Conservator Angela Paola is lying on her back under the 16-ton gunboat, picking debris from between its nearly 250-year-old planks. She is wearing blue surgical gloves, grimy white coveralls, and a half-face respirator.
Dust floats in the beam of her headlamp, and the light reveals bits of the original oakum and pitch used to seal the bottom of the Philadelphia before it was sunk in battle by the British in 1776.
As she pokes a tool between the planks, clumps of hardened sediment fall on her. “It’s dirty,” she says. “But it is really satisfying work. And it’s really exciting to see it slowly start to show itself through all the mud and the years.”
Texas A&M University research assistant Marissa Agerton works on the project to preserve the gunboat Philadelphia at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington on Jan. 13.
The Philadelphia is the country’s oldest surviving intact warship, according to the Smithsonian Institution. It was launched on July 30, 1776, a few weeks after the Declaration of Independence was adopted. And as the nation prepares for its 250th birthday this summer, experts are grooming the old vessel for its place in the celebration.
“It’s one of the most important objects — movable objects — of the Revolution, flat out,” Anthea M. Hartig, director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, said in an interview at the museum this month.
The gnarled boat has survived battle, sinking, the elements, wood-eating bacteria, rodents, misguided attempts at preservation, tourists, and almost 250 years in the country it helped found.
It’s “one in a million,” Paola, the conservator from Texas A&M University, said through her respirator last week.
The 53-foot-long boat, hastily built of green oak, was sunk by British cannon on Oct. 11, 1776 at the Battle of Valcour Island, on Lake Champlain. But historians say the small fleet it was part of helped thwart British plans to invade the colonies from the north, and furthered the cause of independence.
The boat, powered by oars and sails, spent 159 years sitting upright in 60 feet of water at the bottom of the lake until it was raised in 1935. It then became a tourist attraction: admission 50 cents, according to an old advertising poster, and was carried from place to place on a barge.
After almost 30 years, it came to Washington in 1961 as one of the early arrivals at what was then the National Museum of History and Technology. It was hoisted inside while the building was still under construction and has been there ever since.
Since July, the museum has had the Philadelphia partially cordoned off in a special conservation lab on the third floor of the East Wing.
There, experts from the Smithsonian and Texas A&M are working with vacuums, brushes and dental tools to give it a state-of-the art cleaning and look for lost artifacts in areas they said have never been probed before. Visitors can watch the work through a large viewing window.
A portion of the Philadelphia.
The vessel rests in a huge cradle. Arrayed around it are its lower mast, rudder, two anchors, three big cast-iron guns, gun carriages, swivel guns, and the 24-pound British cannon ball that helped sink it.
The Philadelphia’s biggest weapon was an 8-foot-long, 3,800-pound cannon made in Sweden. It sat on a wooden rail at the front of the boat and fired a 12-pound iron ball. The gun still had a projectile in its mouth when it was discovered.
The boat was raised on Aug. 9, 1935 by history enthusiast and salvage engineer Lorenzo F. Hagglund and yachtsman J. Ruppert Schalk. When it came up, it contained a trove of more than 700 artifacts, according to John R. Bratten’s 2002 book, The Gondola Philadelphia & the Battle of Lake Champlain.
It also had a handful of human bones.
According to salvage reports, “there were a couple of arm bones … some teeth and a partial skull that were found on board the boat itself,” said Jennifer L. Jones, director of the museum’s Philadelphia gunboat preservation project.
“We know there were a lot of injuries,” she said in an interview at the museum this month.
Angela Paola goes through debris as she works on the Philadelphia.
The Oct. 11 battle was a daylong shootout with both sides firing iron cannon balls that could sink a ship or tear off a limb.
Less than two years after the start of the Revolutionary War, the British had been planning an attack from Canada south along the lake between New York and Vermont to try to split the colonies.
They quickly assembled a fleet of about two dozen vessels near the lake in Canada for the task.
The Americans countered, building and gathering a fleet of 16 vessels, including the flat-bottom Philadelphia and seven others like it, said Peter D. Fix, of Texas A&M, the lead conservator on the gunboat preservation project.
The two sides met in a narrow channel of the lake between the New York shore and Valcour Island, about five miles south of Plattsburgh, N.Y.
“It was a very bloody battle,” Jones said.
From the American hospital ship, “Enterprise,” crewman Jahiel Stewart wrote in his journal: “The battel was verryey hot [and] the Cannon balls & grape Shot flew verrey thick.”
“I believe we had a great many [killed] … Doctors Cut off great many legs and arm and … Seven men [were thrown] overbord that died with their wounds while I was abord,” he wrote.
Each side suffered about 60 men killed and wounded, Bratten wrote.
Jones said it is possible the limbs found on the ship had been amputated. Their whereabouts are unknown, she said.
The Philadelphia was commanded by a young Pennsylvania army officer, Benjamin Rue. He had 43 men from many walks of life under him.
“We have a wretched, motley crew in the fleet,” American Gen. Benedict Arnold wrote before the battle. “The refuse of every regiment, and the seamen, few of them, ever wet with salt water.”
Texas A&M University research assistant Alyssa Carpenter works on the Philadelphia this month in D.C.
Arnold, who commanded the patriot fleet, later deserted the American cause and went to fight for the British in 1780. He died in England in 1801. One of the crewmen on the Philadelphia, Joseph Bettys, also switched sides. He was later captured and hanged.
The Oct. 11 battle was a stalemate. The British withdrew; the Americans, bottled up in the channel, escaped that night. But two days later, the British force tracked down the Americans and destroyed most of their fleet.
Only a handful of American ships survived the fight. The Philadelphia was not one of them.
The ship is now “heavily degraded,” said Fix, the lead conservator,
The hull still bears three holes made by British cannon balls. A wooden cross piece near where the mast stood is charred, probably from the ship’s brick fireplace. The hull planks have lost about three-quarters of an inch in thickness to bacteria, Fix said.
Care of the boat “is a huge undertaking, of which the conservation is one part,” he said. “The conservation, the preservation, is kind of the avenue to learn all this other extra stuff, which has been great.”
“Our main task, as we were assigned, was ‘let’s make sure we make it last for another 250 years,’ ” he said.
Back under the vessel recently, conservator Paola put chunks of fallen debris in an orange bucket, to be sifted for artifacts later. She said it was amazing that the Philadelphia had survived.
“She lasted,” she said. “We’re really lucky.”
Texas A&M University research assistants Alyssa Carpenter, Marissa Agerton, and Angela Paola work on the gunboat Philadelphia, preparing it for the United States’ 250th birthday celebration this summer.
As Philadelphia endured another day of historically frigid temperatures, outreach workers on Friday fielded hundreds of calls for shelter as warming centers filled with people seeking respite from the cold.
In the mazelike concourse at Suburban Station, a Project HOME outreach worker hugged clients and encouraged them to head inside.
At the Hub of Hope, the nonprofit’s drop-in center in the concourse for people experiencing homelessness, dozens lined up for hot meals. Later that night, as they had for the last several days, staff would set up cots for up to 80 people with nowhere else to go.
Typically, the Hub closes in the early evening. But amid the ongoing freeze, it’s open 24-7 as city officials and homeless services providers work to keep vulnerable Philadelphians safe.
Last month, the city declared a “Code Blue,” a designation that opens additional shelter beds and other resources. Ever since, the nonprofit’s hotline has fielded more than 6,000 calls, an average of more than 500 a day.
Normally, it receives about 140 a day.
“Many calls are concerned citizens who see someone who is homeless and want a team to go and check on them. Some are people who are literally homeless right now and need a place to go. Some are facing eviction and scared, reaching out for their options,” said Candice Player, the nonprofit’s vice president of advocacy, public policy, and street outreach.
“The extreme cold challenges us and pushes us even harder.”
City officials navigate a lengthy cold snap
When the wind chill makes it feel like it’s 20 degrees outside or lower for more than three days, the city can declare what is called an enhanced Code Blue. The distinction opens up furtherresources, including daytime and nighttime warming centers.
Cheryl Hill, executive director of the Philadelphia Office of Homeless Services, describes these periods as an all-hands-on-deck situation. Hill said that “every city entity can be outreach” during this time, and that work can also be aided by members of the public, who have been quick to call for help.
“We are all basically helping our neighbor, in essence — we see them out on the street, we want to help,” Hill said. “As a result, outreach is getting a lot more calls to go and check on those individuals.”
Philadelphia declared an initial Code Blue on Jan. 18 and an enhanced Code Blue on Jan. 20.
The city has about 3,500 shelter beds, which can become open as people get placed in longer-term housing.
If the beds reach capacity, the city has additional overnight spaces at warming centers, primarily in recreation centers. People who spend the day at warming centers that close overnight can receive transportation to a nighttime center.
People who need a ride to a warming center can ask for transportation at their local police district, city officials said.
On average, the overnight warming centers have provided shelter to about 300 to 400 people across the city per night. Last Monday night, after 9.3 inches of snow had blanketed Philly, warming centers sheltered just shy of 450 people.
Last year, peak usage of warming centers hovered around 150 people, Hill said.
Still, helping the city’s most vulnerable off the streets can be difficult even in the best of circumstances.
On Friday afternoon, a sign posted at the South Philadelphia Library informed people visiting to get out of the cold that they could eat and sleep in a section designated as a warming center. Librarians and community support groups collect and provide snacks, along with hand-warmers and other essentials, for those who need them.
Even so, only a handful of people sat in the area. A woman yelped in pain as she rubbed a blackened toe. Children played with blocks in another corner of the library as others checked out books.
The homeless services office tries to have medical staff at warming sites, but more serious cases get sent to the hospital.
In extreme cold, as a last resort, people with serious mental illnesses who refuse to come inside and are underdressed could be involuntarily committed.
Homeless services providers said they are working around the clock to care for clients exhausted by the struggle of simply staying warm.
“The experience of being homeless in this brutal cold is awful, and the folks who come in are just worn down,” Playersaid.
At shelters run by the Bethesda Project, staff are trying to keep residents’ spirits up and encouraging them to stay inside as much as possible, said director of shelter Kharisma Goldston. “One of our guests was doing haircuts last night,” she said. “We try to do a lot so guys don’t feel like they’re trapped inside.”
Staffers set up additional beds to accommodate more clients, she said.
“We do our best to set up however many beds we can,” she said. “When it’s this cold, it takes a very short amount of time for hypothermia to set in.”
Rachel Beilgard, Project HOME’s senior program manager for outreach, said that outreach teams have encountered several people suffering from frostbite who were involuntarily committed. Some, she said, risked limb amputations if they had stayed outside any longer.
But many people who typically refuse offers for shelter from outreach teams are now accepting help, Beilgard said. “We’ve had a lot of folks this winter who say, ‘Once it starts snowing, come find me,’” she said.
Tim Neumann works with people experiencing housing instability, in Philadelphia.
The count, taken every year at the behest of federal housing officials, happens over one night in January; city workers and volunteers fan out across the city to physically count people sleeping on the street and those in shelters. Federal officials use the count to gauge funding allocations, and city officials look to it to understand the needs on the streets.
The Jan. 22, 2025, count was also taken during a Code Blue, although temperatures were not as frigid as they were last week. It found that homelessness rose by about 9% between 2024 and 2025, after a 38% jump the year before. In Kensington, the number of homeless, unsheltered people dropped by about 17%.
The number of people experiencing chronic homelessness rose by 49%. This is a designation tightly defined by the federal government as a homeless person with a disability who lives in a shelter or in a place that is not meant for habitation, and who has been homeless for a full year, or homeless at least four times in the last three years for a total of 12 months.
The category also includes people who fit these criteria but have entered jail, rehab, or another care facility in the last three months. Most of Philadelphia’s chronically homeless residents were living in emergency shelters.
City officials and providers said a number of factors likely contributed to the increase.
People with substance use disorder and mental health issues are vulnerable to becoming chronically homeless, especially in Philadelphia, where a toxic drug supply causes wounds and intense withdrawal that keep many from seeking shelter. But a lack of affordable housing, low wages, job loss, or a major health issue can also put residents at high risk for homelessness, stressed Crystal Yates-Gale, the city’s deputy managing director for health and human services.
Hill also said that in recent years, Philadelphia has lost bids to receive competitive housing funds from the federal government.
“We’ve been working really intentionally to make sure that our programs will get funded” in the future, Hill said.
Yates-Gale also pointed to Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s December executive order directing city officials to add 1,000 beds to the shelter system by the end of January. As of last week, the city had added 600 winter shelter beds that are crucial during the enhanced Code Blue and will eventually become available year-round, she said.
Anecdotally, neighborhoods have reported decreases in homelessness since last year, Hill said, although officials will have to wait until February to conduct the count this year.
The count had originally been set for Wednesday, but the city canceled it due to the cold — and because too many outreach staffers were at work getting people inside.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect that library staff and supporters provide people using daytime warming centers with snacks.
Every day, sometimes several times a day, the 7-year-old girl wants to talk about the mother she lost in the Northeast Philadelphia plane crash.
“She’s missing her all the time and she’ll ask me, `Do you think I look like my mom? Do you think I dress like my mom? Do you see my bag? This is my mom’s bag,’” said 35-year-old Shantell Fletcher, the girl’s godmother.
It has been a year since a medical jet crashed on Cottman Avenue near the Roosevelt Mall, killing all six people onboard. The explosion cast a plume of plane shrapnel and fire over the neighborhood. At least 16 homes were severely damaged and about two dozen people were injured that night.
The girl’s mother, Dominique Goods Burke, and her fiance, Steven Dreuitt Jr., along with Dreuitt’s 10-year-old son, Ramesses Dreuitt Vazquez, were driving on Cottman Avenue on Jan. 31, 2025, just after 6 p.m. when the plane slammed into the ground at more than 278 mph, within feet of their car.
Flames instantly engulfed the vehicle. Dreuitt, 37, trapped in the car with his legs crushed beneath the steering wheel, died at the scene, but Goods Burke and Ramesses escaped with severe burns.
A floral photo of Dominique Goods Burke is carried out after the funeral service as family, friends and community members gather outside at Tindley Temple UM Church in Philadelphia, Pa., on Thursday, May 8, 2025. Dominique passed away at Jefferson hospital on April 27 due to the critical burns from the Roosevelt Mall Learjet crash along Cottman Avenue.
Goods Burke, 34, died of her injuries in April at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, leaving behind her daughter and her 16-year-old son, Dominick Goods. (The family asked The Inquirer to withhold her daughter’s name to protect her privacy.)
On Saturday evening, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and other city officials planned to place a wreath at the crash site. About 100 people gathered inside Engine 71 Fire Station on Cottman, the station closest to the crash site.
The plane’s impact had left a bomb-like crater in a driveway apron between a Raising Cane’s restaurant and a Dunkin’ Donuts. The 8-foot-deep hole has since been filled in and paved over, but the loss and devastation are irreparable.
“I don’t know how we made it through a year. It feels fresh, raw. Sometimes it’s hard to breathe,” said Fletcher, who was Goods Burke’s first cousin and best friend. “Losing her, I’ve felt alone and empty. I miss laughing with her. I miss joking with her. I miss celebrating life with her.”
Fletcher is helping to raise Goods Burke’s daughter and her son, Dominick, an 11th grader at Imhotep Institute Charter High School in East Germantown. Dominick’s father was Dreuitt, so he lost both parents.
“My godson doesn’t have his mother or his father. My goddaughter doesn’t have her mamma,” Fletcher said. “Other than them coming back, nothing could ever give us a reprieve from the pain.”
Ramesses Dreuitt Vazquez, 10, spent months in a Boston hospital recovering from burns to more than 90% of his body when the car he was riding in caught fire in the Jan. 31, 2025 plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia.
“I have my moments of still struggling. It’s been really tough,” said Dreuitt’s 61-year-old mother, Alberta “Amira” Brown, whose grandchildren are Ramesses and Dominick. “The life that we once had, we can never get it back.”
An irreplaceable booming voice
Dreuitt worked as a kitchen manager and team leader at the Philadelphia Catering Co. in South Philadelphia for more than seven years. Co-owner Tim Kelly said it was Dreuitt’s job to call staffers to lunch, which the company served to its 45 employees each day at noon.
“Steve would always call lunch, which basically was him just yelling, ‘LUNCH,’ three times loudly,” Kelly said. “His deep booming voice. Many of the guys here have tried to replicate it, but to no avail.”
“Time does help. It softens the blow,” Kelly said. “It was very difficult for a long time for a lot of us, but we’re at the point where we can remember him with a little less sadness and we can smile a bit.”
Goods Burke, whom loved ones affectionately called “Pooda” and colleagues called “Dom,” worked at High Point Cafe as a day bakery manager for years.
Cafe founder Meg Hagele said the staff treats her former work space, dubbed “Dom’s table,” with a shrine-like reverence. Seeing Goods Burke’s handwriting on recipes, scribbles in margins, stirs memories of her vibrancy and creativity.
“She’s very present with us still,” Hagele said. “This accident was just a shock to the entire city, but to be touched so personally by it is just freakish and profound.”
NTSB investigation continues
The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the crash’s cause. The plane — a medical transport Learjet 55 owned by Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, headquartered in Mexico City — had taken off at 6:07 p.m. from Northeast Philadelphia Airport. It climbed to 1,640 feet before nosediving just three miles away around 6:08 p.m.
NTSB investigators recovered the cockpit voice recorder at the scene, but after repairing it and playing it back, they found the device “had likely not been recording audio for several years,” according to a preliminary report released in March.
Brown, of Mount Airy, said she got a letter from the NTSB a few weeks ago saying investigators were making progress.
“That’s hope right there,” Brown said in a recent interview. ”It will help to know exactly what happened to make that plane come down. Does it change anything? No.”
Alberta “Amira” Brown remembers her son, Steven Dreuitt Jr., who died in the Jan. 31, 2025, plane crash in Northeast Philadelphia. In November, Brown attended a memorial service at Oxford Presbyterian Church in North Philadelphia.
The cremated remains of the six Mexican nationals who died aboard the plane were returned to loved ones in Mexico City last spring. Among the passengers were 11-year-old Valentina Guzmán Murillo and her 31-year-old mother, Lizeth Murillo Osuna. They were returning home after Valentinahad spent four months undergoing treatment for a spinal condition at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia.
Also killed were the pilot, Alan Montoya Perales, 46; his copilot, Josue de Jesus Juarez Juarez, 43; a Jet Rescue doctor, Raul Meza Arredonda, 41; and paramedic Rodrigo Lopez Padilla, 41.
Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson (from left) Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, and Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel ring a ceremonial bell at the one-year anniversary memorial observance of the Northeast Philly plane crash Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, at Engine 71 Fire Station on Cottman Avenue in Philadelphia.
In the moments after the crash, hundreds of firefighters and rescue workers swarmed the area to put out homes and cars on fire from the jet fuel or burning pieces of aircraft that struck them.
Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Jeffrey Thompson, a 36-year veteran of the city’s fire department, said the plane crash “was without a doubt the biggest thing that I’ve ever responded to.”
In an interview on Thursday, Thompson recalled rushing to the scene from his Fishtown home, filled with dread and adrenaline.
“I remember it was dark. It was cold, and it was raining — it was like something out of a disaster movie,” Thompson said. “As I got closer, I could just see a sea of lights.”
He arrived to find multiple homes and cars on fire. Pools of jet fuel everywhere. And so many pieces of debris that he initially had no idea of the plane’s size. He said he and other first responders will never forget seeing body parts strewn among the wreckage.
“This still affects all of us. Just to see that is so unnatural,” Thompson said. “And the work that they did that night — that’s indelibly etched in their memories.”
More than 150 firefighters scoured “blocks and blocks” of homes, entering each one and every room, to make sure everyone was accounted for. He said he is amazed how multiple agencies worked together to bring “order to chaos.”
“That just gives me goose bumps,” Thompson said. He added, “This is actually therapeutic — me talking to you has been therapeutic because there was a lot there that night and I don’t often talk about this.”
Miracles, luck, and skill
As tragic as that night was, Thompson said, there was some miraculousness, including the fact that the plane struck a patch of empty pavement between two busy restaurants.
“Sometimes in this life, there’s luck,” Thompson said. “It was rush hour. You had a shopping mall and a densely populated neighborhood. It could have been infinitely worse.”
Lashawn ‘Lala’ Hamiel, Andre “Tre” Howard III, and his family cheer on the Eagles during Super Bowl LIX.
Andre Howard Jr. had just picked up his three kids — then ages 4,7, and 10 — from aftercare at Soans Christian Academy. They headed to Dunkin’ for strawberry doughnuts. As they were leaving the parking lot in Howard’s car, the plane exploded a few feet away. A plane part crashed through the car’s window. Howard’s 10-year-old son, Andre “Tre” Howard III, used his body to shield his 4-year-old sister and a piece of metal struck his head.
Tareq Yaseen, a neurosurgeon at Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, was having dinner with his family, including his kids, ages 10 and 6, at Dave & Buster’s at Franklin Mall when he rushed back to the hospital to perform emergency surgery on Tre.
The boy had two gashes in the right side of his head, and his skull had been shattered into more than 20 pieces, Yaseen recalled.
“My son is the exact age as Tre, which made things very personal and emotional to me,” Yaseen said. “He’s gonna die. He was basically losing consciousness and going in a bad direction.”
“I felt for a moment that I would not be able to help him,” Yaseen said. “I was very scared that I’m gonna fail. There’s too much on the line and it’s a little boy.”
Yaseen said he worked fast to relieve the pressure on Tre’s brain and remove bits of broken skull. The surgery was a success. More than 60 relatives and friends in the hospital waiting room hugged and thanked him, Yaseen recalled.
“It’s a moment that would happen in the movies,” Yaseen said. “I was very lucky to take part in saving his life.”
Tre was transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he made a near-full recovery. He celebrated his 11th birthday in December.
“With time, he’ll grow up and forget about it. God gave us a gift to forget, which is great,” Yaseen said. “But I will never forget.”
Jefferson neurosurgeon Tareq Yaseen poses for a photo with Andre “Tre” Howard III and his mother, Lashawn “Lala” Hamiel at Jefferson Torresdale Hospital.
A memorial
At the memorial Saturday, Mayor Parker read aloud the names of all eight who perished that night.
“To all the families who continue to carry this grief everyday, that until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes, you can’t begin to understand what it’s like,” Parker said. “It is important for us to affirm that they know that Philadelphia stands with you today and we will always.”
She asked the victims’ family members in attendance to stand and be recognized, including Brown, her grandson, Dominick, and Lisa Goods, the aunt of Goods Burke.
The mayor said she plans to keep close tabs on Dominick.
“Now he knows he belongs to me — don’t try to take him from me,” Parker said as she looked at Dominick seated in the front row.
Parker also recognized first responders for their “extraordinary bravery and selflessness.”
“In a moment of unimaginable tragedy, you all ran towards danger to protect others.”
Alberta “Amira” Brown (center), the grandmother of 10-year-old Ramesses Dreuitt Vazquez, who was severely burned after a plane crashed into his North Philadelphia neighborhood last year at the one year anniversary memorial observance of the Northeast Philly plane crash Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026, at Engine 71 Fire Station on Cottman Ave., in Philadelphia
Nearly a month after dangerous winds snarled their New Year’s Day performances, a dozen Mummers string bands got their encore.
The slate of bands reimagined their Jan. 1 routines Saturday on the snow-covered Lincoln Financial Field. It was a break from the norm — but perhaps the start of a new tradition for the 125-year-old Mummers.
“This is how we do it in our city,” Mayor Cherelle L. Parker rallied the chilly but boisterous crowd. “When we set our minds to get something done, we won’t let the weather or anything stop us.”
The mayor suggested: “I think we might be on to something big.”
Folks applaud the bands during the 2026 String Band Spectacular at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026.
It was not the first disruption to the century-old holiday parade, but it was the first time that the popular string band division was suspended. The reenvisioned judged portion — dubbed the String Band Spectacular — on the Philadelphia Eagles’ home turf was announced weeks later.
“Thousands of people are out here cheering like it’s New Year’s Day all over again,” Sam Regalbuto, president of the Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association, said. “The cold isn’t keeping the fans away, and it’s definitely not keeping the energy down out on the field.”
Laksumi Sivanandan, 27, and Carter Davis, 30, of East Passyunk, were at the parade on New Year’s Day but were excited to see the string bands with different scenery — and have the rare opportunity to be feet from the Eagles sideline at an accessible price. (More than 5,000 tickets, ranging from $12 to $25, were sold, according to Regalbuto.)
“It’s fun to see it in a different environment — usually you’re sitting on a lawn chair on Broad Street.”
But the rescheduled event was not without its own weather woes: On Friday, at least one string band pulled out of the performance, citing the frigid temperatures. A total of 14 bands make up the Philadelphia Mummers String Band Association, according to its website, but only 12 were scheduled to take the stage Saturday.
A coastal “bomb cyclone” was expected to douse parts of New Jersey and Delaware with some snowfall this weekend, while stinging winds and arctic air in Philadelphia pushed temperatures into single digits and plunged wind chills to as low as 10 degrees below zero. At the height of the show Saturday, temperatures barely eclipsed 20 degrees at the open-air Linc.
For spectators, who were clustered in the stadium’s lower bowl and sprinkled in suites, the keys to staying warm: layers, hand warmers, and beer jackets.
But the event offered Mummers enthusiasts and newbies alike an opportunity to enjoy the bands’ jovial music, unique sound, and elaborate costumes — with performances taking the audience from the sights of Las Vegas to New Orleans, a funhouse, and the Beauty and the Beast mansion — outside of New Year’s revelry.
“This is the moment each of the string bands work so hard for, and we’re so thrilled,” Regalbuto said. “This all came together to give them their shining spotlight out on that field in an unprecedented way. We couldn’t be more excited.”
The Fralinger String Band performs during the 2026 String Band Spectacular at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia on Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026.
New Jersey Shore communities are forecast to see minor flooding Sunday, as an offshore storm is expected to bring high winds that will also cause another bitterly cold night for Philadelphia and its suburbs.
The biggest concern is the high winds, which are expected to bring gusts of up to 40 or even 50 mph in Cape May County, as well as Sussex County, Del., according to Amanda Lee, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service’s Mount Holly office. Sustained winds are forecast to be 20 to 25 mph.
“There’s potential for some minor coastal flooding with the high tide cycles,” Lee said. Sunday morning’s high tide looks to carry the greatest risk, she added, with the potential for more with the Monday morning high tide.
The threat of flooding is the result of two factors: the wind pushing water closer to the coast and the full moon.
“When we’re in full moons and new moons, the astronomical tides are higher as well,” Lee said. “So the combination of those factors are leading to the potential for the coastal flooding.”
While wind and flooding are the chief concerns, the Shore could also receive some snow — up to half an inch, she said.
Philadelphia and the region
The storm’s impact is expected to be felt much less in Philadelphia, with no snow and lower winds. But breezes could push the wind chill to minus 10 degrees, Lee said.
“It’s still certainly going to be a breezy day, particularly on Sunday. We’ll potentially see wind gusts up to around 30 miles an hour or so,” she said.
Sunday morning’s low is forecast to be in the high single digits to around 10 degrees, with winds picking up later in the day to keep things frigid.
“Again, still very much the same pattern we’ve been in: very, very cold,” Lee said.
Atlantic City gears up
Lee said that while any flooding along the Shore should be minor, that could still mean some full road closures. Conditions may be worse along the bays, where winds could push ice onshore.
One community gearing up for any high winds and floods is Atlantic City, said Scott Evans, the fire chief and emergency management coordinator. He said the city is expecting minor flooding, which may mean water on a few streets.
City public works crews have been out clearing drains, and were ready to salt icy roads, Evans said.
“Just a couple of our low-lying areas are going to experience what we call our nuisance flooding, but this … will be compounded because the temperatures will be well below freezing,” he said.
Evans encouraged Atlantic City residents to take steps, as they would ahead of other potential emergencies.
“Make sure you have your emergency preparedness kits, make sure you have your medications, your flashlights, extra batteries, cell phone chargers, and some of your basic things, some food and water, some other things should your power go out,” he said.
“Let’s hope for the best here,” Evans said.
The coming days
Beyond Sunday, it will remain cold this week, Lee said, “but in some ways a little bit warmer than we have been now.”
But not “warm” warm.
“We’re actually looking at potentially cracking above freezing, most likely on Tuesday,” Lee said. But even then, the highs will only be in the lower 30s. And another shot of cold is forecast for later in the week into the following week.
Rapper and actor Eve finally got recognition for her contribution to a Grammy Award-winning song by The Roots, and she had kind words for her hometown.
“I will say Philly started it,” Eve told a reporter at the Recording Academy Honors, presented by the Black Music Collective. “I came from Philadelphia. I think we’re used to being the underdogs in that city. And we also like to prove to you that you can underestimate me, but I’m going to show you.”
Rapper Eve Jeffers outside Martin Luther King High School in Philadelphia in 1999.
Eve grew up in West Philly and Germantown. In 1999, when she was a 19-year-old rapper going by “Eve of Destruction,” she laid down the essential second verse for The Roots’ “You Got Me.”
A year later, the song earned the Philly hip-hop group a Grammy for Best Rap Performance By a Duo or Group. Erykah Badu, who sang the hook, also won the award.
But Eve, who was not signed with a recording label, was not listed as a contributing artist on the song’s 1999 release and was overlooked by the awards committee.
That didn’t stop her from launching a successful solo career and winning a Grammy in 2002 for “Let Me Blow Ya Mind,” a Gwen Stefani collaboration that drips with early aughts vibes.
Eve’s memoir is titled ‘Who’s That Girl?’
At the ceremony Thursday in Los Angeles, Eve told the crowd that “this is actually for little Eve from Philly” on stage.
“What is yours never can miss you,” she said.
Addressing the crowd, Eve gave a shout-out to broadcaster Ebro Darden, who discussed the song at length on his podcast, The Message. She credited him for keeping people interested in seeing her receive a Grammy for the song.
Eve said she found success through being determined and understanding what kind of life she wanted to live. She encouraged other Black women to be there for themselves and fight for their dreams.
“I think, you know, we owe it to ourselves to show up for ourselves, to fight for ourselves, to be our own champion,” she said. “We deserve it. We are always the strongest for everyone else. We need to be the strongest for ourselves.”
This isn’t a typical report card item, and it shouldn’t be.
This week made it impossible not to understand who Dan McQuade was — and how deeply he mattered to Philadelphia — just by reading what people shared about the journalist and Philadelphia superfan after he died of cancer this week at age 43.
Colleagues, friends, editors, and readers kept circling the same truths: how funny he was, how kind he was, how precise his understanding of the city felt. Not in a forced or caricatured way, but in the way that comes from paying close attention, loving a place, and never taking it (or yourself) too seriously.
Dan had a gift for finding meaning in the everyday. He treated Philly’s quirks, tics, and absurdities not as punchlines to exploit, but as things worth documenting, celebrating, and occasionally poking fun at with affection. He gave people permission to laugh at the city without laughing at it. That’s harder than it sounds.
His impact was everywhere this week: in stories about Rocky runs and boardwalk T-shirts, in memories of long happy hours that turned into lifelong friendships, in anecdotes about him being the go-to fact-checker for all things Philly, in the way people described him as both brilliant and generous. A writer who made others better. A friend who showed up. A presence that made rooms, and timelines, lighter.
The tributes weren’t performative or flowery. They were specific. Personal. Grounded. Which feels fitting. McQuade’s work was never about being loud or self-important. It was about noticing things, connecting dots, and reminding people that there’s joy, and humor, in paying attention to where you live.
Philadelphia lost a journalist. But it also lost one of its clearest interpreters. Someone who understood that “Philadelphianness” isn’t a brand or a gimmick, but a way of moving through the world with skepticism, warmth, and a well-timed joke.
An A+ doesn’t feel like enough. But it feels right to say this much: Philly is better for having had Dan McQuade in it. And it won’t quite be the same without him.
A man shovels snow from underneath his car after it became hung up while trying to park in the middle of South Broad Street in the early morning hours of Jan. 28, 2026. Dump trucks filled with snow from the city’s snow removal operations were zooming by as he worked to get his car free.
The snowstorm delivered. The plowing did not: F-
Let’s be clear: The snow itself did what snow is supposed to do. Nine-plus inches, pretty at first, historic enough to brag about, disruptive enough to cancel plans and spark group-chat meteorology. Fine. That’s winter.
What came after? That’s where everything fell apart.
The city promised differently. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker stood in front of cameras before the storm and said every street would get attention “as long as it takes.” That message mattered because Philadelphians have heard this story before, and expectations were deliberately raised.
Then reality hit.
Plow data show roughly a quarter of city streets got no treatment at all after the storm ended. Not plowed. Not salted. Nothing. And the longer it sat, the worse it got — snow compacting into ice, intersections blocked by frozen berms, cars effectively entombed.
This isn’t just an inconvenience. People with limited mobility are stuck. Workers can’t get out. Streets department explanations about sleet, freezing rain, and illegally parked cars may be true, but they don’t change the fact that many blocks are still uncleared a week later.
This is the part where Philly frustration kicks in hardest: The storm wasn’t unprecedented, but the response feels familiar in the worst way. The expectation has long been “don’t count on a plow,” and this week did little to change that.
New York tries to claim ‘Delco.’ Pennsylvania says absolutely not: A
Every so often, something happens that instantly unites Delco. Snowstorms. Eagles runs. Wawa shortages. And now: a county in upstate New York attempting to brand itself as “Delco.”
Absolutely not.
Stephanie Farr laid out the case perfectly: Delco isn’t just shorthand for Delaware County. It’s a culture. A personality. A way of life built on hoagie trays, Catholic school rivalries, beach flags, and a shared, deeply ingrained chip on the shoulder.
New York’s Delaware County is rural. Ours is suburban chaos packed into 184 square miles, powered by Wawa coffee, tailgating energy, and a pride so aggressive it gets tattooed on bodies and planted in Jersey Shore sand like a territorial marker.
The funniest part isn’t that there’s another Delaware County (there are several). It’s that this one thought it could simply adopt the nickname, slap it on merch, and call it authenticity. That’s not how Delco works. Delco is earned.
A Center City District worker cleaning the sidewalk on Broad Street the morning after the Philadelphia Eagles won the NFC Championship.
Center City West sidewalks are getting grimy (and it’s not your imagination): C
For nearly a decade, a lot of Center City West quietly benefited from something most people never realized existed: a privately funded sidewalk cleaning program that swooped in after city trash pickup and handled the leftover mess.
Asthe Fitler Focus reported, that program ended when the Center City Residents’ Association let its contract expire at the end of 2025. Not out of neglect, but necessity. The cost had ballooned to about 41% of CCRA’s projected 2026 budget, which is an unsustainable chunk for what was essentially backstopping city services.
The result has been immediate and visible. Trash bags torn open overnight. Litter lingering days after pickup. Sidewalks that used to reset themselves now just… don’t. CCRA deserves credit for being upfront about the trade-off and pivoting toward enforcement, even if it won’t bring immediate results.
The frustrating part is that the rules haven’t changed. Trash placement regulations exist. Containers are required. Enforcement is technically possible. But in reality, it’s complaint-driven, slow, and uneven. Meaning the difference between a clean block and a gross one often comes down to who has the time and energy to call 311 and wait on hold.
Eagles linebacker Jaelan Phillips (left) and defensive end Brandon Graham during warm-ups before the Eagles play the Los Angeles Chargers on Dec. 8, 2025 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
Eagles fans agree on almost everything — except the part that actually hurts: B
In this year’s Inquirer Stay or Go poll, Eagles fans were unusually aligned on who still feels like the future: young defensive studs, the offensive line pillars, the rookies who look like actual hits. Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell clearing 96% stay feels less like optimism and more like self-preservation. The message is clear: The defense isn’t the problem. Or at least, it’s not our problem.
Where things get interesting is offense. Not because fans are confused, but because they’re suddenly colder. Jalen Hurts is still trusted, but not untouchable. A.J. Brown’s dip is real and telling: not rage, not rejection, just disappointment, Philly’s least favorite emotion. Fans didn’t turn on him. They just stopped defending him reflexively, which in this city is its own warning sign.
And then there’s Brandon Graham, the emotional Rorschach test of the poll. A franchise legend. A locker room heartbeat. A guy people want to want back. The split vote says everything: respect battling reality. Philly loves its icons, but it hates lying to itself more.
No one landed in the mushy middle. Fans know who they’re done with. They know who they’re attached to. There’s little patience left for “maybe.”
This wasn’t a meltdown poll. It was a sorting exercise. And the conclusion fans keep circling is uncomfortable but consistent: The Eagles don’t need vibes. They need clarity — and probably a few hard goodbyes.
The Inquirer mapped Philly’s dive bars (and proved how much the city loves them): A
When The Inquirer put out a call for Philly’s favorite dive bars, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Nearly 400 submissions poured in, which tracks for a city where dive bars aren’t just places to drink. They’re personal landmarks.
What the map really shows isn’t just where to grab a cheap beer. It’s how attached people are to the bars that feel like theirs. The ones tied to first jobs, postgame rituals, bad breakups, good Tuesdays, and nights that went exactly nowhere and somehow mattered anyway. These are rooms where nobody’s performing, the prices are low on purpose, and the atmosphere is set by regulars, not a concept.
It also surfaced one of Philly’s most reliable debates: Is being called a dive bar a compliment or an insult? Some owners bristle at the label. Others embrace it. Many bars live in the gray area: cheap, unpretentious, deeply loved, and absolutely uninterested in how they’re categorized. Very Philly.
Are there bars missing? Of course. There always will be. Philly has too many neighborhood institutions, and too many people willing to argue for them, for any list to feel definitive. But that’s not a failure of the map, it’s a feature of the city.
This isn’t a checklist. It’s a snapshot of how much Philadelphians still value places that don’t try to be anything other than what they are.
Snow savesies are back, and Philly is absolutely feral about it: C+
Every major snowstorm in Philly brings back the same question we never resolve: If you shovel out a spot, is it yours, or is public parking still public? This week’s viral Reddit thread, sparked by a wooden chair left in a shoveled space with a handwritten threat (“Move these chairs & I will destroy your car. Try me.”), confirms we are once again incapable of calm thought.
Some commenters were immediately in the respect the chair camp. One wrote, “After digging my s— out from snow past my knees I just want to one time come back to a spot,” while another argued, “Normally vehemently anti-savesies, but I feel like spending an hour digging out earns you a [savesie] or two.” This group is running on sore backs, wet boots, and pure principle.
Then there’s the other side: the chaos agents. “I’d move the chair and watch someone else park there,” one commenter said, which feels less like civic engagement and more like performance art. Another proudly added, “I take peoples cones all the time when I’m walking around. F— em.” (This explains so much.)
Somewhere in the middle were people admitting the quiet truth: Everyone dug out a spot. “The person who’s parked there dug out their car this morning, too,” one commenter noted, puncturing the idea that only one hero labored for the block.
So where does that leave us? With a very Philly stalemate. The chair is obnoxious. The threat is unhinged. The labor is real. The fear of retaliation is realer.
I spoke with a Friends School class this week, primarily about my photos decades ago of unhoused men in Center City. It was part of their week working with PhotoVoice, a research method where participants photograph their own lives to highlight community strengths and challenges, and advocate for social change.
After the class, and following many thoughtful questions from the middle schoolers about how in general I approach people before I photograph them, and specifically people in vulnerable situations, a student came up to ask me a more practical question: “How do you take pictures in bad weather?”
Pedestrians and plows on Rt. 70 in Cherry Hill in Januiary, 2018.
I don’t have an all-weather, sealed camera, so besides dressing as best I can for the conditions (and always having a spare pair of thick, dry wool socks in my car) keeping my camera protected is the biggest priority. I not only need to stave off mechanical/electronic breakdown, but have to keep my lens clear of the elements.
I told him I do have a dedicated rain sleeve but I’ve only used it once or twice at rainy sporting events (they’re priced from $2 each up to $200).
Mostly I use plastic bags or a large umbrellas (watching that I not catch the edges in my frame). I also try to find dry areas to stand in — while watching and photographing others out in the elements. I seek cover under a roof, awning, or doorway. I go into parking garages or subway entrances.
The glass entrance to SEPTA’s underground concourse at Dilworth Park by City Hall.
Sometimes I safely park my car where I can briefly open my leeward (downwind!) window. Other times the rain or snow on glass can even be an effective way to portray the “dab” weather. It can be in or out of focus to create a bokeh-like effect or blurred to convey mood. Your choice of a fast shutter or slow shutter can either stop the drops or show their movement.
Precipitation — some snow and some rain — falls on cars in a parking lot on City Avenue.
I’ve covered all of the biggest storms of the past few decades, including the historic “Blizzard of the Century” thirty years ago this month.
Front page and inside photos from The Philadelphia Inquirer. January 8, 1996.
So, I took my own advice while preparing to go out last Sunday. Knowing the roads would get worse as the day went on, I drove out of my South Jersey neighborhood while an early pass of the plows left main arteries somewhat passable, and headed straight to the nearest Wawa that I knew would have a clear-ish parking lot.
Stepping out from under the overhang — I made a few photos before walking out into on the wide street to get the few passing cars and plowing crews in a nearby shopping center.
Carmen Roman clears snow off her car at a Cherry Hill Wawa early Sunday morning, Jan. 25, 2026, as heavy snow bands move through the region generating snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches an hour.
From there, confirming my fears the roads would be more difficult to drive on, I headed the Westmont PATCO station, finding a safe place to park even as workers were hard at it, clearing the lot.
I made photos from the elevated platform before taking a train to Collingswood, where — standing on the leeward side of the stairwell shelter — I took more pictures then walked into downtown.
Haddon Avenue was plowed and relatively empty of cars, but the sidewalks were impassible. I sent in my best photo of people walking along the middle of the downtown street.
It was then I saw Mike Doveton and his daughters. Not wanting to repeat my earlier image, I asked if they were headed to or from sledding.
They were walking to the PATCO station to sled in Haddonfield, so I tagged along.
On the train headed to sled.
I went with them to their destination, but didn’t want another kids-on-a-hill photo, so I got back on the train returning to the Westmont station, and my car, calling it a day. Until I saw someone digging out their car — the same one I had photographed hours earlier. I got as close as I could to the spot on the platform and made an “after” photo.
Before and after in the Westmont PATCO station parking lot.
Luis Nova had left his car there on Friday, and was in Philadelphia all weekend helping friends move and going to a goodbye party. He spent the morning sledding with friends in Clark Park in West Philadelphia. Like me, he had experience with storms. “I spent four years in Rochester [NY],” he told me. “So I knew what I was signing up for and was ready. I left all my equipment to get myself out.”
But the highlight of the day was at the very end, as I headed for home as the snow was turning to sleet. Two hours earlier, in the middle of the storm my grandson snapped a photo out our front window of an Elmo head in the middle of the street before the wind blew it away, and shared the picture with our family. As I approached my house, I see a red ball rolling fast down the street toward me. I almost drove into a snow bank laughing.
Not really, but I did pull into the driveway, grab a camera, jump out of my car and go chasing after it. The wind was really moving it, and I couldn’t see where it was, which was hard to imagine, being as the road and everything else was all white. I came up to a couple of guys shoveling and asked, “Did you see an Elmo head come this way?” They had, and said it went up a driveway and jumped onto the sidewalk. I found it and just as I was lining up my photo the wind took it again and it started spinning.
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
January 26, 2026: The President’s House in Independence National Historical Park hours Jan, 22, after all historical exhibits were removed following President Trump’s Executive Order last March that the content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. be reviewed. The site, a reconstructed “ghost” structure titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010), serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America.January 19, 2026: A low-in-the-sky winter sun is behind the triangular pediment of the “front door” of the open-air President’s House installation in Independence National Historical Park. The reconstructed “ghost” structure with partial walls and windows of the Georgian home known in the 18th century as 190 High St. is officially titled, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010). It is designed to give visitors a sense of the house where the first two presidents of the United States, George Washington and John Adams, served their terms of office. The commemorative site designed by Emanuel Kelly, with Kelly/Maiello Architects, pays homage to nine enslaved people of African descent who were part of the Washington household with videos scripted by Lorene Cary and directed by Louis Massiah. Deepika Iyer holds her niece Ira Samudra aloft in a Rockyesque pose, while her parents photograph their 8 month-old daughter, in front of the famous movie prop at the top of the steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Iyer lives in Philadelphia and is hosting a visit by her mother Vijayalakshmi Ramachandran (partially hidden); brother Gautham Ramachandran; and her sister-in-law Janani Gautham who all live in Bangalore, India.January 5, 2026: Parade marshals trail behind the musicians of the Greater Kensington String Band heading to their #9 position start in the Mummers Parade. Spray paint by comic wenches earlier in the day left “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” shadows on the pavement of Market Street. This year marked the 125th anniversary of Philly’s iconic New Year’s Day celebration.Dec. 29, 2025: Canada geese at sunrise in Evans Pond in Haddonfield, during the week of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. December 22, 2025: SEPTA trolley operator Victoria Daniels approaches the end of the Center City Tunnel, heading toward the 40th Street trolley portal after a tour to update the news media on overhead wire repairs in the closed tunnel due to unexpected issues from new slider parts.December 15, 2025: A historical interpreter waits at the parking garage elevators headed not to a December crossing of the Delaware River, but an event at the National Constitution Center. General George Washington was on his way to an unveiling of the U.S. Mint’s new 2026 coins for the Semiquincentennial, December 8, 2025: The Benjamin Franklin Bridge and pedestrians on the Delaware River Trail are reflected in mirrored spheres of the “Weaver’s Knot: Sheet Bend” public artwork on Columbus Boulevard. The site-specific stainless steel piece located between the Cherry Street and Race Street Piers was commissioned by the City’s Public Art Office and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and created and installed in 2022 by the design and fabrication group Ball-Nogues Studio. The name recalls a history that dominated the region for hundreds of years. “Weaver’s knot” derives from use in textile mills and the “Sheet bend” or “sheet knot” was used on sailing vessels for bending ropes to sails. November 29, 2025: t’s ginkgo time in our region again when the distinctive fan-shaped leaves turn yellow and then, on one day, lose all their leaves at the same time laying a carpet on city streets and sidewalks. A squirrel leaps over leaves in the 18th Century Garden in Independence National Historical Park Nov. 25, 2025. The ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is considered a living fossil as it’s the only surviving species of a group of trees that existed before dinosaurs. Genetically, it has remained unchanged over the past 200 million years. William Hamilton, owner the Woodlands in SW Phila (no relation to Alexander Hamilton) brought the first ginkgo trees to North America in 1785.November 24, 2025: The old waiting room at 30th Street Station that most people only pass through on their way to the restrooms has been spiffed up with benches – and a Christmas tree. It was placed there this year in front of the 30-foot frieze, “The Spirit of Transportation” while the lobby of Amtrak’s $550 million station restoration is underway. The 1895 relief sculpture by Karl Bitter was originally hung in the Broad Street Station by City Hall, but was moved in 1933. It depicts travel from ancient to modern and even futuristic times. November 17, 2025: Students on a field trip from the Christian Academy in Brookhaven, Delaware County, pose for a group photo in front of the Liberty Bell in Independence National Historical Park on Thursday. The trip was planned weeks earlier, before they knew it would be on the day park buildings were reopening after the government shutdown ended. “We got so lucky,” a teacher said. Then corrected herself. “It’s because we prayed for it.” November 8, 2025: Multitasking during the Festival de Día de Muertos – Day of the Dead – in South Philadelphia.November 1, 2025: Marcy Boroff is at City Hall dressed as a Coke can, along with preschoolers and their caregivers, in support of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s 2017 tax on sweetened beverages. City Council is considering repealing the tax, which funds the city’s pre-K programs. October 25, 2025: Austin Gabauer, paint and production assistant at the Johnson Atelier, in Hamilton Twp, N.J. as the finished “O” letter awaits the return to Philadelphia. The “Y” part of the OY/YO sculpture is inside the painting booth. The well-known sculpture outside the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History was removed in May while construction continues on Market Street and has been undergoing refurbishment at the Atelier at the Grounds for Sculpture outside of Trenton.
We’ll show you a photo taken in the Philly-area, you drop a pin where you think it was taken. Closer to the location results in a better score. This week we have three historic sites across the city! Good luck!
Round #18
Question 1
This location has been in the news recently. Where is it?
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ClickTap on map to guess the location in the photo
ClickTap again to change your guess and hit submit when you're happy
You will be scored at the end. The closer to the location the better the score
Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
The President’s House made headlines when the National Park Service removed exhibits about slavery following an executive order by President Donald Trump.
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Question 2
Where can you find the Philly Renaissance Faire and an electronic music festival?
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Don Nigroni / Spotlight PA
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
Fort Mifflin is a Revolutionary War-era historic landmark near Philadelphia International Airport. It recently hosted the Making Time ∞ festival.
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Question 3
Where is this historic house?
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Michael Bryant / Staff Photographer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
Stenton, a colonial-era house and museum, is home to the Dinah Memorial – a memorial that honors a one-time enslaved housekeeper who saved the house from destruction by British soldiers.
Your Score
ARank
Amazing work. You know your Philly history.
BRank
Good stuff. You’re almost perfect.
CRank
C is a passing grade, but you could do better.
DRank
D isn’t great. Try again next week!
FRank
We don’t want to say you failed, but you didn’t not fail.
You beat % of other Inquirer readers.
We’ll be back next Saturday for another round of Citywide Quest.
The destruction spanned multiple blocks, spreading wreckage across a debris field that stretched for more than a quarter mile near Roosevelt Mall on Cottman Avenue. The resulting damages totaled in the millions of dollars, and many area residents were left displaced and traumatized.
Now, on its first grim anniversary, the crash’s effects still loom large — not only in the memories of those directly impacted by the crash, but in the local and regional psyche.
With that in mind, city officials plan to hold a memorial observance to honor its victims. The event, slated to start at 5 p.m. at Engine 71 Fire Station — just blocks from where the crash occurred — will include a bell ceremony and wreath-laying. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and other elected officials will speak.
As city officials said at the time, the crash was among the most significant black swan tragedies in Philadelphia’s history. And, in many ways, the neighborhood is still recovering. Here is what you need to know:
Eight killed, dozens injured
At 6:06 p.m., a Learjet 55 operated by a Mexican medical transport company known as Jet Rescue Air Ambulance took off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport en route to Springfield-Branson National Airport in Missouri on its way back to Mexico. Less than a minute later, after making it 1,650 feet into the air, it went nose down about 3.5 miles away from the airport, slamming into the ground near Bustleton and Cottman Avenues at a 45-degree angle at more than 270 mph.
Map of where a small jet crashed near Roosevelt Boulevard and Cottman Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia on Jan. 31.
The crash tore an 8-foot deep crater into the earth and created a massive fireball that illuminated the neighborhood. The impact spread devastation across a 1,410-foot-long-by-840-foot-wide tract, damaging homes, vehicles, and businesses, and scattering human remains amid the debris field.
All six people aboard the aircraft were killed — among them Valentina Guzmán Murillo, 11, and her mother, Lizeth Murillo Osuna, 31. The pair were on their way home after Valentina had received four months of treatment for a spinal condition at Shriners Children’s Philadelphia, with her doctors celebrating her recovery only hours before.
Also killed were captain Alan Montoya Perales, 46; copilot Josue de Jesus Juarez Juarez, 43; doctor Raul Meza Arredondo, 41; and paramedic Rodrigo Lopez Padilla, 41. On the ground, Steven Dreuitt Jr., 37, died as a result of the crash, as did his fiancée, Dominique Goods Burke, 34, who succumbed months later to injuries she suffered that night.
At least 24 other people were injured, with victims ranging in age from 4 to 85. Many suffered severe burns, smoke inhalation, and skull fractures, including 9-year-old Ramesses Dreuitt Vazquez, the young son of Dreuitt, who suffered burns over 90% of his body and spent nearly a year in the hospital before being released.
‘All hands on deck’
Ryan Tian, 23, of Delaware County, captured an explosion at a parking lot at Cottman and Bustleton Avenues Friday, Jan. 31, 2025. It was later discovered a medical transport plane bound for Mexico took off from Northeast Philadelphia Airport and crash soon after on Cottman.
The emergency response was massive, involving about 400 firefighters, police officers, and other first responders. Investigators later found that more than 300 properties had been impacted in some way.
The incident, Parker said the night of the crash, was an “all hands on deck” situation. Eyewitnesses and emergency responders described the ensuing chaos as resembling a war zone or feeling like a movie.
“This is a huge area,” Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said of the crash site. “Nothing in that area will ever be normal again.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro and other officials also toured the devastated area. Ultimately, despite the damage the crash wrought, Shapiro’s office found that the impacts were too limited to ask President Donald Trump‘s administration for a federal disaster declaration, leaving the city and state to lead recovery efforts.
Investigation reveals little
An investigator walks by a burned out car on Cottman Avenue Saturday, Feb. 1, 2025, in Philadelphia. A medical jet with six people on board crashed Friday evening near the Roosevelt Mall in Northeast Philadelphia scattering debris throughout the streets, and setting multiple homes and cars ablaze in a devastating scene
The investigation was led by the National Transportation Safety Board, which early on noted that the crashed craft made no distress calls and had only brief, routine communications with the Northeast Philadelphia Airport control tower after takeoff.
That left the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder — or “black box” — as a key investigatory element. Days later, searchers found the unit at the bottom of the crater the craft had carved into the earth, but it was largely useless.
The recorder, the NTSB said, had “likely not been recording audio for several years,” and contained no clues as to what may have caused the crash. No official cause for the crash has yet been announced.
Reviews of the craft’s flight records, however, found that it had been used extensively in the months and weeks leading up to the crash. In the five days before the disaster, it had flown 12 flights covering 9,400 miles, and in its final year before it was destroyed, the aircraft had 163 takeoffs.
Fallout continues
Homes in the Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood across from the Roosevelt Mall where a plane crashed on nearby Cottman Avenue. More than a dozen properties were severely damaged by flying debris and fire. The home that the Gomez family rented on Calvert Street caught fire after a plane engine slammed into their roof. Photographed Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025.
In June, five months after the crash, more than a dozen local residents and business owners told The Inquirer they were still grappling with unrepaired property damage and catching up on bills from lost incomes or extra expenses.
The city had marshaled significant resources, including opening sites offering mental health services and financial aid, and steering roughly $264,000 in grants to small businesses. The One Philly Fund, which was launched to serve as the city’s signature relief effort, however, only attracted some $35,000 in donations, falling woefully short of its desired impact.
Meanwhile, insurance claims were expected to exceed $10 million, and the city itself sought claims for property damage and personnel costs eclipsing $2.5 million. The medical jet company’s insurer, El Águila Compania de Seguros, hoped to consolidate all claims under a single court case, and compel a federal judge to divvy up the funds, which it said were “unlikely to be sufficient to resolve all claims.”
Later in the year, lawsuits against the medical jet company were filed.
A silver lining
Caseem Wongus, 26, is meeting Ramesses R. Dreuitt Vasquez, 10, for the first time after saving him from the fire from the jet crash at the beginning of the year, in Germantown, Pa., on Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025.
Despite the trauma and devastation the crash brought to Philadelphia, at the end of 2025, there was at least some good news. Ramesses Dreuitt Vazquez, a boy who was severely injured in the crash, was released from the hospital, just in time for the holidays.
Vazquez, who turned 10 in October, had endured almost a full year in the hospital, undergoing more than 40 surgeries, including multiple skin grafts, and the amputation of fingers and ears. He spent months in physical therapy relearning how to get out of bed, walk, and climb stairs.
But about a week before Christmas, he made it out. And while noting that Ramesses faced a challenging road ahead, the boy’s grandmother, Alberta “Amira” Brown, expressed happiness with his recovery.
“It’s the best thing ever that he’ll be home for the holidays,” Brown told The Inquirer. “He is truly happy to be coming home.”
