A man has been arrested in the theft of more than $175,000 worth of metal and mechanical components from the iconic Jersey Shore theme park Morey’s Piers.
Wildwood police said they arrested William Morelli, 67, of Wildwood Crest. Police first became aware of the heist, which occurred over several days, on Feb. 4. The reporting party provided police with a suspect and vehicle description after reviewing surveillance video.
Upon investigation, police said they identified Morelli, as the suspect who removed a large amount of metal from Morey’s temporary work site on the beach.
Morelli allegedly removed metal from the beach before selling it to an unidentified scrapyard business, according to Wildwood police. Morelli was charged with theft of movable property and later released from custody.
The theft comes at a time when the iconic Morey’s Ferris wheel is undergoing much-needed renovations at the South Philadelphia Navy Yard.
Geoff Rogers, chief operating officer at Morey’s Piers, said although work crews remain optimistic, the stolen materials bring an “unexpected and disappointing setback” to the project.
“We are heartbroken by this incident,” Rogers said. “The Giant Wheel holds deep sentimental value for not only the company and our team members, but the generations of families who have made memories on it.”
Despite the theft, Rogers said that the planned Ferris wheel renovation should be complete by the start of the 2026 summer season, as originally planned.
The Giant Wheel, a 156-foot LED-lit Ferris wheel and one of the tallest at the Jersey Shore, is disassembled, repaired, and repainted regularly, but this year’s renovation required transportation to the Navy Yard to work on its 16,000-pound centerpiece.
Designed by Dutch ride manufacturer Vekoma Rides and installed in 1985, the Giant Wheel has been a recognizable symbol of the Wildwood skyline for decades. In 2012, they upgraded it with an LED light system.
After last year’s closures of Gillian’s Wonderland in Ocean City and Wildwood’s Splash Zone Water Park, Morey’s Piers are the last beachside water parks and one of the Jersey Shore’s remaining large-scale Ferris wheels.
Nearly $58 million for South Philadelphia High School. Over $27 million for Forrest Elementary in the Northeast. Almost $55 million for Bartram High in Southwest Philadelphia.
Ahead of a Tuesday City Council hearing on the Philadelphia School District’s proposed facilities master plan, district officials have dangled the carrot that would accompany the stick of 20 school closings.
The district released Monday morning how much it would spend onmodernization projects at schools in each City Council District if Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.’s plan is approved by the school board this winter.
The totals range from $443 million in the 9th District — which includes parts of Olney, East and West Oak Lane, Mount Airy, and Oxford Circle — to nearly $56 million for the 6th District in lower Northeast Philadelphia, including Mayfair, Bridesburg, and Wissinoming.
The district’s announcement comes as the plan has already raised hackles among some Council members, and City Council President Kenyatta Johnson has said he’ll hold up the district’s funding “if need be” if concerns are not answered to Council’s satisfaction.
Tailoring the release to Council districts — including highlighting one major project per district — appears to be an effort to calm opposition ahead of Tuesday’s hearing.
Details on every school that would get upgraded under Watlington’s plan — 159 in total — have not yet been released.
John Bartram High School at 2401 S. 67th St in Southwest Philadelphia.
Watlington has stressed that the point of the long-range facilities plan is not closing schools, but solving for issues of equity, improving academic programming, and acknowledging that many buildings are in poor shape, whilesome are underenrolled and some are overenrolled.
“This plan is about ensuring that more students in every neighborhood have access to the high-quality academics, programs, and facilities they deserve,” Watlington said in a statement. “While some of these decisions are difficult, they are grounded in deep community engagement and a shared commitment to improving outcomes for all public school children in every ZIP code of Philadelphia.”
But at community meetings unfolding at schools across the city that are slated for closure, Council members have expressed displeasure about parts of the plan — a preview, perhaps, of Tuesday’s meeting.
Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, represents the 7thDistrict, including Kensington, Feltonville, Juniata Park, and Frankford. Four schools in her district — Stetson,Conwell, Harding, and Welsh —are on the chopping block.
“The fact that they are being considered for closure is very concerning to me,” Lozada said at a meeting at Stetson Middle School on Thursday.
Councilmember Quetcy Lozada is shown in a 2025 file photo.
Councilmember Cindy Bass, speaking at a Lankenau High meeting, objected to closing schools that are working well. (Three schools in Bass’ 8th District, Fitler Elementary, Wagner middle school, and Parkway Northwest High School, are proposed for closure. Lankenau is in Curtis Jones Jr.’s district but has citywide enrollment.)
“I do not understand what the logic and the rationale is that we are making these kinds of decisions,” said Bass.
While Council members will not have a direct say on the proposed school closures or the facilities plan, Council wields significant control over the district’s budget. Funding for the district is included in the annual city budget that Council must approve by the end of June.
Local revenue and city funding made up about 40% of the district’s budget this year, or nearly $2 billion. Most of that is the district’s share of city property taxes which, unlike other school systems in Pennsylvania, are levied by the city and then distributed to the district.
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Where will the money go?
Despite city and schools officials saying in the past that the district has more than $7 billion in unmet facilities needs, Watlington has said the district could complete its plan — including modernizing 159 schools — for $2.8 billion.
Officials said further details about modernization projects and the facilities plan will be released before the Feb. 26 school board meeting, where Watlington is expected to formally present his proposal to the school board.
Overbrook High School, in West Philadelphia, will get major renovations in preparation for The Workshop School, a small, project-based district school, colocating inside the building.
Here are the total proposed dollar amounts per Council district and the 10 big projects announced Monday:
1st District: $308,049,008. Key project: $57.2 million for South Philadelphia High, turning the school into a career and technical education hub and modernizing electrical, lighting, and security systems.
2nd District: $302,284,081. Key project: $54.6 million for Bartram High, to renovate the school and grounds, career and technical education spaces, restroom and accessibility renovations, new painting, and new athletic fields and facilities (on the site of nearby Tilden Middle School, which is slated to close). Motivation High School would close and become an honors program inside Bartram.
3rd District: $204,947,677. Key project: $19.6 million for the Sulzberger site, which currently houses Middle Years Alternative and is proposed to house Martha Washington Elementary. (It currently houses MYA and Parkway West, which would close.) Improvements would include heating and cooling and electrical systems, classroom modernizations, andthe addition of an elevator and a playground.
4th District: $216,819,480. Key project: $50.2 million for Overbrook High School, with updates including new restrooms, accessibility improvements, and refurbished automotive bays. (The Workshop School, another district high school, is colocating inside the building.)
5th District: $290,748,937. Key project: $8.4 million for Franklin Learning Center, with updates including for exterior, auditorium, and restroom renovations, security cameras, accessibility improvements, and new paint.
6th District: $55,769,008. Key project: $27.2 million for Forrest Elementary, including modernizations that will allow the school to grow to a K-8, and eliminate overcrowding at Northeast Community Propel Academy.
7th District: $388,795,327. Key project: $32.3 million at John Marshall Elementary in Frankford to add capacity at the school, plus a gym, elevator, and schoolwide renovations.
8th District: $318,986,215. Key project: $42.9 million at Martin Luther King High in East Germantown for electrical and general building upgrades and accommodations for Building 21, a school that will colocate inside the King building.
9th District: $442,934,244. Key project: $42.2 million at Carnell Elementary for projects including an addition to expand the school’s capacity, restroom renovations, exterior improvements, and stormwater management projects.
10th District: $275,829,539. Key project: at Watson Comly Elementary in the Northeast, an addition to accommodate middle grade students from Loesche and Comly, and building modernizations. District officials did not give the estimated cost of the Comly project.
What’s next?
The facilities Council hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. Tuesday at City Hall. It will also be livestreamed.
Members of the public also have the opportunity to weigh in on the facilities plan writ large at three community town halls scheduled for this week: Tuesday at Benjamin Franklin High from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., Friday at Kensington CAPA from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., and a virtual meeting scheduled for 2 p.m. on Sunday.
Meetings at each of the schools proposed for closure continue this week, also; the full schedule can be found on the district’s website.
Little Yenta has to be the tiniest used bookshop in Philly. And it’s certainly the only one located in the back of a 40-year-old children’s dressmaking studio.
Ariel and Simon Censor, partners in life and now books, opened Little Yenta Books, their self-described “micro-bookstore,” on East Passyunk Avenue in South Philadelphia on Saturday.
Situated, speakeasy-style, in a postage-stamp-sized loft above the Painted Lady children’s boutique, the 150-square-foot shop is nearly bursting with over 1,500 titles, including literary fiction, science fiction, poetry, history, graphic novels, plays, and first-edition classics.
Simon and Ariel Censor, owners of Little Yenta Books, showing one of their favorite books they acquired, “In Cold Blood,” a novel by Truman Capote, in their small bookshop in Philadelphia, Pa., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026.
“We can’t be everything to everyone,” said Ariel Censor, 27, preparing the spine-packed space with her husband on a recent afternoon. “But we want to be something to most people.”
The shop is a passion project.
The Haverford College graduates have long been aficionados of used bookshops — believers in the magic of unexpectedly stumbling upon a literary treasure in a sea of cast-off paperbacks. Their South Philly rowhouse could double as a secondhand store itself, the couple jokes.
“You really couldn’t use the living room anymore,” Ariel Censor said with a laugh. “It was all books.”
Last year, they decided to host pop-up used book sales around the neighborhood, including at the popular Cartesian Brewery. It was a hit.
“We got lots of people coming and saying that they wished there was a permanent used bookstore around here,” said Ariel Censor, who works as an associate communications director at the Penn Center for Impact Philanthropy.
Molly’s Books & Records on Ninth Street in the Italian Market has long been an iconic South Philly used book spot. A Novel Idea, a popular independent bookshop, opened on East Passyunk Avenue in 2018 and mostly deals in new books.
The couple believed South Philly could handle another used book destination. Selling nearly 100 books at the brewery event, the couple decided to make their dream a reality.
Searching for a brick and mortar space they could afford — and that boasted a little South Philly charm — they found it in the back of Painted Lady. It’s in a small storefront at 1910 E. Passyunk, where dressmaker Angela D’Alonzo has made custom baby outfits for decades.
Little Yenta Books is a small bookshop in Philadelphia, Pa., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026.
It’s a case of old South Philly meeting new South Philly. For $400 a month, she offered the couple a little loft area storage space five steps above her shop, with no heat or hot water. Warmth creeps up from the basement, explained Simon Censor, 29, who works for a real estate firm. And hot water is not a must for book buying, they added.
“Your hands are just a little cold, and that’s OK,” Ariel said.
Ariel and Simon Censor have transformed the tiny space into a literary thicket, with shelves and stacks of titles from their home collections, and ones they’ve purchased from estate sales and sellers. Rare early editions and classics by Truman Capote, James Baldwin, E.L. Doctorow, Octavia Butler, and Willa Cather. Hard-to-find paperback editions of George Orwell, Albert Camus, Italian novelist Elena Ferrante, and cult favorite Charles Bukowski.
“I always want to fit more books in here,” said Ariel Censor.
Ariel Censor shows one of the books she and Simon Censor acquired, “The Plague,” by Albert Camus, in their small bookshop in Philadelphia, Pa., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026.
On a bulletin board hang keepsakes the couple have discovered in the books, including notes, prayer cards, letters, poems, baseball cards, a high school class schedule from the 1990s, and a vintage recipe for triple chocolate cake.
“I actually want to make that someday,” said Ariel Censor.
Opened Thursdays and Fridays from 4:30 to 7 p.m., and weekends from noon to 6 p.m., the spirit of the shop is found in its name, the couple said. In American Yiddish parlance, Yenta can mean matchmaker. For Ariel and Simon Censor, that means that special feeling of playing matchmaker between a reader and a book.
“Just coming in and stumbling upon a book that you will love,” said Ariel Censor.
“Complete Cheerful Cherub” by Rebecca McCann is a book in Little Yenta Books in Philadelphia, Pa., on Friday, Feb. 13, 2026.
Phil Sumpter, 95, formerly of Philadelphia, celebrated sculptor, artist, art teacher, TV station art director, veteran, mentor, urban cowboy, and revered raconteur, died Thursday, Jan. 1, of age-associated decline at his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A graduate of John Bartram High School and the old Philadelphia College of Art, Mr. Sumpter taught art, both its history and application, to middle and high school students in Philadelphia for 27 years. He was an engaging teacher, former students said, and a founding faculty member at the Philadelphia High School for the Creative and Performing Arts in 1978.
He started teaching in 1955 and, after a break in the 1960s and ’70s, finally retired in 1992. “You are very lucky to have a teacher in your life that believed in you, nurtured you, challenged you, and loved you,” a former student said on Facebook. “Mr. Sumpter did all that and more.”
Other former students called him their “father” and a “legend.” One said: “You did a lot of good here on earth, especially for a bunch of feral artist teenagers.”
Mr. Sumpter (left) talks about his sculpture of Underground Railroad organizer William Still in 2003.
Outside the classroom, Mr. Sumpter sculpted hundreds of pieces and painted and sketched thousands of pictures in his South Philadelphia stable-turned-studio on Hicks Street. Prominent examples of his dozens of commissions and wide-ranging public art presence include the bas-relief sculpture of Black Revolutionary War soldiers at Valley Forge National Historical Park in Montgomery County, the action statue of baseball star Roberto Clemente in North Philadelphia, the Negro Leagues baseball monument in West Parkside, and the Judy Johnson and Helen Chambers statues in Wilmington.
He worked often in clay and paper, made murals, and designed commemorative coins and medals. He especially enjoyed illustrating cowboys, pirates, Puerto Rican jibaros, and landscapes.
His statue of Clemente was unveiled at Roberto Clemente Middle School in 1997, and Mr. Sumpter told The Inquirer: “I think I’ve captured a heroic image, an action figure depicting strength plus determination.”
He was among the most popular contributors to the Off the Wall Gallery at Dirty Franks bar, and his many exhibitions drew crowds and parties at the Bacchanal Gallery, the Free Library of Philadelphia, the Plastic Club, and elsewhere in the region and Puerto Rico. He hung out with other notable artists and community leaders, and collaborated on projects with his son, Philip III, and daughter, Elisabeth.
Mr. Sumpter worked often in clay and paper, made murals, and designed commemorative coins and medals.
He even marketed a homemade barbecue sauce with his wife, Carmen. His family said: “He is remembered for mentorship, cultural fluency, and presence as much as for material works.”
He founded Phil Sumpter Design Associates in the 1960s and worked on design and branding projects for a decade with institutions, educational organizations, and other clients. He was art director for WKBS-TV, WPHL-TV, and the Pyramid Club.
“The word for him,” his son said, “is expansive.”
Mr. Sumpter was friendly and gregarious. He became enamored with Black cowboys and Western life as a boy and went on to ride horses around town, dress daily in Western wear, and depict Black cowboys from around the world in his art. His viewpoints and exhibits were featured often in The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Tribune, Philadelphia Magazine, Dosage Magazine, and other publications.
Mr. Sumpter (in white cowboy hat) views his statue of Roberto Clemente in 1997.
He was an air observer for the Air Force during the Korean War and later, while stationed in England, studied sculpture, ceramics, and drawing at Cambridge Technical Institute. His daughter said: “He taught me how to open the portal to the infinite multiverse of my own imagination, where every mind, every soul can be free.”
Philip Harold Sumpter Jr. was born March 12, 1930, in Erie. His family moved to segregated West Philadelphia when he was young, and he earned a bachelor’s degree in art education at PCA.
He married and divorced when he was young, and then married Florence Reasner. They had a son, Philip III, and a daughter, Elisabeth, and lived in Abington. They divorced later, and he moved to Hicks Street in South Philadelphia.
He met Carmen Guzman in Philadelphia, and they married in 2001 and moved to San Juan for good in 2003. He built a studio at his new home and never really retired from creating.
Mr. Sumpter (second from left) enjoyed time with his family.
Mr. Sumpter enjoyed singing, road trips to visit family in Pittsburgh, and bomba dancing in San Juan. He was a creative cook, and what he called his “trail chili” won cook-offs and many admirers.
“He was a larger-than-life person,” his son said. “He was fearless in his frontier spirit.” His wife said: “His joy for life was contagious, as was his laughter.”
In addition to his wife, children, and former wife, Mr. Sumpter is survived by other relatives.
A celebration of his life was held earlier in Puerto Rico. Celebrations in Philadelphia are to be from 2 to 5 p.m. Saturday, March 14, at Dirty Franks, 347 S. 13th St., Philadelphia,Pa. 19107, and from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday, March 15, at the Plastic Club, 247 S. Camac St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19107.
Mr. Sumpter’s work was featured in The Inquirer in 1994.
When we first meet Bok High graduate Ozzie Phillips — one of three protagonists in Sadeqa Johnson’s latest novel, Keeper of Lost Children — a block party on South Philadelphia’s Ringgold Street is just winding down. In between the last dollops of creamy potato salad and sips of clear corn liquor, Ozzie’s friends and family wish the young serviceman a bon voyage.
He spends the last few weeks with his girlfriend, Rita, picnicking at the Lakes in FDR Park and walking through Center City department stores like Wanamaker’s and Strawbridge’s. One night the couple go to Ridge Avenue’s Pearl Theater to see Pearl Bailey perform.
The next morning, Ozzie’s Uncle Millard picks him up in a Vagabond-blue Oldsmobile and the two cruise down Broad Street, Count Basie tunes playing on WHAT AM. Uncle Millard circles City Hall, depositing Ozzie at Reading Terminal Station, where he hops on a train to Trenton’s Fort Dix Army Base before embarking on a steam boat to Germany.
It’s Ozzie’s time in Germany that fuels the plot of the sentimental historical novel.
“It’s such a joy for me to write the Philly scenes,” Johnson said, during a recent video chat. The book publicist turned New York Times best-selling author was born in South Philadelphia, grew up in North, and graduated from George Washington Carver High School of Engineering and Science. Today, the married mom of three writes from her home in Virginia, right outside Richmond.
“I left Philly when I went to Marymount Manhattan College in New York,” Johnson said. “But where you grow up is always in your DNA. Philly is in my soul. When I sit down and paint pictures of historical moments in Philadelphia, I get to go home.”
Cover art for Sadeqa Johnson’s 2026 novel, “Keeper of Lost Children” One of the main characters, Ozzie Ozbourne grew up in 1940s South Philadelphia.
Johnson has six books out in the world. She self-published her first,Love in a Carry-On Bag, in 2012.
Her books center young Black women in old-school and modern times trying to do the best with what they got. But in most of her works — especially the captivating historical fiction novels through which she’s made a name for herself on BookTok, podcasts, and traditional bestseller lists — her heroines face overwhelming odds.
Take theYellow Wife’s Pheby Delores Brown. Set in antebellum Virginia, Brown’s story is based on the harrowing real-life experience of enslaved woman Mary Lumpkin, who is forced into a relationship with her enslaver for whom she bears five children.
“I have this propensity to tell the story of young women 15, 16, 17, who are in a situation that feels insurmountable,” said Johnson, who, until 2023, taught creative writing in Drexel University’s master’s of fine arts program. “And I really love developing those stories that show how those young women get to the other side.”
The House of Eve, a 2023 New York Times bestseller and a Reese Witherspoon Book Club of the Month pick centers 1950s North Philadelphia teen Ruby Pearsall who falls in love with a Jewish boy whose family runs a corner store. In the book, Ruby must choose between a free ride to Cheyney University and motherhood.
“I love the research,” Johnson said. “I love learning interesting things about this city that I was brought up in.”
In Keeper — released this month by 37 INK, a division of Simon & Schuster — Ethel Gathers, a journalist and wife of an Army officer, also stationed in post World War II Germany, is the central character. There, she chances upon a group of multiracial children who she learns are the offspring of Black servicemen and German women.
Gathers, whose story is based on the life of journalist Mabel Grammer, adopts eight of the “Brown Babies” and starts an adoption agency, ultimately placing hundreds of the children with Black families in the United States. In the book, Grammer visits Philadelphia from her Washington home and books a room at the Divine Lorraine, the country’s first fully racially integrated hotel.
“I stumbled upon Ms. Grammer while researching The House of Eve,” Johnson said.“And in that moment, I knew I wanted to tell that story.”
Johnson breathes life into her fictional characters through extensive research, adding vivid details that take the readers back in time and thrust them into the rich tapestry of her story. Fans will often find connections to characters from previous books where they least expect it.
Ozzie’s military time and South Philly swag is based on Johnson’s great-uncle, 94-year-old Edgar Murray, who, like Ozzie, grew up in South Philly and spent the latter part of the 1940s in Germany. (For the record, Johnson said, her uncle didn’t suffer with alcoholism like Ozzie does in the book.)
It was Murray who suggested Ozzie live on Ringgold Street and take his date to the Pearl Theater.
“I like the factual things she puts in there,” said Murray, who lives with family in Denver, Colo. “It makes it more interesting.”
Philadelphia readers with an eye for history will enjoy seeing the city unfold through Ozzie’s eyes after his 1952 return.
He leafs through The Philadelphia Inquirer, reading detailed accounts of white veterans securing “large mortgages and moving out to lofty suburbs” on the GI bill that he too applied for. He works a job at the Navy Yard, gets married at Tasker Baptist Church, and experiences a miracle at West Philly’s Mercy-Douglass Hospital.
Tanner family members gather on the front steps of the Tanner House, at 2908 W. Diamond St. in Philadelphia, in this photo taken circa 1920. They are: Bottom row (l-r) Aaron A. Mossell Jr., and his wife, Jeanette Gaines Mossell; Middle row (l-r): Sadie T. M. Alexander, her mother, Mary L. Tanner Mossell, and Sadie’s sister, Elizabeth Mossell Anderson. Top row: Page Anderson, Elizabeth Anderson’s husband.
Halfway through Keepers, Ozzie attends a party thrown by elite Civil Rights husband-and-wife-team Raymond Pace Alexander and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander at their swanky home at 17th and Jefferson.
Attorneys John Francis Williams and Lewis Tanner Moore Sr., cofounder of the Pyramid Club and whose son, art collector Lewis Tanner Moore Jr. died in 2024 — shoot the breeze about an NAACP fundraiser and Buddy Powell, a 1940s jazz musician who was so severely beaten by the Philadelphia railroad police that he ended up in an asylum.
“In The House of Eve, I got to dig around in my mom’s memory for Ruby,” Johnson said. “This time around I got to dig around in my dad and Uncle Edgar’s head to get South Philly down. Let’s see what happens in the next book.”
Sadeqa Johnson will give an author’s talk at the Philadelphia Ethical Society, 1906 Rittenhouse Square, Friday, Feb. 13, 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 and include a copy of “Keeper of Lost Children”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Wednesday unveiled PHL PRIME, a new service in Philadelphia that has nothing to do with Amazon — although the e-commerce giant could potentially sign up for it.
At her annual address to the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, Parker signed an executive order to establish PHL PRIME, which stands for Project Review and Infrastructure Made Easy. The new program is designed to draw “high-impact economic development projects that generate quality jobs” by helping businesses that are considering investing in Philadelphia to navigate city rules and regulations, according to the mayor’s office.
“I‘m the mayor, and I’m not absolving myself of the responsibility of making sure that bureaucracy is working effectively and efficiently,” Parker said during her annual speech at the Convention Center. “We’re not going to burden business with the ‘time tax.’ We’re going to work at the speed of business.”
Parker told reporters the new program will not involve hiring any new staff. Instead, it’s meant to bring various city departments together into a “PHL PRIME Tiger Team“ to coordinate a streamlined approach and lay out the welcome mat for investment.
In her wide-ranging speech, Parker also said the city was committed to helping major development plans from the Market East corridor and the South Philadelphia Stadium Complex to the port and shipyard.
But Parker did not speak at length about two measures she included in last year’s city budget deal that some have said shows the city is not as welcoming to business as it could be. Both relate to the city’s business income and receipts tax, or BIRT.
Attendees record Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on the big screen as she delivers her keynote address at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia’s Annual Mayoral Luncheon at the Convention Center Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026.
Parker on Wednesday briefly mentioned a law she and City Council adopted last year that bakes in annual incremental cuts to the two BIRT tax rates over 13 years. And she thanked the Tax Reform Commission for guidance on making the city’s tax structure more business-friendly.
“I am proud to affirm that we proposed and codified into law $210 million in tax investments to provide the kind of predictability that the business community told us that it needs,” Parker said. “I hope that was a direct sign to each of you in this room that the executive and the legislative branches are listening.”
But she did not mention that the enacted tax cuts — the steepest of which will likely take effect after she leaves office — are far less aggressive than the commission’s recommendations, which called for completely eliminating BIRT within eight to 12 years.
Parker also did not address the elimination of an important tax break that allowed businesses to exempt their first $100,000 in revenue when calculating their BIRT liabilities. That policy — which lasted about a decade before Council approved a Parker bill to end it last year — effectively eliminated BIRT for the tens of thousands of businesses that take in less than $100,000 per year from commerce in the city.
Parker has said she supports the exemption but was forced to get rid of it after the city was sued by Massachusetts-based Zoll Medical Corp., which does business in Philadelphia and argued that the tax break violated the Pennsylvania Constitution.
“Smokin’” Joe Frazier is heading to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Philly’s statue of the famed heavyweight boxing champion is slated to be installed at the base of the museum’s steps later this year following a Philadelphia Art Commission vote Wednesday that approved the move. All five commissioners present Wednesday voted in favor of the statue’s relocation from its longtime home at the sports complex in South Philadelphia.
The proposal, presented by Creative Philadelphia, the city’s office for the creative sector, will see the Frazier statue installed where Philly’s original Rocky statue stands today. The Rocky statue, meanwhile, will be installed at the top of the museum’s steps.
“Placing the Joe Frazier statue at the Art Museum allows us to share a more complete history about Philadelphia’s spirit,” Marguerite Anglin, the city’s public art director, said Wednesday. “One rooted in real people, real work, and real pride in this city.”
The Frazier statue should move to the Art Museum sometime this spring, Anglin said. That relocation coincides with the move of the Rocky statue currently at the base of the steps, which is slated to be temporarily installed inside the museum for the first time as part of the forthcoming exhibition “Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments.” That Rocky statue will then be installed at the top of the museum’s steps in the fall, while the Rocky statue now at the top of the steps will go back into actor Sylvester Stallone’s private collection.
Created by sculptor Stephen Layne, the Frazier statue was unveiled in 2015 at what is now Stateside Live! at the sports complex in South Philadelphia. Its debut came years after Frazier’s death in 2011, which kicked off a campaign to erect the statue in his memory. Standing at 12 feet tall, it depicts the boxer moments after knocking down Muhammad Ali during the “Fight of the Century” — a famed March 1971 bout in which Ali suffered his first professional loss after a brutal 15-round skirmish.
For years before its creation, Frazier’s supporters lamented the fact that Philadelphia had long had a Rocky statue, but lacked one showing its own real-life champion. Our Rocky statue, in fact, has been around for more than 40 years, and has stood outside the Art Museum for two decades — about twice as long as the Frazier statue has even existed.
Creative Philadelphia’s plan featured widespread support from leaders including Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, as well as Frazier’s family and friends. It received little pushback at Wednesday’s meeting, with Gabrielle Gibson, a granddaughter of Frazier’s, asking what is perhaps the most obvious question about the placement: Shouldn’t the Frazier statue be at the top?
He was, after all, a real person, a real Philadelphian, and a real champion. Rocky, meanwhile, is a fictional character who appears to be an amalgamation of several real-life boxers’ stories — Frazier included, according to Creative Philadelphia. Many speakers Wednesday noted that, like Rocky, Frazier was known to run up the Art Museum’s steps and was said to have boxed sides of beef during his training, among other parallels.
And then there is the symbolism of where the Rocky and Frazier statues will stand.
“During Black History Month, I think we need to understand the new placement,” Gibson said. “A real boxer and a Black man’s image and likeness would be placed at a lower position beneath the fictional white character whose story was inspired by real boxers.”
The Frazier statue’s placement at the bottom of the steps, Anglin said, was for two main reasons. First, she said, having Frazier at the bottom makes it the first statue visitors will encounter at the Art Museum — even if they are there expressly to see Rocky — which will provide “an opportunity to be grounded in history.”
Second, the Rocky statue’s footprint is roughly half the size of the Frazier statue, which would not be “safe or feasible” to install on high, Anglin said. Putting Rocky at the top, Anglin said, allows for better circulation around the monument, and avoids the potential logistical and code-related issues putting Frazier there could present.
His son, and former heavyweight boxer Marvis Frazier (right), and Rev. Blane Newberry from Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church bless a 12-foot-tall 1,800-pound bronze statue of “Smokin’ Joe” Frazier after it was unveiled in 2015.
Jacqueline Frazier-Lyde, Frazier’s daughter, a retired professional boxing champion and a Municipal Court judge, expressed support for the move Wednesday, calling the statue a reminder that “we can overcome any obstacle and achieve.” She also recounted her father’s feelings on the Rocky statue, specifically when he would see tourists taking photos with Stallone’s character.
“At times,” she said, “he would say, ‘Don’t they understand that I’m the heavyweight champion?’”
An enormous block of ice extended from the ceiling and covered the floor at the east-side entrance to the Tasker-Morris Station on SEPTA’s Broad Street Line on Tuesday afternoon after a pipe burst outside the station late Monday.
The pipe belonged to the Philadelphia Water Department, SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch said. It was being repaired and crews were continuing to clean up the damage, Busch said Tuesday afternoon.
The damage did not affect train service, he said.
The transit authority has been dealing with a number of burst pipes the last few weeks, only some of which are theirs. Some belong to other property owners, such as the one that burst at the Convention Center and flooded Jefferson Station on Monday night.
Ice covers the Tasker Street east-side entrance/exit at the Tasker-Morris SEPTA Station on the Broad Street Line on Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026 in Philadelphia.
“When we have these deep freezes and then it warms up, and it’s happening all over, that causes problems with the pipes,” Busch said. “In many cases the best we can do is make sure that we have crews ready to respond to it and then work on cleaning up.”
Over the last two weeks, SEPTA has recorded about 10 incidents of water main breaks or burst pipes leading to flooding in stations or water from SEPTA structures flooding streets, Busch said. In about half those cases, the pipes belonged to SEPTA.
Many of these issues have occurred along the eastern edge of the Market-Frankford Line from near Spring Garden to the Frankford Transportation Center, Busch said. That is the oldest part of the line and some sections of the pipes are exposed.
SEPTA is planning a winterization project starting this summer. The project will likely include installing new valves on the water lines, replacing pipe insulation, and upgrading strips in the pipes that heat them. Busch said SEPTA expects that project to be done by around the start of next year. No full cost estimate is available yet, Busch said.
In an effort to reduce air pollution and modernize U.S. ports, the Biden administration in 2024 announced $3 billion in grants for zero-emission equipment — including tens of millions earmarked for Philadelphia’s port to buy two new electric cranes to help unload ships.
Ports have embraced the clean energy push, but some have run into a problem. U.S. law requires federally funded infrastructure projects to use American-made products. But according to industry groups, no U.S. firm makes the giant ship-to-shore gantry cranes like the ones Philly is hoping to buy.
Those rules — included in a 2021 law that had bipartisan support in Congress — reflect a push under both Republican and Democratic administrations to revive American manufacturing, especially in industries such as semiconductor production and shipbuilding, where continued U.S. deference to China is seen as a potential security risk.
In the case of the cranes, PhilaPort says that even if it could procure them in the U.S., it would still face risks because of a lack of “a reliable domestic supply chain for spare parts and service.”
The Environmental Protection Agency said it is reviewing PhilaPort’s application.It might not be a slam dunk: President Donald Trump’s administration has slashed billions of dollars in funding for Biden-era clean energy initiatives — and early last year, PhilaPort’s grant appeared to be briefly suspended.
Yet Trump has also expressed support for union dockworkers like the ones who would operate new cranes at Tioga Marine Terminal in Port Richmond. The International Longshoremen’s Association has celebrated the initiative, known as the Clean Ports Program, saying it protects jobs against automation.
If the EPA doessign off on the request, the port authority will have to navigate a geopolitical minefield.
Grant recipients are prohibited from using the funds to buy equipment made in China, whose state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. (ZPMC) produces 70% of the world’s ship-to-shore cranes, including the vast majority in use at U.S. ports.
American reliance on Chinese-made critical port infrastructure has raised national security concerns, magnified by the FBI’s 2021 discovery of “intelligence gathering equipment” onboard a ship that was delivering ZPMC cranes to Baltimore’s port, according to a congressional investigation.
Only three companies outside China, two in Europe and one in Japan, make ship-to-shore cranes available for international buyers, according to the American Association of Port Authorities. Each firm’s cranes would likely be subject to tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
Another wrinkle: As PhilaPort has sought support for the waiver from Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation, some lawmakers have expressed reservations that even cranes made by a non-Chinese manufacturer might include parts made in China. Limiting that exposure could be challenging, given China’s dominance in these intermediate goods.
It remains to be seen whether lawmakers will ultimately back the request. Labor unions such as United Steelworkers have broadly opposed exemptions from domestic production requirements. A spokesperson for United Steelworkers said the union is “still reviewing the specifics of this case.”
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Pa.) said he “fought hard” to include the Build America Buy America provision in the 2021 law. “So I’m naturally quite concerned any time an entity is attempting to circumvent these important provisions that protect American jobs and industries,” he said in a statement.
“PhilaPort’s management needs to do a much better job explaining why a waiver in this case is absolutely necessary,” said Boyle, whose district includes the Tioga terminal.
Spokespeople for U.S. Sens. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) and Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Those restrictionswill likely increase the cost. Of the $80 million awarded to PhilaPort by the EPA, the port authority had budgeted $47 million for two cranes at Tioga Marine Terminal.
Now, “it’s unclear if we can do two [cranes] for that price,” said Ryan Mulvey, the port authority’s director of government and public affairs.
Replacing diesel-powered cranes
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden presented an opportunity for PhilaPort’s Tioga Marine Terminal, which was built in the 1960s and until recently was still using two diesel-powered cranes that had been installed in the late ‘60s and early ’70s.
The cranes reached the end of their useful life and were recently dismantled, and the port authority has installed electrical infrastructure to support zero-emission equipment at Tioga, which handles cargoes such as forest products, containers, and steel.
President Joe Biden speaks at PhilaPort’s Tioga Marine Terminal in Philadelphia on Oct. 13, 2023.
Cranes can lift two 20-ton cargo containers off a ship at a time. Without them, “it really restricts the amount of cargo you can put through the terminal,” said Andrew Sentyz, president of operator Delaware River Stevedores, which leases the terminal from the port authority.
About 100 to 200 union longshoremen work at the site, depending on cargo volumes, he said.
When PhilaPort started reaching out to vendors, at least three — Konecranes of Finland, Phoenix-based Stafford Crane Group, and Swiss-German firm Liebherr’s U.S. affiliate — indicated they were working toward making ship-to-shore cranes that would meet domestic content requirements under the Build America, Buy America Act, a provision of Biden’s 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. (Stafford is a new entrant in the STS crane market.)
But when the port authority proceeded to bid for the project last spring, four potential bidders said they were not able to deliver cranes meeting PhilaPort’s technical specifications within its schedule or budget, according to the application it filed with the EPA in September.
One firm said Buy America rules would increase the cost of the project as much as threefold. It would take three to five years to build the manufacturing facilities needed to comply with the law and a further 36 months to complete production. By comparison, cranes that are not subject to those rules can be completed within 28 months, the vendor said.
“In the absence of continuing federal incentives toward onshore crane manufacturing, the vendor advised there is not sufficient market demand to continue to scale up its domestic manufacturing of cranes,” PhilaPort’s application says.
Another vendor told the port authority that “the low volume of current demand for BABA-compliant cranes makes domestic manufacturing currently uneconomical.”
To comply with Buy America regulations, more than 55% of the totalcost of components in a manufactured product must be from U.S.-made parts.
The EPA has acknowledged the limited domestic production of zero-emission port equipment and in 2024 temporarily lowered that requirement to 25% for certain items. But to take advantage of that reduced threshold, installation of the STS cranes would have to begin by the end of the year — a timeline PhilaPort says is not realistic.
‘Nonexistent for decades’
PhilaPort’s findings were consistent with broader industry research.
Barriers to reviving domestic industry include a shortage of welders and the fact that “American steel is significantly more expensive than European or Asian alternatives,” Davis said.
Holt Logistics Corp. cranes lift containers off vessels docked at the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia.
Likewise, the National Association of Waterfront Employers told the Biden administration in 2024 that domestic crane manufacturing is years, “if not decades, away from being a reality.”
The EPA is aware of the industry input, and as part of its review of PhilaPort’s application, the agency is now conducting its own market research to assess the availability of American-made cranes, a spokesperson said.
There have been signs of some incremental progress toward diversifying supply chains. In September, California-based PACECO Corp., a subsidiary of Japanese firm Mitsui E&S, said it had secured a contract to supply two ship-to-shore cranes to a terminal at the Port of Long Beach in California. The cranes will be built in Japan, the companies said, and include “American-made components supplied by U.S. companies.”
“This order underscores the shift now underway in the U.S. container handling market,” Troy Collard, general manager of sales at PACECO, said in a news release announcing the order. He said the order shows there are “reliable alternatives” to Chinese manufacturers “that both meet the needs of U.S. ports and support broader national security and supply chain resilience goals.”
Scrutiny of China
The focus on domestic production comes as Congress and federal law enforcement have in recent years stepped up scrutiny of potential security risks associated with Chinese equipment at U.S. ports.
China’s ZPMC built about 80% of the ship-to-shore cranes in use at U.S. ports — including several bought by PhilaPort for the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in South Philadelphia. The firm has close ties to the Chinese Communist Party, according to two Republican-led House committees that investigated the company.
ZPMC cranes were installed at Packer Avenue Marine Terminal in 2018.
In 2024, three years after the FBI’s discovery in Baltimore, the committees said their investigation found that ZPMC had installed communication devices on crane components and other maritime infrastructure at two U.S. seaports. These cellular modems, not included in contracts with U.S. ports, were “intended for the collection of usage data on certain equipment,” constituting “a significant backdoor security vulnerability that undermines the integrity of port operations,” the investigation found.
But under Beijing’s “highly acquisitive data governance regime and comparatively high levels of control over PRC firms,” Chinese-made equipment and software in port systems enable surveillance and “may cause delay or disruption to the critical operations of U.S. maritime transport systems,” Isaac Kardon, senior fellow for China Studies at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Congress last year.
It is not easy to completely remove China from the supply chain, however. In response to a request from lawmakers, PhilaPort asked prospective bidders if they could produce the cranes without Chinese parts, Mulvey said. Only one firm said it could source “100% without Chinese components,” he said.
PhilaPort noted in the waiver application that it is considered by the Pentagon as one of 14 “strategic military seaports.” During the Iraq War, that enabled the port to handle Army shipments.
“These cranes enable the efficient handling of heavy, oversized, and mission-critical military cargo, directly supporting the Department of Defense’s logistical and deployment capabilities,” the application says.
Some yarn shops around Philadelphia are running low on skeins of red wool, as local knitters and crocheters turn out scads of “Melt the ICE” caps in solidarity with protesters in Minnesota.
The hats don’t feature a patch or logo that says “Melt the ICE.” In fact, they carry no written message at all. What they offer is a deep scarlet hue, a dangling tassel, and a connection to an earlier, dangerous time, when a different people in another land sought to silently signal their unity.
“The hat is really a symbol and reminder,” said knitter Laura McNamara of Kensington, who is making two caps for friends. “People are looking for a sense of community.”
She refused her friends’ offers of payment, asking instead that they not let their involvement start and end with a hat ― but find a means to stand up for civil rights in some specific way.
The original hat was a kind of conical stocking cap, known as a nisselue, worn in Norway during the 1940s as a sign of resistance to the Nazi occupation. The Germans eventually caught on to the symbolism and banned the caps.
Amanda Bryman works on a red wool hat known as a “Melt the ICE” hat, during Fiber Folk Night at Wild Hand yarn shop in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
Now the new version that originated in a suburban Minneapolis yarn shop is spreading across the country. The hats signal opposition to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which surged thousands of agents into Minneapolis, and sadness and anger over the deaths of Minnesotans and U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot to death by federal agents.
Today, comparisons of ICE agents to Nazis have become both frequent and contentious in American politics, with even some Democrats, including Gov. Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, rejecting that equivalence as wrong and unacceptable.
ICE officials did not respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time that the Philadelphia region’s craftivist movement, as it is known, has brought its knitting needles and crochet hooks to bear.
On the eve of Donald Trump’s first inauguration, artisans here turned out scores of cat-eared headgear known as pussy hats, a feline symbol of protest worn at the Women’s March on Washington. The hats aimed to tweak the then-president-elect over his comment about grabbing women by their genitals.
The Melt the ICE caps carry some controversy within the fiber community, as it calls itself. There have been online complaints that it’s easy to tug a red cap over one’s ears, but unless that is accompanied by action it holds no more significance than clicking a “Like” button on Facebook.
“It is just preening,” one person wrote in an internet forum.
Another said that “if your resistance is only this hat, then you have not actually accomplished anything except make a hat.”
Law enforcement officers detain a demonstrator during a protest outside SpringHill Suites and Residence Inn by Marriott hotels on Jan. 26 in Maple Grove, Minn.
Liz Sytsma, owner of Wild Hand in West Mount Airy, has heard the criticism.
But “the people in our community who are participating in making the hats, this is one of many things they are doing,” she said. That includes taking part in protests, calling elected leaders, and giving money to causes they support.
On Wednesday, more than a dozen people gathered at Wild Hand for the weekly Fiber Folk Night, where crafters gather to knit, crochet, and chat ― and, now, to work on hats.
Damon Davison traveled from Audubon, Camden County, having developed his own hat pattern, with sale proceeds to go to the activist group Juntos in South Philadelphia.
He wants to show solidarity with people “who are expressing resistance to what has been happening in Minneapolis, but also what’s happening here in Philly,” he said. “The idea is to make it a little bit more local.”
The shop has seen a rush on red, sought by about 70% of customers whose purchases have depleted stocks during the last couple of weeks.
“We’re really low,” said store manager Yolanda Booker, who plans to knit and donate a hat. “I want to do whatever small part I can do to help out.”
A single hat can take two or three days to make, though the best and fastest knitters can complete one in a couple of hours.
Store Manager Yolanda Booker, standing, laughs with attendees during Fiber Folk Night at Wild Hand yarn shop in Philadelphia on Wednesday.
In West Mount Airy, Kelbourne Woolens closed its physical doors during the national “ICE Out” strike in late January and donated its onlineprofits of $4,000 to Asian Americans United, Juntos, and New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia, said team member Bailey Spiteri. She estimated the store has sold enough red yarn to retailers to make 500 or 600 hats.
At Stitch Central in Glenside, customers donated $1,000 during the strike and the store matched it, with the $2,000 going to Nationalities Service Center in Philadelphia.
“Sometimes people are skeptical. How does wearing a hat or even making a hat make a difference?” asked Allison Covey of Drunken Knit Wits, a local knitting and crocheting organization. “But look at the donations. It does make a difference.”
Veteran knitter Neeta McColloch of Elkins Park thinks the same. She has ordered enough yarn to make eight hats. And she is curious to see how the phenomenon will develop.
“This is probably bigger than I think,” she said. “Knitters tend to be the type of people who in my experience have a strong moral compass. If they can combine something they love to do with something in which they can make a statement, that’s important to them.”
