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  • Who is Shane Hennen, the high-stakes Philly gambler at the center of the latest sports-betting indictment?

    Who is Shane Hennen, the high-stakes Philly gambler at the center of the latest sports-betting indictment?

    For Shane Hennen, the house of cards keeps folding.

    A federal indictment unsealed Thursday accuses the Philadelphia-based professional gambler of acting as a ringleader in a sweeping sports-betting conspiracy now involving the NCAA and the Chinese Basketball Association. Hennen was first arrested last January in connection with a gambling case involving a former Toronto Raptor, and was also charged separately in an October indictment in New York focused on the NBA.

    The latest charges against Hennen, known as “Sugar Shane,” brought an international angle to the existing portrait of a high-stakes gambler who prosecutors allege was willing to bribe athletes to throw games, provide devices to fix backroom card games tied to the New York mafia, and use insider betting information to place fraudulent wagers.

    In all, federal prosecutors have accused Hennen of conspiring to place fraudulent bets on ex-Raptors forward Jontay Porter and NBA guard Terry Rozier, bribing the top-scoring player in the CBA to throw games, and recruiting college basketball trainers to help rig dozens of NCAA games — much of it orchestrated from Hennen’s favorite Philly casino, Rivers. On top of it all, he is also alleged to have participated in the rigging of mob-linked poker games in New York City.

    And while the list of implicated players and conspirators continues to grow by the dozens, Hennen has remained a central figure to the bet-fixing scandals that have rocked the sports world over the past year.

    Rise of a “betfluencer”

    On social media, Hennen has cast himself as rising from a hard-luck Pennsylvania town to a self-styled “betfluencer,” flying on private jets from Las Vegas to Monte Carlo and gambling up to $1 million a week on sports and card games.

    But Hennen’s earlier record for criminality came into clearer view as result of the federal investigations. While growing up in the Pittsburgh area, he did time for drug and gambling related charges that now serve as a kind of prelude to his role in the bet-fixing scandals.

    In 2006, the Washington, Pa., native received probation in Allegheny County for charges linked to a gambling scheme. According to court records, Hennen and an accomplice rented adjacent rooms in a Pittsburgh area hotel to hold underground dice games. While gambling in one room, a partner in the next room employed a magnetic device to flip loaded dice to preferred numbers.

    Then, early one morning in 2009, a former Duquesne University basketball player was found bleeding from a stab wound in Pittsburgh’s South Side neighborhood, a popular nightlife area. The man survived and later told police that Hennen had stabbed him in the neck after the athlete confronted him about cheating in a card game. Hennen was also picked up on a DUI less than two weeks later, but was released.

    Not long afterward, Hennen was charged with two more felonies after he was caught in a parking lot with 500 grams of cocaine down the street from the Meadows Casino, near Pittsburgh.

    In subsequent court filings, Hennen revealed that he had been working with a local drug dealer for more than a year. Facing well over a decade of jail time between the drug and assault charges linked to the stabbing, Hennen agreed to testify against his dealer and participated in a federal drug sting involving a different narcotics supplier based in Detroit, court records show.

    He served just less than two-and-a-half years in prison, plus four years of supervised release.

    According to court transcripts published by Sports Illustrated in October, Hennen admitted five times under oath that he cheated other people out of money.

    During a cross-examination, Lee Rothman, an attorney for his associate drug dealer he was testifying against, stated bluntly that Hennen made “a living out of cheating people out of things.”

    “That’s correct,” Hennen said.

    After his release in 2013, Hennen traveled to Pensacola, Fla., purportedly to work as a sales rep for a seafood wholesaler. Court records show he almost immediately went back to gambling, even violating his probation to travel out of state to participate in the 2014 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

    When Hennen landed in Philadelphia in 2015, it was seemingly to start over. He leased an apartment near the Rivers Casino in Fishtown.

    The small casino would become Hennen’s unlikely staging ground for a new, more lucrative gambling scheme that would come to span the globe.

    From Philly to China

    Local gamblers said Hennen worked the poker and baccarat tables at Rivers, using the action to build a reputation with the house and pave the way for six-figure sports bets, the kind only gamblers with money and a track record at the casino are allowed to make.

    By 2022, Hennen had launched an online betting consultancy via an Instagram page called “Sugar Shane Wins.” On social media, Hennen posted his sportsbook picks along with glamorous photos jetting around to Vegas or Dubai, or sitting courtside at Sixers games.

    Although he marketed bets on teams familiar to U.S. gamblers, his focus — and income — was overseas, according to federal prosecutors.

    He posted courtside photos of himself at Sixers games with a Mississippi-based sports handicapper named Marves Fairley, who prosecutors say connected the gambler with Antonio Blakeney, a former Louisiana State University shooting guard who had done a brief stint on the Chicago Bulls.

    Blakeney had subsequently bounced around different international teams, including Hapoel Tel Aviv, in Israel, and the Nanjing Monkey Kings and Jiangsu Dragons, both in China. According to a federal indictment, while playing for the Dragons, Hennen and Fairley bribed Blakeney to underperform in Chinese basketball games in order to fix high-stakes bets against the team and recruit others to do the same.

    Suddenly, the slots parlor on the Delaware was seeing six-figure bets placed on multiple Chinese basketball games through its sportsbook, BetRivers, sometimes for upward of $200,000. Representatives for the casino declined to comment Thursday on the latest federal indictment.

    The gambit proved reliably lucrative. In a 2023 text message obtained by federal authorities, Hennen reassured an accomplice who had placed big bets against Blakeney’s team.

    “Nothing gu[a]rantee[d] in this world,” Hennen wrote, ”but death taxes and Chinese basketball.”

    The model would also serve as a template for a similar racket the duo would orchestrate within the NCAA.

    By 2024, the duo had recruited basketball trainers Jalen Smith and Roderick Winkler to help convince dozens of college basketball players to rig matches on their behalf.

    Ultimately, 39 players on more than 17 Division 1 NCAA teams would participate, with bettors wagering millions on at least 29 rigged games.

    Hennen took a behind-the-scenes role, authorities alleged, texting a network of straw bettors who placed big wagers on games featuring star players bribed by the trainers, and sometimes moving bribe money or splitting up winnings back in Philly.

    His rising profile started to draw unwanted attention.

    Shortly after Hennen relocated to Las Vegas in 2023, he was accused of rigging poker matches by Wesley “Wes Side” Fei, another professional gambler who claimed in social media posts that Hennen had scammed him out of millions.

    The next year, gambling industry watchdog Integrity Compliance 360 began flagging bets placed on six Temple University basketball games. One, against Alabama-Birmingham in March 2024, saw the Borgata, in Atlantic City, cancel bets for the game due to suspicious betting activity. Before the end of 2024, the National Collegiate Athletic Association had launched an investigation into the games, as rumors swirled that federal authorities were questioning Temple player Hysier Miller as part of an alleged point-shaving scheme.

    Then Porter, the Raptors center, was banned for life from the NBA, after it emerged that the league was investigating yet another bet-rigging scheme. A few months later, Porter pleaded guilty to gambling charges — the first hint at the true scope of a sprawling federal investigation that went on to consume the NCAA and NBA.

    Beginning of the end

    In January 2025, Hennen’s luck ran out.

    Authorities stopped him in Las Vegas as he was boarding a one-way flight to Panama, en route to Colombia. He had $10,000 in his pocket and claimed he was headed to South America for dental treatment.

    But investigators had already zeroed in on Hennen as the main orchestrator of the prop betting scheme involving Rozier, the former Miami Heat guard. In October, federal prosecutors in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York unsealed an indictment, accusing Hennen of working with Fairley to have Rozier throw games for a profit, sometimes using Philadelphia as a meeting point to dole out the proceeds to other bettors.

    Court records show that since then, Hennen has entered plea negotiations with federal prosecutors and relocated to a residence in South Philadelphia. (His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.)

    During the Thursday news conference unveiling the latest indictment, Wayne Jacobs, a special agent in charge of the FBI Philadelphia field office, said that Hennen and his conspirators’ actions had undermined faith in professional sports writ large.

    “We expect athletes to embody the very best of hard work, skill, and discipline, not to sell out to those seeking to corrupt the games for their own personal benefit,” he said. “The money that’s used as a tool to influence outcomes does not just taint a single game, it tears up the trust and the results that we cherish.”

  • A charter seeking to open on Valley Forge Military Academy’s campus has withdrawn its application

    A charter seeking to open on Valley Forge Military Academy’s campus has withdrawn its application

    A group seeking to open a charter school on the Valley Forge Military Academy campus has withdrawn its application, citing a move by Radnor Township to take some of the land by eminent domain.

    The board of the proposed Valley Forge Public Service Academy says it plans to resubmit its application to the Radnor school board once the township’s plan to take 14 acres by eminent domain “has been clarified sufficiently to ensure the welfare and safety” of potential students and staff.

    The Radnor Township Board of Commissioners voted last week to authorize the township’s solicitor to acquire the land from the military academy, which is set to close in May amid financial turmoil and abuse allegations.

    Township officials say they want to prevent more development around North Wayne. At a meeting last week, Radnor Commissioner Jack Larkin said the township had reached out to military academy officials to negotiate a deal, but had not heard back.

    Alan Wohlstetter, a charter school consultant who is backing the proposed Valley Forge charter, said the move to use eminent domain was “clearly not something we could have anticipated.”

    “Clarification is now needed on a number of items in order for us to proceed with our application,” Wohlstetter said in a statement Thursday.

    Plans for the charter — which was proposed to open this fall and enroll up to 150 students — had been in the works since last year, even before the military academy announced its closure. The once-storied academy, which has struggled with declining enrollment, mounting costs, and a series of abuse scandals, had discussed renting its campus to the proposed new charter.

    It was the latest plan for a charter school — a school that is publicly funded but privately managed — to rent facilities from the military academy.

    The Radnor school board — which like other Pennsylvania school boards has the power to approve or deny applications for new charters seeking to open in their districts — has rejected two previous charter proposals at the military academy campus.

    The board held its first hearing on the latest proposal in December and a second hearing had been scheduled for this month.

    The academy spans about 70 acres. In December, Eastern University entered an agreement to buy 33 acres of the property.

    In pursuing eminent domain, Radnor officials say they are considering taking 14 acres to build a replacement for the township’s recreation center, along with a park.

    A video still of Radnor Commissioner Jack Larkin speaking at a Jan. 5 township meeting regarding the possible taking of 14 acres of Valley Forge Military Academy through eminent domain.

    While Larkin said he did not believe the plan would conflict with the proposed charter school, Wohlstetter said the charter’s backers needed clarity on which acres would be affected, and how the plan would impact traffic and parking.

    The uncertainty impairs the charter’s ability to pre-enroll students, Wohlstetter said — adding that the charter wants to be “good partners to the Radnor community.”

    Wohlstetter said the charter would resubmit its application to the school board “at a future date.” The proposed charter would enroll students in grades six to 12, with a focus on preparing them for careers in public service fields like law enforcement, firefighting and EMS.

  • Don Was will celebrate Bob Weir and play the Grateful Dead’s ‘Blues for Allah’ with his new band in Ardmore

    Don Was will celebrate Bob Weir and play the Grateful Dead’s ‘Blues for Allah’ with his new band in Ardmore

    Don Was’ show with the Pan-Detroit Ensemble at Ardmore Music Hall on Wednesday was always going to be, in part, a tribute to the music of the Grateful Dead.

    Along with digging deep into the rugged, funky sounds of their hometown — as the bassist and Grammy-winning producer and his bandmates do on their new album, Groove in the Face of Adversity — the date will also include a performance of the Dead’s 1975 album, Blues for Allah, in its entirety.

    But now the Dead community is reeling from the loss of Bob Weir, the singer-guitarist who cofounded the Dead in 1965 and became a torch bearer for the band’s music in the decades since Jerry Garcia died in 1995.

    So when Was and his eight-piece band return to the Main Line venue where they played in June at the Music Hall’s annual “Unlimited Devotion” Dead celebration, the show will be an opportunity for Philly Dead fans to mourn Weir, who died Saturday at 78.

    It will also serve as a celebration of the short-shorts-wearing rhythm guitarist and vocalist who sang many of the psychedelic rock band’s most beloved songs, including “Sugar Magnolia,” “Truckin’,” and Blues for Allah’s “The Music Never Stopped.”

    Was is president of the esteemed Blue Note Records jazz label and the former coleader of art-pop band Was (Not Was), best known for the hit “Walk the Dinosaur.” His long list of production credits includes Bonnie Raitt, the Rolling Stones, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, and many others.

    He also toured extensively with Weir, playing double bass with Wolf Bros, the band formed in 2018 whose repertoire mixed country and jazz with the Dead’s mystical roots-music blend.

    Don Was (at right) with Bob Weir performing together as Wolf Bros in 2018.

    Weir played Philadelphia stages with the Dead or one of their many offshoots over 70 times — including a record 57 concerts at the Spectrum in South Philly before it closed in 2009. His last Philly show was a Wolf Bros gig at the Met in September 2023.

    Was learned of Weir’s death shortly before going on stage in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on Saturday, and broke the news to a crowd full of Deadheads.

    “I told them the story Bobby told me about the night Jerry died,” Was said, talking on Monday from New York, where he and the stellar Pan-Detroit Ensemble, which includes saxophonist David McMurray and powerhouse vocalist Steffanie Christi’an, were set to play the Blue Note before heading to Philly.

    “Bobby was in New Hampshire with [his side project] Ratdog [in 1995]. He told me, ’You go up there and play, man. The way you deal with grief is you go up there and make some good music for everybody.’

    “So that’s what we’re going to do for Bobby. We’re going to play a soulful show, as soulful as we can. [In Ann Arbor] I hung out with the audience afterwards, and everybody had their story about some encounter with Bob over the last 60 years. It was almost like a wake. It might just be that this tour is about bringing some comfort to people who suffered a loss. Even if you’re just a fan. Bobby is like a family member to people.”

    Was first saw the Dead in Detroit in 1972. “I always dug them,” he says, “and being a jazz head, I understood the method of improvisation. But I never got in a car and followed them around, so I don’t think you could have called me a Deadhead then.”

    You could now, as well as a key player in the enduring band’s long, strange post-Garcia afterlife. In 2015, while producing guitarist John Mayer in Los Angeles, Was introduced Weir and Dead drummer Mickey Hart to Mayer, who was boundlessly enthusiastic about Garcia and the band.

    “John waxed eloquent about his love of the Grateful Dead,” recalls Was, 73. “And those guys were just kind of bowled over by it. … And that turned into Dead & Company.”

    Wolf Bros was inspired by a dream of Weir’s. The singer and guitarist was a frequent collaborator with bassist Rob Wasserman, who had introduced Weir to Was in the 1990s.

    After Wasserman died in 2016, Weir called Was. “He said he had a dream where Wasserman said the reason he had introduced Bobby to me,” said Was, “was so I could take Rob’s place after he was gone. So he asked me if I wanted to start a trio with him and [drummer] Jay Lane. And I said, ‘Yeah, of course.’”

    Playing with Wolf Bros “changed everything for me,” Was says. Weir was “utterly fearless about suspending self-consciousness and playing freely in the moment without regret.”

    “There’s a tremendous allure to those songs, and to play them the way Bobby wanted to, which was with a beginner’s mind every night and just have a completely different adventure with a song every time you play it.”

    Don Was and the Pan Detroit Ensemble play Ardmore Music Hall on Wednesday, performing music from their album “Groove in the Face of Adversity” and also playing the Grateful Dead’s 1975 album “Blues for Allah” in its entirety.

    As head of Blue Note, Was is excited about the young artists on the storied home of Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. He name-checks Joel Ross, Melissa Aldana, Paul Cornish, and Upper Darby native saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins.

    “They all have records coming out this year, and they’re all blowing my mind,” Was said. “People who see Immanuel Wilkins will be talking about seeing him the way they talk about seeing Coltrane. They still be listening 60 or 70 years from now.”

    On Groove in the Face of Adversity, Was and the PDE bring a loose, expansive sensibility to a wide range of material, from Hank Williams’ honky-tonk “I Ain’t Got Nuthin’ But Time“ to Cameo’s 1978 funk workout “Insane.”

    Most powerful is “This Is My Country,” the Curtis Mayfield title track from a 1968 album by the Impressions that stands as a statement of defiant patriotism in the face of oppression. “I realized it’s tragically more relevant now than it was in 1968,” Was said.

    “I feel an urgency” about playing with the PDE, “especially after Saturday night,” Was said. “I feel like I’m just starting to crack the code about playing bass. I want to play while I can” — he laughs — “while my fingers still work.”

    The PDE sound is more muscular and R&B-powered than the acoustic-based style he played with Weir in Wolf Bros. But Was says they’re connected in not-obvious ways.

    “When I first started to play with Bobby, I was haunted by Phil,” he said, speaking of bassist Phil Lesh, who died in 2024. “But I can’t play like Phil. Nobody can play like Phil. It was putting me in stylistic limbo. And then I quickly realized the most Grateful Dead thing you can do with a song is be yourself. Be who you are.

    “So that’s what our band does. We play like us. In the music business, we tend to think of anything that’s different as a marketing problem. But in fact, being different is your superpower. I’ve tried to impart that to artists on Blue Note and people I’ve produced. To be as different as you can be: That’s the only chance you’ve got!”

    Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble at Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, at 8 p.m. Wednesday. ardmoremusichall.com.

  • Radnor moves to acquire 14 acres of Valley Forge Military Academy by eminent domain

    Radnor moves to acquire 14 acres of Valley Forge Military Academy by eminent domain

    The Radnor Township Board of Commissioners is moving to use eminent domain to take 14 acres owned by the Valley Forge Military Academy, which has said it will close this year.

    A motion Monday by the board authorized township solicitor John Rice to draw up legal paperwork to use eminent domain — a process that allows municipalities to take a property from owners, whether they want to sell or not — by paying an appraised value for the land.

    The Board expects to introduce an eminent domain ordinance at its Jan. 24 meeting. The ordinance would have to be approved after a second hearing and public reading. No date is set for that.

    It’s likely the township would use the land to build a new recreation center and park.

    Valley Forge Military Academy spans about 70 acres in Wayne in Delaware County. The board said its goal is to prevent more development in the area around North Wayne.

    Commissioner Jack Larkin cited a number of developments in recent years that have raised concern about overdevelopment and increased traffic.

    A video still of Radnor Commissioner Jack Larkin speaking at a Jan. 5, 2026, township meeting regarding the possible taking of 14 acres of Valley Forge Military Academy through eminent domain.

    He said the township has reached out to academy officials but have not heard back.

    “We would need to get this started, to ideally negotiate in good faith, a friendly arrangement, which we started to do,” Larkin said. “And we just haven’t really heard anything back from the school.”

    He said the school has not turned down a deal or set a price.

    “They just kind of went radio silent,” Larkin said at the meeting, and added that, as a result, the township decided to move ahead with a plan that would allow it to use eminent domain.

    However, a representative of the Valley Forge Military Foundation said said Thursday the school was unaware the township planned to move so fast.

    Plans for the 14 acres

    Larkin said in a separate interview Wednesday that the township is eyeing the land as a solution to the township-run Sulkisio Gym on Wayne Avenue.

    The gym needs major repairs, and its lease will be up in coming years. So the township needs to consider whether it’s worth putting more money into the facility, given that it might not remain a tenant when the lease expires.

    As a result, the township is considering a new gym and park for the 14 acres, which are bounded by Eagle Road to the south, the Oak Hill development to the east, and the buildings of the academy’s main buildings to the west.

    “We’re on the hunt for another alternative,” Larkin said. “This would be the place we would hope to build a replacement rec center. But that’s not going to take the entire 14 acres. So we would favor the balance would have some flavor of a park.”

    Larkin said whether the park has trails, a playground, or a community garden will be subject to public input.

    He said the township knows the value of real estate in the area and has a ballpark price per acre it’s willing to pay, but he would not disclose a total figure.

    “My real hope,” he said, “is that we end up negotiating a deal and this is not an exciting process. They want to sell, and we want to buy.”

    Larkin did not believe the 14 acres would conflict with land being eyed for a charter school.

    Currently, a group seeking to open Valley Forge Public Service Academy Charter School on land at the closing military school is already equipped with a leadership team and board, but it cannot open as a publicly funded charter school without approval from the local school board.

    Radnor school board officials are now considering the plan for a charter school that could open in the fall.

    Radnor school board is considering charter’s plan to open on Valley Forge Military Academy campus

    What can eventually be built on the land is restricted by the current institutional zoning to educational, medical, religious, and museum uses, although zoning variances can always be sought.

    Valley Forge Military Foundation’s responds

    John English, board chair of the Valley Forge Military Foundation, said Thursday that the academy was aware Radnor had expressed interest in buying some of the property.

    “We were not aware that the Township believes it needs to proceed as quickly as it is,” English said in an email statement. “While Valley Forge Military Academy is closing, the Valley Forge Military College is still very much active and thriving on our campus as it continues its national security mission of training and commissioning future officers for the United States Army.”

    English said the trustees are, “undergoing a thorough analysis and evaluation of the future needs of the Foundation and the College.”

    Once they establish a path forward, English said, they would be “pleased to share those plans with Radnor Township.”

    What happened to Valley Forge Military Academy

    The rush to buy the land stems from the school’s imminent closure.

    The academy announced in September that it planned to close at the end of the 2025-26 academic year amid declining enrollment, financial challenges, and lawsuits over alleged cadet abuse. Its college would continue to operate on the main campus.

    How Valley Forge Military Academy fell apart nearly a century after its founding

    In December, Eastern University entered an agreement to buy nearly half the Valley Forge Military Academy property, which is less than a mile from the Christian university’s St. David’s campus in Delaware County.

    The planned purchase by Eastern includes 33.3 acres encompassing the football stadium, track, and athletic field house, as well as multiple apartment buildings that will be used to house students.

    Eastern University to purchase nearly half of Valley Forge Military Academy’s property

    In the academy’s closing announcement, school leaders cited declining enrollment and rising insurance premiums, in part tied to the school’s extensive legal battles.

    The Inquirer has reported that even with the school’s finances in a tailspin, board members in recent years personally lent $2 million to cover operating costs, financial disclosure records show.

    They tried other methods to drum up revenue, including franchising the academy’s brand to an Islamic private school in Qatar and unsuccessfully attempting to open a charter school on campus.

    They leased out their buildings for private events and authorized the sale of nearly one-third of the campus to luxury home developers, according to federal filings and emails obtained by The Inquirer.

    Even so, enrollment in 2025 fell to 88 cadets, down from more than 300 a decade ago, the school said.

  • Coatesville’s 106-year-old Presence Bank acquired in $55M deal

    Coatesville’s 106-year-old Presence Bank acquired in $55M deal

    A Pennsylvania-based bank has acquired the parent company of Coatesville’s Presence Bank, giving the two combined assets of about $3 billion.

    The $54.9 million deal was first announced in July and received regulatory and board approvals in December. It closed Monday.

    PB Bankshares, the holding company for Presence Bank, has been merged into Norwood Financial Corp., the holding company for Wayne Bank.

    “We are pleased to welcome PB Bankshares’ shareholders, customers and employees to our Norwood family,” Jim Donnelly, president and CEO of Norwood, said in Monday’s announcement. “We expect this combination will allow us to offer expanded products and services to the communities in our combined market areas.”

    Norwood’s Wayne Bank, based in Honesdale, had $2.4 billion in assets at the acquisition. Wayne Bank was founded in 1871, and Norwood Financial Corp, the holding company, was created in 1996. It has grown to 15 offices in Northeastern Pennsylvania and 12 in the Southern Tier of New York.

    PB Bankshares had $467 million in assets from its Presence Bank when the deal closed.

    Presence Bank first opened in 1919 in Coatesville, Chester County, as Coatesville Federal Savings & Loan Association, and in 2021 was renamed Presence Bank.

    Over the years, the bank added branches in Oxford, Chester County, and in New Holland and Georgetown, both in Lancaster County. Presence Bank also has an administrative office in Lancaster and a loan office in Harrisburg.

    Norwood has said the strategic combination allows the company to expand its footprint “into higher growth markets in Central and Southeastern Pennsylvania” while “enhancing Presence Bank’s capacity to provide exceptional service and solutions to its existing customers.”

    Janak M. Amin, president, CEO, and director of PB Bankshares, is now executive vice president and chief operating officer for Norwood and Wayne Bank.

    “We will be able to provide more products and services to our customers given Wayne Bank’s strength in retail banking,” Amin said.

    He added that Wayne Bank’s larger capital base will allow Presence Bank to “take better care of commercial customers with growing needs and the increased lending limit will allow us to retain and attract more customers.”

  • Fox Chase riders will take shuttle buses while SEPTA crews install new tracks

    Fox Chase riders will take shuttle buses while SEPTA crews install new tracks

    Disruptions are scheduled to begin Monday on Regional Rail’s Fox Chase Line, with shuttle buses replacing midday trains for several weeks as crews install new track, SEPTA said.

    The work is expected to last through April 3.

    On weekdays from 9 a.m. until 2:30 p.m., buses will serve Fox Chase, Ryers, Cheltenham, Lawndale, and Olney stations. Trains will run to and from Center City between Wayne Junction Station and 30th Street Station.

    Passengers headed inbound should plan on an additional 30 to 35 minutes of travel time.

    An outbound trip toward Fox Chase Station will take an extra 35 to 40 minutes during the midday hours, SEPTA advises. The connecting shuttle bus is scheduled to depart Wayne Junction Station five minutes after a train arrives.

    This special Fox Chase Line schedule has specific bus and train times.

    Meanwhile, SEPTA said Wednesday that it would extend the closure of the trolley tunnel, which has been shut since November for repairs to the connection between trolleys and the catenary wires overhead, which have taken longer than expected.

    SEPTA says it hoped to finish the work this week and will announce a reopening date after test runs of trolleys show the tunnel is safe to use. Meanwhile special T buses will continue to run between 40th Street/Market and 15th Street/City Hall.

  • Gluten-free bakery Flakely levels up with a new and bigger storefront in Bryn Mawr

    Gluten-free bakery Flakely levels up with a new and bigger storefront in Bryn Mawr

    A popular gluten-free bakery is coming to the Main Line.

    Flakely is moving from behind the bright pink door at 220 Krams Ave. in Manayunk to a Bryn Mawr storefront in early February, said owner Lila Colello. The new takeout-only bakery will replace a hookah lounge at 1007 W. Lancaster Ave.

    “We’ve really outgrown our space,” Colello told The Inquirer. Manayunk “wasn’t ever meant to be for retail.”

    A trained pastry chef who worked for the Ritz Carlton and Wolfgang Puck Catering, Colello was afraid she’d have to give up the best things in life — bread and her career — when she was diagnosed in 2010 with celiac disease, an inflammatory autoimmune and intestinal disorder triggered by eating gluten.

    Instead, Colello spent the next seven years finding ways to get around gluten, a protein found in grains like wheat, rye, and barley (and thus most breads, bagels, and pastries). She perfected kettle-boiled bagels and pastry lamination before starting Flakely in 2017 as a wholesaler.

    Colello moved into the commercial kitchen at Krams Avenue in 2021, where customers have spent the last four years picking up buttery chocolate croissants, brown sugar morning buns, and crusty-yet-chewy bagels from a takeout window in an industrial parking lot. Inquirer restaurant critic Craig LaBan has called Colello’s bagels “the best he’s tasted outside of New York,” and in 2024, Flakely was voted one of the best gluten-free bakeries in the United States by USA Today.

    Lila Colello, owner and head baker at Flakely, helped patent a way to laminate gluten free dough for croissants.

    Flakely’s industrial Manayunk location has required some concessions, Colello said: The majority of their goodies are par-baked and frozen by Colello and three full-time employees for customers to take and bake at home. Otherwise, Colello explained, the lack of steady foot traffic would lead to lots of wasted product.

    Where to find stellar gluten-free breads, pastries, and desserts around Philly

    In Bryn Mawr, Flakely will be a fully functional takeout bakery with a pastry case full of fresh-baked goods, from full-sized baguettes and browned butter chocolate chip cookies to danishes and Colello’s signature sweet-and-savory croissants. A freezer will also include packs of Flakely’s take-and-bake doughs, bagels, and eventually, custom cake orders.

    Once she’s settled in, Colello said, she hopes to run gluten-free baking classes and pop-up dinners out of the storefront — offerings (besides the ingredients) that she hopes will differentiate her from other bakeries in the area.

    While the Main Line only has one dedicated gluten-free bakery (The Happy Mixer in Wayne), Lancaster Avenue is already lined with sweet shops: Malvern Buttery opened up a coffee and pastry combo down the street from Flakely in June, and Colello’s storefront is on the same strip as The Bakery House and an outpost of popular Korean-French chain Tous Les Jours.

    “My vision is for this to be a magical space where people can come in and leave with a fresh croissant, which people can’t really do” when they’re gluten-free, said Colello, who lives in Havertown. “We offer our customers things they miss. That’s kind of our thing.”

    Flakely owner Lila Colello poses in front of one of Flakely’s pink gluten free pastry ATMs, which vend take-and-bake goods at four locations in the Philly area.

    What about the pastry ATMs?

    The permanent storefront does not mean Flakely’s signature pink pastry ATMs will disappear, said Colello. But they will move.

    Colello installed Flakely’s first pastry vending machine inside South Philly’s now-shuttered Salt & Vinegar. With the tap or swipe of a credit card, the smart freezer would open to let customers choose their own take-and-bake pack of croissants, pop-tarts, muffins, or danishes. Using it felt like a sweet glimpse into the future.

    Flakely currently operates pastry ATMs inside Collingswood grocer Haddon Culinary, the Weaver’s Way Co-op in Ambler, Ardmore smoke shop Free Will Collective, and Irv’s Ice Cream in South Philly, where enterprising customers top their pastries with scoops fresh out the freezer.

    Irv’s ATM will make the move to Reap Wellness in Fishtown on Jan. 5 when the ice cream shop closes for the season, Colello said. And come February, the smoke shop’s ATM will transition to Lucky’s Trading Co., a food hall at 5154 Ridge Ave. in Roxborough. The hope, Colello said, is to space the locations out enough so she’s not competing with herself.

    “We’re finally in the middle of where everything is,” Colello said. “And that’s kind of the goal.”

    Flakely, 1007 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr, 484-450-6576. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday to Saturday.

  • The Philly concerts that’ll get you through Christmas week and into the new year

    The Philly concerts that’ll get you through Christmas week and into the new year

    This week in Philly music is all about the plentiful live music options on New Year’s Eve, including LL Cool J, Snacktime, Ben Arnold, Low Cut Connie, and Kindred the Family Soul.

    But before we get to the final blowout of 2025, there’s also some action with touring and local Philly bands in the days after Christmas. Not to mention: Wayne Newton!

    Friday, Dec. 26

    Wayne Newton

    Center City will become Sin City with this rare Philly appearance by the longtime denizen of the Las Vegas Strip. “Wayne Newton, Mr. Las Vegas: Memories and Melodies” is how the 83-year-old entertainer who released 165 albums in his day — and scored a signature hit in 1963 with “Danke Schoen” — bills the show he’s bringing to City Winery for two nights. (7 p.m., City Winery Philadelphia, 990 Filbert St., CityWinery.com/philadelphia)

    Saturday, Dec. 27

    Jealousy Curve / John Faye

    On Saturday at Underground Arts, Philly rock band Jealousy Curve shares a bill with John Faye, the longtime musician on the local scene. Faye played reunion dates with his ‘90s alt-rock band the Caulfields last month and was on stage at last week’s Pierre Robert tribute at the Fillmore as a member of David Uosikkinen’s band, In The Pocket. Faye’s latest is The Long Game, released on Uosikkinen’s ITP Entertainment last year. (8 p.m., Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St., undergroundarts.org)

    Gogol Bordello play the Archer Music Hall in Allentown on Dec. 28.

    Sunday, Dec. 28

    Gogol Bordello

    Gogol Bordello, and its charismatic Ukrainian American lead singer, Eugene Hutz, have a long tradition of playing Philly shows in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. This time, the New York punk band, which mixes Romani and traditional Ukrainian music into their raucous blend, is bound for a different Pennsylvania location with a date at Archer Music Hall, the new Live Nation venue in Allentown. (8 p.m. Archer Music Hall, 939 Hamilton St., Allentown, archermusichall.com)

    A Jam Without Borders

    Yesseh Furaha-Ali of Snacktime, Camden trumpeter Arnetta Johnson, and the Bul Bey are among the artists who’ll be playing at Ortlieb’s at this event hosted by Corey Bernhard and Friends. It’s a fundraiser for Philadelphia families impacted by ICE. (8 p.m., Ortlieb’s, 847 N. Third St., ortliebsphilly.com)

    Monday, Dec. 29

    “Fear of Heights”

    Philly rocker Alan Mann regularly played South Street clubs like J.C. Dobbs and Ripley Music Hall before his death in 1987. Rich Murray, who directed the video for Mann’s song “Christmas on the Block,” which became the first indie video played on MTV and a subsequent Philly holiday music favorite, has made a documentary about his relationship with Mann and his legacy. Called Fear of Heights, the movie, which begins with a 2015 clip of the late DJ Pierre Robert dropping the needle on “Christmas on the Block” on WMMR-FM (93.3), will have its Philly premiere at Film Society East. It will be followed by a discussion with Murray and his co-filmmakers moderated by WMGK-FM DJ Cindy Drue. (7 p.m., Film Society East, 125 S. Second St., filmadelphia.org)

    Low Cut Connie at Concerts Under the Stars in King of Prussia on Aug. 1, 2025. Left to right: Rich Stanley, Nick Perri, Adam Weiner, Jarae Lewis (on drums, partially hidden), Amanda “Rocky” Bullwinkel, and Kelsey Cork. The band will play Ardmore Music Hall on Dec. 30 and 31.

    Tuesday, Dec. 30

    Dark Star Orchestra

    The longstanding Grateful Dead tribute band is marking the transition from 2025 to 2026 on a short East Coast tour, which includes a date at Franklin Music Hall on NYE’s eve. (8 p.m., Franklin Music Hall, 421 N. Seventh St., franklinmusichall.com)

    The Samples

    And for a further jam band experience, veteran Colorado 10-piece band the Samples, which blends a Dead influence with more pop-rock shadings, does two nights at 118 North in Wayne. (8 p.m., 118 North, 118 N. Wayne Ave., Wayne, 118 NorthWayne.com)

    Low Cut Connie

    Adam Weiner and Miss Rocky of Low Cut Connie distinguished themselves with their take on David Bowie’s “Young Americans” at last week’s Pierre Robert tribute. Let’s hope they put it in the playlist for their two end-of-the-year blowouts on Dec. 30 and New Year’s Eve.

    The band didn’t put out a new album this year but had an eventful 2025, getting caught up in to pop-and-politics brouhahas in D.C. and Luzerne County, and releasing some high-quality protest songs. Bluegrass band Shelby Means Trio, led by the eponymous bassist formerly in Molly Tuttle’s band, opens on Tuesday, and Philly rock and roller Roberta Faceplant opens Wednesday. (8 p.m., Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, ardmoremusichall.com)

    LL Cool J will headline a free concert on the Ben Franklin Parkway on New Year’s Eve. The show will also feature DJ Jazzy Jeff, Adam Blackstone, and Dorothy.

    Wednesday, Dec. 31

    LL Cool J, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Adam Blackstone

    This is the big new party on the Parkway and maybe the start of a new Philadelphia tradition? The city will officially usher in the year of the Semiquicentennial with its first-ever free NYE music and fireworks spectacle. Rock and Roll Hall of Famer and “Mama Said Knock You Out” hitmaker LL Cool J is making good on his commitment to play Philly after he opted out of this year’s July 4 Welcome America show in solidarity with striking municipal city workers. DJ Jazzy Jeff is, of course, the master of the Wheel of Steel, and Adam Blackstone has become one of the leading ambassadors for Philly music, and plans to debut a new civic pride song called “Brotherly Love” at the show. Dorothy and Technician the DJ are also on the bill. (8 p.m., Benjamin Franklin Parkway, phila.gov)

    Snacktime

    Philly R&B and soul party band par excellence Snacktime is the NYE Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia house band. This is the third consecutive year that the horn-happy outfit has closed out the season at the Fishtown bowling alley/music venue. The band that started out busking in Rittenhouse Square during the pandemic has a new single. It is a sweetly sung and inventively arranged version of Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” (8 p.m., Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia, 1009 Canal St., brooklynbowl.com/philadelphia)

    Ben Arnold

    Ben Arnold was another standout at this month’s tribute to the late Pierre Robert. The Philly songwriter covered Robert Hazard’s “Change Reaction” and then led a singalong finale of the Youngbloods’ “Get Together.” Arnold put out a top-shelf album called XI this year, featuring the terrific single “Catch the Lightning,” and also toured Europe with the band U.S. Rails. He’ll be singing his own songs and some by U.S. Rails at his Kelly Center NYE show in Havertown. (7:30 p.m., Kelly Center, 4 E. Eagle Road, Havertown, kellycenter.org.)

    Kindred the Family Soul performs on the Presser Stage during The Roots Picnic Day 2 at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts on June 4, 2023. The group will do two shows at the City Winery Philadelphia on New Year’s Eve.

    Kindred the Family Soul

    The wife-and-husband team of Aja Graydon and Fatin Dantzler appeared last month at the Met Philly with John Legend, with whom they shared salad days at the Black Lily showcases in the early 00s. The veteran neo-soul act is back as City Winery NYE headliners, playing early and late shows at the Filbert Street club on Thursday. (7 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. City Winery Philadelphia, 990 Filbert St., citywinery.com/philadelphia)

    Felice Brothers plays Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia on Jan. 2.

    Friday, Jan. 2

    Felice Bros.

    Upstate New York-born sibling act the Felice Brothers’ winning, ramshackle sound has mixed folk and rock and roll into a satisfying blend over the course of 10 albums. The most recent is 2024’s The Valley of Abandoned Songs. Brother Ian and James Felice make their annual holiday season stop at Brooklyn Bowl Philly on Friday, with Canadian songwriter Charlotte Cornfield opening. (8 p.m., Brooklyn Bowl Philadelphia, 1009 Canal St., brooklynbowl.com/philadelphia)

    Candy Volcano

    Philly Loves Bowie Week will kick off with two shows by tribute band Candy Volcano at Ardmore Music Hall. The first show will be at WXPN-FM Free at Noon, and then a nighttime show at the venue in which the band will cover Bowie’s 1976 album Station to Station. (Noon, Ardmore Music Hall, 23 E. Lancaster Ave., Ardmore, xpn.org/freeatnoon, and 8 p.m., ardmoremusichall.com)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Specific holiday wishes

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Holiday gripes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    The customers

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Year of the Philly crime show

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

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

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

    Gearing up for Rocky 50

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

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

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

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

    The Film Society’s big year

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

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

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

    The very busy Colman Domingo

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

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

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

    Local actors and filmmakers shine

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

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

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

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

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

    No theater loss

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Indie-delphia

    It was also an eventful year for local independent film.

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

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

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

    Documenting sports stars

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

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

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

    Remembering David Lynch

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

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