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  • The new Delco DA talks victories, ambitions, and the importance of mentorship

    The new Delco DA talks victories, ambitions, and the importance of mentorship

    Tanner Rouse will be Delaware County’s new top law enforcement officer, but he’s not new to the work.

    Rouse will be sworn in on Jan. 5 as district attorney after his predecessor, Jack Stollsteimer, steps down to assume the county judgeship he won in November. Rouse, 42, will finish out the final two years of Stollsteimer’s term after working as his first assistant since 2020.

    In a recent interview, Rouse discussed the strides in reducing violent crime he and his colleagues have made under Stollsteimer — the first-ever Democrat to serve as district attorney in Delaware County — as well as how he plans to continue those advances.

    The short answer: Keeping the same playbook, but “putting a personal stamp on it,” as an offensive coordinator does when he takes over as head coach, said Rouse, an avid Eagles fan and ambitious Little League coach.

    A former Philadelphia prosecutor under Seth Williams, Rouse credited the lessons he learned from investigating gun violence in the city, along with the recruitment of several former colleagues he brought over the county line, with improving the way crime is prosecuted in Delaware County.

    “We have demonstrated you can reform the criminal justice system and that it doesn’t have to come at the expense of stopping violent crime,” Rouse said. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”

    Who is Tanner Rouse?

    Rouse, a Phoenixville-area native, is the son of the late Willard Rouse III, the prominent Philadelphia developer behind One and Two Liberty Place. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin and Fordham Law School, Rouse spent seven years in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, prosecuting crimes in Center City and North Philadelphia.

    Rouse left the office in 2017, months before Larry Krasner took over. He practiced civil law for a time and ran an ultimately failed campaign to unseat then-State Sen. Tom McGarrigle before Stollsteimer called and offered him the first assistant job.

    At the time, Rouse said, the offer was unexpected. But, looking back, he now considers it one of the greatest opportunities of his career.

    What is Rouse most proud of from his tenure as first assistant?

    The most notable achievement of his tenure to date in the district attorney’s office, Rouse said, is the steep reduction of gun violence in Chester. Shootings are down 75% since 2020. Rouse credits community outreach efforts for that, especially through the Chester Partnership for Safe Neighborhoods program, overseen by veteran homicide prosecutor Matt Krouse, whom Rouse worked with in Philadelphia and recruited to join him in Delaware County.

    The partnership’s fundamental philosophy is a combination of focused deterrence programs Rouse helped oversee in Philadelphia that target repeat offenders, as well as community outreach efforts run by trusted neighborhood figures.

    Rouse said he never wanted to be a faceless presence in the county and made it his priority to get out and form relationships in all of the municipalities he served, visiting community meetings, block parties, and even a few pickup basketball games.

    “I don’t do this job from behind a desk,” he said, speaking in his county courthouse office. “And I think demonstrating that commitment and that care by being more present in those communities, and not just being kind of the big, scary law enforcement agency on a hill is incredibly important.”

    Rouse said he is proud of other reforms including creating a diversionary unit in the office, revamping its drug court and instituting a special “child’s court,” created by Kristen Kemp — Rouse’s chosen first assistant and an expert in special-victims’ cases — that allows young victims to testify against adult offenders in a more comfortable environment.

    The county’s jail population is down 50% as well, something Rouse says is a result of approaching prosecuting crimes in a humane, logical way.

    What are his priorities as district attorney?

    Rouse said he plans to create a similar community outreach program in Upper Darby, a community he said is “on the verge of some big things.”

    “It’s not as if we’re saying, ‘We’re coming in here to take on Upper Darby and what goes on there,’ but more of, ‘Guys, look, we’re not just the people you pick up and call when there’s a crime.’”

    He also expressed interest in creating reciprocity agreements with his counterparts in the other collar counties around Philadelphia, specifically when it comes to handling drug cases and providing treatment to the people caught up in them.

    How has his time in Philadelphia influenced his work in Delco?

    Rouse said he cut his teeth in the city working alongside veteran prosecutors, and he’s worked to bring that environment of mentorship to Delaware County.

    He said he and his more senior deputies often sit in on trials, giving feedback to younger staff members just as his mentors did for him nearly two decades ago.

    “That’s how I got better, and that’s one of the roles I most cherish here,” he said.

  • How Philly-area grocery workers handle the holiday stress — and find joy along the way

    How Philly-area grocery workers handle the holiday stress — and find joy along the way

    Crowds of last-minute shoppers, customers looking for seasonal ingredients, sappy hands from tying Christmas trees to cars, and of course, hours and hours of cheery holiday music playing on a loop.

    Such is the life of a grocery worker during the holidays.

    “Everyone wants to get, like, the biggest tree on, like, the smallest car,” said Edward Dupree, who has worked at the Center City Whole Foods for over nine years.

    Working at a grocery store during the holiday season can be hectic and intense, requiring a lot of patience, he said.

    “It’s, I think, definitely under-appreciated,” said Dupree.

    Grocery employees from across the region say this time of year brings a surge of stressed shoppers making larger purchases, even in the age of DoorDash, grocery delivery, and curbside pickup.

    Customers rush into the store for their last-minute shopping, said Erika Keith, who works at the Fox Street ShopRite in Nicetown. And they’re often hurried as they fill their carts, said Charletta Brown, of the Acme in Trooper, juggling year-end demands at work and pressures at home as they prepare for the holidays.

    “Those three days moving into Thanksgiving are just insane,” said Dupree. He said the store starts getting busier in September as students return to the area, and it stays hectic through the end of the year.

    Customers aren’t just getting their regular groceries and Christmas trees. They’re looking for specialty seasonal items including cranberries, decorative gourds, chestnuts, eggnog, and black-eyed peas for the New Year.

    “Even in spite of the current economy — we do hear a lot that things are a little rougher than they have been in past years — people still want that tradition,” said Brown.

    Specific holiday wishes

    As the holidays approach, the Philadelphia Whole Foods bakery makes hundreds of pies and a slew of custom orders, said baker Jasmine Jones. During the holidays, they said, “the cakes get bigger.”

    Many are seeking out pie crusts and fillings, as well as phyllo dough to make hors d’oeuvres, said Brown, of Acme. These freezer items are hidden “way in the back” for most of the year, but they get the star treatment, “front and center” for the holidays.

    Keith, of ShopRite, said the holidays bring in more business for the store’s Western Union service, as people send money to loved ones as gifts.

    Union workers gather outside the Center City Whole Foods Market in January.

    At the Trooper Acme, Brown said, shoppers start looking for Ivins Famous Spiced Wafers starting around Halloween, and as the holiday season progresses, they’re looking for specific nostalgic sweets to fill their candy dishes — minty After Eight chocolates or the multicolored, straw-shaped Plantation hard candies, for example.

    “Some people say, ‘We don’t eat them, but we just want them to sit out in the candy dish, because I had that as a kid, and my mother and father always had it out,’” she said.

    Holiday gripes

    For Jones, Whole Foods is a second job on weekends. They said they’re “stretched kind of thin” during the holidays as they juggle another full-time job. Jones sometimes volunteers to work extra hours for the money during the holidays, but they don’t like losing the time with loved ones.

    And, Jones added, the holiday music is not a perk.

    “It kind of makes me angry,” said Jones, adding that they’re “still an overworked worker.”

    “It kind of just reminds me that I could be home if you paid me more.”

    Shoppers peruse the Save-a-Lot grocery store in Atlantic City in this Jan. 2024 file photo.

    Dupree, also of Whole Foods, isn’t a fan of the constant seasonal music either.

    “If I want to go listen [to the song] ‘This Christmas,’ I’ll listen to it on my own — don’t play it 82 times a day,” he said. “It’s a bit intrusive.”

    The customers

    Some customers, for their part, avoid the busiest times at the grocery store.

    In Wayne, Lisa Goldschmidt has become dependent on Instacart grocery deliveries most of the year. But when it’s time to shop for her holiday dinners, she makes a couple in-person trips to her local Acme. For her sanity, she keeps to a personal code, she said: “Avoid the weekends and the after-work times when it typically gets crazy.”

    Goldschmidt, a 58-year-old attorney who works from home, said she’s fortunate that she can run out midday on weekdays to buy her holiday essentials, which include an expansive antipasto assortment that her family eats on Christmas Eve and the prime rib they make on Christmas Day.

    April Beatty, 51, of Broomall, also tries to avoid peak shopping times at her go-to stores — Wegmans, Trader Joe’s, and Gentile’s produce market. She aims to pick up all her groceries at least a couple days before Christmas, and she also buys more this time of year with her two children home from college.

    But her job, too, keeps her busy during this season — she works in supply-chain logistics — so shopping the way she prefers, at “off times, just because it’s more efficient,” isn’t always an option.

    This year, her Wegmans trip for Thanksgiving happened during a shopping rush: “aisles packed, parking lot packed,” she said. During the holidays, she added, “at least people are polite.”

    Customers browse Iovine Brothers Produce at Reading Terminal Market in this 2022 file photo.

    Customers at Whole Foods are more outgoing during the holidays, said Dupree, part of a kind of jolly Christmas mentality around this time of year.

    The days leading up to Thanksgiving are usually the busiest — more so than Christmas — but he didn’t notice quite as much Thanksgiving hustle this year.

    “I wonder if this is because, you know, people’s pockets are hurting,” Dupree pondered aloud.

    At ShopRite, Keith said, some of the busiest shopping days she recalls are the day before Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve.

    “We have our last-minute shoppers — and, you know, I get it. I get the busy life,” she said.

    A Save-a-Lot supermarket employee arranges pears at the chain’s Camden store in this January 2024 file photo.

    At Acme, Brown sees pressure and stress on some customers.

    “Being sympathetic to that, listening to them, is probably half the battle of dealing with any stresses or strain that I might be under — and also what they might be under,” she said.

    Brown said she tries to get a head start on her own holiday decorating and planning each year because there isn’t a lot of downtime once the store gets busy.

    “I have to manage that time effectively in order to be able to really decompress and enjoy the holidays myself,” she said.

    This year, for the first time in a while, she won’t be working on Christmas Eve because it‘s on a Wednesday, her usual day off.

    But Brown said she actually loves working Christmas Eve, “because it just seems to me like everybody’s just so happy.”

  • After decade of delay, Philadelphia Housing Authority will bring affordable housing to Center City

    After decade of delay, Philadelphia Housing Authority will bring affordable housing to Center City

    Almost 20 years after the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) moved out of its Center City headquarters, a long-promised mixed-income tower will finally begin construction early next year.

    The 14-story building is being built by Philadelphia developer Alterra Property Group, which may also manage the site after it opens. PHA will hold a 99-year ground lease on the property at 2012 Chestnut St., which will be its only affordable building in Center City.

    “It’s a multifamily, mixed-use, mixed-income building in a high opportunity neighborhood,” said Kelvin Jeremiah, president and CEO of PHA.

    It “would afford residents a huge opportunity to live in an area that has access to transportation, employment opportunities, and a whole host of amenities literally right outside of their building entrance,” he said.

    The tower will have 121 apartments, 40% of which will be rented at market rate with the rest targeted at tenants below 80% of area median income (or almost $83,000 for a three-person household). It will have 28 studios, 63 one-bedroom, and 30 two-bedroom units.

    It also will have 2,000 square feet of commercial space, parking available off-site, and amenities that include a roof deck. The project was designed by JKRP Architects.

    “I’m looking to break ground in Q1 of next year,” said Mark Cartella, Alterra’s senior vice president of development and construction. “It’s been a long time coming, so we’re excited to finally be going vertical here.”

    What took so long?

    PHA moved out of its Chestnut Street headquarters in January 2008, leaving a four-story husk. The agency cycled through numerous plans for the property, including a new headquarters and selling the land to a private developer.

    The partnership with Alterra began in 2016. At that time, the project would have had 200 units, a majority of them market rate, and the developer would have held the 99-year ground lease on the property.

    But neighborhood pushback and the resulting negotiations delayed the proposal until 2020. Then the pandemic caused more chaos, followed by a spike in construction costs and elevated interest rates that killed the original financing plan.

    That led to a new strategy in which PHA issued bonds backed by the future rents of the market-rate units to help pay for the project, along with additional funds from federal housing programs, and a $2 million boost promised by Council President Kenyatta Johnson from funds available through Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s Housing Opportunities Made Easy (H.O.M.E.) initiative.

    “By adding high-quality, affordable apartments alongside retail space in the area, this project helps ensure that our downtown remains vibrant, diverse, and accessible to working families and individuals,” Johnson said in a statement.

    “The PHA project will also help deliver a more inclusive Center City that reflects the full spectrum and diversity of Philadelphia’s residents,” he said.

    A rendering of the roof deck planned for the new mixed-income building proposed by PHA and Alterra.

    The 95-year-old headquarters was demolished in early 2024, but groundbreaking has been delayed in the current unpredictable national economic and political environment.

    “You can probably sum that all up with it’s just general uncertainty with the change of [presidential] administration, as well as just getting through the design development process with a lot of folks having input,” said Cartella of Alterra.

    “This is a little bit beyond the [usual] design development process with Alterra,” he said. “It’s more stringent than what we typically have to go through.”

    Jeremiah has repeatedly expressed concerns about how long the development process can take in Philadelphia, especially in combination with federal guidelines and requirements.

    But as this process nears its end — 18 years after the move, 10 years since bringing on Alterra, and two since demolition — he is feeling optimistic.

    “It is the first PHA built development in Center City,” said Jeremiah. “That’s going to be a signature project for me, for the city, for affordable housing.”

  • 2025 was the year of the Philly crime show, but also so much more

    2025 was the year of the Philly crime show, but also so much more

    Locally filmed crime shows were everywhere, theaters opened but didn’t (thankfully) close, and Colman Domingo was (rightfully) ubiquitous. All that and more, in our roundup of movies in Philadelphia in 2025.

    Year of the Philly crime show

    There’s a good chance 2025 will be remembered as the Year of the Philly Crime Show. Three such shows, HBO Max’s Task, Apple TV’s The Dope Thief, and Peacock’s Long Bright River, aired on streaming services during 2025. Task, the big breakout of the three, was renewed for a second season.

    The year was lighter on Hollywood movie productions shooting in town, but among them was a basketball movie with Mark Wahlberg, at various times given the titles Cheesesteak and Weekend Warriors. I Play Rocky, a movie about the making of the original 1976 Rocky, also filmed in the city.

    In Peacock’s “Long Bright River,” Allentown native Amanda Seyfried plays Michaela “Mickey” Fitzpatrick, a Kensington patrol police officer who discovers a string of murders in the neighborhood’s drug market.

    Gearing up for Rocky 50

    It wouldn’t be a year in Philly film without Rocky making its way in.

    I Play Rocky is expected to arrive in theaters in 2026, in what will likely serve as one of many commemorations of the 50th anniversary of Rocky.

    Also, Rocky was among the many movies and area film institutions included in Films Shaped by a City, a new mural by Marian Bailey, that debuted in October on Sansom Street, on the back of the Film Society Center. Mural Arts Philadelphia, BlackStar Projects, and the Philadelphia Film Society had worked on the project for more than two years.

    Outside the filming of “Eraserhead” by David Lynch at the Film Society Center, in Philadelphia, Oct. 5, 2025.

    The Film Society’s big year

    The new mural on the back of its building was part of an eventful year for the Philadelphia Film Society, which completed a big new entrance and lobby renovation of the Film Society Center.

    The Philadelphia Film Festival, in October, welcomed 33,000 attendees, which PFS calls its highest turnout ever, while the three theaters welcomed 200,000 customers throughout the year, also a record.

    Colman Domingo attends the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York.

    The very busy Colman Domingo

    It was another eventful year for the Temple alum and West Philly native, who was nominated for the best actor Oscar for the second straight year, for last year’s Sing Sing. In 2025, he was in four movies — Dead Man’s Wire, The Running Man, and voice roles in The Electric State and Wicked: For Good. He also appeared in the TV series The Four Seasons — created by and costarring Upper Darby’s Tina Fey — and Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. He even guest-judged on RuPaul’s Drag Race and cochaired the Met Gala.

    In 2026, Domingo is set to appear in both the Michael Jackson biopic Michael and Steven Spielberg’s new sci-fi film, Disclosure Day. He’s also at work on his feature directorial debut, Scandalous!, and said at PFF that he hopes to finish the film in time to bring it to next year’s festival.

    This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows David Corenswet in a scene from “Superman.” (Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)

    Local actors and filmmakers shine

    The Philadelphia-born Penn alum David Corenswet debuted as Superman this summer, a film that also featured a small appearance by Jenkintown’s Bradley Cooper. Cooper directed and played a supporting role in In This Thing On?

    Mount Airy native and Temple alum Da’Vine Joy Randolph followed up her Oscar win by appearing in three movies, Shadow Force, Bride Hard, and Eternity — the latter of which also starred Downingtown’s Miles Teller — and continuing on Only Murders in the Building.

    Willow Grove’s Dan Trachtenberg directed not one but two films in the Predator franchise, the animated Predator: Killer of Killers and the live-action Predator: Badlands. Penn alum Gavin O’Connor directed The Accountant 2. In addition to creating Task, Berwyn’s Brad Ingelsby wrote the movies Echo Valley and The Lost Bus, both for Apple TV.

    West Philadelphia’s Quinta Brunson continued to star in Abbott Elementary, which had her filming in Citizens Bank Park the night of Kyle Schwarber’s historic four home runs. She also played a voice role in Zootopia 2.

    Exterior entrance to Netflix House, King of Prussia Mall, Tuesday, November 11, 2025.

    No theater loss

    Philadelphia, in a rarity, did not lose any movie screens in 2025.

    The January abandonment of the 76 Place arena project meant that Center City’s only multiplex, the AMC Fashion District, gets to continue in its current location.

    Then, in August, it was announced that the Riverview movie theater on Columbus Boulevard, which has sat empty since 2020, would reopen in 2026 under the auspices of Apple Cinemas, with the city’s only IMAX screen. However, recently it didn’t appear that any construction work had begun there yet, and the Riverview’s impending return had also been announced in 2024.

    In February, an effort was announced to revive the Anthony Wayne Theater in Wayne. Ishana Night Shyamalan, the film director and daughter of M. Night, is a member of the board seeking to bring the theater back.

    In November, the first-ever Netflix House “fan destination” opened in King of Prussia, and it includes a theater that will feature such special events as Netflix’s NFL games on Christmas Day and the Stranger Things series finale on New Year’s Day.

    And about two hours north of the city, in the town of Wind Gap, the Gap Theatre reopened in March after it was closed for five years. The theater shows more than 50 films a month, mostly sourced from the collection of Exhumed Films.

    A still from Mike Macera’s “Alice-Heart,” part of the 2025 Philadelphia Film Festival’s “Filmadelphia” section.

    Indie-delphia

    It was also an eventful year for local independent film.

    Delco: The Movie, which was in the works for several years, had its premiere in January. Two other films, both of which premiered at the 2022 Philadelphia Film Festival, finally saw their release this year: The Golden Voice, directed by Brandon Eric Kamin, and Not For Nothing, from Tim Dowlin and Frank Tartaglia, who died in 2022.

    Mike Macera’s Alice-Heart, featuring a cast and crew full of Drexel and Temple alumni, premiered at PFF and won the Filmadelphia Best Local Feature Film Award.

    To mark the 40th anniversary of the 1985 death of Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh, the documentary “The Swede of Philadelphia” opened in area theaters in November.

    Documenting sports stars

    There were, once again, several prominent sports documentaries about Philadelphia athletes of the past and present. CNN aired Kobe: The Making of a Legend, about Lower Merion’s Kobe Bryant, to coincide with the fifth anniversary of his death. To mark the 40th anniversary of the 1985 death of Flyers goalie Pelle Lindbergh, the documentary The Swede of Philadelphia opened in area theaters in November.

    Amazon’s Prime Video premiered Saquon, which followed the Eagles’ Saquon Barkley for several years, in October. This year’s Eagles team is featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks for the first time as part of the currently-airing Hard Knocks: In Season with the NFC East.

    David Lynch appears at the Governors Awards in Los Angeles on Oct. 27, 2019.

    Remembering David Lynch

    The January death of David Lynch, who lived in Philadelphia as a young art student and was inspired by the city in his work, was commemorated locally with everything from a new mural in the “Eraserhood” to showings of his movies at most area theaters that feature repertory fare.

    When the Film Society Center reopened after the renovation, the first showing was a 35mm screening of Lynch’s Callowhill-inspired Eraserhead.

  • Drexel University signed a lease to consolidate medical college research in University City

    Drexel University signed a lease to consolidate medical college research in University City

    Drexel University has signed a lease that will enable it to consolidate its College of Medicine research labs in University City, Drexel and the developers of a new building at 3201 Cuthbert St. said Thursday.

    Drexel’s space in the $500 million building, a joint project from Gattuso Development Partners and Vigilant Holdings, is slated for completion in 2027. Drexel researchers moving from sites in Center City and East Falls are expected to fill four floors of the structure.

    “By bringing our research spaces together in University City, we will create an environment that fosters greater interdisciplinary collaboration, accelerates innovation, and strengthens our collective capacity for discovery,” Drexel president Antonio Merlo said in a message to the school community.

    Drexel will occupy 150,741 square feet of the 11-story, 520,000-square-foot building. The developers’ goal is to fill the rest of the building with life sciences tenants, though that could be harder than it was in 2022, when the building was announced as a partnership between Drexel and Gattuso Development.

    The move of research labs to University City is part of a long-term plan to centralize the Drexel College of Medicine, which includes the combined operations of the former Hahnemann Medical College in Center City and the former Medical College of Pennsylvania in East Falls.

    In 2023, most of the medical school’s administrative and academic functions moved to Drexel’s Health Sciences Building at 60 N. 36th St.

  • Temple pledges to boost police patrol officers by 58% over five years following staffing study

    Temple pledges to boost police patrol officers by 58% over five years following staffing study

    Temple University plans to increase its patrol officer ranks by 58% over five years after a study assessing staffing levels showed the school was below the middle tier of a framework that rates law enforcement agencies.

    The university currently has 77 sworn officers — 50 of them patrol officers — and president John Fry pledged to add 29 patrol officers, one detective, six sergeants, and one lieutenant. That would increase the overall number of sworn officers to 114.

    Temple president John Fry said safety was his first priority. Now he plans to increase patrol officers by 58% over five years.

    No target has been set for how many officers will be hired per year, but those discussions are underway, said Fry, who named public safety a top priority when he started in November 2024.

    Temple president targets safety, neighborhood improvements and fundraising for early attention in his tenure

    The university’s declaration comes amid a particularly difficult time for police hiring, with departments nationally — including the Philadelphia Police Department — continuing to face shortages. Temple has been working for several years to attract more officers, including increasing salaries and benefits, adding signing and retention bonuses and higher contributions to retirement accounts, and hiring an associate director to focus solely on hiring, recruitment, retention, and training. The department also moved to 12-hour shifts to give officers more days off.

    Yet, the number of sworn officers has decreased from 81 in March 2024 to the current 77, despite additional hires being made, including four new officers from the Temple University Municipal Police Academy in October.

    As new semester gets underway, Temple cites drop in crime alongside new crime-fighting measures

    “We must, and we will, deploy ever more compelling and creative incentives to make Temple’s Department of Public Safety a destination employer for law enforcement in our region,” Fry said. “Our plan is to look closely at what we are doing in the areas of recruitment and retention over the next several months and see what improvements can be made.”

    Amid recent shootings, Temple hires former Philly Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey to conduct campus safety audit

    Temple plans to hire former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey’s 21CP Solutions company to assist, including with how best to recruit and retain more officers, Fry said. The university had hired Ramsey to assess safety following the shooting death of student Samuel Collington in November 2021 and has implemented almost all of the 68 recommendations from his report released in April 2023.

    The staffing study was one of the final recommendations that Temple had to complete.

    Former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey speaks at a press conference on the Temple safety audit his firm completed in April 2023.

    New bike patrol officers

    In addition, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel has committed to providing six bike patrol officers and a sergeant assigned to Temple, beginning Jan. 5. That’s up from the current four officers and supervisor, who were not always the same personnel.

    “The ability to have relationships and collaborations … will be better because it’ll be a consistent group,” said Jennifer Griffin, Temple’s vice president for public safety.

    “The ability to have relationships and collaborations … will be better because it’ll be a consistent group,” Jennifer Griffin, vice president for public safety at Temple University, said about the city’s six bike patrol officers that will be dedicated to Temple.

    Members of the Temple University Police Association, the officers union, have complained for years of inadequate staffing. In a social media post about a year ago, the union said the department had lost more than 50 officers since 2022.

    But Andrew Lanetti, president of the union, said he is pleased with the direction outlined by Fry.

    “From our talks here in the past few days, I am happy with where we’re going in the future,“ he said. ”I believe this is going to be a very positive experience and it’s going to help our community a lot.”

    University and union officials already have been discussing ways to recruit and retain more officers, and a more positive working relationship between the union and the university could help move the needle on hiring and retention.

    “We’re going to work together and our goal is all the same,” Griffin said. “We want a safer Temple and a safer community.”

    Budget woes

    The move also comes as the university attempts to close a budget deficit, made worse this fall when the school missed enrollment projections for its main campus that translated to about $10 million in lost revenue.

    “It will be a challenge,” Fry said of the new police officer hiring, “but it’s a priority, so we will meet that challenge.“

    He said money for the new staffing will be built into the university’s five-year budget plan.

    Temple last February hired safety and security consulting companies Healy+ and COSECURE, ancillary businesses of the Cozen O’Connor law firm, to conduct the staffing study. They used a tiered framework “to assess the capacity and effectiveness of law enforcement agencies,” Temple said. The university declined to release the full report, citing its proprietary information.

    “Temple is positioned below the middle tier of the framework, meaning the department is presently staffed to meet the essential public safety and emergency response needs of our community,” Fry said. “However, additional personnel would allow the department to organize and coordinate its activities to focus on additional proactive and community engagement activities that would position it higher in the consultant’s framework.”

    With the additional police officers that Temple plans to hire, the school would rise from just below the third of five tiers in the consultant’s rating system to the second tier, Fry said. The second tier, he said, connotes “higher levels of proactive enforcement, more presence, more mitigation strategies, and then more outreach, more community engagement.”

    Public safety is extremely important as the university plans to release its strategic plan and campus development plan early next year and as Fry seeks to spur economic development along the Broad Street corridor, from Temple’s new Terra Hall location in Center City to the health campus in North Philadelphia.

    Temple plans to fill the gap left by UArts with their new Center City campus

    “There’s going be a campus development plan, which clearly is going to put more activity on this campus, which means we’re going to have to support our police,” Fry said.

    Potential investors, he said, are watching.

    “When they’re about to commit significant investment, they want to know the area is safe,” he said.

    ‘Hold ourselves accountable’

    Former Temple president Jason Wingard pledged to increase the police force by 50% the month that Collington was killed, and those numbers never materialized. In fact, the number of officers dropped.

    Fry said what is different this time is that he has specified the exact numbers that will be added over a distinct time frame.

    “This is not something we’re just sort of speculating about,” he said. “This is based on a professional study. … We’ll be able to hold ourselves accountable.”

    The university already has made a host of changes that were recommended by Ramsey in the 2023 report. They include more foot patrols and security cameras and increased technology in the communications center.

    The university in 2024 touted a decrease in aggravated assaults, robberies, and thefts in its patrol zone. Despite improvements, Temple has continued to face safety challenges in its North Philadelphia neighborhood, including large groups of juveniles that sometimes gather on or near campus — a challenge in other areas of the city, too.

    And a student was shot and killed by another student near off-campus housing in February.

    Temple’s been part of several high-profile crime incidents recently. President John Fry is getting high marks for communication.

    Griffin said she stands behind the efforts to grow the department and make further improvements in training and operations.

    “I truly believe it will help position us as one of the highest-performing university police departments in the country,” Griffin said.

    Fry said once the university reaches its five-year hiring target, it will reevaluate its needs and figure out next steps.

  • SEPTA trolley tunnel will remain closed through at least the end of December

    SEPTA trolley tunnel will remain closed through at least the end of December

    There will be no Christmas miracle for trolley riders.

    The Center City trolley tunnel will remain closed at least through the end of December, SEPTA said Wednesday. Officials did not offer a precise reopening date but were hopeful service would resume in January.

    The tunnel has been closed since the beginning of November for repairs to its overhead catenary wire system. In October, damage caused two separate incidents in which trolleys were stopped and hundreds of riders were evacuated inside the tunnel.

    “We want to make sure that we don’t reopen before we feel that the risk has been reduced as low as possible that we could have another event in the tunnel,” said Kate O’Connor, SEPTA’s assistant general manager of engineering, maintenance, and construction.

    Issues began earlier this fall after SEPTA changed the size of the brass sliders that hold chunks of carbon that rub off and coat the wires carrying electricity to the trolleys. The carbon coating helps the trolleys move smoothly.

    A 3-inch slider, left, and a 4-inch slider, which coats electric powered wires with carbon to reduce friction. When they fail, trolleys are stranded.

    The switch from 3-inch to 4-inch sliders was meant to prolong their lifespan and lower maintenance costs, but it proved to do the opposite. Inside the tunnel, where there are more curves on the tracks and more equipment holding the wire to the ceiling, the new sliders and carbon burned through more quickly.

    SEPTA had tested the 4-inch sliders before the change was made, but observed no issues, O’Connor said. The tests proved to be too limited, she said, and did not adequately measure how the sliders would work across an entire fleet.

    SEPTA changed back to the 3-inch slider, but because the overhead wires were now damaged, the once-reliable sliders began to wear out more quickly, too.

    “We could hear the rubbing on the brass” after less than a day, said Jason Tarlecki, SEPTA’s deputy chief engineer of power.

    Trolley slider parts are on display as Jason Tarlecki, acting SEPTA chief engineer of power, talks with the news media at the 40th Street trolley portal (rear) Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025.

    SEPTA determined it needed to replace the tunnel’s roughly five miles of overhead copper wiring, Tarlecki said, after the excess wear left it “shattered and raw” in sections.

    Those repairs have taken longer than originally projected. According to SEPTA officials, supply-chain issues stemming from the pandemic have created longer wait times for new parts. New wiring needs to build up a carbon coating over time, and SEPTA has been running trolleys along the system during the closure for the patina to develop. And the transit authority has been conducting tests, like experimenting with reduced-speed zones and readjusted wire tension, to ensure that the issue does not arise again.

    On Thursday morning, City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier and State Rep. Rick Krajewski (D., Philadelphia) plan to lead a canvass pushing for SEPTA and the city to help riders during the closure of the tunnel.

    “I know how challenging and frustrating it’s been for the tens of thousands of West and Southwest Philadelphians who rely on the trolley to get to school, work, and other essentials. [Market-Frankford Line] riders dealing with crush crowds and drivers stuck in trolley diversion gridlock are suffering too. … Only a sustainable investment from our state government can solve the root cause of this problem: SEPTA’s aging infrastructure,” Gauthier said in a statement.

    Even once the tunnel does reopen and service returns, the slider saga might not be over. O’Connor said that it was possible SEPTA would close the tunnel again occasionally, possibly for a weekend, as it continues to replace sections of the wiring.

    SEPTA trolley operator Victoria Daniels approaches the end of the tunnel, heading toward the 40th Street Trolley Portal Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2025, after a tour to update the news media on overhead wire repairs in the closed tunnel due to unexpected issues from new slider parts.
  • Deptford Mall’s Christmas House is nostalgic and irreverent with Harry Potter, Blockbuster, and a room full of reindeer poop

    Deptford Mall’s Christmas House is nostalgic and irreverent with Harry Potter, Blockbuster, and a room full of reindeer poop

    The region is brimming with holiday attractions this season, from Center City’s extravagant affairs to the most humble of mall Santas.

    But what about ones that skirt tradition and lean more into the humorous than the Yuletide?

    Christmas House at the Deptford Mall combines nostalgia with irreverence for one of the region’s most tongue-in-cheek holiday experiences.

    Stepping into the former Victoria’s Secret-turned-holiday-walking tour, guests are greeted by familiar faces like Buddy the Elf and Santa Claus, but they’ll also see a recreation of a Blockbuster video store; a drunk, passed-out Santa; and a reindeer stable where it looks like Donner and Blitzen pooped all over the place.

    The tour starts at $25 per person, when buying in groups of four. There are at least nine rooms — not including the seven wacky “hotel rooms” in the back — within the Christmas House to explore at your own leisure or alongside a tour guide.

    Ticket prices may prove too burdensome for many families, owner Peter Coyle said, which is why they offer a “No Families Left Out” program, where families can contact the Christmas House and discuss a name-your-price model.

    The light tunnel at the Christmas House at Deptford Mall on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Deptford.

    Coyle said the humor is meant to make adults laugh just as much as kids — hence why so much space is dedicated to nostalgia of the 1980s and ‘90s. Apart from a Blockbuster, which children certainly haven’t visited before, there are Easter eggs only adults will recognize, such as A Christmas Story’s sultry leg lamp — “Fragilé! It must be Italian” — and Red Ryder BB gun or a Griswold family photo from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.

    “We take the same approach as the creators of the Shrek movies,” Coyle said. “[Those movies] had a lot of fun things that kids loved, but then there were all these innuendoes and references that only adults could appreciate.”

    Walking into the “Blockbuster Room” for the first time, adults let out a light chuckle that usually turns into some play-pretend as they reminisce on their former Friday night ritual, while teens who never got the chance to visit one can pretend they’re a ’90s kid for a change, Coyle said. It’s a pared-down Blockbuster with only four shelves of movies, but the store decorations and logos are close enough to feel like a cute homage.

    The “Blockbuster Room” at the Christmas House at Deptford Mall on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Deptford.

    Rita Giordano, 42, of South Jersey, was visiting the Christmas House with her mother, Denise Maloney, 70, and Giordano’s two sons, Richie, 9, and Charlie, 4. Together, they searched for Buddy the Elf hidden in each room.

    “We got all of them!” Richie and Charlie said.

    For mom and grandma, they were just happy to be enjoying the holiday spirit inside the Deptford Mall as opposed to the bone-chilling weather at outdoor attractions.

    A Shrek room at the Christmas House at Deptford Mall on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025 in Deptford.

    The Christmas House’s wackiest elements are sequestered in the back, where Coyle converted the former fitting rooms of the retail space into the hotel rooms of the “Holiday’s Inn.” The surprise of finding out what’s behind each door will have some bursting out laughing and others rolling their eyes.

    There are tamer rooms like the “Hootel Room” — filled with artificial trees and owls — to a New Year’s Eve strobe-light room. A few backrooms go the extra mile, with one featuring Shrek taking a nap in a small bed, bundled up in Christmas and Shrek blankets.

    In “The Santa’s Little Surprise,” the limits of guests’ potty humor will be tested. As soon as one walks up to the room, a large handprint and streak of brown substance are plastered on the door. The more one looks, the more fake reindeer poop on the walls and flooring can be found, with used toilet paper strung from the ceiling.

    The “Santa’s Little Surprise Room” at the Christmas House at Deptford Mall on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Deptford.

    Santa’s got his work cut out for him.

    For parents trying to keep the Santa make-believe alive for a few more years, they may find the drunk Santa in “The Sleighed and Sloshed” room a little too over the top. Here, a Santa mannequin is laid out on the floor with crushed red Solo cups around him in what looks like Kris Kringle after a bender.

    The “Sleighed and Sloshed Room” at the Christmas House at Deptford Mall on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Deptford.

    There is good, clean fun in the “Harry Potter Christmas Room,” where a photo-op is staged with a broomstick, wizarding hats, and Hogwarts House-themed scarves. Venture into the “Elf Command Center,” where a Santa live tracker displays where Kris Kringle is currently dropping off gifts, and the little ones can write letters to Santa before dropping them in the giant mailbox marked for the North Pole.

    The North Pole Movie Theater is usually playing Will Ferrell’s Elf on repeat throughout the day, and the final room features cotton snowballs, ready for harmless snowball fights, accompanied by an artificial snow machine.

    The “Harry Potter Christmas Room” at the Christmas House at Deptford Mall on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, in Deptford.

    “The best part for me was that it was indoors,” Maloney said. “The kids loved seeing Jack Skellington and the Grinch, plus they got me with the snowballs in the last room.”

    Located inside the Deptford Mall at 1750 Deptford Center Rd., Deptford, N.J. 08096, the Christmas House is on the first floor, closest to the Boscov’s entrance and parking. Open weekdays from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. It runs through Jan. 2. christmashousedeptford.com/

  • Why Philadelphia loses promising biotech firms to Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego

    Why Philadelphia loses promising biotech firms to Boston, San Francisco, and San Diego

    Capstan Therapeutics’ sale this year for $2.1 billion, the highest price paid for a private early-stage biotech company since 2022, was a triumph for its founders at the University of Pennsylvania.

    Unfortunately for Philadelphia, the company is based in San Diego. Investors wanted an executive who lives there to be CEO.

    Capstan was a miss for Philadelphia, said Jeffrey Marrazzo, who cofounded a high-profile regional biotech company, Spark Therapeutics, and is now an industry investor and consultant.

    If Philadelphia had a bigger talent pool of biotech CEOs, “it would have and should have been here,” he said.

    The company, which aims to treat autoimmune diseases by reengineering cells inside the body, most likely would have been sold wherever it was based, but keeping it here would have boosted the local biotech ecosystem, experts said.

    The Philadelphia region has lagged behind other biotech centers in landing companies and jobs, but industry experts are working to close the gap and better compete with Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego.

    According to Marrazzo and others, the Philadelphia region’s relatively shallow pool of top biotech management is a key challenge.

    Big investors go to managers who have proven ability to deliver big investment returns, said Fred Vogt, interim CEO of Iovance Biotherapeutics, a California company with a manufacturing facility in the Navy Yard.

    “They want the company to perform. They’ll put it in Antarctica, if that was where the performance would come from,” he said.

    A positive sign for Philadelphia is Eli Lilly & Co.’s recent decision to open an incubator for early-stage biotech companies in Center City.

    The Lilly announcement last month also reflects Philadelphia’s national biotech stature. It’s the fourth U.S. city to get a Lilly Gateway Lab, behind Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, and San Diego.

    Those places have far outpaced Philadelphia in the creation of biotech research and development jobs, even as the sector’s growth has slowed.

    From 2014 through last year, the Boston area added four biotech research and development jobs for every one job added here, according to an Inquirer analysis of federal employment data.

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    Penn’s role in Philadelphia biotech

    Philadelphia’s reputation as an innovation center — boosters like to call the region “Cellicon Valley” — starts with the University of Pennsylvania, which has long been a top recipient of National Institutes of Health grants to advance scientific discovery.

    Penn scientists’ 21st-century accomplishments include key roles in figuring out how to arm immune cells to fight cancer, fixing faulty genes, and modifying mRNA to fight disease.

    Research at Penn has contributed to the creation of 45 FDA-approved treatments since 2013, according to the university.

    “Penn discoveries help spark new biotech companies, but we can’t build the whole ecosystem in this area alone,” said John Swartley, Penn’s chief innovation officer. “Great science is just one ingredient. We also need capital, experienced leadership, real estate and manufacturing infrastructure, and strong city and state support.”

    Penn was one of two Philadelphia institutions receiving more than $100 million in NIH funding in the year that ended Sept. 30. The other was the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

    Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman spoke at a University of Pennsylvania news conference after they were named winners of a 2023 Nobel Prize in medicine. Their work was instrumental to modifying mRNA for therapeutic uses, such as the rapid development of lifesaving vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    By contrast, the Boston area was home to 10 institutions with at least $100 million in NIH grants, generating more spinoffs and jobs.

    The Philadelphia region has a healthy number of biotech spinouts, but the biggest markets have more from a larger number of research institutions, said Robert Adelson, founder Osage University Partners, a venture capital firm in Bala Cynwyd.

    That concentration of jobs and companies in the Boston area — where nearly 60,000 people worked in biotech R&D last year — makes it easier to attract people. By comparison, there were 13,800 such jobs in Philadelphia and Montgomery County, home to the bulk of the regional sector.

    If a startup fails, which happens commonly in biotech, “there’ll be another startup or another company for me to go to” in a place like Boston, said Matt Cohen, a managing partner for life science at Osage.

    Another challenge for Philadelphia: It specializes in cell and gene therapy, a relatively small segment of the biotech industry, whose allure to investors has faded in the last few years.

    Such market forces shaped the trajectory of Spark, a 2013 Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia spinout that developed Luxterna, the first FDA-approved gene therapy, used to treat an inherited form of blindness. The promise of Spark’s gene therapy work for a form of hemophilia spurred its 2019 acquisition by Swiss pharmaceutical titan Roche for $4.8 billion.

    This year, Roche laid off more than half the company’s workforce as part of a restructuring and a rethinking of treatments for blood diseases that it had been developing.

    The company still employs about 300 in the city, a spokesperson said, and work continues on its $575 million Gene Therapy Innovation Center at 30th and Chestnut Streets in University City.

    The long arc of biotech

    A handful of companies dominated the early days of U.S. biotech. Boston had Biogen and Genzyme, San Francisco had Genentech, San Diego had Hybritech, and Philadelphia had Centocor. All of them started between 1976 and 1981.

    Centocor started in the University City Science Center because one of its founders, virologist Hilary Koprowski, was the longtime director of the Wistar Institute. Centocor’s first CEO, Hubert Schoemaker, moved here from the Boston area, where he had gotten his doctorate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

    Centocor was one of the nation’s largest biotech companies when Johnson & Johnson bought it for $4.9 billion in 1999. Its portfolio included an anticlotting drug called Reopro and Remicade for Crohn’s disease.

    Another drug still under development at the time of the sale, Stelara, went on to become J&J’s top-selling drug as recently as 2023 with $10.9 billion in revenue. Stelara, approved to treat several autoimmune disorders, remains a testament to Centocor’s legacy.

    Despite its product success, Centocor didn’t have the same flywheel effect of creating new companies and a pipeline of CEOs as peer companies did in regions outside of Philadelphia.

    The University of Pennsylvania’s Smilow Center for Translational Research, shown in 2020, is one of the school’s major laboratory buildings.

    “There are a lot of alums of Centocor that are really impressive, but they seem to have wound up elsewhere,” said Bill Holodnak, CEO and founder of Occam Global, a New York life science executive recruitment firm.

    Among the Centocor executives who left the region was Harvey Berger, Centocor’s head of research and development from 1986 to 1991. He started a new company in Cambridge, Mass.

    At the time, the Philadelphia area didn’t have the infrastructure, range of scientists, or management talent needed for biotech startups, he said.

    Since then, he thinks the regional market has matured.

    “Now, there’s nothing holding the Philadelphia ecosystem back. The universities, obviously Penn, and others have figured this out,” Berger said.

    Conditions have changed

    Penn’s strategy for helping faculty members commercialize their inventions has evolved significantly over the last 15 years.

    It previously licensed the rights to develop its research to companies outside of the area, such as Jim Wilson’s gene therapy discoveries and biochemist Katalin Karikó and immunologist Drew Weissman’s mRNA patents. Now it takes a more active role in creating companies.

    Among Penn’s latest spinouts is Dispatch Bio, which came out of stealth mode earlier this year after raising $216 million from investors led by Chicago-based Arch Venture Partners and San Francisco-based Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.

    Dispatch, chaired by Marrazzo, is developing a cell therapy approach that uses a virus to attach what it calls a “flare” onto the cells it wants the immune system to attack.

    Marrazzo said in July that he wasn’t going to be involved in Dispatch if it wasn’t based largely in Philadelphia. As of July, 75% of its 60 employees were working in Philadelphia. Still, Dispatch’s CEO is in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    The Philadelphia region is increasingly well-positioned for the current biotech era, said Audrey Greenberg, who played a key role in launching King of Prussia’s Center for Breakthrough Medicines about five years ago. The center is a contract developer and manufacturer for cell and gene therapies.

    “You no longer need to move to Kendall Square to get a company funded,” she said, referring to Cambridge’s biotech epicenter. “You need good data, a credible translational plan, experienced advisers, and access to patient capital, all of which can increasingly be built here.”

    Greenberg now works as a venture partner for the Mayo Clinic, with the goal of commercializing research discoveries within the health system’s network of hospitals in Minnesota, Arizona, and Florida.

    She plans to bring that biotech business to the Philadelphia region.

    “I’m going to be starting my companies all here in Philadelphia, because that’s where I am. And I know everybody here, and everybody I’m going to hire in these startups that are going to be based here,” she said.

  • Rally House plans to open its first Center City store

    Rally House plans to open its first Center City store

    It’s your city. It’s your (Ritten)house. It’s your Rally House.

    The sports apparel store with the earworm of a jingle plans to open its first Center City location in a former Rite Aid near Rittenhouse Square.

    The Kansas-based chain has asked the city’s art commission for approval to put up signage outside the nearly 13,000-foot storefront at 17th and Chestnut Streets, according to its application, which is set to be reviewed at a Wednesday meeting. Rally House spokespeople did not return requests for comment Tuesday.

    The company’s application was first reported Monday by the Philadelphia Business Journal.

    How is Center City retail doing? It depends what street you’re on.

    The storefront is situated in the historic Provident Trust Co. building, the upper floors of which are home to the Club Quarters Hotel.

    The ground-floor retail space was occupied by a Rite Aid until January 2024, when the Chestnut Street store became yet another casualty of the Philly-based chain’s financial struggles. Rite Aid closed all its stores over the summer amid its second bankruptcy in less than two years.

    Since the Rittenhouse Rite Aid closed, Spirit Halloween has occupied the storefront in the months leading up to Halloween.

    Since Rite Aid closed two years ago, the ground-floor retail space in the Provident Trust Co. building has been occupied seasonally by Spirit Halloween, but is otherwise vacant.

    The building is owned by a partnership registered to Philadelphia-based developer Neal Rodin, according to property records. Rodin did not return requests for comment Tuesday.

    Rally House already has about two dozen locations in the Philadelphia region, but the vast majority of them are in the suburbs. It has three city locations — on Temple’s campus, in West Philadelphia near Drexel and Penn, and in Roxborough.

    If Rally House opens at 17th and Chestnut, it would bring continued momentum to the retail corridor around Rittenhouse Square, which has recently welcomed a slew of new businesses, including the luxury women’s fashion company Aritzia and North America’s first Nike Jordan World of Flight store.

    It would also mark the latest example of how zombie Rite Aids can be resurrected.

    From 2024: What’s become of Rite Aid zombies

    Over the past three years, more than 170 Rite Aids have shuttered across the Philadelphia region, with dozens of stores closing even before the chain announced it was going out of business.

    Like the Rittenhouse space, former Rite Aids are often 8,000 to 16,000 square feet, which is not ideal for many potential tenants, experts say. But some of these pharmacy shells have found new life as small grocers, discount stores, and medical offices.

    Soon, sports apparel store may be added to that list.