in May at Solometo’s preliminary hearing that he was driving to his friend’s house when he was forced to stop his vehicle because two motorists were arguing in the intersection.

    “I thought they were going to fight so I pulled out my phone to take video,” he said. “And one of the people ended up going to the bathroom on the other’s car.”

    Ferrari’s video, which he said he shared with his baseball group chat and was then posted to Facebook by someone else, subsequently went viral and was picked up by outlets like TMZ, the New York Post, and People.

  • A print of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln with deep Philly ties will be auctioned by Christie’s

    A print of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by Lincoln with deep Philly ties will be auctioned by Christie’s

    Less than a year after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, while our nascent nation was still in the throes of the Civil War, two industrious Philadelphians devised a plan to help raise money for injured Union soldiers, war widows, and children left orphaned by the war.

    Charles Godfrey Leland, a Union Army veteran of the Battle of Gettysburg, and George Henry Boker, a founder of the Union League of Philadelphia, had the text of the Emancipation Proclamation printed in Philadelphia in 1864. They got Lincoln to sign 48 copies and then sold them for $10 each, which was about a week’s worth of wages for a day laborer at the time.

    Just 27 copies are still known to exist of what is referred to as the Leland-Boker broadside — the only authorized, printed edition of the full text of the proclamation to be signed by Lincoln — and one of them will be sold by Christie’s next month as part of its “We the People: America at 250” auction.

    Christie’s is auctioning one of 27 printings left known in existence of the Leland-Boker broadside, an authorized edition of the Emancipation Proclamation which was printed in Philadelphia and signed by President Abraham Lincoln.

    Yes, even a British auction house is getting in on our Semiquincentennial celebrations (though, to be fair, the sale is taking place at Christie’s New York offices).

    The broadside, which was also signed by Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Seward, and his private secretary, John Nicolay, is expected to fetch somewhere between $3 million to $5 million when it’s auctioned on Jan. 23.

    Peter Klarnet, senior specialist for Americana books and manuscripts at Christie’s, said that while the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery, it was the document that paved the way for the 13th Amendment.

    “It’s part of our historical evolution. As our society changes and society’s mores change, we adjust our founding documents accordingly,” he said. “The Emancipation Proclamation is really a reaffirmation of American freedom in so many ways. It’s now extending that freedom to people who didn’t have it before and extending the promise of what was in the Constitution.”

    “The first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation before the cabinet,” painted by F.B. Carpenter, engraved by A.H. Ritchie, circa 1866. Those depicted, from left to right: War Secretary Edwin M. Stanton, Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase, President Abraham Lincoln, Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, Interior Secretary Caleb B. Smith, Secretary of State William H. Seward, Postmaster General Montgomery Blair and Attorney General Edward Bates.

    Both Leland and Boker were born into well-to-do families in Philadelphia, attended Princeton University, and became writers. Leland was a journalist and author with an interest in folklore and the occult, and who traveled extensively through Europe. Boker was a poet, playwright, and diplomat who served as an ambassador to Turkey and Russia. Both men are buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery.

    It’s unclear how the two met, but Klarnet said they most likely traveled in similar social circles in Philadelphia and were organizers of the Great Central or Sanitary Fair held at Logan Square in 1864, which raised funds for supplies and necessities for the Union Army. The fair — which Lincoln attended with his wife, Mary — brought in more than $1 million.

    At these fairs, which happened in numerous Union cities, autographs of famous Americans were sold to raise funds, according to Klarnet. The year prior, Lincoln’s signed original manuscript of the Gettysburg Address sold at a similar fair in New York City for $1,000. At a fair in Chicago, Lincoln’s handwritten original draft of the Emancipation Proclamation was auctioned off for $3,000, only to later be destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. The official proclamation is housed at the National Archives in Washington.

    Leland and Boker commissioned their copies to be printed in Philadelphia by Frederick Leypoldt as broadsides on very fine paper with wide, dramatic borders.

    “Surprisingly, not all sold,” Klarnet said. “A few were sold at other fairs and others were donated to institutions.”

    Of the 27 left known in existence, only a half-dozen or so are in private hands, Klarnet said. Most are in institutional collections, including here in Philadelphia where we have three — one at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, one at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries (which also has two marked-up proofs of the broadside), and one at the Union League. The National Constitution Center previously had one on loan from a private collector, but it was sold for $4.4 million at a Sotheby’s auction in June to a hedge fund billionaire.

    The first known owner of the authorized edition being sold by Christie’s was Philip D. Sang, a corporate executive from Chicago whose collection was sold around the late 1970s. The current owner is the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York City, which is selling the piece to benefit its acquisitions and direct care fund, according to Klarnet.

    To commemorate Juneteenth in 2006, a Leland-Boker broadside of the Emancipation Proclamation was transported by horse-drawn carriage from the the Historical Society of Pennsylvania to the African American Museum of Philadelphia. Members of the 3rd U.S. Colored Infantry guard the proclamation at the African American Museum.

    Other works with notable Philadelphia ties in Christie’s upcoming “We the People: America at 250″ auction include an edited Committee of Style draft of the U.S. Constitution, which was written in Philadelphia five days before the final draft was printed; a U.S. Centennial flag; and a 1779 letter written by Benjamin Franklin to his friend David Hartley.

  • These South Philly dads bought personal street sweepers for their block: ‘It’s like a little Zamboni’

    These South Philly dads bought personal street sweepers for their block: ‘It’s like a little Zamboni’

    Just about every time Frederick Stahl, Matt Barber, and Anthony Masucci sweep their block of Iseminger Street in South Philly, someone stops them with a question or asks to take their picture.

    That’s how I found out about these street-sweeping South Philly dads, when someone posted a photo of Stahl doing his thing on Facebook and a friend tagged me in the comments.

    “This is the most fundamental level of environmentalism,” the photo was captioned.

    At first, I had to squint my eyes. I couldn’t tell what Stahl was pushing. It looked like a street sweeper, but it was yellow and fun-sized. I’d never seen anything like it before, and I dropped my email in the comments, hoping to learn more.

    And so, when Stahl and I finally connected this month — more than a year after that photo was posted — I went down to his block to check it out.

    “I’d be remiss not to include two of my neighbors — Matt Barber and Anthony Masucci,” Stahl wrote to me prior to our meeting. “I actually moved to Iseminger in 2020, and it was their street sweepers that inspired me to get one myself.”

    Matt Barber and Frederick Stahl (right) demonstrate how to use the Kärcher push sweepers on Iseminger Street.

    On their classic South Philly block, which boasts a Tofani door or two and a street so narrow you’re inclined to suck your gut in while you’re driving down it, there are 18 kids under the age of 14 and eight under the age of 3, including Stahl’s 1-year-old son.

    “Those are the ones that really touch the concrete,” he said of the little tykes.

    The guys used to sweep the street with janitor brooms, “just so our kids could come out and play without glass around,” Masucci said.

    “Neighbors would be like, ‘Oh, it’s nice, but it’s really dusty,’ and I’d be like, ‘God! There’s gotta be a better way,’” he said.

    During the COVID lockdowns in 2020, when Masucci had some extra time on his hands, he went searching online and stumbled upon the website for Kärcher, a German company that sells cleaning equipment. The company’s S 4 Twin model, which claims to sweep large areas up to five times quicker than a push broom, seemed like it might do the trick.

    “I found this thing and all of the marketing is for driveways, like old men kind of brushing their long driveways in the suburbs,” Masucci said. “I was like, ‘I think this would work fantastic. It’s like a little Zamboni. Let me see what we can do.’”

    The Kärcher S 4 Twin push sweeper on Iseminger Street in South Philly.

    Masucci purchased one — which typically retails for $189.99 but is currently on sale for $125.36 — and donated it to the block. Barber offered to keep it on his back patio.

    “Anthony came through and made the dream happen and we put it together,” Barber said.

    “It was like Christmas,” Masucci said. “Oh my God, the first time going up and down, we’re like, ‘It’s filled! It’s filled and it works so cleanly and easily!’”

    The guys all grew up watching their dads mow the lawn every weekend, and even though they don’t have lawns to mow in South Philly, using the sweepers felt a little like that, they told me. Stahl even bought his own Kärcher when his little one was on the way.

    “We love the community and you feel great coming out here and doing it so much more efficiently than brushing around,” Masucci said. “The kids run out. They wanna help you push it. Everyone runs out and wants to help you bag it up. So it becomes a community thing.”

    Neighbors Frederick Stahl (left) and Matt Barber with their Kärcher push sweepers on Iseminger Street in South Philly.

    Barber even gets the kids to pull weeds from the sidewalk and throw them into the street so he can sweep them up, promising them water ice from around the corner if they help out.

    “I go, ‘Listen, weeds for water ice,’” he said.

    Kärcher’s S 4 Twin unit is lightweight, foldable, has an adjustable handle, and uses no electricity or gas, so it makes no noise.

    “It runs on human will,” Masucci said.

    Its 5.25-gallon waste bin holds an impressive amount of debris and doesn’t blow up much dust. After the guys dumped it out following four passes along their street, the trash bag they emptied it into weighed about 15-20 pounds.

    Neighbors Anthony Masucci (from left), Matt Barber, and Frederick Stahl empty the waste containers of their Kärcher units after sweeping their block.

    “This bag will be so heavy at the end. I always feel like it’s a real proud moment,” Barber said.

    Mostly they’re sweeping up dirt, debris, broken glass, nails, and cigarette butts. It takes about 20 minutes and four or five passes to clean the block.

    The day after trash and recycling collection is particularly bad — there’s some stuff that misses the truck or glass that gets broken on its way in — so they make sure to do it then.

    Some items will get stuck in the Kärcher, like flattened water bottles and dog poop bags, so they still have to pick up that stuff by hand (with gloves on!) before they do a pass.

    The few times they’ve been unable to repair the device, they said Kärcher customer service has been amazing and sent them replacement parts and even a whole new unit for free.

    The Kärcher S 4 Twin push sweeper.

    When the dads first started using the Kärcher, one of their neighbors on the block, a South Philly lifer who threw his cigarette butts in the street, raised an eyebrow.

    “He was like, ‘Yo man, what, what are you doing? Why are you out here always cleaning the street?” Barber recalled. “I said, ‘I don’t know, man. I just consider it my backyard.”

    Not long after, that neighbor stopped throwing his cigarettes in the street, they said.

    “It’s little stuff like that. Maybe it’s always what they did and now hopefully we’re raising awareness,” Masucci said. “If you’re in the city and living here you can impact a lot. You do rely on public works, and if the street light goes out we can’t go fix that, but this is something you can do.”

    Being stewards of their street has also bought them a lot of equity with their neighbors, they said. The block holds three major parties a year, including one where they chuck pumpkins off the roofs of their rowhouses, and they get little pushback from anyone.

    “We can be up late, blast the music and throw those crazy parties. Everybody knows we’re gonna mess stuff up, but we’re gonna clean it up, because in the end, nobody cares more than us,” Masucci said.

    Anthony Masucci demonstrates how to use the Kärcher push sweeper on Iseminger Street.

    The men would love to see more people in Philly get Kärchers, perhaps through a citywide program, and so would I. Philly has a notorious litter problem — I don’t have to tell you that — but when people become invested in their neighborhood and cleaning their block becomes a fun, easy, community activity instead of just a chore, it’s much more likely to happen.

    “They have all these initiatives to clean up Philly and I’m like, if every block captain was given one of these and they just let people take responsibility for their block, you’d probably see a bit of a difference in terms of the litter and cleanliness of South Philly,” Barber said.

  • The artist behind the ‘Boob Garden’ and ‘Rave Coffin’ strikes again with ‘Crab Couch’ in South Philly

    The artist behind the ‘Boob Garden’ and ‘Rave Coffin’ strikes again with ‘Crab Couch’ in South Philly

    For the last two years, Rose Luardo has been exceedingly generous with her art, installing it for all to see in a vacant triangular lot in South Philly that was once home to Capt. Jesse G’s Crab Shack.

    In 2023, she gifted the people of Philadelphia with the Boob Garden, a furniture set covered in handmade breast plushies, and the following year she gave us the Rave Coffin, a casket covered in tie-dyed felt that passersby could lie down inside of.

    Rose Luardo strikes a pose at her “Boob Garden” art installation in 2023.

    Luardo struck again Sunday night at the cement triangle at the intersection of Washington Avenue, Passyunk Avenue, and Eighth Street, but this time around, her guerrilla art installation was totally shellfish.

    Crab Couch — which is exactly what it sounds like unless you’re thinking of the other kind of crabs, which it is not — is the latest work Luardo set up at what she calls Capt. Jesse G’s Crab Shack Gallery. That’s because the shuttered business’ sign inexplicably remains lording over the lot on a freestanding pole, even though the building was long-ago demolished.

    Once just a regular white sofa that was looking for a new home on Facebook Marketplace, Luardo — a provocateur of the peculiar — rescued the couch and Frankenstein-ed that piece of furniture into a comfy crustacean.

    With some papier-mâché, red house paint, and the help of her niece, Ingrid Rose Koppisch, and their friend, Simply Val, Luardo gave the couch six legs, a pair of judgey eyes, and two hulking claws, with one clamping down on a giant cigarette.

    She first put the crabby patio furniture in a gallery show she had in September.

    “I just had a feeling that this was not going to sell, but it would be a fun thing to make and eventually put out in my own personal art gallery at Capt. Jesse G’s,” Luardo said.

    On Sunday night, she and her husband put Crab Couch on one of his skateboards and wheeled it up the street to the vacant lot.

    Luardo noticed, as did I, that since the time of her installation last year, a taco truck has stationed itself at the edge of the lot and someone has bashed a small hole into the cement and created a modest fire pit, which Luardo placed the Crab Couch in front of. When I stopped by on Tuesday, the pit held an empty can of Modelo and an empty pack of Marlboro Lights.

    Artist Rose Lurado placed her latest work, “Crab Couch,” in front of a fire pit someone smashed into the cement at the vacant South Philly triangle she calls “Capt. Jesse G’s Crab Shack Gallery.”

    “I was so psyched that was there!” Luardo said of the pit. “This is the dream coming true, which is that the space is becoming activated, people are hopefully hanging out, eating a taco, drinking a Modelo, and sitting on the couch.”

    In the days since it was installed, the wind has done some damage to Crab Couch’s claws, which Luardo said neighbors came out to valiantly fix with drills. But its giant cigarette is nowhere to be found. It has become the ultimate Philly loosie.

    Otherwise, all is good with Crab Couch.

    “Crab Couch” is an old bae but a good one.

    I asked Luardo why she continues to put her art in such a hardscrabble lot, where it’s subject not only to weather but to something even more unpredictable — the whims of Philadelphians.

    “It was built for this kind of experience and nobody has claimed it,” she said. “It’s just this … s— lot and I know there’s people walking by and it’s so much fun to see something crazy and delightfully weird. It puts a hitch in your giddy-up.”

    According to city records, the lot is owned by 1100 Passyunk Partners LLC, which purchased the property for $2.85 million in 2020. A number for the group was not able to be located.

    South Philly artist Rose Luardo sits in her “Rave Coffin” at the triangular cement lot between Washington Avenue, Passyunk Avenue, and Eighth Street in 2024.

    To whomever owns this eyesore — which has been a vacant lot since at least 2016 — I beseech you to gift it to Luardo, who’s shown more interest in it and has done more to improve it than you ever have.

    The world is coming to Philadelphia next year and instead of having an empty, crumbling lot on one of the city’s busiest corridors, why not let Luardo show the world just how weird Philly can be?

    I hear she’s been eyeing an inflatable nightclub on Temu.

    “Crab Couch” looks out over the vacant triangle lot where it’s currently clawing out its existence next to busy Washington Avenue.
  • Is Boscov’s selling the most offensively Pennsylvania outfit ever?

    Is Boscov’s selling the most offensively Pennsylvania outfit ever?

    I was lured to the Boscov’s at Granite Run the other weekend by a mailer I’d received advertising a one-day shoe sale — buy any pair, get the second for $1.99.

    I went early to beat the crowds only to find the bounds of polite society had dissipated at the shoe department and it’d become The Hunger Games, but with footwear and senior citizen tributes (who are far more ruthless than their younger counterparts).

    Flustered, I set off to browse the rest of the store. The first thing you might find yourself wondering as you wander around a Boscov’s is: “How does this place even exist?” It’s a full-scale department store that sells everything from perfume to sofas. I even discovered an entire candy counter on the second floor that during a previous visit I’d never noticed before. As it turns out, this Reading-based chain is in the fudge-making business too.

    Legions of other department stores have fallen in the last few decades — Kaufmann’s, Bradlees, Hills, Hess’s — yet Boscov’s abides. The Granite Run Boscov’s is particularly a beast unburdened by the sands of time. It was previously an anchor store for the Granite Run Mall, which was torn down around it in 2016 to make way for the Promenade at Granite Run. Only Boscov’s remains of the once-storied mall. It is a rock that shall not be moved, a pillar to in-person purchasing.

    The outfit

    As I was browsing the brightly-lit aisles that fateful Saturday this month, wondering if the lights might give me a sunburn, my eyes fell upon something I can never unsee: matching camouflage sweat suits.

    Here were outfits that managed to do what no state legislature or psychological expert ever has: They married rural and urban Pennsylvania.

    Boscov’s bills these matching sweat suits as “Rustic Romance.”

    As someone who spent her formative years growing up in Lycoming County — where we had the first day of hunting season off from school — I can attest that camouflage is not just for stalking prey and sitting in tree stands. It’s an entire sartorial color category all its own in rural Pennsylvania.

    Camo is mixed and matched with everything and considered appropriate for all events, from weddings to funerals (think of it like Birds gear during a playoff run). I’ll never forget looking at photos from my wedding and realizing a guest from Central Pennsylvania wore a camo baseball hat to our reception.

    Now, a matching tracksuit is something you rarely see in rural Pennsylvania, but it’s practically a closet-staple around Philly. You’ll see at least one person wearing one at every Wawa, Acme, or outdoor event you visit in the region.

    Typically paired with sunglasses, these outfits are not only comfortable but incredibly stress-free. No need to worry about what to pair your sweatshirt with because there’s only one answer, the matching sweatpants you bought with it.

    Standing stunned before these camouflage sweatsuits, which came in both his and hers, I wondered if Boscov’s had thrown back a few beverages before deciding to sell these things.

    As a Pennsylvanian, I was highly offended. We the people of this fine commonwealth are more than camo and sweat suits! We are camo OR sweat suits.

    But maybe, just maybe, by blending these two wildly different fashions together as the holidays approach, Boscov’s will also blend us. No more Philly, Pittsburgh, and the T in between. No more red counties and blue counties. This could be the one outfit to unite us all, while also helping us blend into woodland scenes.

    When I posted a picture of the camo sweatsuits on Threads, several users pointed out that Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts recently wore a matching camouflage suit when the Birds traveled to Green Bay. I was surprised, as Hurts is typically a very stylish dude who wears Kangol hats and carries a man bag, but people suggested his outfit could have been a fashion statement indicating he was on the hunt.

    Who better though to serve as the ambassador of the camouflage sweat suit and unite our state than Hurts? He’s cool under pressure, so he could take the heat of promoting an undeniably terrible outfit for the greater good, and he grew up in Texas, so it’s safe to assume he’s familiar with camo (and we already know he’s not afraid to wear it).

    It wasn’t until I got home and looked at my photo of the sweat suits that I noticed there was a sign at the top of the store display billing these outfits as “Rustic Romance.”

    Listen, I know that Pennsylvanians’ reputation for romance does not precede us, but that’s just insulting. There’s nothing romantic about letting your partner know you want them to look more like fall foliage.

    I guarantee if you get your lady a matching camo sweat suit for Christmas, she’s not going to fawn all over you — she will hunt you down.