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  • A look back at Philly-area businesses that didn’t survive 2025

    A look back at Philly-area businesses that didn’t survive 2025

    Last year, you may have celebrated Christmas or New Year’s with a meal at an Iron Hill Brewery.

    At the time, your holiday preparations may have included trips to Joann fabrics or Party City, which was having its going-out-of-business sale. You may have stopped for medicines and other toiletries at Rite Aid.

    This year, however, you can’t go to any of those places: All of these businesses served their last customers in 2025.

    Here’s a look back at a few of the notable Philly-area businesses that closed in the past year.

    RIP to Rite Aid

    The then-still open but scheduled to be closed Rite Aid store on Clements Bridge Road in Barrington on July 13. The store’s pharmacy closed on July 7.

    It didn’t come as a total surprise when Rite Aid filed for its second bankruptcy in less than two years.

    The Navy Yard-based pharmacy chain had closed dozens of locations in recent years. Even after it emerged from its first bankruptcy in September 2024, shelves meant to be filled with drugstore essentials — such as cold medicines and pain relievers — remained bare at some stores.

    In filing for bankruptcy again, Rite Aid announced that it would be closing or selling all locations. At the time, it had about 1,000 stores nationwide, including about 100 in the Philadelphia region.

    The rise and fall of Rite Aid

    Across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, thousands of Rite Aid workers lost their jobs. Some, like Angela Gardin, also said bittersweet goodbyes to regular customers.

    Gardin, assistant manager at the Queen Village Rite Aid, was moved to tears by customers’ handwritten thank you notes, which were scrawled on pieces of paper and taped to the store’s front window in its final months.

    By late August, all Pennsylvania and New Jersey Rite Aids had shut their doors for good, sending prescriptions to CVS, Walgreens, or other local pharmacies of a customer’s choosing.

    The closures further exacerbate pharmacy access issues, especially for lower-income Philadelphians who don’t have cars. People in more isolated rural areas are also impacted: The 46,000 residents of Perry County, west of Harrisburg, lost half their pharmacies when their three Rite Aids closed.

    Adieu to Iron Hill Brewery

    A view from the outside looking in of a shuttered Iron Hill Brewery in West Chester in October.

    Iron Hill Brewery’s closure was so abrupt that fans didn’t even get to raise one last pint to the regional chain.

    On a Thursday morning in late September, the nearly 30-year-old company, considered by many to be a pioneer of the local craft-brewing scene, announced that its brewpubs had closed their doors for the last time.

    The news left 16 massive Iron Hill shells, including in Center City, Exton, Huntingdon Valley, Maple Shade, Media, Newtown, North Wales, West Chester, and Wilmington. Earlier in September, the company had closed locations in Chestnut Hill and Voorhees, as well as its flagship brewery in Newark, Del.

    The closed Iron Hill Brewery in Maple Shade in September.

    Bankruptcy filings shed more light on the Exton-based company’s financial straits: Iron Hill owed more than $20 million to creditors and had about $125,000 in the bank.

    In November, a bankruptcy judge approved an offer by Jeff Crivello, the former CEO of Famous Dave’s BBQ, to resurrect 10 Iron Hills, including in Center City and West Chester, pending landlord negotiations. The restaurants could be reopened as Iron Hills or as other brands.

    Crivello said he plans to reopen the Rehoboth Beach brewpub — as well as the Iron Hill restaurants in Columbia and Greenville, S.C. — as locations of Virginia-based Three Notch’d Brewing Co.

    The fates of the other ex-Iron Hills will be determined in the bankruptcy process. Brewing equipment, furniture, and other items from the closed restaurants were auctioned off earlier this month.

    Mainstays say goodbye in the Philly burbs

    Gladwyne Market as pictured in October.

    Local chains weren’t the only business casualties of 2025.

    Main Line residents lost Lower Merion-based Maxwell Taxi Cab Co. in February, marking the end of an era for suburban-based cabs. Maxwell, which had operated for more than 50 years, was later acquired by a Bryn Mawr-based limo service called ML Car Service Ltd.

    Also in Lower Merion, consumers lost the Gladwyne Market, a community grocery store.

    In South Jersey, the Bistro at Cherry Hill, a beloved restaurant that operated in a 1,200-square-foot mall kiosk for 27 years, closed abruptly in July.

    At the time, the restaurant’s president, Andy Cosenza, said the closure was due to a communication “breakdown” that had resulted in his voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition being converted to a Chapter 7, or liquidation, without his knowledge. Since then, however, Cosenza has been indicted on charges of tax fraud. The Bistro has remained closed.

    In the city, the Macy’s in the Wanamaker Building closed in March, as did the Macy’s at the near-dead Exton Square Mall. And the latest iteration of Olde Bar, most recently an event venue in the historic Bookbinder’s building, shut its doors this summer.

  • A man died driving on Northwest Philly’s winding, wet roads. The neighborhood has tried addressing the danger for decades.

    A man died driving on Northwest Philly’s winding, wet roads. The neighborhood has tried addressing the danger for decades.

    A 65-year-old man died Sunday after he lost control of his vehicle on Cresheim Valley Drive in Chestnut Hill, striking a downed guardrail and flipping the car upside down into a creek. Just weeks before, another driver veered off the same road but survived.

    Compounding this latest traffic death is the fact that the guardrail meant to prevent cars from swerving off the road was broken and nearly flattened from previous crashes, leaving a gap in the guardrails for months, said Josephine Winter, a Mount Airy resident and executive director of West Mount Airy Neighbors (WMAN). “The guardrail was down, and it was previously crumbled so it’s a frequent site of crashes,” she said. Images from Google Maps show the guardrail down as far back as July.

    The Philadelphia Streets Department is aware of the recent crash and is conducting an assessment of the guardrail on Cresheim Valley Road. “The streets department’s top priority is public safety,” a spokesperson said.

    A screenshot of a Google Map’s street view captured in July 2025 shows the downed guardrail on Cresheim Valley Drive in the Chestnut Hill neighborhood of Philadelphia. On Nov. 30, 2025, a 65-year-old man crashed and went over the guardrail, later succumbing to his injuries.

    Neighbors say accidents, sometimes fatal, have plagued the winding roadways in Chestnut Hill and Mount Airy for decades. These traffic safety concerns came to a head with Sunday’s deadly crash.

    “It’s a curvy, tricky road, especially when it’s wet, and people tend to speed on that road,” Winter said of roadways like Lincoln and Cresheim Valley Drives, which are lined with trees, have swooping dips and hills, and are prone to flooding.

    Map of fatal crashes in Northwest Philadelphia since 2019.

    Since 2019, according to city crash data, at least five people have died while driving on the dark, winding sections of Lincoln Drive, which intersects with Cresheim Valley Drive, prompting many neighbors to fear walking down their street or leading them to invest thousands on giant boulders to protect their home and lawn.

    Winter, who leads WMAN’s traffic-calming committee, and other neighborhood organizations have petitioned for city support, urging the streets department to slow the speed of traffic on Cresheim Valley Drive, Lincoln Drive, and Wissahickon Avenue. The group’s efforts are so ingrained in the fabric of the neighborhood that, when digging through Temple University’s Urban Archives, Winter found an advertisement from 1968 stressing the need for cars in Mount Airy to “slow down to keep kids safe.”

    The intersection of Cresheim Valley Drive and Lincoln Drive, in Philadelphia, PA, Dec. 1, 2025.

    The streets department installed “speed slots,” traffic-calming structures similar to speed bumps, earlier this year along Lincoln Drive between Allens Lane and Wayne Avenue. Along the same stretch of road, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation installed rumble strips and speed tables to slow drivers down in 2023, in addition to traffic lane separators to keep drivers from using center lanes to pass other vehicles.

    In addition to the recently completed speed slots and traffic-calming measures on sections of Emlen Street, which becomes Cresheim Valley Road, signal upgrades are planned for Lincoln Drive as well.

    However, the work to improve these streets is not over, Winter said. Additionally, the streets department plans do not include changes to Cresheim Valley Drive, where Sunday’s crash happened.

    “We’ll need a collaborative approach as soon as possible to temporarily address the downed guardrail, and then see what the options are moving forward,” Winter said.

    The intersection of Cresheim Valley Drive and Lincoln Drive, in Philadelphia, PA, Dec. 1, 2025.

    Throughout the last decade, locals have suggested better-timed signals, more speed tables, and reducing the number of driving lanes from two in either direction down to one. They also want to see more roundabouts and curb bump-outs in the neighborhood to keep traffic flowing, but at a reasonable speed.

    A mere 50 to 100 feet from Cresheim Valley Drive is a parallel bike trail, where trail organizers like Brad Maule are accustomed to the crashes on the road nearby. Before Sunday’s fatal crash, he remembers two other cars that drove off the side of the road in recent months, not counting the crashes on the roadway itself. The city recently installed pedestrian crossing signs and repainted the crosswalk on nearby Cresheim Road, but Maule hopes speed bumps will follow.

    Cresheim Valley Drive near where it intersects with Lincoln Drive, in Philadelphia, PA, Dec. 1, 2025.

    While Winter said that engineers from the Philadelphia Streets Department were among the first calls she received Monday morning responding to the crash, and that the community appreciates the response, she, Maule, and other neighbors hope that more safety improvements will be considered to save more lives.

    “I’m just looking forward to the new measures of safety that come here,” Maule said. “Hopefully, people will abide by them.”

    Staff writers Max Marin and Dylan Purcell contributed to this article.

  • How Chestnut Hill’s main street is staying relevant in the Amazon era

    How Chestnut Hill’s main street is staying relevant in the Amazon era

    At lunchtime on a Thursday, a week before Thanksgiving, Chestnut Hill was buzzing.

    Inside the newly expanded Matines Café, almost every table was full. People sipped warm drinks from large mugs and ate Parisian croissants and quiche. Bottles of prosecco sat on ice by one large table adorned with Happy Birthday balloons.

    McNally’s Tavern was bustling, too, with regulars sitting at the bar and at tables inside the cozy, nearly 125-year-old establishment atop the hill. Multiple generations gathered — a son taking a father out to lunch, a mother with a baby in a stroller, and two sisters, Anne and Meg McNally, running the place.

    Behind the storefronts along Germantown Avenue’s main drag, some people perused the boutiques, while others typed away on laptops in coffee shops.

    In the northwest Philadelphia neighborhood known for its wealth and postcard-picturesque aesthetic, the small-town charm of longstanding establishments — four are more than 100 years old — is now complemented by the shine of some newer shops and restaurants. Several Chestnut Hill business owners said the variety has helped both old and new spots succeed despite broader economic challenges, including inflation and tariffs, and the loss of a few restaurants.

    A view down Germantown Avenue from the Chestnut Hill SEPTA Regional Rail station.
    The closed Iron Hill Brewery is shown in downtown Chestnut Hill on Nov. 19.

    As the owner of Kilian Hardware, which has been in business for 112 years, Russell Goudy Jr. has watched the avenue change. Fifty years ago, he said it was “basically like a shopping mall,” a one-stop shop for everyday needs.

    In recent years, however, the neighborhood has focused on attracting and retaining unique food and beverage businesses, “quaint, specialty shops,” and service-oriented businesses, which Goudy said offer experiences Amazon and other e-commerce platforms can’t replicate.

    “If you’re not giving people an experience in today’s economy, it’s very tough to compete,” said Nicole Beltz, co-owner of Serendipity Shops, which for a decade has had an expansive store on Germantown Avenue. And providing a memorable experience is never more important than during the lucrative last few months of the year.

    “When you come to Chestnut Hill over the holidays, you get what you came for,” Beltz said. “You get that charming feeling of being somewhere special for the holiday.”

    People walk by holiday decor outside Robertson’s Flowers & Events in Chestnut Hill earlier this month.

    ‘New vitality’ coming to the Chestnut Hill restaurant scene

    During the holidays and all year long, Chestnut Hill business owners said they’re grateful that the neighborhood has held onto its charm despite recent challenges.

    During the pandemic, “it definitely felt a little grim and dark,” said Ann Nevel, retail advocate for the Chestnut Hill Business District. “The impressive thing is the old-timers, the iconic businesses, and some of the newer restaurants … pretty much all were agile enough to tough it out.”

    And a slew of other businesses have moved into the community since then. In the last four years, 20 retail shops, 20 service businesses, and 10 food and beverage spots opened in Chestnut Hill, Nevel said, while several existing establishments expanded.

    Among them was Matines Café, which opened a small spot on Bethlehem Pike in 2022 and expanded this fall to a second, much larger location on Highland Avenue. The café serves 500 people or more on weekdays, according to its owners, and even more on weekends.

    Sitting inside their original location, which is now a cozy children’s café, Paris natives Amanda and Arthur de Bruc recalled that they originally thought they’d open a café in Center City, where they lived at time. Then, they visited Chestnut Hill and fell in love, despite “a lot of empty spots” there around 2022, Amanda de Bruc said.

    A colorful storefront along Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill.

    “We liked the idea of living in the suburbs, which technically Chestnut Hill is not the suburbs, because it’s still Philly,” she said. But “we were looking for something that we were more used to, like Paris. There are so many boutiques in such a small area,” and everything is walkable.

    The opening of shops and cafés like Matines became a “catalyst for this new vitality, a new, more contemporary energy that has taken hold in Chestnut Hill,” Nevel said. Soon, “we’re going to see that new vitality in the restaurant scene,” including in some long-vacant storefronts.

    In 2026, former Four Seasons sommelier Damien Graef is set to open a wine bar, retail store, and fine-dining spot called Lovat Square off Germantown Avenue, Nevel said. On the avenue, a café-diner-pub concept called the Blue Warbler is under construction and also slated to open sometime next year.

    Kilian Hardware in Chestnut Hill has been in business for 112 years.

    In downtown Chestnut Hill, there are still a few empty spots, including those left by Campbell’s Place, a popular restaurant that closed this summer; Diamond Spa, which closed this fall; Iron Hill Brewery, which closed in September (right before the regional chain filed for bankruptcy); and Fiesta Pizza III, which closed last year.

    Kismet Bagels, a popular local chain, was set to fill one of the spots this summer, but its deal fell through, co-owner Jacob Cohen said in a statement. He said they could “revisit the Chestnut Hill neighborhood” in the future.

    While the future of Iron Hill will be dictated by bankruptcy proceedings — which include an auction of assets set for next month — stakeholders say conversations are ongoing about some of the other vacancies.

    Shuttered Iron Hill breweries sit empty across the Philly area. What will become of them?

    Steve Jeffries, who is selling the Campbell’s building for $1.5 million, said he’s gotten a lot of interest from people who want to revive the nearly 3,000-square-foot space as a neighborhood pub, but one that is “more cutting edge.” Perhaps, he said, one that is not focused on craft beer, which has decreased in popularity, especially among younger generations.

    “The town is just screaming for other opportunities for nightlife and sports bars,” said Jeffries, executive vice president of Equity CRE. “There has been a connotation in the market that Chestnut Hill was kind of older, stuffy, that it wasn’t a nightlife town.”

    But that’s changing, Jeffries said.

    Char & Stave, an all-day coffee and cocktail bar, has done great business since moving into Chestnut Hill, its owner, Jared Adkins, said.

    Just ask Jared Adkins, owner of Char & Stave, an all-day coffee and cocktail bar at the corner of Germantown and Highland Avenues.

    After Nevel visited Ardmore and saw the success of Adkins’ original Char & Stave, she recruited him to open a Chestnut Hill location. It started as a holiday pop-up in 2022, then became a permanent presence the next year. Since he moved into town, Adkins said, business has been booming.

    “We’re really just busy all day long,” said Adkins. The café is open until 11 p.m. during the week, midnight on the weekends, and it often brings in musicians and hosts events.

    Adkins describes Char & Stave as a place where drinkers and nondrinkers alike can spend time together, and where people can get work done with coffee or a cocktail beside them: “It’s really a gathering place that fills a niche of a nice cocktail place.”

    More changes to come for Chestnut Hill

    Businesses along Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill are decorated for the holidays.

    Chestnut Hill business leaders and community members say they’re optimistic about the neighborhood’s continued evolution.

    As Brien Tilley, a longtime resident and community volunteer, ate lunch inside Cosimo’s Pizza Cafe, he said the community is doing well. But, he added, “it could always do better. It’s always in transition.”

    Nevel noted that restaurants require more capital to open than other businesses, so it can take awhile to fill those larger holes downtown.

    “The economy is tough,” said Anne McNally, a fourth-generation owner of McNally’s, as she sat by the tavern’s front window overlooking Germantown Avenue. But in Chestnut Hill, she gets the vibe that the community “wants us to be successful.”

    McNally and Goudy, of Kilian’s, both noted that their families bought their buildings decades ago. That has contributed to their longevity, both said, as has evolving with the customer base.

    For the McNally family, that meant transitioning from a “bar-bar,” with no clock or phone, to a bar-restaurant that closes at 10 p.m. For Goudy, it meant soliciting online orders and walk-in business from out-of-town and even out-of-state customers whose older homes require unique hardware.

    “Everything is changing,” Goudy said. “It’s important to keep changing and not to try to go back to where you were before.”

  • When mom-and-pop businesses struggle, it’s everyone’s business

    When mom-and-pop businesses struggle, it’s everyone’s business

    Twenty-five years of running a small business teach you a lot. I have owned the Night Kitchen Bakery since 2000, and worked in the food business for over 40 years, at hotels, restaurants, and for caterers. In that journey, you start to see patterns as to how the economy and major events affect the business.

    We have had struggles over the years. The economic dip after 9/11. The Great Recession of 2008 to 2009. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shutdown. Bird flu outbreaks that significantly increased the price of eggs.

    To me, the current struggle is real — and likely avoidable.

    Anyone who has ever worked in the food and/or hospitality business will tell you it is incredibly hard work, but often rewarding and sometimes exciting. Anyone who has owned a food business will tell you that owning one is even harder, but can also be the most satisfying work.

    Food is love

    Feeding people is a beautiful love language. For those of us lucky enough to keep our small businesses going for so long, we know that, as my grandmother used to say, “It is a nickel-and-dime business.” The bottom line is so small that price fluctuations in raw product, broken equipment, or increases in other business expenses can be the difference between a tiny profit, zero profit, or a significant loss.

    Large losses can be impossible to recover from for a mom-and-pop shop, or even a medium-sized restaurant. We learn to keep an eye on the small details every day. We often change the way we operate with new technologies to help become more efficient. Our staff often have skills and knowledge we learn from to improve our operation. We watch as sales patterns emerge every day of the week, every season, every holiday, and every year.

    Most people love to have a treat or entertain on weekends, so most food businesses are busier Friday through Sunday. Our biggest expense is staffing, and we adjust schedules to account for slow and busy times of the year. Much of it is an educated guessing game.

    The 12 finalists in the 2021 Holiday Cookie Challenge.

    People tend to celebrate holidays at the same time, and want pies for Thanksgiving and cookies in December. Spring and warmer weather demand fruitier flavors. Buying seasonal products helps keep costs lower. Raw products constantly fluctuate, so we adjust our prices when we can without alienating our customer base. All this is challenging, but I’m used to it.

    These days, however, are different.

    We have not been able to increase the prices of some of our products to match the rise in the cost of ingredients. In my 25 years here, I have never seen costs fluctuate so wildly and frequently. The cost of raw products, such as chocolate, coffee, jams, and other imported ingredients, is going through the roof. My vendors tell me this is largely due to tariffs.

    We cover the cost of health insurance for some employees, which is also one of our biggest monthly bills. We just received our rate sheet for 2026, and the increase is over 20% — the largest hike I have ever seen. This is another expense that will make doing business extremely difficult. Other business owners I know are also struggling.

    Growing stress

    I see the job market changing fast, and I am seeing more applicants than ever before. Several customers have confided in me that they have government jobs and are worried they will not receive back pay when they return to work. It is very stressful for them, and stress has a trickle-down effect.

    This all adds up, not only in expenses for the business, but in time spent adjusting to all the factors. We are lucky. We have a loyal customer base and, so far, have been able to accommodate ourselves to the changing market, if barely.

    But it can’t go on forever.

    Small businesses make up the vast majority of all U.S. businesses. So I offer this not as a personal problem, but an alarm about what is happening to the economy as a whole.

    What can be done? Everyone has to decide this for themselves, but I think action is needed. I am in touch with our government representatives regularly to express my concerns. Whatever your situation, everyone is affected and burdened by the choices our politicians are making.

    After all, our business is your business, too.

    Amy Beth Edelman has been co-owner of the Night Kitchen Bakery and Cafe in Chestnut Hill for 25 of the shop’s 44-year history. She lives in Bala Cynwyd.

  • Philadelphia’s ‘great masterpieces’ find a new home in Woodmere Museum’s Frances M. Maguire Hall

    Philadelphia’s ‘great masterpieces’ find a new home in Woodmere Museum’s Frances M. Maguire Hall

    Woodmere Art Museum director and CEO William R. Valerio never thought he’d be standing in a former second-floor bedroom turned into a cozy, copper-hued art gallery, admiring Violet Oakley’s famous series of paintings: Building the House of Wisdom.

    Yet, there he was.

    Two weeks before the new Frances M. Maguire Hall for Art and Education opens on Nov. 1, Valerio was brimming with excitement.

    The Victorian mansion and former convent is the new home to the 112-year-old Chestnut Hill museum’s permanent collection, the most definitive group of paintings, sculptures, and prints by Philadelphia artists in the region — if not the world.

    William R. Valerio surrounded by Violet Oakley’s seminal work “Building the House of Wisdom” in the Frances M. Maguire’s second floor Violet Oakley Gallery. Valerio recreated this gallery as a replica of Charlton Yarnall’s early 20th century Rittenhouse Square home where the 12-piece series was commissioned for the mansion’s music room.

    “I’ve been at the museum for 15 years and I’ve always wanted to build a space to show House of Wisdom the way Oakley intended it to be shown,” Valerio said. “But I never could have imagined this.”

    This is a four-story, 17,000-square-foot, gleaming house museum.

    The Violet Oakley Gallery is particularly noteworthy. The 375-square-foot space is a recreation of early 20th-century banker Charlton Yarnall’s music room, where Oakley’s vibrant murals were nestled in the Rittenhouse Square mansion’s vaulted ceilings.

    At Maguire Hall, Oakley’s allegorical interpretations of wisdom in the arts and sciences are fixed in lunettes positioned at eye level, allowing museumgoers to sit in a meditative gaze under a glowing replica of Italian designer Nicola d’Ascenzo’s stained glass dome.

    Oakley’s House of Wisdom has been on and off view at Woodmere since 1962, when the museum’s then director — and Oakley’s life partner — Edith Emerson brought the 12-piece series to the museum. Yarnall’s mansion was being converted to an office building, and Emerson feared her late partner’s seminal work would be carelessly discarded.

    “The House of Wisdom is among the roughly 11,000 pieces of art we’ve acquired over the decades that now have a place to shine like never before,“ Valerio said.

    View of hallway between six second-floor galleries at Woodmere’s soon-to-be-opened Frances M. Maguire Hall.

    ‘Philadelphia’s great masterpieces’

    Charles Knox Smith opened the Woodmere Museum — what is now the museum’s Charles Knox Smith Hall — in 1913. It holds Woodmere’s vast 18th- and 19th-century collections, including Smith’s beloved Philadelphia landscapes, and is open Wednesday to Sunday.

    A few houses down and across the street, Maguire Hall’s 14 galleries hold paintings, sculptures, illustrations, photographs, and mixed media murals centering 20th-century Philadelphia artists.

    William R. Valerio, director and CEO of Woodmere Museum, chatting in front of George Biddle’s 1966 oil on canvas “Evocation of the Past.”

    “The idea is to show off Philadelphia’s great masterpieces,” Valerio said.

    He and his four-person curatorial team spent months mounting golden frames on the monochromatic walls, so closely together they nearly touched. It gives Maguire Hall the intimate vibe of a 19th-century home.

    Every major 20th-century art movement is represented, but the curation is a nod to 21st-century diversity.

    African American realist Ellen Powell Tiberino’s striking nude Repose shares gallery space with Martha Mayer Erlebacher’s stunning life-size portrait The Path. Both are only a few feet away from a work by George Biddle — of the illustrious Philadelphia family that traces its roots to the 17th century — the thoughtful Evocation of the Past.

    Black Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts scholar Charles Jay’s meticulous floral still life paintings from the early 1980s line Maguire Hall’s grand staircase. It leads to the second-floor galleries, where lauded 1920s impressionist Walter Elmer Schofield’s bucolic renderings of snowy Wissahickon trails coolly hang.

    William R. Valerio, director and CEO of Woodmere Art Museum in conversation with Syd Carpenter’s arresting “Frank as the Sun King,” paying homage to Carpenter’s brother who served in the Army during the 90s during Desert Storm and returned to Philadelphia as a quadriplegic.

    An entire gallery is dedicated to female artists, featuring portraits by Oakley and Emerson. They are in conversation with an arresting sculpture by Syd Carpenter, Frank as the Sun King, an homage to Carpenter’s brother, who served in Desert Storm and came home to Philadelphia as a quadriplegic. Carpenter curated the Colored Girls Museum’s Livingroom Garden in 2024.

    “These diverse backgrounds and social experiences reshape and expand the canon of 20th-century art through a Philadelphia lens,” Valerio said.

    A major gift

    Maguire Hall was built in 1854 as a country estate for the family of William Henry Trotter, an importer of steel, copper, and tin. In the 1890s, the house was renovated by sugar merchant Alfred C. Harrison.

    The Sisters of St. Joseph bought the stately home from developers in the 1920s to serve as the Norwood-Fontbonne Academy dorm. The nuns lived there until 2021, when Woodmere purchased it for $2.5 million.

    “It gave us the opportunity to take items out of storage and show the beauty of Woodmere to the world,” Valerio said.

    Overview of the former Sisters of St. Joseph Convent that’s been transformed to Woodmere’s Frances M. Maguire Hall for Art and Education in Chestnut Hill.

    James J. Maguire Sr. built a string of small insurance companies into a national conglomerate in the mid- to late 20th century. In 2008, he completed a $5 billion merger with a Japanese firm and, with his wife, Frances, became one of the region’s largest philanthropic donors.

    An artist and patron of the arts, Frances Maguire died in 2020. Three years later, the Frances M. Maguire Art Museum was opened at the former home of the Barnes by St. Joseph’s University, which had received a $50 million donation from the Maguire Foundation in 2017.

    Frances Maguire also spent a lot of time at Woodmere, taking classes and serving on the board of trustees. In her honor, the Maguire Foundation gave the museum $10 million. Valerio raised an additional $18 million from donors, state, and federal funding. The $28 million was used to renovate the mansion and start an endowment.

    Entrance way of the Frances M. Maguire hall. To the left is a portrait of Maguire by Kassem Amoudi. The chandelier Chestnut Street’s Boyd Theater open from 1928 to 2002.

    A portrait of Frances Maguire by Kassem Amoudi hangs in the foyer.

    “In creating the Frances M. Maguire Hall and supporting Woodmere, we are assuring that her legacy is shared with current and future generations,” said Megan Maguire Nicoletti, one of the Maguires’ nine children and CEO of the Maguire Foundation.

    All the details

    Krieger Architects worked with New York-based Baird Architects to turn the ramshackle convent into a modern museum, complete with wheelchair-accessible ramps and a shiny glass elevator overlooking the art trail connecting Maguire Hall to Charles Knox Smith Hall.

    Mammoth sculptures by 1959 Penn graduate Robinson Fredenthal are visible from the elevator as well as chokeberry, bayberry, and pawpaw trees, planted in Woodmere’s perennial Outdoor Wonder garden in honor of the Lenape Indians. Maguire Hall boasts a brand-new porch dotted with bright Adirondack chairs that once belonged to the University of the Arts.

    Detail of Belgium carver Edward Maene’s work in The Frances M. Maguire Hall breakfast nook. During the renovation, the carvings original red, green, and golden hues were discovered.

    In the mansion’s dining room, breakfast room, and central staircase are exquisite woodcarvings from 20th-century master and Belgium immigrant Edward Maene.

    “He went all out and carved fantastical medallions with images of fish that turned into birds and humans that turned into lions,” Valerio said of Maene’s work.

    There is the MacDonald Family Children’s Art Studio, where little ones can try their hands at finger painting, watercolors, and perhaps a bit of jewelry making. Right across from it is a jewelry vault, where an ankle-length Henri David coat sparkles with jewels from local Victorian-era jewelry houses: Bailey, Banks & Biddle and Caldwell.

    Tyler School of Art and Architecture graduate Theophilus Annor fashioned hand mannequins for the baubles. (Annor also carved Adinkra symbols into John Rais’ decorative wrought iron)

    Jewels shown on a hand mannequin fashioned by Ghanian artist Theophilus Annor in the Frances M. Maguire jewelry vault. (L) Theophilus Annor, Holding On, 2024, Gold & faceted gemstone. (R) Richard Reinhardt, Ring, date unknown.

    Housing history

    The second-floor illustrative arts rooms feature wartime drawings from 1940s issues of the Saturday Evening Post and framed TV Guide images of Kojak’s Telly Savalas and Columbo’s Peter Falk. (TV Guide was owned by former Inquirer and Daily News publisher Walter Annenberg.)

    “This part of our history is often forgotten,” Valerio said. “But it was important to artists who lived here and made a living in what was then a big media city.”

    The first floor gallery of the Frances M. Maguire Hall featuring (left) Ashley Flynn’s stark mural of drug culture in Kensington and “Madre del Nene” a1990, oil on linen from Bo Bartlett

    But the bottom floor is the star. Housed here are Maguire’s most evocative pieces, like an abstract collage by Danny Simmons — brother of hip-hop luminaries Russell and Joseph “Run” Simmons — titled Hocus Pocus, which interrogates magic in the Black community. Ashley Flynn’s gripping mural depicting drug abuse in Kensington and gay artist and collage maker Stuart Netsky’s Have Your Cake and Eat it Too, which puts a naughty twist on Victorian-era prudishness, radiate under the Boyd Theatre’s chandelier.

    With this work, Valerio hopes Maguire Hall plays a role in shaping a more inclusive future in Philadelphia — and around the world — through the arts.

    “We do what no other museum does in exploring the art and culture of this city in depth,” Valerio said. “And we welcome everyone to take part in the conversation.”

    Woodmere’s Frances M. Maguire Hall for Art and Education, 9001 Germantown Ave., opens to the public on Nov. 1 and 2. Charles Knox Smith Hall is located at 9201 Germantown Ave. Both are open Wednesday to Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are $10. Free on Sundays. woodmere.museum.org

    The article was updated to reflect the new name of the children’s art studio at Woodmere Museum, and the last name of Maguire Foundation’s CEO.

  • Kada Scott’s death ruled a homicide and Keon King is charged with murder, as police say others may have helped bury her body

    Kada Scott’s death ruled a homicide and Keon King is charged with murder, as police say others may have helped bury her body

    Keon King was charged with murder and related crimes Wednesday in the death of Kada Scott, the 23-year-old Mount Airy woman police say he kidnapped, then killed, before burying her body in a shallow grave.

    The district attorney’s office approved the charges shortly after police announced that the Medical Examiner’s Office had ruled her death a homicide. Officials said Thursday that Scott died by a gunshot wound to the head.

    In addition to murder, King was charged with illegal gun possession, abuse of corpse, robbery, theft, tampering with evidence, and additional crimes.

    The announcement came as investigators said they believe at least one other person helped King, 21, move Scott’s body and bury it behind a closed East Germantown school in the days after she was killed, and detectives are working to identify those involved.

    New court records, made public Wednesday, offered the most detailed look yet inside the investigation into Scott’s disappearance and death, including her texts with King in the days before she went missing, the police search for her body, and how others may have helped King try to conceal her killing.

    A review of Scott’s cell phone records showed that on Oct. 2, a number believed to belong to King texted Scott: “Yo Kada this my new number.”

    “Who dis,” Scott asked, and he responded “Kel,” according to the affidavit of probable cause for King’s arrest.

    Kada Scott, 23, went missing Oct. 4.

    Law enforcement sources said King appeared to use various aliases when communicating with people, including “Elliot” and “Kel.”

    On the morning of Oct. 4, the document says, Scott texted King saying, “kidnap me again.”

    King replied, “better be up too,” according to the filing.

    What Scott meant in that text continues to perplex investigators, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. It’s not clear, the sources said, whether Scott was joking or being sarcastic, or if King had, in fact, abducted her before.

    In any case, the affidavit says, the pair made plans to meet up later that night. Scott worked the overnight shift at the Terrace Hill nursing home in Chestnut Hill, and at 10:09 p.m., the records say, she texted King to call her when he arrived outside.

    According to the affidavit, Scott received 12 calls from the number believed to belong to King between 9:25 p.m. and 10:12 p.m., ending with a 43-second call.

    Around that time, a coworker later told police, she overheard Scott on the phone say, “I can’t believe you’re calling me about this,” before walking toward a dark-colored car.

    At 10:24 p.m., Scott’s phone line went dead, the document shows.

    The rear of Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School, where Kada Scott’s body was found buried in the wooded area.

    By 10:28 p.m., the affidavit says, surveillance cameras showed King, driving a black Hyundai Accent, pull into the parking lot of the Awbury Recreation Center. King got out of the car and left the area, the filing says.

    The next day, around 11:39 p.m., two people in a gold Toyota Camry believed to belong to King went back to the recreation center, the records show. They walked toward the playground area, then returned to the car around 3:56 a.m.

    The two people then opened up the Hyundai Accent and appeared to “remove a heavy object, consistent with a human body,” from the passenger side of the car. They carried the object toward the playground and returned to the vehicle a half-hour later, the records said.

    On Oct. 7 at 2:48 a.m., police believe King returned to the recreation center to retrieve the Hyundai. They said the car — which had been reported stolen a few days earlier from the 6600 block of Sprague Street — was set on fire near 74th Street and Ogontz Avenue a short time later.

    After a two-week search, police found Scott’s body buried in the woods behind the vacant Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School, next to the recreation center, on Saturday.

    Community members attend a candlelight vigil by flowers and balloons left at a memorial for Kada Scott near the abandoned Ada H. H. Lewis Middle School on Monday.

    King turned himself in to police last week to be charged with kidnapping Scott. He was held on $2.5 million bail.

    Earlier this week, prosecutors also charged King with arson and related crimes for the burning of the car. Now that he is charged with murder, he is expected to be held without bail.

    King’s lawyer, Shaka Johnson, could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday.

    On Wednesday evening, city leaders headed to a church in the Northwest Philadelphia community where Scott’s body was recovered, addressing a crowd of about 200 residents concerned about public safety.

    Mayor Cherelle L. Parker and Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, among other officials, offered condolences to Scott’s family and commended police for recovering her body. Residents, too, appeared relieved, breaking into applause when Bethel said murder charges had been filed against King.

    Bethel, a father of three daughters, said that as the search for Scott wore on, he felt at times as if he were searching for his own child. And Councilmember Cindy Bass told the crowd that Scott “could have been your niece, she could have been your friend.”

    The commissioner said the investigation was continuing as police search for those who might have assisted King. And addressing concerns over safety at the city’s abandoned buildings — including Ada H.H. Lewis Middle School — officials said the city was in the process of reviewing vacant properties.

  • Ambler’s small businesses want to make the borough a destination

    Ambler’s small businesses want to make the borough a destination

    Maura Manzo, founder and director of yoga studio Camaraderie in Ambler, previously owned the Yoga Home studio in Conshohocken but stepped away during the pandemic.

    When she was looking to get back into the business, she chose Ambler.

    “I was looking for a vibrant, walkable downtown, rooted in community,” Manzo said.

    She was encouraged by the presence of a food co-op, Weavers Way, which “signaled to me that this is a community invested in sustainable, healthy living — values that align beautifully with a yoga community,” as well as the other businesses around.

    “There’s a balance of restaurants, arts and culture, and shopping that creates a wonderful, rich community and attracts people,” Manzo said.

    Centrally located in Montgomery County, the borough of Ambler has become home to an eclectic blend of retailers, restaurants, and services. Its downtown business district includes a spa, tuxedo rentals, a bakery, a tattoo parlor, hair salons, and restaurants from all different culinary genres.

    People walk along Butler Avenue among various shops and restaurants in Ambler.

    The borough started as a mill town in the 1700s and evolved into a factory town run by the Keasbey & Mattison Co. in the 1800s. Many of the original buildings from that period still exist in the downtown district.

    The borough has been consistent in its preservation efforts. Recently an ordinance passed to be sure that any new construction reflects the existing architectural charm, said Ambler Main Street manager Elizabeth Wahl Kunzier.

    Still, the area has continued to evolve, recently adding a food hall with 10 vendors, seeing the merger of two established Ambler boutiques into one new storefront, and promoting downtown events on social media. With the holiday season approaching, business owners are looking ahead to their busiest time of year and gearing up for a number of seasonal events.

    A baker’s ode to Chile opens in downtown Ambler

    “We have a pretty good organic social media reach,” Wahl Kunzier said. “It took a long time to get that where it is today, but given the nature of how the public gets information, it is very important to have a good following.”

    Building momentum behind the scenes

    Elizabeth Wahl Kunzier, Ambler Main Street manager.

    Wahl Kunzier serves as the marketing lead for Ambler Main Street — the name of the nonprofit that promotes downtown Ambler, even though many of its businesses are on Butler Avenue rather than Main Street. She monitors the businesses’ social media accounts daily to see what they’re advertising and share the information more broadly.

    Her office also organizes special events such as a semiannual restaurant week and a holiday shopping weekend. And the borough hosts a Farmer’s Market every Saturday from May through the weekend before Thanksgiving at the old Ambler train station.

    “I work with business owners brainstorming on everything from vacant storefronts to customized events to keep the foot traffic coming,” Wahl Kunzier said.

    The small business district and the community’s “people” are what drew Daniel J. DeCastro to Ambler, where he opened Ridge Hall last month.

    “They were a large family of small businesses that looked out for each other and supported one another while also having patrons who were cheerleaders of their businesses,” he said.

    An event board with various posters and advertisements for Ambler businesses and events.

    Located in a historic warehouse, Ridge Hall has 10 dining spots and a second-floor venue called The Mercantile.

    DeCastro is optimistic this food hall and retail concept will do well in Ambler, which he described as “on the cusp of breaking through as a destination town.”

    Ridge Hall is a food hall and ‘piazza’ for downtown Ambler

    “Chestnut Hill, Doylestown, New Hope, and Phoenixville have become towns that you simply go to without a commitment. Unless you live in Ambler, it takes a commitment to drive into town,” DeCastro said. With Ridge Hall, “I wanted to create a destination that would entice people to stay for the day and return sooner rather than later.”

    Customers dine at Ridge Hall in front of Mary’s Chicken Strip Club.

    Some of the district’s established restaurateurs perhaps would argue that Ambler was already a destination.

    At Sorrentino Pasta + Provisions, customers find fresh pasta, house-made focaccia, and imported Italian goods for sale. The restaurant is open for lunch Wednesday through Sunday and dinner Thursday through Saturday, and it’s a BYOB.

    “Lunch is steady and a great opportunity to grab a table since it’s a little more difficult at dinner time,” proprietor Rich Sorrentino said. “We are extremely lucky to have the customers we do. Most are from the borough, but a surprising amount travel a bit to come join us.”

    Geronimo’s Peruvian Cuisine, also a BYOB, offers signature dishes such as ceviche, lomo saltado, anticucho de corazón, arroz con mariscos, pollo a la brasa, and many other authentic Peruvian dishes, said co-owner Daniel Salazar. It’s open Wednesday through Sunday.

    “Weekends are busy nights for us, we highly recommend calling the restaurant for a reservation,” she said. “Our goal here is to bring a cultural experience, to share a great cuisine that has history, flavor, and a little bit of mystery.”

    A tale of two stores

    Jeanne Cooke (left) and Barb Asman in their combined store, which opened earlier this year, bringing together XTRA Boutique and Main Street Vintage.

    Jeanne Cooke, owner of Main Street Vintage, sold painted furniture, vintage wood furniture, new and vintage home accessories, and artwork at her Butler Avenue shop for years. Just down the street, Barb Asman’s XTRA Boutique was selling women’s clothing.

    In August, they combined their businesses, merging into one larger storefront on Butler.

    “Barb and I have been looking in windows in Ambler for years. We felt we needed more square footage to take our businesses to the next level,” Cooke said. “The merge was seamless. I guess because we talked about it for quite some time.”

    The new experience is like shopping in a beautifully decorated home where you can buy all the furnishings. The two owners design the merchandising collaboratively, and the two businesses are intertwined.

    The back of the store, where Main Street Vintage’s furniture and home decor are on display.

    Asman said they are excited for what the future holds.

    “I sometimes stand in the middle of the store and say: ‘Wow, this feels so good.’ It’s hard to put it into words,” Asman said. “It’s a really good feeling.”