With First Day hikes surging in popularity, Pennsylvania and New Jersey are rolling out a full slate of outings to welcome 2026 — from daybreak rambles to sunset treks, and nearly every hour in between for those easing into the new year.
Many of the guided hikes require advance registration and fill quickly.
The Jan. 1 hikes are offered through the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Some are guided by rangers, others by volunteers.
Another option: Join the Friends of Ridley Creek State Park in Media, Delaware County, for a 3.5-mile loop featuring creek views and a stop at historic hilltop Russell Cemetery.
Or, for a spectacular bird’s-eye view of the Pinelands at daybreak, you can tackle a 2.5-mile round trip, starting at 6 a.m., to Apple Pie Hill in Wharton State Forest, where hikers climb the 79 steps of the fire tower at sunrise. The only drawback: The hike has become so popular that the DEP holds a lottery at 1 p.m. on Dec. 31 to select participants.
Apple Pie Hill Tower offers a dramatic view of the Pinelands.
First Day Hikes began in Massachusetts in 1992, and went nationwide in 2012 under an effort by the National Association of State Park Directors.
Ian Kindle, environmental education regional program coordinator for DCNR’s Bureau of State Parks, said the hikes in Pennsylvania started not long after that. But, he said, they have become increasingly popular since the pandemic, when many people took to the outdoors.
“I think people have really taken to the idea of making getting outdoors on the first day of the year a tradition.” Kindle said. “I know that some of the first ones I led at Delaware Canal State Park, we could have 100, 150, and upward of 200 people, which is a challenge to lead.”
Last New Year’s Day, 2,488 people — and 224 dogs — participatedin Pennsylvania. They gathered for 74 hikes at 47 state parks and one state forest, accumulating 6,478 miles.
Cheryl and Gary Moore, of Bucks County, ride their horses over the Schofield Ford covered bridge in Tyler State Park in Newtown, Bucks County in this 2021 file photo.
The two most attended hikes were at Beltzville State Park in Carbon County in the Poconos (175 people) and Tyler State Park in Bucks County (170 people).
This year, DCNR has organized 60 free guided hikes in 49 state parks and three forest districts, choosing to make the walks more focused.
Kindle said an “almost full moon” hike is set for Delaware Canal State Park in Yardley, Bucks County, at 4 p.m. He noted a two-mile hike around Militia Hill at Fort Washington State Park in Montgomery County.
The hikes include: walks at 10 a.m., noon, and 2 p.m. through historic Revolutionary-era Batsto Village in Wharton State Forest; a more rigorous six-mile hike at Brendan T. Byrne State Forest on the Cranberry Trail that includes Pinelands cedar swamps and Pakim Pond; and a two-mile hike at Washington Crossing State Park in Mercer County where you can learn about the famed feat by the Continental Army that routed the Hessians at Trenton.
Tanner Rouse will be Delaware County’s new top law enforcement officer, but he’snot 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, withimproving 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.
Two top trans-Atlantic shippers are moving their cargoes to Philadelphia-area terminals, boosting longshore and trucking jobs, and ending Baltimore port calls as work drags on replacing the Key Bridge, whose collapse 21 months ago crippled ship traffic to that city’s harbor.
A.P. Moller-Maersk, based in Denmark, and German-based Hapag-Lloyd AG, which each rank among the top five global container companies and operate hundreds of ships carrying millions of trailers, have switched a major route for their Gemini joint venture to thePhilaPort’s Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, effective Jan. 4, Philadelphia-based Holt Logistics told customers in a note Wednesday.
“Rising tide lifts all boats, and that includes the waterfront labor, plus all the other ancillary support folks that run freight, handle it, and store it,” said Leo Holt, whose family operates Holt Logistics. “It’s a big win for Philadelphia, and a harbinger of good things to come.”
Holt, based in Gloucester City, is expanding its container operations in the Port of Philadelphia on land acquired by state port agency PhilaPort in South Philly.That includes a new cold-storage warehouse. Plans are still in the works for 152 acres bought with state funds for more container and automotive storage.
Philadelphia’s port handles wine, meat, furniture, car parts, drugs, and many other container goods. The region also exports drugs, steel, and machine and vehicle parts. Singaporean-owned Penn Terminals in Delaware County and the Port of Wilmington, Del., also handle containers.
Philadelphia recorded the equivalent of 841,000 20-foot trailer equivalents (TEUs) through area ports last year and expects to report more for 2025, even before the new service and additional lines to Australia and New Zealand start next year. The agency’s goal is to boost that to more than 2 million a year with the planned expansion, said spokesperson Sean Mahoney.
Philadelphia-area container shipping has nearly doubled since Jeff Theobold took over as PhilaPort executive director in 2016, while overall U.S. container volume has risen about 30%. Theobold plans to retire in June, two months after PhilaPort’s new cruise ship terminal is scheduled to open in Delaware County near Philadelphia International Airport. The agency is searching for a successor.
Philadelphia “will replace Baltimore” on a major trans-Atlantic route used by Hapag-Lloyd and Maersk, according to a report in Freightwaves, which noted Baltimore container traffic fell from 1.3 million 20-foot-trailer equivalents in 2023 to around 700,000 last year, even before the switch. Each ship on the route carries 5,000 to 6,500 TEUs.
The new route also moves container ships between Newark, N.J., terminals that handle New York cargoes; Norfolk, Va.; St. John in Canada; the British port of Southampton; the Netherlands’ giant Rotterdam port at the mouth of the Rhine; and the German ports of Wilhelmshaven and Hamburg.
That adds Germany to the list of countries with direct service to Philadelphia, Mahoney said. There’s no guarantee that all the Baltimore cargoes will shift to Philadelphia.
Philadelphia also expects more ships from Australia and New Zealand ports as two lines that service those countries via the Panama Canal have recently added Philadelphia as their Northern U.S. port, Mahoney said. Already those countries and other South Pacific ports make up close to one-quarter of the Philadelphia area’s container cargoes, making it the leading East Coast port for shipments from that region. PhilaPort expects the lines will attract cargoes now shipped to Baltimore, New York, or Norfolk.
Newark is the largest port complex in the Northeast. Philadelphia competes with Baltimore and southern ports for container and automotive cargoes.
ChristianaCare and Virtua Health have ended merger negotiations that would have created a healthcare system with more than $6 billion in annual revenue and business in four states, the two nonprofits announced Thursday.
The nonprofits, the largest in South Jersey and the largest in Delaware, had disclosed a preliminary agreement to join forces in July. ChristianaCare and Virtua did not share specific reasons for dropping the idea.
They issued identical statements: “After thoughtful evaluation, both organizations have determined that they can best fulfill their missions to serve their communities by continuing to operate independently.”
It wasn’t obvious to industry insiders what advantages combining the two systems would have brought other than more revenue and the potential for some relatively small savings from greater scale.
Both systems are financially solid. Virtua has a AA- credit rating from Standard & Poor’s. The S&P rating for ChristianaCare is two notches higher, at AA+.
ChristianaCare explored an acquisition of Crozer Health in 2022, but decided not to go through with the deal. It won a May bankruptcy auction with a $50.3 million bid to assume Crozer leases at five outpatient locations in Delaware County. It has since opened 15 medical practices at those locations.
ChristianaCare previously acquired the shuttered Jennersville Hospital in Chester County and turned it into a micro-hospital. It plans two more micro-hospitals for Delaware County.
The five-hospital Virtua system had $3.24 billion in revenue last year. ChristianaCare, with three full-scale hospitals, had $3.3 billion in revenue in the year that ended June 30, 2025.
It’s a big week for a short stretch along Route 1, where two new businesses are opening. Food hall Wonder is hosting its grand opening today, and less than a mile down the road, Middletown Township has welcomed its first full-service hotel. Also this week, Nether Providence Township police are searching for the person who left a large amount of cash in aSouth Providence Road mailbox, plus Swarthmore College is mourning the death of a beloved former professor.
Eddie Jefferson is the operations leader at Wonder’s newest location, which opens today at the Promenade at Granite Run.
Good news for parents of chronically picky eaters: Wonder, the fast-growing food hall chain, opens at the Promenade at Granite Run today.
It will offer a wide-ranging array of foods from over a dozen restaurant brands, including Bobby Flay Steak, Detroit Brick Pizza Co., comfort food spot Bellies, and Burger Baby.
“I have children who never really could settle on the same food. So it was like, ‘Oh this makes sense,’” said Eddie Jefferson, the location’s operations leader.
The new Hilton Garden Inn opened Tuesday in Middletown Township.
Middletown Township’s first full-service hotel opened this week at the former Franklin Mint site.
The long-planned 107-roomHilton Garden Innopens at a fortuitous time for the region, with a swell of tourists expected in 2026 for FIFA World Cup matches, semiquincentennial celebrations, the MLB All-Star Game, and the PGA Championship, The Inquirer’s Denali Sagner reports.
The new hotel also provides an additional option for local visitors, including those coming in for events at one of the county’s 12 colleges and universities or visiting major corporations like Wawa, which has its campus just a short drive down the road.
Nether Providence Township released its 2026 budget, which calls for real estate millage of 3.7206, up from 3.5950 mills this year. Mill rates are used to calculate property taxes by charging the rate for every $1,000 in the value of a property. Recycling costs next year will decrease slightly to $116 per unit. See the full 2026 budget here.
Nether Providence police are investigating “a significant amount of cash” left in the mailbox of a home on the 300 block of South Providence Road earlier this month and are looking for the public’s help in identifying the man that left it. One theory about the mysterious cash is that perhaps it was left because the home was reportedly once a psychiatrist’s office.
Heads up for drivers: Road closures will continue on Forge Road between Stephen Drive and Paul Lane in Middletown Township through Dec. 24 as contractors do work related to the water main replacement. Closures are taking place weekdays from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Riddle Hospital in Media is among Pennsylvania’s 2026 Best Hospitals for Maternity Care, according to a new ranking from U.S. News & World Report released last week.
Speaking of Riddle, the hospital has made strides toward reducing nighttime noises. Once considered the loudest hospital in the region, only 12% of patients from a recent federal survey said the area around their room was “sometimes” or “never” quiet, a decrease from the 26% who said it was noisy the year prior. See how Riddle compares to other hospitals in the region for nighttime noise.
Santa will join Middletown Fire Company No. 1 at 11 a.m. on Saturday to visit township residents.
🏫 Schools Briefing
Springton Lake Middle School was recently recognized among Pennsylvania Don Eichhorn Schools’ “Schools to Watch” for the 2025-26 academic year. This is the third time Springton Lake has been recognized since the program was launched during the 2006-07 school year. It recognizes schools based on a number of factors, including academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, social equity, and organizational structures and processes.
In Wallingford-Swarthmore, there are fifth grade winter band and chorus concerts today, a school board meeting Monday at 7 p.m., and winter classroom parties on Tuesday. WSSD begins its winter break on Wednesday. See the district’s full calendar here.
In Rose Tree Media, winter parties kick off tomorrow and continue Monday, when there are also winter concerts. There are early dismissals Tuesday, and no afternoon kindergarten. RTMSD’s winter break begins Wednesday. See the district’s full calendar here.
🍽️ On our Plate
For those in search of Christmas Eve reservations, Fava Ristorante Italiano and Harvest Seasonal Grill & Wine Bar, both in Glen Mills, will be open. Prefer to dine in? White Dog Café, also in Glen Mills, is offering a “Christmas at Home” package with options for beef tenderloin, glazed ham, and beef lasagna. (Main Line Today)
🎄Lenora: A One-Woman Christmas Carol: Kate Brennan puts a modern twist on A Christmas Carol with this show centered on a woman who gets trapped in her apartment on Christmas Eve and ends up assessing how technology and devices both connect and disconnect us. ⏰ Thursday, Dec. 18, 12:30 p.m., and Friday, Dec. 19, 7 p.m. 💵 $21 📍Park Avenue Community Center, Swarthmore
🎭 Hello, Dolly!: PCS Theater will put its spin on the hit musical. ⏰ Friday, Dec. 19-Sunday, Jan. 4, times vary 💵 $28.50-$30.50 📍PCS Theater, Swarthmore
🍪 Teen Activity Days: Teens 13 to 18 can decorate holiday cookies at this month’s event. ⏰ Saturday, Dec. 20, 1-3 p.m. 💵 Free 📍Rocky Run YMCA, Media
💫 Winter Solstice: Celebrate the darkest day of the year with luminary lights, poetry readings, and carolers. ⏰ Saturday, Dec. 20, 5:30-8 p.m. 💵 Free 📍Plum and State Streets, Media
🎙️Lights Out: A Very Valli Holiday: This tribute to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons features classic hits and festive tunes, as well as audience participation. ⏰ Saturday, Dec. 21, 7 p.m. 💵 $41 📍The Media Theatre
The family room has a stone accent wall with a fireplace, exposed wood beams, and a staircase leading to a loft.
Located in Spring Oak Estates, this four-bedroom home feels light and bright thanks to a number of vaulted ceilings and skylights. The first floor features a two-story foyer, a living room with vaulted ceilings and a marble fireplace, a dining room, a kitchen with granite countertops, and a family room with exposed wood beams, vaulted ceilings, and a fireplace within a stone accent wall. It also has a spiral staircase leading to a loft. The primary suite, also with skylights, is on the first floor, while three additional bedrooms are upstairs. The home has a finished walk-out basement, a deck, and a fenced yard.
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This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Eduard “Teddy” Einstein, a beloved professor and mathematician, was biking home from a haircut when a driver killed him earlier this month.
Einstein, 38, was struck and killed by the 18-year-old driver on Dec. 3 while riding his bicycle on Providence Road in Upper Darby. No charges have been filed in Einstein’s death, according to Upper Darby police, but an investigation is continuing, and police said the driver cooperated with police at the scene of the crash.
The West Philadelphia husband and father of two young children, Charlie and Lorcan, was known for his sharp wit, encouraging students, and scouring cities for the most interesting, and spiciest, foods. Einstein was, above all else, dedicated to his family.
“He didn’t need much more than me and the boys. It was like he was my home, and I was his,” Einstein’s wife, Ruth Fahey, 45, said. ”That’s kind of how we agreed that we would move around the country together as a family, and it was wonderfully freeing.”
Teddy Einstein (left) reading a book to his son while the family cat plays with his arm. Einstein was a devoted husband and father who covered the lion’s share of storytelling and bedtime, but especially cooking, as he was an avid chef who liked trying new recipes, his wife Ruth Fahey said. Einstein was killed on Dec. 3, 2025, while riding his bike in a bike lane when he was hit by a driver on Providence Road in Upper Darby, Pa.
Born in Santa Monica, Calif., Einstein graduated from Harvard-Westlake School before receiving a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Pomona College, a master’s in mathematics from University of California, Santa Barbara, and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. He would go on to hold postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Chicago and the University of Pittsburgh, where he taught, and most recently completed a three-year teaching term at Swarthmore College.
“He loved mathematics and wrote a first-rate thesis,” said Einstein’s Ph.D. adviser, Jason Manning. “Many mathematicians, even those who write a good thesis, don’t do much after graduate school. But Teddy’s work really accelerated during his postdoc at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and he was doing even more exciting work when he passed.”
His colleagues describe a mathematician working at, to put it simply, the intersection of algebra and geometry. Building on the work of mathematicians before him, including modern geometric breakthroughs in years past, Einstein studied abstract 3D shapes that cannot be visually represented in the real world. Work like that of Einstein and others contributes to a tool chest of solutions that scientists can use to study physics, neuroscience, and more.
“It is a terrible loss, especially to his family,” Manning said. “But also to his part of the mathematics community.”
Teddy Einstein (right) holds his second-born, Lorcan, soon after he was born.
As his term at Swarthmore ended earlier this year, Einstein had been working on research that was seven years in the making, Fahey said. This would help springboard him into the next chapter of his career.
Fahey said the day he was killed, Einstein was biking back from a fresh haircut to impress his potential new employers at Florida Gulf Coast University.
Mr. Einstein’s work ethic matched his appetite for camaraderie. He fed grad students out of his tiny Cornell kitchen and hosted a weekly trivia night. That is where he met Fahey. “He just loved to entertain with food,” she said.
Every week, he cooked for Fahey and the boys, from his prized favorites of Korean short ribs and fried chicken to testing out falafel recipes. A keg of home-brewed beer was always in the house so that Einstein could share his creations with friends. Fahey said his most recent yeast yield is still waiting to be processed.
Maddie Adams-Miller, who took Einstein’s math classes in her freshman year at Swarthmore, said her funny and wise math teacher never wanted to see a student fail.
“I loved talking to my friends from high school and telling them I had ‘Professor Einstein’ for math. Teddy always wore funny T-shirts to class and made a lot of jokes,” said Adams-Miller, now a senior. “When I was taking his course, I was struggling with my confidence and was not performing my best academically. Teddy reached out to me to offer support and genuinely wanted me to succeed in his class.”
Teddy Einstein (left) holds his eldest son, Charlie, while he walks down a flight of steps wearing the usual safety gear that he wore while riding his bike. The precautions Einstein took to bike safely weren’t enough to stop a driver from crashing into him on Providence Road in Upper Darby earlier this month, leaving his wife, Ruth Fahey, and their two sons without a father.
An avid cyclist who biked everywhere and advocated for safer streets, Einstein was killed doing one of the activities he loved most. Philly Bike Action, an advocacy organization that Einstein and his wife frequented and his friend Jacob Russell organizes for, shared that he was hit by the driver while riding in an unprotected bike lane and wearing a helmet and high-visibility clothing.
“But there will never be a helmet strong enough or a clothing bright enough to make up for dangerous infrastructure. All Philadelphians deserve the freedom to travel without fear of tragedy,” the group said in a statement.
Russell believes safety improvements will not come solely from attempting to change laws or behavior, but rather by changing the road infrastructure, so that even “when mistakes happen, there aren’t tragedies,” he said.
A screenshot, dated July 2024, from Google Maps showing the intersection where Teddy Einstein was killed on Dec. 3, 2025, in Upper Darby, Pa.
Providence Road, where Einstein was hit and where he biked weekly, is considered a dangerous road by local planning commissions, appearing on the Regional High Injury Network map as a thoroughfare where multiple people have died or been seriously injured in vehicle, pedestrian, or bicycle crashes. Delaware County is currently in the process of onboarding most of its townships onto a “Vision Zero” plan to end all traffic fatalities by 2050 — similar to Philadelphia’s own Vision Zero.
The Delaware County Planning Commission said the county does not own the roads, which are overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation or specific municipalities; however, officials are “actively working to obtain additional funding for further safety improvements, and are continuing to work with our partners in our 49 municipalities on either our Vision Zero plan or to help them develop their own,” said Delco spokesperson Michael Connolly.
Fahey said she won’t rest until Providence Road’s lack of safety is addressed and will continue campaigning for safety improvements in Philadelphia.
A GoFundMe has been set up for Fahey to help fund efforts to protect Einstein’s legacy as a teacher and advocate, as well as to invest in campaigns to make streets safer, with an emphasis on the road where Einstein was killed. It has already raised more than $60,000.
In addition to his wife and children, Einstein is survived by his parents, K. Alice Chang and Thomas Einstein, and siblings, Michael Einstein and Lily Einstein. The family encouraged people to donate to Fahey’s GoFundMe to honor Einstein’s legacy.
County staff had requested a 7.2% tax increase to fill the budget hole, but Democratic Commissioners Bob Harvie and Diane Ellis-Marseglia voted to increase that hike to 8%, citing inflation and uncertainty in state and federal dollars.
“It’s leaving us with a very, very small surplus in a very uncertain time,” Harvie, a candidate for Congress, said of the original request.
Republican Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo voted against the tax increase but did not say why.
The tax boost will translate to an increase of around $72 annually for the owner of a home assessed at the Bucks County average, county officials said.
Chester County’s commissioners voted Wednesday to approve a budget without a tax increase. Bucks County was the only one of Philly’s collar counties not to raise property taxes in 2025.
In this year’s budget, Bucks County committed additional funds to the local community college and library systems, officials said. And, Ellis-Marseglia said, the cost of providing services to county residents had only increased.
“It’s reasonable to think that it costs more to take care of the people in our nursing home, the people in our jail,” she said.
As a result, Ellis-Marseglia and Harvie argued for a slightly larger tax increase this year to provide a cushion for the county to lean on.
“I see things as getting really dark in the future in terms of money,” Ellis-Marseglia said.
On a frigid Tuesday morning, stakeholders from across Delaware County toasted champagne and popped mini pastries under the roof of Middletown Township’s new Hilton Garden Inn.
“We may be the only Hilton Garden Inn in the world that serves Wawa coffee and drinks it all the time,” quipped hotel owner Patrick J. Burns, standing before a sea of family members, hotel staffers, business associates, and elected officials.
The 107-room, 67,000-square-foot Hilton, located off Baltimore Pike at the former Franklin Mint site, is open and welcoming guests. It’s the 42nd hotel in Delaware County and first full-service hotel in Middletown Township.
The hotel features app-to-room device integration, mobile key and contactless check-in, meeting and banquet spaces, an outdoor patio with fire pits, a fitness center, and the Garden Grill, a restaurant serving “American cuisine with local flair” that will be open to the public.
The hotel is long awaited, borne from a yearslong planning process and delayed by pandemic-era construction slowdowns. On Tuesday, attendees expressed gratitude that what was once an economic dream for the township was finally becoming reality.
The Hilton marks an important expansion of the collar county’s tourism economy, according to Delaware County’s major economic stakeholders. And as far as tourism in Delco, they say, it’s only up from here.
The bar area off of the lobby at the new Hilton Garden Inn of Middletown Township on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025.
Delaware County hosted 4.5 million visitors in 2024, according to Steve Bryne, executive director of Visit Delco. Those visitors spent $860 million, generated $1.2 billion in economic impact, and sustained 13,000 jobs. In 2025, the county is on track to sell more than one million hotel room nights for the first time in its history.
Representatives from the Hilton say it created 200 construction jobs and 40 new hospitality jobs.
Bryne said tourism to Delaware County is a “combination of everything.” The county doesn’t have one major anchor (like Longwood Gardens in Chester County, for example). Rather, it’s home to 12 colleges and universities, major corporate employers like Wawa, and sports complexes like IceWorks and Subaru Park, home of the Philadelphia Union. That means regular tournaments, business conferences, parents weekends, homecomings, and graduations — events that, collectively, help power the county’s economy.
Already, Penn State Brandywine, located down the road, has named the Hilton Garden Inn its host hotel.
Delaware County also gets spillover from visitors to Philadelphia, especially those who want proximity to Philadelphia International Airport.
The hotel is a property of Metro Philly Management, owned by Burns. Burns’ management company also owns the Courtyard by Marriott in Springfield, the Fairfield Inn & Suites in Broomall, and the Springfield Country Club, as well as numerous grocery stores and restaurants.
Patrick J. Burns, pictured at Middletown Township’s new Hilton Garden Inn on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025. The hotel is owned by Burns’ company, Metro Philly Management.
Stakeholders lauded the hotel’s location in a central, and rapidly developing, part of Middletown Township.
The former Franklin Mint complex, now home to the Hilton, has been a hotbed of development in Middletown Township since the mint shuttered in 2004. Two newer housing developments — Pond’s Edge and Franklin Station — have added over 450 units of housing to the site. Middletown Township outpaced its neighbors — Media, Nether Providence, and Upper Providence — in populationgrowth in 2024.
“Middletown Township is such a vital corridor of Delaware County,” Burns said.
The hotel’s opening coincides with major events coming to the region in the coming months: semiquincentennial celebrations in Philadelphia and in Delco, the FIFA World Cup, the PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club, and the MLB All-Star Game. For the PGA Championship alone, Delaware County is expecting 200,000 visitors and $125 million in economic impact.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
Part of Wonder’s sales pitch is that it offers something for everyone, from pizza and cheesesteaks to Mediterranean and steak.
That flexibility, with parents of finicky kids in mind, is part of what drew Eddie Jefferson to Wonder.
“The picky eater thing kind of sits with me,” said Jefferson, senior operations leader for Wonder’s Media location. “I have children who never really could settle on the same food. So it was like, ‘Oh, this makes sense.’”
Steve Skalis, of Springfield, picks up an oder of drunken noodles during Wonder’s soft opening in Media on Tuesday, December 16, 2025.
Jefferson said he wants Wonder to be more than just a chain takeout restaurant.
“I want to make sure we’re a staple of the community,” Jefferson said. “I do want to be here for a very long time.”
Wonder is donating $1 to Philabundance for every order at the Media location this week. Jefferson said he hopes that’s just the first local partnership and he will be able to be active in the community.
“Once we settle in to this community I’ll be able to be outside shaking hands and kissing babies.”
Restaurants available at the Media Wonder include:
Alanza
Alanza Pizza
Bobby Flay Steak
Burger Baby
Detroit Brick Pizza Co.
Di Fara Pizza
Fred’s Meat & Bread
Hanu Poke
Kin House
Limesalt
Maydan
Royal Greens
SirPraPhai
Streetbird by Marcus Samuelsson
Tejas Barbecue
Yasas by Michael Symon
Bellies
Room for Dessert
Wonder’s Media location brings the total to 91 sites across the Northeast, from Rhode Island to Virginia. The plan for 2026 is to more than double that, according to Jason Rusk, head of restaurant operations.
“Our plan is to grow 110 locations, so we’ll go from 91 locations to just over 200 locations by the end of next year,” Rusk said.
Eddie Jefferson, senior operations leader at Wonder in Media, reaches for one of many menus Tuesday, December 16, 2025.
Wonder plans to open locations in Drexel Hill and Roxborough in early 2026, a representative said. It is also planning a foray into Allentown and the rest of the Lehigh Valley.
Rusk said sales have been good across the Philly area’s 20-plus stores, with Cherry Hill one of the strongest openings.
“There is no sign of stopping,” Rusk said. ”I have no doubt in my mind that we will fully have a Wonder that services nearly every part of the broader Philly [area].”
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When Aaron Clark’s soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend ignored his 200 calls in December 2022, he sent her a simple text message: “Pick up before I do something crazy.”
Clark, unable to handle the impending end to what Delaware County prosecutors described Tuesday as a toxic, abusive relationship, later made good on that threat, they said.
The West Philadelphia resident set fire to Amira Rogers’ home in Darby Township, killing Olivia Drasher, her wheelchair-bound sister, and forever tearing her family apart, Assistant District Attorney Danielle Gallaher said at the beginning of Clark’s trial for murder and related crimes.
“The breakup was the match that lit this fire, and the defendant was going to burn her and everything she cared about down to the ground,” Gallaher told jurors in her opening statement.
Just after midnight on Dec. 4, 2022, Clark, 33, sprayed accelerant on the front porch of Rogers’ home on Sharon Avenue, directly underneath her sister’s bedroom, the prosecutor said. Witnesses told 911 dispatchers that the fire spread quickly, and soon the entire house was engulfed.
Rogers’ mother, other sister, and Drasher’s full-time nurse were able to escape. But Drasher died in the blaze.
Gallaher promised the jury that “physical evidence, digital evidence and the defendant’s actions” will prove Clark was the only one who had the motivation and will to target Rogers and her family.
A man wearing distinctive clothing similar to what Clark was seen wearing that day was recorded on surveillance footage near the scene of the fire, Gallaher said. And cellphone data shows he was in the area of the blaze when it was set.
But Clark’s attorney, Michael Dugan, challenged Gallaher’s theory of the case, saying investigators had “tunnel vision” and focused in on Clark at the insistence of Rogers and her family.
Authorities failed, Dugan said, to find any witnesses who said he set the fire, and instead relied on “assumption and supposition.”
“At the end of the day, this is a tragic case,” the defense lawyer said. “But also at the end of the day, you have to understand that emotion doesn’t prove a case, evidence does.”
At the start of testimony, prosecutors chronicled the tumultuous 10 months during which Rogers and Clark dated. They met as co-workers at the United States Postal Service’s facility in Southwest Philadelphia.
But their relationship turned sour toward the end of 2022.
Hours before setting the deadly blaze, prosecutors said, Clark attacked Rogers when she confronted him over his infidelity and ended their relationship. He choked her so hard, she testified Tuesday, that she was afraid he was going to kill her.
“I begged him to stop,” Rogers said, her voice filled with emotion. “I felt terrified, because I didn’t know what he was doing.”
That attack came weeks after another, similar assault, she said, in which Clark struck her so hard that he bent the laptop computer she was carrying at the time.
Rogers later took steps to avoid Clark, changing her scheduled shift at work and reporting his continued harassment to their supervisors, she said Tuesday.
For hours on the day of the crime, Clark called her nonstop, his requests to speak with her turning to demands and, eventually, threats, according to text messages displayed in court.
Clark made an Instagram account through which he shared nude photos of Rogers, and shared the account with her family and friends.
Rogers continued to ignore Clark. Then he sent her a cryptic message not long before the fire was set: “Hope you don’t miss the show.”
The trial is expected to last through Friday before Delaware County Court Judge Deborah Krull.
