Drivers in Philadelphia’s Logan Square neighborhood should expect new delays as the city continues to prepare for America’s 250th birthday next summer.
Construction is set to cause lane closures in both directions on weekdays from Dec. 1 until May 19, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation officials said in a statement.
“This project will improve the safety and accessibility for Logan Square residents and the increased number of visitors during 2026 events,” city officials said Saturday.
Drivers won’t be able to use the interior lane around Logan Circle, the left inbound lane on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, and the left lane on 19th Street north of the circle, according to the city.
The work is set to occur between 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. on weekdays, according to PennDot, and will be weather dependent.
“Motorists are advised to allow extra time when traveling through the work area because backups and delays will occur,” PennDot officials said.
During construction, pedestrians will also be unable to use the sidewalk around the circle or access Swann Memorial Fountain at its center, according to the city.
The beloved 101-year-old fountain hasn’t been fully operational since 2023 due to vandalism. Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson said in September that the city is making repairs, with plans to have the fountain completely restored by May 2026.
Convicted former labor leader John J. Dougherty is again asking a federal judge to cut short his six-year prison term, this time because he says the recent death of his father-in-law has left his gravely ill wife without a caregiver.
Dougherty made the request in a brief filed last month with U.S. District Judge Jeffrey L. Schmehl, writing that his wife, Cecilia — who for years has suffered from a debilitating brain injury — has been left “entirely alone and without any capable caregiver” since her father died from pancreatic cancer on Nov. 10.
Dougherty has previously argued that he should be granted compassionate release and allowed to serve the remainder of his sentence on house arrest to oversee his wife’s care — a request federal prosecutors have opposed.
In the latest request, Dougherty’s attorney, George Bochetto, wrote that Dougherty’s father-in-law, Joseph Conroy, had been serving as Cecilia Dougherty’s primary caregiver despite his own poor health and that Conroy’s death is “precisely the type of development” that warrants a change to Dougherty’s sentence.
Dougherty, Bochetto wrote, “remains the only person able and willing to provide his wife’s necessary care. No one besides Mr. Dougherty can fill the detrimental need that Mrs. Dougherty requires for survival.”
Federal prosecutors, however, said that Dougherty had previously asserted that Conroy was incapable of serving as Cecilia’s primary caretaker and that his newest motion for relief “directly contradicts” the representations he made in the last one.
“In short, the unfortunate passing of Mr. Conroy has no bearing at all on the circumstances,” prosecutors wrote in a reply brief filed last week.
Dougherty, 65, was once one of the state’s most powerful political figures, serving as the charismatic leader of Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers with a wide range of connections in City Hall and Harrisburg.
Dougherty’s latest request for relief came several months after he first asked Schmehl for compassionate release.
In August, Bochetto filed an emergency brief saying that a trust fund established to pay for Cecilia Dougherty’s care was about to run out of money and that the couple’s adult daughters were not equipped to serve as permanent caregivers.
It also said Conroy, “once a limited source of support, is now medically incapacitated and permanently unable to contribute to her care in any way.”
Beyond detailing issues around the health of Dougherty’s wife, that filing said that Dougherty had also effectively run out of money and assets since he began serving his sentence at a federal penitentiary in Lewisburg and that he’d suffered from several new health issues while behind bars, including a chronic foot infection that made it hard for him to walk.
Prosecutors at the time wrote that they were sympathetic to the plight of Dougherty’s wife but that his absence from her life “does not distinguish this case from that of countless defendants whose loved ones suffer as a result of their crimes.”
It was not immediately clear when Schmehl might rule on Dougherty’s requested relief, or if he might take any additional action — such as scheduling a hearing — before doing so.
Talk about a great kick off to the holiday shopping season.
“I’m honored, proud, and excited,” Ellen Shepp said Monday morning. “I mean … I’m really over the moon.”z
Walking into a great clothing store, New York Times cultural trend reporter Steven Kurutz said, is like being “transported to a different world.” It “will make you think about who you are — and may change that perspective in real time.”
The interior of Joan Shepp at 1905 Walnut St. The 53-year-old store made the New York Times’ list of “50 Best Clothing Stores in America.”
And yes, walking into Rittenhouse Square’s Joan Shepp does feel like stepping into a sartorial fairytale, which you can leave holding a Yohji Yamamoto hoodie that doubles as a dress, or a perfectly tailored asymmetrical shirt dress from Sacai New York.
Everything is dreamy, but nothing comes cheap.
Back in the 1970s, Shepp opened her store to challenge the way the suburban career woman dressed in Philly and introduced her to designer wear, from Yohji Yamamoto to Maison Margiela. One of the earliest entrepreneurs to embrace the store-within-a-store approach to retail, Shepp made space for collections like Yamamoto’s Y-3 and Donna Karan’s Urban Zen.
The clothing sold alongside furniture, bedding, and candles, making Joan Shepp one of the region’s earliest concept boutiques.
Joan Shepp founded the store in 1971. She was a 30-year-old single mother of two young children in need of a flexible work schedule that allowed her time for school pickup and drops, to help her daughters with homework, and make them dinner.
Joan Shepp and her daughter Ellen Shepp, shown here in their Center City store.
“I have so much fun finding things that are new,” she said to The Inquirer in 2022. “I listen to everyone who comes into my store. I watch them go through the racks. And whether/if they are a customer or a person who wants to open a store down the street, I can pick up on it.”
Hers is the only store on the Times list from the Philly region.
The closest is 7017 Reign in Fort Lee, N.J., described by the Times as an “under the radar, street and high fashion” specialty store. There are a handful of stores from downtown New York, but most are in the Midwest and California.
To produce the list, the Times team selected 120 stores, and then sent reporters, editors, and contributors to visit each of them, sometimes more than once.
A videographer visited Joan Shepp in early fall, shortly after the store moved to its new home at 1905 Walnut St.
Noting that Joan Shepp has been in business for more than 50 years — the specialty boutique is in the midst of celebrating its 53rd year — Kurutz wrote “Shepp has flavors of Barneys New York in its heyday.”
The Barney comparison wowed Ellen Shepp. Christmas had no doubt arrived early for the boutique owner and her team.
“The whole time they were like, ‘Listen we don’t know whether/if you made this list,’” she said. “They kept it a mystery until right this second.”
Dan Tsao’s restaurant EMei at 915 Arch St. in Chinatown on Nov. 8, 2025.
Tsao said the East Passyunk EMei would roll out in phases, with takeout and delivery launching in February during renovations and full dine-in service targeted for summer 2026. He said he wants to become part of the Passyunk Avenue community for decades to come.
Real estate broker Greg Bianchi, who represents the family that owned the Marra’s building at 1734 E. Passyunk Ave., called the deal “a win-win for everybody. [Tsao is] going to bring more people and business to the other businesses. People don’t realize what a force he is in the Chinatown community.”
Dishes served family style at EMei, 915 Arch St.
Besides operating EMei, Tsao — who immigrated from China after high school and graduated from Penn State in 1999 — has been a newspaper publisher for 18 years. His New Mainstream Press operates Metro Chinese Weekly and Metro Viet News, offering deeper news coverage than the typically ad-heavy publications that had dominated the local Asian-language media.
The kitchen at 915 Arch St., entirely in the basement, is now at capacity. Even after recent upgrades, including six new wok stations, 18 new kitchen staffers, and robots delivering foods to the tables, “growth requires new space,” Tsao said.
Tsao analyzed sales data and found that many customers hail from Lower Merion, where he lives with his family — hence the opening in Ardmore. He also noticed that EMei is especially popular in South Philadelphia, whose four ZIP codes account for more than 20% of delivery volume.
This made East Passyunk a natural site for expansion. He said he was immediately drawn to the Marra’s building and was surprised that it had been on the market for more than four years.
Marra’s restaurant, as seen on Nov. 30, 2025, its last day.
When Tsao learned that co-owner Robert D’Adamo — a grandson of Marra’s founder Salvatore Marra — was preparing to retire, Tsao saw parallels in his own experience: Before the pandemic in 2020, his mother-in-law, Jinwen Yu, and her business partner, chef Yongcheng Zhao, were looking to step aside; Tsao became an unlikely restaurateur, buying out partners and taking on responsibilities he had not expected.
“My father spent his entire career as an executive at a food enterprise in our hometown in Zhejiang, and in college I worked every position in a Chinese takeout restaurant,” Tsao said. “Through my newspaper and digital platforms, I’ve also worked with more than 200 restaurant clients. I always knew this was a hard business. But I didn’t fully understand the challenges until I took over EMei.”
He recalls fixing sewage backups until 2 a.m., working overnight with contractors to maneuver a 1,200-pound wok station into the basement, and spending hours after service refining the menu with chefs. “The industry is brutal,” he said. “If you stay mediocre, or stay in the comfort zone of only serving a niche customer base, you will struggle — even if the restaurant doesn’t close. I knew we had to evolve EMei into something much bigger.”
The dining room of EMei at 915 Arch St.
In 2019, he and his wife, Ting Ting Wan, closed the restaurant for two months to renovate. During the first two years of the pandemic, when sales dropped 50%, the entire family worked more than 60 hours a week to keep the business alive.
Tsao also pulled two assistants from his media company to build formal back-office systems that later enabled EMei to scale. During the pandemic, Tsao launched RiceVan, a delivery and distribution service that transported Chinatown meals to suburban households and provided jobs for refugees and new immigrants.
EMei restaurant at 915 Arch St., which opened in 2011.
EMei has since grown from 11 full-time employees to 37, and sales have increased more than 300% compared with pre-pandemic levels, Tsao said.
Tsao credits the restaurant’s founders — Yu and Zhao — for staying involved. “They still come in every day, even now,” he said. “Part of it is that retirement can be boring. But it’s also because once we took responsibility for operations and finances, they were able to relax, work fewer hours, and focus purely on the culinary side.”
The dining room of EMei, 915 Arch St.
A historic building reimagined
The Marra’s building will undergo substantial structural and mechanical upgrades, Tsao said. Plans include a first-floor restroom to resolve long-standing ADA issues; full replacement of HVAC and electrical systems; and removal of window units in favor of central air.
The vintage booths will be reupholstered. The bar will shift to the Pierce Street corner to improve flow. The second-floor private dining room will get new lighting and finishes; the third floor may be converted into a multipurpose or staff area. Tsao said he intends to address minor structural concerns while preserving the historic masonry and architectural character.
One open question is the fate of Marra’s nearly century-old brick pizza oven, which Marra’s family member Mario D’Adamo said was failing. EMei will test whether it can be used. If removal becomes necessary, Tsao said the bricks, sourced from Mount Vesuvius, would be saved and possibly given to the D’Adamo family, the East Passyunk Business Improvement District, or incorporated into the renovation.
“Our model has evolved — instead of putting over half a million dollars into leasehold improvements that don’t belong to us, we’d rather put that money into a building that becomes part of the company’s foundation,” Tsao said. “Restaurants come and go, but great restaurant buildings with stories — like this one — can last generations. We want to be the next chapter in that story, not just a tenant passing through.”
The jumbo shrimp in hot peppers at EMei at 915 Arch St. on Sept. 15, 2022.
What to expect on EMei’s menu
The East Passyunk menu will reflect the Chinatown original while serving as a testing ground for contemporary Sichuan cooking – “lighter, seasonal, more ingredient-driven interpretations that show how Sichuan cuisine continues to evolve,” Tsao said.
Roast duck and possibly Shanghai soup dumplings are under consideration, filling a void left by the closure of Bing Bing Dim Sum nearby. Some heritage dishes removed from the Chinatown menu will return there, helping differentiate the three locations while keeping them unified. EMei’s gluten-free program, including a separate fryer, will continue.
Tsao said the neighborhood feels like home to his family. “I took my three kids — ages 6, 14, and 17 — to the East Passyunk Fall Fest again this year, and they instantly connected with the neighborhood’s energy,” he said. “They spent nearly 30 minutes exploring Latchkey Records, each leaving with something they picked out themselves. Watching them fall in love with the street the same way we did really made it feel like home.”
Christina Miranda was shot and killed by two Philadelphia police officers early Sunday morning, authorities said, after she held a gun to her head, then turned the weapon on the officers. Her name was released Monday morning.
Police were called just after 4 a.m. Sunday to the 900 block of West Erie Avenue, where they found Miranda, 35, with a .22-caliber handgun. The officers ordered her to drop the weapon and used a Taser on her, according to police, but she fled. As she ran, they said, she pointed the gun at the officers.
The officers fired at Miranda, striking her multiple times, according to police. She was taken to Temple University Hospital, where she later died.
The two officers involved in the shooting — both on the force for less than three years — have been placed on desk duty, as is customary, pending an investigation by the police department and the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.
If you want to keep beating your head against the wall, keep expecting Jalen Hurts to turn into Lamar Jackson or Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen.
If you want to preserve your sanity, however, just accept Hurts as a complementary player.
That’s not an insult. It’s objective analysis. He’s playing a little bit better than his draft projection, which, on the NFL’s website in 2020, read thus:
“Slow recognition of early throw opportunities. Leaves slants and crossers behind targets. Misses check-downs. … Quick to drop his eyes when pressure mounts. … He’ll struggle to beat NFL defenses from the pocket.”
Granted, these were the most negative aspects of Hurts’ profile, which projected him as a second-round pick who might one day develop into a competent starter. Which, to date, is exactly what he became.
Look around the league. Philadelphia is lucky to have him.
He’s a competent starter with a few special gifts. He is a tireless worker, a steady hand on the tiller, a fine runner, fearless, tough, accurate, with exquisite touch on deep passes. He is not the total package. To expect him to be so only courts disappointment.
Eagles first-year coordinator Kevin Patullo might not be calling all the best plays, and his sequencing might be imperfect, but the consensus among analysts and several Eagles sources is that Patullo’s not the problem. Hurts is missing wide-open receivers, sometimes missing multiple receivers on the same play, even when he’s not pressured.
But no sane entity in the Eagles’ organization, to my extensive knowledge, is wishing for Hurts to be replaced by Tanner McKee, who has yet to take a meaningful snap in a meaningful game since being drafted in the sixth round three years ago.
Hurts played his best in 2022, which was his second season with offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, now the coach in Indianapolis. He was superb at times in 2024 under Kellen Moore, who’d coached and coordinated Dak Prescott for five years in Dallas; Prescott had a similar pedigree and projection as Hurts.
This year the Eagles hoped Hurts would develop past the need for an experienced coordinator. He has not.
Have there been streaks over the years in which Hurts looks like a star? Sure. Has he produced in several big games? Absolutely.
Jalen Hurts’ second season with offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, in 2022, perhaps gave a false sense of what the quarterback was capable of.
But the league clearly caught up with him after that first Pro Bowl season in 2022, when his legs were as much as a weapon as his feet. He is running far less frequently this season, on pace for 119 runs, which would be his career low as a starter. The player we’ve seen for large stretches of the 2023, 2024, and 2025 seasons matches that NFL.com draft profile better than it matches the Super Bowl LIX MVP.
Hurts isn’t the superstar owner Jeffrey Lurie and the Jordan Brand wish he was. Rather, he’s at the right place at the right time. He finds himself surrounded by elite talent on both sides of the ball, led by a very good coaching staff, with the NFL‘s best owner and its best GM. Together, they make it work. They win, a lot. But when good defenses set their minds to making Hurts beat them, and disguise their defenses, winning is less certain and much uglier. That’s what has happened in 2025.
There are other issues, of course. Chief among them: Twelve games in, the projected starting offensive line has yet to start and finish consecutive games, and probably won’t do so for at least three more weeks. The defense started poorly but has improved. Saquon Barkley isn’t as explosive, and his debut as an Eagle in 2024 was the best season a back has ever had, and that provided the best sort of camouflage for Hurts.
Most big-money quarterbacks are asked to be the best player, but Hurts’ real job is to complement players who are better at their job than he is at his, when compared with players who play their positions. Led by Barkley, those players include, without question, receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and linemen Jordan Mailata, Landon Dickerson, and Lane Johnson. Tight end Dallas Goedert and center Cam Jurgens might qualify, too.
That’s no insult to Hurts. It’s really a compliment to Howie Roseman, who acquired them all, including Hurts, at excellent draft and salary values.
Howie Roseman surrounded Jalen Hurts — a complementary piece — with stars like A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith.
It’s true that a better quarterback would not be diminishing prime years of Brown, Smith, Barkley, and Goedert. But Hurts isn’t going anywhere. He is the darling of Lurie, who insisted on both the drafting of Hurts in 2020 (which devastated franchise QB Carson Wentz) and the unnecessary, $255 million contract extension in the spring of 2023, after which Lurie said Hurts already was one of “the great ones.”
The “great ones” don’t miss receivers, misdiagnose defenses, and make decisions too late to matter. Not this often.
He’s only 27. Maybe Hurts can be great yet. Giants bust Daniel Jones is thriving in his seventh season now that he’s in Indianapolis. Jets bust Sam Darnold resurrected his career in Minnesota in 2024, his seventh season, and he’s even better this season in Seattle. Browns bust Baker Mayfield found new life in his sixth season with his fourth team, Tampa Bay, where he’s gone to the past two Pro Bowls.
That’s not much solace here on the homestretch of a muddled, 8-4 season in which the offense still hasn’t played four quarters of proficient football against a good defense.
The Eagles, as defending champs, have endured a hellish schedule, one that includes losses to unexpectedly good teams like Denver and Chicago. Hurts has yet to deliver the sort of wire-to-wire performance you would expect from a quarterback averaging $51 million per season (even though that ranks just 11th in the NFL).
What 2025 has proved is that Hurts, today, is a pretty good quarterback who can win you games if things fall just right. If that’s not good enough for you, well, too bad.
You can get angry, and you can beat your head against that wall, but nothing’s going to change except the level of your headache.
The Cult of Analytics
You never start an argument with an analytics zealot because you will always lose. They have data and numbers and history. They generally ignore intangibles such as momentum, atmosphere, competition, site, and psyche.
This matters this week because of the meaningless yet fiery debate, fueled by superb (if somewhat self-anointing) NFL analyst Greg Olsen, surrounding the Eagles’ decision to try a two-point conversion with more than three minutes to play, trailing by nine, to make it a seven-point game. It failed. That meant the Eagles needed two more possessions to win, which was unlikely considering the limited time remaining. It made more common sense to kick the PAT and make it an eight-point game.
Nick Sirianni said, “I’m always going to go for a two in that scenario,” citing his personal research on the matter over several years. Sirianni is winning at a legendary clip, so maybe his studies show something publicly available that analytics do not. Those analytics give a slight edge to doing what Sirianni did.
But what Sirianni did virtually assured the loss. By doing so, it removed any real incentive from the defense, which had already been on the field 14 minutes more than the offense. The most realistically hopeful scenario after the missed two-point try was for the defense to hold, for the Eagles to score a TD, then for the Eagles to recover an onside kick, which happens at only about a 5% rate in the last two seasons.
Olsen and his tribe used X/Twitter to preach their message, which, predictably, incensed the anti-analytics barbarians.
The 2 pt conversation is this
Philly trailed by 15
That’s a 2 score game slightly less than 50% of time (2pt success rate)
It’s a 3 score game the remaining %
You want to know as early as possible how many possessions you need.
Nobody’s any good, right? The Eagles lost at home to the Bears, who are the NFC’s top seed. The Colts lost at home to the Texans, the mighty Rams lost in Carolina, the Chiefs lost at Dallas, and Jacksonville’s 8-4, the third seed in the AFC, behind the No. 2 Patriots and the No. 1 Broncos. And both the Chiefs and Lions would miss the playoffs if the season ended today, just like nobody predicted.
Antoinette and Chris Caserio walked out of Marra’s on Sunday afternoon with their children, a menu, a pizza box, and a bag of leftovers they called “their last supper.”
“It’s super sad,” Antoinette Caserio said. “My dad’s 80 and this was his spot.”
Marra’s, the family-run restaurant widely considered Philadelphia’s oldest pizzeria, closed Sunday after 98 years — a day in advance of the sale of its iconic black-and-white-tiled building at 1734 E. Passyunk Ave. in South Philadelphia. The property had been on the market for several years.
Mario D’Adamo Sr. (right) with a Marra’s customer just after World War II.
The buyer, Chinatown restaurateur and publisher Dan Tsao, said he plans to open a branch of his popular Sichuan restaurant EMei next year.
Marra’s was one of the last remaining links to East Passyunk Avenue’s featured role in the Italian American immigrant experience of the early 20th century. It also marks a transition for the founding Marra and D’Adamo families, who say they are exploring a new location for the restaurant, which opened in 1927.
Mario D’Adamo Jr., a grandson of founders Salvatore and Chiarina Marra and brother of co-owner Robert D’Adamo, said business had dipped after the pandemic, but that wasn’t the impetus for the sale. “The biggest killer was parking,” he said by phone while searching for a spot Sunday. “Small restaurants can survive that; large places can’t.” With 160 seats, including its 80-seat banquet room on the second floor, Marra’s lost a lot of business because of it, D’Adamo said.
Robert D’Adamo, 75, and cousin Maurizio DeLuca, 61, who took over ownership in 2000, declined to speak with The Inquirer over the last few weeks as word spread of the impending sale, citing their emotions. In a statement, they said they were prepared to move on with “the same love that has always defined us — just in a location that better serves our guests.”
Antoinette and Chris Caserio and children Kira and Chris leaving Marra’s on Nov. 30, 2025.
Mario D’Adamo Jr., 71, a lawyer and deputy court administrator for Philadelphia’s Family Court, sold his stake about 25 years ago but retains an interest in the Marra’s name.
With the sale to Tsao, the building will remain a restaurant. Tsao has said he intends to renovate the building while respecting its look and feel.
The front dining room at Marra’s, 1734 E. Passyunk Ave., on Nov. 7, 2025.
Marra’s oil-fired brick oven, believed to be one of the city’s oldest, may not be salvageable, D’Adamo said.
The life of the bricks is about 100 years and the inside is collapsing, even though an artisan patched it about two years ago. “The oil flame is so hot that the bricks are now pulverizing,” he said.
Marra’s backstory
The families of Salvatore Marra and Chiarina Daniele were baking pizza in Naples before the turn of the 20th century.
Shortly after the couple married, they set out for the United States.
Marra’s help-wanted ad from The Inquirer on March 14, 1934, seeking a waitress who “must speak American & Italian.”
Marra family lore holds that Salvatore arrived at Ellis Island in 1921 with a single dime — likely a 10-centesimi coin — which he tossed into New York Harbor so he could say that he had begun his life in America with nothing. Chiarina joined him soon after.
His early attempts to recreate Neapolitan pizza were discouraging — first in Brooklyn and then Chicago. He thought that the pies were lacking and blamed the ovens.
The century-old brick oven at Marra’s on Nov. 30, 2025.
Back in Naples, the ovens were lined with lava bricks from Mount Vesuvius, which radiated and retained heat in a way he couldn’t replicate. When the Marras moved to Philadelphia, he ordered bricks from Naples and had the oven built for their first pizzeria, which opened in 1924 at Eighth and Christian Streets in South Philadelphia. This time, the pizza tasted right.
In 1927, when the Marras bought a former butcher shop at 1734 E. Passyunk Ave., the oven was dismantled brick by brick and rebuilt there.
At Marra’s, co-owner Maurizio DeLuca holds a pizza fresca on Oct. 10, 2001.
The neighborhood was teeming with immigrants, and East Passyunk’s diagonal path through the city’s rowhouse grid — historically, it was a Lenape trail — had made it a natural commercial strip. For generations, families bought their church clothes, shoes, furniture, and sundries on the Avenue.
Salvatore and Chiarina still lived on the restaurant’s third floor after their retirement in 1947. She died in 1973 at age 73. Salvatore, in his usual fedora, was a familiar presence on the Avenue until his death in 1984 at age 89.
Marra’s ad in The Inquirer on Feb. 28, 1948.
Their children, Bianca and Vincent Marra, carried Marra’s business forward after Salvatore and Chiarina’s retirement. By that time, Bianca had married Mario D’Adamo Sr., a Marra’s busboy who lived around the corner. (Their children, Robert, Mario Jr., Linda and Marlene, represented the next generation.)
Bianca D’Adamo, known as “Mama D’Adamo,” became one of the restaurant’s most visible figures. In a 1980s interview with The Inquirer, she recalled a particularly loud regular from years past: a kid named Fred Cocozza. “He’d come in, stand right over there, and sing at the top of his lungs,” she said. “Papa would come out of the kitchen and tell him to get out. He thought it was bad for business.” In 1947, he performed for 20,000 people at the Hollywood Bowl and signed a film contract with MGM as Mario Lanza.
Patriarch Salvatore Marra with his daughter, Bianca, grandsons Robert (rear left) and Mario Jr., and son-in-law Mario Sr.
In 1950, Bianca and Vincent bought the bakery next door and expanded the restaurant. Vincent Marra opened his own Marra’s restaurant on Baltimore Pike in Springfield, Delaware County, in 1954.
Marra’s fame
During Bianca and Mario’s oversight, Marra’s began attracting the spotlight. For National Pizza Week in 1955, Salvatore Marra was named Pizza Man of the Year. In 1977, Eastern Airlines’ in-flight magazine, Pathways, cited Marra’s as one of the five best pizzerias in the country. Philadelphia Magazine named it South Philly’s top pizzeria in 1985 — the same year Villanova University won the NCAA men’s basketball championship. That year, coach Rollie Massimino, a regular, inspired the dish known as Rollie’s ziti in white, a bowl of ziti and broccoli in garlic sauce, that remained on the menu till the end.
Baseball great Tim McCarver (second from right) with Mario D’Adamo Jr. (in Phillies shirt) and Robert D’Adamo (right) at Marra’s in the early 1980s.
Marra’s celebrity guest list read like an index of 20th-century American entertainment: Mickey Rooney, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, Frankie Avalon, Eddie Fisher, Jimmy Darren, Bobby Rydell, Al Martino, John Travolta, Eugene Ormandy, Conan O’Brien.
When Passyunk Avenue’s fortunes began dipping in the 1990s, a group now known as Passyunk Avenue Revitalization Corp. began buying and rehabbing distressed properties. (PARC was originally created in 1991 as Citizens’ Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, but later became embroiled in a scandal that brought down former state Sen. Vincent Fumo.)
The early 2000s saw a new wave of residents moving in from outside the neighborhood as PARC’s work helped spark an influx of chef-driven restaurants and bars to join such traditional spots as Mamma Maria and Mr. Martino’s (which opened in 1992) and Tre Scalini (1994).
Le Virtù, serving the rustic cuisine of Abruzzo, opened in 2007 in a former community newspaper office at 1927 E. Passyunk. That year, Fiore’s, which fed generations in a low-slung building where Passyunk crosses 12th and Morris Streets, became a Mexican restaurant, Cantina Los Caballitos.
Restaurants continued to usher in change along the Avenue as the years went on. The distinctive curved building at 1709 E. Passyunk morphed through the years from an appliance store to a bank and then to a men’s clothing store before opening in 2017 as Barcelona Wine Bar. What is now Rice & Sambal, an Indonesian BYOB at 1911 E. Passyunk, was a photographic-supply shop for years after World War II.
Marra’s co-owner Robert D’Adamo (right) with his nephew, Michael D’Adamo, in 2023.The last pizza baked at Marra’s, 1734 E. Passyunk Ave., on Nov. 30, 2025.
Marra’s closing is painful to Mario D’Adamo Jr., as he recounted late Sunday after the last pizza — topped with spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, and mozzarella — slid out of the oven. Like his brother, he grew up on the third floor of the restaurant’s building.
“It became part of your DNA,” he said. “We used to close at 2 or 3 in the morning. My whole life, I heard the jukebox playing Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett. I still go to bed late because of that. Some of my earliest memories are my father coming up the steps, tired, smelling like the restaurant, folding his apron over the banister.
“Other families watched football. We watched cooking shows,” D’Adamo said. “Everything in your mind connects back to the restaurant.”
Brothers Robert D’Adamo (left) and Mario D’Adamo Jr. in the kitchen at Marra’s on Nov. 30, 2025.
There’s a new king in the NFC, and it’s the team that strolled into Lincoln Financial Field on Black Friday, ran all over the Eagles, and silenced the critics — this writer included — who said its 8-3 record was fugazi.
Yes, if the season ended today, all roads would lead to the shirtless final boss, Ben Johnson, and his 9-3 Chicago Bears. And if that pole positioning holds, they’ll have earned it. Chicago’s final five games look like this: at Green Bay, home vs. Cleveland, home vs. Green Bay, at San Francisco, home vs. Detroit.
In other words, the Bears are holding on to that top seed in a similar way Jalen Hurts held onto the football during that fourth-quarter Tush Push on Friday.
There are six teams in the NFC now with eight or nine wins, and the Eagles — despite the sky falling on Philadelphia and Nick Sirianni fairly being asked about his offensive coordinator’s job status — are one of them.
Only two teams have an easier schedule the rest of the way than the Eagles, according to Tankathon, and neither team is in the aforementioned group.
How likely is the No. 1 seed for the Eagles? FTN Fantasy puts the chances at 3.3%. Not great. But not quite the one-in-a-million odds Christmas faced in Dumb and Dumber.
In fact, considering FTN puts the Eagles’ playoff chances at 93.3%, there’s a better mathematical chance this collapse ends with the Eagles blowing the NFC East and missing the playoffs than the Eagles turning it around and securing the No. 1 seed.
Still, that latter scenario seems pretty unrealistic given the schedule ahead. The Eagles could be facing a Chargers team without Justin Herbert, then they have the lowly Raiders and their minus-129 point differential. After that, the remaining three contests are a difficult road game at Buffalo sandwiched by two Commanders games.
The magic number — any combination of Eagles wins and Cowboys losses — to clinch the NFC East is four. FTN Fantasy has the Eagles at 91% to win the NFC East. The Eagles control their destiny there.
As far as the No. 1 seed goes, it’s out of their hands, thanks to Chicago’s 281 rushing yards and another stinker from one of the highest-paid offenses in the NFL.
PopUp Bagels, the viral bagel chain that is on its way to the Philadelphia area, will preview its arrival with a one-day pop-up event Sunday at Di Bruno Bros.’ flagship store near Rittenhouse Square.
PopUp will take over Di Bruno’s second floor from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., offering an early taste of its “grip, rip, and dip” bagels — and a limited-edition collaborative schmear — while raising money for charity.
PopUp’s location in Suburban Square in Ardmore, across from Shake Shack, is due to open in early 2026.
Bagels will be available by preorder only, with sales launching Monday on popupbagels.com. Franchisee Brian Harrington said 300 dozen bagels would be available at Di Bruno’s, 1730 Chestnut St.
Harrington said that for one of his new stores in Boston earlier this year, PopUp tied a preview to the Boston Marathon. “We put them online for preorder and they sold out in 16 minutes,” Harrington said. As people arrived for their bagels (six for $24), they were feted with music and PopUp swag to stimulate buzz.
PopUp, conceived in a Connecticut backyard in 2021, does not make sandwiches or even offer sliced bagels — rather, the bagels are sold hot and whole with cups of cream cheese “schmears” or butter for dipping.
In Philadelphia, customers will be able to preorder a six-pack of mixed bagels — plain and everything flavors — along with classic plain and scallion schmears. The highlight will be a third schmear: a limited-time-only collaboration blending Di Bruno’s Abruzzi cheese spread with PopUp’s classic cream cheese.
Proceeds from the day will benefit the Eagles Autism Foundation and the Travis Manion Foundation.
After Ardmore, PopUp is planning for three locations in the Philadelphia market in 2026 and as many as seven or eight overall in the longer term.
PopUp Bagels was launched during the pandemic by Adam Goldberg, a bored flood-mitigation specialist who started baking sourdough bread at his home in Westport, Conn. He turned that into a bagel recipe, settling on a light, soft bagel, as opposed to the chewy New York style. The backyard project drew attention and led to pop-up shops in New York City.
Social media attention and investors quickly followed. Fans of the chain line up outside locations across Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts to film TikToks of them ripping apart bagels and dipping them into cream cheeses.
As 76ers public-address announcer Matt Cord rolled through Sunday’s starting lineup, an in-arena camera caught Joel Embiid jogging down the hallway that connects the locker room to the tunnel. He then met his huddled teammates, who bounced and threw their arms in the air while engulfing the former MVP.
Embiid was back — again — from a nine-game absence because of an issue in his right knee. He described his first half as successful and his second half as “a little rough,” while totaling 18 points, four rebounds, and two assists in a season-high 30 minutes in a double-overtime loss to the Atlanta Hawks at Xfinity Mobile Arena.
Before training camp, Embiid said he was prepared to face unpredictable health flare-ups that would force personal restarts throughout the season. He stressed the need to navigate them methodically and with positivity.
So how would he evaluate his ability to put that mentality into practice?
“It was OK,” Embiid said at his locker after the game. “Obviously, like I said, it’s going to happen, so you can’t put your head down and whine about it. Keep working hard and trying to get back at it as close as possible.
“What can we do? The only thing you can do is keep doing the right things, focusing on the right things, and go from there.”
Sunday’s return meant the 10-9 Sixers’ max-contract players Embiid, Tyrese Maxey (44 points, nine assists, seven rebounds), and Paul George (16 points, seven rebounds, four assists, five steals) — plus third overall draft pick VJ Edgecombe (seven points, two assists, two steals) — played together for the first time. And though Kelly Oubre Jr. (knee) and Trendon Watford (thigh) remain out, it was the closest the Sixers have gotten to a “normal” top of the rotation — at least in the first half, before minutes restrictions became a factor.
Joel Embiid passes to Tyrese Maxey, who led the Sixers with 44 points against the Hawks on Sunday.
That it took until Game 19 to achieve this was unfortunate for Embiid, who said he was “actually getting back to myself” just before reporting soreness in his right knee the morning of a Nov. 11 home game against the Boston Celtics.
His day-to-day status turned into nearly three weeks, including recent toggles between questionable to play and out. Embiid said Sunday that uncertainty was due to how his knee responded to on-court sessions.
He was initially ruled out for Sunday’s game on the NBA’s official injury report, before getting upgraded to questionable in the afternoon. He stepped onto the court for his pregame warmup about 45 minutes before tipoff, then was officially announced as in the starting lineup.
On the Sixers’ first possession, Embiid took his defender off the dribble to get to his spot for an elbow jumper. He hit a baseline fadeaway in the second period, then two more textbook mid-range shots. At halftime, he had 11 points on an efficient 4-of-6 shooting in 13 minutes.
Coach Nick Nurse said he was pleased with how Embiid created offense and open space for teammates in a variety of ways. He set pin-down screens, or began possessions in the corner while George and Dominick Barlow ran pick-and-rolls in the middle of the floor. He executed dribble handoffs with Quentin Grimes. And though he could lean on his exceptional two-man chemistry with Maxey when the game got tight down the stretch, Embiid reiterated his desire to contribute to the Sixers’ faster-paced, passer-friendly offense.
“I can make nine of those 10 shots [off the short roll] every single time,” Embiid said. “It’s easy to get there. But I think it’s also better when everybody else is involved and we play together.”
Added Maxey: “It’s different, because he’s still really good. We’ve still got to get him the ball. We’ve also got to run our stuff. … We haven’t really practiced with that group [with George and Edgecombe], so it’s kind of hard. But that’s no excuse. I think we did a good enough job to win the game.”
When Maxey’s heroic game-tying three-pointer forced overtime, Embiid said he “fought hard” to play in the extra frame. He missed both shot attempts during that stretch but helped Barlow protect the rim on a Jalen Johnson miss with 5.3 seconds to go.
Embiid then “wasn’t allowed” to stretch his minutes restriction further to play in the second overtime. It was an obvious absence because of the “simple” package of plays the Sixers can run through the big man even while he is limited physically. Nurse noted that smaller players attempted to set screens for Maxey, but they “couldn’t hardly get up there because of the physicality” of the Hawks.
“I still felt like there’s something I could have done,” Embiid said, “just being on the floor.”
Embiid said he will not judge his progress on his shot-making but by how he moves laterally and jumps. Though a hesitancy (or inability) to get airborne for rebounds was obvious, Embiid said Sunday’s effective first half was a “good step” on which to build.
And the need for another personal restart is no surprise to Embiid.
“If anybody thinks that I don’t want to play every game, that’s their problem,” he said. “But I think, this year, I’ve shown that I would do anything just to play one game of basketball. … You’ve just got to trust what you’re doing, and in God, and be OK with the fact that whatever happens, happens.
“If I have something [that] happened to me like it happened, what can I do? Just go out and rehab, and come back as soon as possible. That’s the mindset.”
