I am not a huge fan of comic books and superheroes, but I appreciate the storytelling. In comics, the origin story is just as important as the hero saving the day. The same is true for Black History Month, which originated as Negro History Week.
Negro History Week was created by Carter G. Woodson, the child of two formerly enslaved parents. According to Harvard historian Jarvis R. Givens, Woodson was taught by his two uncles, John and James Riddle, his mother Anne Riddle’s brothers, who had also been enslaved. Both had been educated in a Freedmen School toward the end of Reconstruction, and they became Woodson’s first teachers.
“As a student, [Woodson] witnessed the shared vulnerability of Black people through the story of his teachers and family,” writes Givens. “These first encounters taught Woodson more than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. He also inherited a political orientation to schooling informed by the lived history of the teachers standing before him … Here, Woodson encountered the project of Black education.”
The historian and author Carter G. Woodson is widely regarded as the father of what has become Black History Month. Much of the observance’s origin can be traced to Philadelphia, writes Rann Miller.
That project, which continues to this day, was the equipping of Black people with the practical knowledge to do a thing, and the historical memory to understand why they do it. This was the basis with which Woodson founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) in 1915 and created Negro History Week in 1926, as a time for Black people to not only learn about Black history, but to take the time to reflect on it.
In Woodson’s words: “It is evident from the numerous calls for orators during Negro History Week that schools and their administrators do not take the study of the Negro seriously enough to use Negro History Week as a short period for demonstrating what the students have learned in their study of the Negro during the whole school year.”
A mural honoring W.E.B. Du Bois on a firehouse at Sixth and South Streets in Philadelphia. He was an early advocate of Black history events.
The first Negro History Week took place from Feb. 7 to 13, 1926. The Philadelphia Tribune, in an article published Feb. 6, 1926, said: “It is essential to the future growth of the Negro race that we become acquainted with our past … We have passed the point in our advancement where we can afford to disregard our history.” That sentiment remains true today.
In April 1928, the Germantown YMCA hosted an event called Negro Achievement Week for the Germantown community, featuring such prominent African Americans as Alain Locke, W.E.B. Du Bois, and James Weldon Johnson. The week’s events received little media attention but were robust, including a mass community meeting, a music night, an art night, and a history lecture, held in both Germantown and Center City, according to David Young, director of the Historical Society of Montgomery County.
The events were aimed at educating white people, as well, with Du Bois’ pointedly noting that “he reminded the whites too often of their injustice to the Negro.”
Planning for Negro Achievement Week in Philadelphia began in 1923 at the “Black Branch” of the Germantown YMCA, known as the “Colored Y,” under the guidance of Olivia Yancey Taylor and Eva del Vakia Bowles.
Members of the Colored Y formed an interracial committee to plan the week’s activities, including a variety of African American heritage events.
The first Negro Achievement Week, which became Negro History Week, happened in 1925, influenced by a partnership between Woodson and members of the Black fraternity Omega Psi Phi, who created Negro History and Literature Week, first celebrated in April of 1921.
“Celebrations took the form of public programs in churches, schools, and events partnering with literary societies,” according to Givens. “Given the success of the program, a committee was established in 1923 to outline a strategic plan: to develop plans for fostering the study of Negro History in the schools and colleges of the country.”
The week subsequently became a shared project between Woodson and Black schoolteachers.
While Negro Achievement Week in Philadelphia didn’t take place after 1928, Negro History Week continued nationwide because Black people understood that they were past “the point in our advancement where we can afford to disregard our history.”
Although President Gerald Ford officially expanded Negro History Week to become Black History Month in 1976, Black communities had already done so on their own, believing one week was not sufficient to contain their history.
Philadelphia stands proudly in that tradition — from the Colored Y to educator Nellie Bright. Thanks to Carter G. Woodson and countless Black educators, their vision endures a century later.
Rann Miller is an educator and freelance writer based in southern New Jersey. His “Urban Education Mixtape” blog supports urban educators and parents of children attending urban schools. urbanedmixtape.com@RealRannMiller
What’s changed for chef Nicholas Bazik in the weeks since his Society Hill restaurant, Provenance, earned a coveted star from the Michelin Guide?
Everything.
And nothing.
“There’s this strange duality to it,” says Bazik. “It’s like a complete life-changing event. … But at the same time, the day-to-day is exactly the same. It’s just a little more amplified and there’s more things to do.”
Bazik’s Provenance was one of three local restaurants to be awarded a Michelin star in November, and already, the accolade has brought lots of things: National acclaim, a rush on reservations, and a plaque (yet to be delivered) that will be displayed inside the restaurant, which opened in 2024.
Then there’s the pressure that comes with earning the culinary world’s highest honor.
“The restaurant industry in and of itself is unique, because at every step, every milestone that you get, it just means that there’s more work to do — and more pressure,” Bazik says. “Having a Michelin star means that everyone coming through the door is seeing you as that thing, so there’s no time to let [up].”
The one exception might be Sundays, when the restaurant is closed and Bazik can finally take a breath. It’s a day that, for him, revolves almost entirely around family — though food, not surprisingly, also plays a supporting role.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
7:30 a.m.
I normally wake up around 7:30, which is around the time my 4-year-old son wakes up.
In my previous job, prior to me going on paternity leave, the owner gave me a gift certificate to a coffee company, saying, “You should get yourself an espresso machine because you’re going to need it.” That was one of the best, most thoughtful gifts I’ve received from an employer. It’s a Jura espresso/coffee machine, and I use that everyday.
Then we’re going to Sulimay’s. It’s as close to a perfect diner as it gets. The food is great, the service is great, the space is unique to Philadelphia. Any breakfast spot, I always get the same thing which is two eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns, and rye toast.
10 a.m.
I’ll spend some time at the farmers market at Headhouse Square, which is largely how I like to shape my menus and figure out exactly what’s seasonal, what’s on offer, what’s relevant, what’s good. My family’s with me, and I’ll do shopping there for the restaurant and I’ll also do some shopping for home.
My son and my wife will go to Three Bears Park, which is around the corner from us, and I’ll go meet up with them there, and we’ll play and then go back home for a light lunch with some of the things that we got at the market.
1 p.m.
After lunch, we’ll go to Adventure Aquarium in Camden. My son is just obsessed with everything aquatic. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of sharks and fish and whales. We love going there — it doesn’t matter if we’re looking at the same fish every single time, he loves it. So we’ll go there for an hour, and make our next move, which is somewhere outdoors.
2-4 p.m.
Ideally, we’d make two stops. We’d go to Lemon Hill, which is where my wife and I got married, and then go to Wissahickon Park — so essentially try to spend the whole afternoon in a green space.
To be able to travel from Center City and 15 minutes later be in a green, open space with trees and wildlife, it’s incredible.
5 p.m.
Because our son is 4 now, he has the full capability of selecting what he wants to eat for dinner, so we leave it up to him. And we essentially go to one of two places: Kim’s Restaurant in North Philly, which is the oldest charcoal grilled Korean barbecue spot. The other one is Mr. Joe’s restaurant, which is my son’s name for Picnic in Fishtown.
For our purposes, Picnic is the perfect restaurant. It has chicken, french fries (my son’s favorite food group), oysters, and green salad. We get the same thing every single time, and we go enough that we should have a designated table.
6 p.m.
It’s time to go home and start the bedtime routine. We do shampoo time, and it’s the only time that my son watches any sort of TV. We’ll watch 20 or 30 minutes of something — normally a deep-sea documentary or a solar system documentary.
Then from 9-10 p.m., my wife and I get to talk about what’s happening that week — what’s happening with him at school, what events are coming up that week, giving her a proper heads up on what’s happening at work, because everything happens so fast that it’s sometimes hard to keep up.
And ideally, it’s in bed by 10 p.m., and then it’s start the week the next day.
I invited two other Inquirer fathers to discuss this submitted question, which is haunting the slight slopes of our region as the snow sticks around.
Have a question of your own? Or an opinion? Email me.
Evan Weiss, Deputy Features Editor
OK, the question is…
Every time we go sledding, my kids somehow inevitably lose a sled. And every time, there seem to be extra, unclaimed sleds lying around. Is taking one of those stealing (from a child!), or just part of the karmic redistribution of sleds?
Mike Newall, Life & Culture Reporter
Nark is a woodsman. He probably whittles sleds while eating tins of premade forest food.
Jason Nark, Life & Culture Reporter
Ha. When I think of sledding, as a child, it was rough business. No parents around. There were fights. Blood. Nothing worse than an older kid asking to “borrow” your sled.
I sled at the same place for years, so I never would have thought of taking a sled.
Mike Newall
Same. I’m pretty sure the old wooden sled in my house growing up first appeared in It’s a Wonderful Life. Ancient. Wooden. Rusted. We did the garbage can lid thing too. We sled in an enclosed grassy area adjacent to a belt parkway off-ramp. No parents. Chaos.
Jason Nark
Later I moved to a golf-course community (I didn’t want to) that was also one of South Jersey’s biggest sledding destinations. There were lots of sleds left behind after a few days but most were broken.
I don’t think I would have ever considered taking one, unless it was very nice… then I’d probably post it in a Facebook group to try to find the owner.
Mike Newall
I’m a city parent myself now. Every big storm, I inevitably wake up in a panic and think, “Oh no, we don’t have a sled. Where and how shall my boy sled?” So I run to five stores, buy the only sled available, rush him to some grassy lot with an incline, and push him down. Boom. My boy sleds. If the sled makes it home, it’s a bonus.
Those sleds were left for a reason. Either the kid was crying and hated it. Or the parents left it. Either way, look at it like one of those free library stands, except for sleds.
Evan Weiss
But I can’t imagine taking one home. What if, as you’re walking away, a little kid yells, “Hey, that’s my sled!”
Mike Newall
I just mean, if there are a few clearly discarded sleds, then use away. Like if there’s an old ball at the playground. Use it!
We live in a tiny rowhouse. Who wants a $14 plastic sled eating up valuable basement space? I’m not naturally wasteful. But no problem group-sharing sleds. Just use it and leave it.
Evan Weiss
So leave it? Don’t take it?
Jason Nark
I think so, yeah.
Mike Newall
Yeah, that would be plain-old sled-stealing.
Evan Weiss
Borrow for the hill, not for the home.
Mike Newall
(Unless, it’s a really nice sled that you just have to have. Kidding. Maybe.)
This isn’t a typical report card item, and it shouldn’t be.
This week made it impossible not to understand who Dan McQuade was — and how deeply he mattered to Philadelphia — just by reading what people shared about the journalist and Philadelphia superfan after he died of cancer this week at age 43.
Colleagues, friends, editors, and readers kept circling the same truths: how funny he was, how kind he was, how precise his understanding of the city felt. Not in a forced or caricatured way, but in the way that comes from paying close attention, loving a place, and never taking it (or yourself) too seriously.
Dan had a gift for finding meaning in the everyday. He treated Philly’s quirks, tics, and absurdities not as punchlines to exploit, but as things worth documenting, celebrating, and occasionally poking fun at with affection. He gave people permission to laugh at the city without laughing at it. That’s harder than it sounds.
His impact was everywhere this week: in stories about Rocky runs and boardwalk T-shirts, in memories of long happy hours that turned into lifelong friendships, in anecdotes about him being the go-to fact-checker for all things Philly, in the way people described him as both brilliant and generous. A writer who made others better. A friend who showed up. A presence that made rooms, and timelines, lighter.
The tributes weren’t performative or flowery. They were specific. Personal. Grounded. Which feels fitting. McQuade’s work was never about being loud or self-important. It was about noticing things, connecting dots, and reminding people that there’s joy, and humor, in paying attention to where you live.
Philadelphia lost a journalist. But it also lost one of its clearest interpreters. Someone who understood that “Philadelphianness” isn’t a brand or a gimmick, but a way of moving through the world with skepticism, warmth, and a well-timed joke.
An A+ doesn’t feel like enough. But it feels right to say this much: Philly is better for having had Dan McQuade in it. And it won’t quite be the same without him.
A man shovels snow from underneath his car after it became hung up while trying to park in the middle of South Broad Street in the early morning hours of Jan. 28, 2026. Dump trucks filled with snow from the city’s snow removal operations were zooming by as he worked to get his car free.
The snowstorm delivered. The plowing did not: F-
Let’s be clear: The snow itself did what snow is supposed to do. Nine-plus inches, pretty at first, historic enough to brag about, disruptive enough to cancel plans and spark group-chat meteorology. Fine. That’s winter.
What came after? That’s where everything fell apart.
The city promised differently. Mayor Cherelle L. Parker stood in front of cameras before the storm and said every street would get attention “as long as it takes.” That message mattered because Philadelphians have heard this story before, and expectations were deliberately raised.
Then reality hit.
Plow data show roughly a quarter of city streets got no treatment at all after the storm ended. Not plowed. Not salted. Nothing. And the longer it sat, the worse it got — snow compacting into ice, intersections blocked by frozen berms, cars effectively entombed.
This isn’t just an inconvenience. People with limited mobility are stuck. Workers can’t get out. Streets department explanations about sleet, freezing rain, and illegally parked cars may be true, but they don’t change the fact that many blocks are still uncleared a week later.
This is the part where Philly frustration kicks in hardest: The storm wasn’t unprecedented, but the response feels familiar in the worst way. The expectation has long been “don’t count on a plow,” and this week did little to change that.
New York tries to claim ‘Delco.’ Pennsylvania says absolutely not: A
Every so often, something happens that instantly unites Delco. Snowstorms. Eagles runs. Wawa shortages. And now: a county in upstate New York attempting to brand itself as “Delco.”
Absolutely not.
Stephanie Farr laid out the case perfectly: Delco isn’t just shorthand for Delaware County. It’s a culture. A personality. A way of life built on hoagie trays, Catholic school rivalries, beach flags, and a shared, deeply ingrained chip on the shoulder.
New York’s Delaware County is rural. Ours is suburban chaos packed into 184 square miles, powered by Wawa coffee, tailgating energy, and a pride so aggressive it gets tattooed on bodies and planted in Jersey Shore sand like a territorial marker.
The funniest part isn’t that there’s another Delaware County (there are several). It’s that this one thought it could simply adopt the nickname, slap it on merch, and call it authenticity. That’s not how Delco works. Delco is earned.
A Center City District worker cleaning the sidewalk on Broad Street the morning after the Philadelphia Eagles won the NFC Championship.
Center City West sidewalks are getting grimy (and it’s not your imagination): C
For nearly a decade, a lot of Center City West quietly benefited from something most people never realized existed: a privately funded sidewalk cleaning program that swooped in after city trash pickup and handled the leftover mess.
Asthe Fitler Focus reported, that program ended when the Center City Residents’ Association let its contract expire at the end of 2025. Not out of neglect, but necessity. The cost had ballooned to about 41% of CCRA’s projected 2026 budget, which is an unsustainable chunk for what was essentially backstopping city services.
The result has been immediate and visible. Trash bags torn open overnight. Litter lingering days after pickup. Sidewalks that used to reset themselves now just… don’t. CCRA deserves credit for being upfront about the trade-off and pivoting toward enforcement, even if it won’t bring immediate results.
The frustrating part is that the rules haven’t changed. Trash placement regulations exist. Containers are required. Enforcement is technically possible. But in reality, it’s complaint-driven, slow, and uneven. Meaning the difference between a clean block and a gross one often comes down to who has the time and energy to call 311 and wait on hold.
Eagles linebacker Jaelan Phillips (left) and defensive end Brandon Graham during warm-ups before the Eagles play the Los Angeles Chargers on Dec. 8, 2025 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
Eagles fans agree on almost everything — except the part that actually hurts: B
In this year’s Inquirer Stay or Go poll, Eagles fans were unusually aligned on who still feels like the future: young defensive studs, the offensive line pillars, the rookies who look like actual hits. Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell clearing 96% stay feels less like optimism and more like self-preservation. The message is clear: The defense isn’t the problem. Or at least, it’s not our problem.
Where things get interesting is offense. Not because fans are confused, but because they’re suddenly colder. Jalen Hurts is still trusted, but not untouchable. A.J. Brown’s dip is real and telling: not rage, not rejection, just disappointment, Philly’s least favorite emotion. Fans didn’t turn on him. They just stopped defending him reflexively, which in this city is its own warning sign.
And then there’s Brandon Graham, the emotional Rorschach test of the poll. A franchise legend. A locker room heartbeat. A guy people want to want back. The split vote says everything: respect battling reality. Philly loves its icons, but it hates lying to itself more.
No one landed in the mushy middle. Fans know who they’re done with. They know who they’re attached to. There’s little patience left for “maybe.”
This wasn’t a meltdown poll. It was a sorting exercise. And the conclusion fans keep circling is uncomfortable but consistent: The Eagles don’t need vibes. They need clarity — and probably a few hard goodbyes.
The Inquirer mapped Philly’s dive bars (and proved how much the city loves them): A
When The Inquirer put out a call for Philly’s favorite dive bars, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Nearly 400 submissions poured in, which tracks for a city where dive bars aren’t just places to drink. They’re personal landmarks.
What the map really shows isn’t just where to grab a cheap beer. It’s how attached people are to the bars that feel like theirs. The ones tied to first jobs, postgame rituals, bad breakups, good Tuesdays, and nights that went exactly nowhere and somehow mattered anyway. These are rooms where nobody’s performing, the prices are low on purpose, and the atmosphere is set by regulars, not a concept.
It also surfaced one of Philly’s most reliable debates: Is being called a dive bar a compliment or an insult? Some owners bristle at the label. Others embrace it. Many bars live in the gray area: cheap, unpretentious, deeply loved, and absolutely uninterested in how they’re categorized. Very Philly.
Are there bars missing? Of course. There always will be. Philly has too many neighborhood institutions, and too many people willing to argue for them, for any list to feel definitive. But that’s not a failure of the map, it’s a feature of the city.
This isn’t a checklist. It’s a snapshot of how much Philadelphians still value places that don’t try to be anything other than what they are.
Snow savesies are back, and Philly is absolutely feral about it: C+
Every major snowstorm in Philly brings back the same question we never resolve: If you shovel out a spot, is it yours, or is public parking still public? This week’s viral Reddit thread, sparked by a wooden chair left in a shoveled space with a handwritten threat (“Move these chairs & I will destroy your car. Try me.”), confirms we are once again incapable of calm thought.
Some commenters were immediately in the respect the chair camp. One wrote, “After digging my s— out from snow past my knees I just want to one time come back to a spot,” while another argued, “Normally vehemently anti-savesies, but I feel like spending an hour digging out earns you a [savesie] or two.” This group is running on sore backs, wet boots, and pure principle.
Then there’s the other side: the chaos agents. “I’d move the chair and watch someone else park there,” one commenter said, which feels less like civic engagement and more like performance art. Another proudly added, “I take peoples cones all the time when I’m walking around. F— em.” (This explains so much.)
Somewhere in the middle were people admitting the quiet truth: Everyone dug out a spot. “The person who’s parked there dug out their car this morning, too,” one commenter noted, puncturing the idea that only one hero labored for the block.
So where does that leave us? With a very Philly stalemate. The chair is obnoxious. The threat is unhinged. The labor is real. The fear of retaliation is realer.
I spoke with a Friends School class this week, primarily about my photos decades ago of unhoused men in Center City. It was part of their week working with PhotoVoice, a research method where participants photograph their own lives to highlight community strengths and challenges, and advocate for social change.
After the class, and following many thoughtful questions from the middle schoolers about how in general I approach people before I photograph them, and specifically people in vulnerable situations, a student came up to ask me a more practical question: “How do you take pictures in bad weather?”
Pedestrians and plows on Rt. 70 in Cherry Hill in Januiary, 2018.
I don’t have an all-weather, sealed camera, so besides dressing as best I can for the conditions (and always having a spare pair of thick, dry wool socks in my car) keeping my camera protected is the biggest priority. I not only need to stave off mechanical/electronic breakdown, but have to keep my lens clear of the elements.
I told him I do have a dedicated rain sleeve but I’ve only used it once or twice at rainy sporting events (they’re priced from $2 each up to $200).
Mostly I use plastic bags or a large umbrellas (watching that I not catch the edges in my frame). I also try to find dry areas to stand in — while watching and photographing others out in the elements. I seek cover under a roof, awning, or doorway. I go into parking garages or subway entrances.
The glass entrance to SEPTA’s underground concourse at Dilworth Park by City Hall.
Sometimes I safely park my car where I can briefly open my leeward (downwind!) window. Other times the rain or snow on glass can even be an effective way to portray the “dab” weather. It can be in or out of focus to create a bokeh-like effect or blurred to convey mood. Your choice of a fast shutter or slow shutter can either stop the drops or show their movement.
Precipitation — some snow and some rain — falls on cars in a parking lot on City Avenue.
I’ve covered all of the biggest storms of the past few decades, including the historic “Blizzard of the Century” thirty years ago this month.
Front page and inside photos from The Philadelphia Inquirer. January 8, 1996.
So, I took my own advice while preparing to go out last Sunday. Knowing the roads would get worse as the day went on, I drove out of my South Jersey neighborhood while an early pass of the plows left main arteries somewhat passable, and headed straight to the nearest Wawa that I knew would have a clear-ish parking lot.
Stepping out from under the overhang — I made a few photos before walking out into on the wide street to get the few passing cars and plowing crews in a nearby shopping center.
Carmen Roman clears snow off her car at a Cherry Hill Wawa early Sunday morning, Jan. 25, 2026, as heavy snow bands move through the region generating snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches an hour.
From there, confirming my fears the roads would be more difficult to drive on, I headed the Westmont PATCO station, finding a safe place to park even as workers were hard at it, clearing the lot.
I made photos from the elevated platform before taking a train to Collingswood, where — standing on the leeward side of the stairwell shelter — I took more pictures then walked into downtown.
Haddon Avenue was plowed and relatively empty of cars, but the sidewalks were impassible. I sent in my best photo of people walking along the middle of the downtown street.
It was then I saw Mike Doveton and his daughters. Not wanting to repeat my earlier image, I asked if they were headed to or from sledding.
They were walking to the PATCO station to sled in Haddonfield, so I tagged along.
On the train headed to sled.
I went with them to their destination, but didn’t want another kids-on-a-hill photo, so I got back on the train returning to the Westmont station, and my car, calling it a day. Until I saw someone digging out their car — the same one I had photographed hours earlier. I got as close as I could to the spot on the platform and made an “after” photo.
Before and after in the Westmont PATCO station parking lot.
Luis Nova had left his car there on Friday, and was in Philadelphia all weekend helping friends move and going to a goodbye party. He spent the morning sledding with friends in Clark Park in West Philadelphia. Like me, he had experience with storms. “I spent four years in Rochester [NY],” he told me. “So I knew what I was signing up for and was ready. I left all my equipment to get myself out.”
But the highlight of the day was at the very end, as I headed for home as the snow was turning to sleet. Two hours earlier, in the middle of the storm my grandson snapped a photo out our front window of an Elmo head in the middle of the street before the wind blew it away, and shared the picture with our family. As I approached my house, I see a red ball rolling fast down the street toward me. I almost drove into a snow bank laughing.
Not really, but I did pull into the driveway, grab a camera, jump out of my car and go chasing after it. The wind was really moving it, and I couldn’t see where it was, which was hard to imagine, being as the road and everything else was all white. I came up to a couple of guys shoveling and asked, “Did you see an Elmo head come this way?” They had, and said it went up a driveway and jumped onto the sidewalk. I found it and just as I was lining up my photo the wind took it again and it started spinning.
Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
January 26, 2026: The President’s House in Independence National Historical Park hours Jan, 22, after all historical exhibits were removed following President Trump’s Executive Order last March that the content at national parks that “inappropriately disparage” the U.S. be reviewed. The site, a reconstructed “ghost” structure titled “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010), serves as a memorial to the nine people George Washington enslaved there during the founding of America.January 19, 2026: A low-in-the-sky winter sun is behind the triangular pediment of the “front door” of the open-air President’s House installation in Independence National Historical Park. The reconstructed “ghost” structure with partial walls and windows of the Georgian home known in the 18th century as 190 High St. is officially titled, “Freedom and Slavery in the Making of a New Nation” (2010). It is designed to give visitors a sense of the house where the first two presidents of the United States, George Washington and John Adams, served their terms of office. The commemorative site designed by Emanuel Kelly, with Kelly/Maiello Architects, pays homage to nine enslaved people of African descent who were part of the Washington household with videos scripted by Lorene Cary and directed by Louis Massiah. Deepika Iyer holds her niece Ira Samudra aloft in a Rockyesque pose, while her parents photograph their 8 month-old daughter, in front of the famous movie prop at the top of the steps at the Philadelphia Art Museum. Iyer lives in Philadelphia and is hosting a visit by her mother Vijayalakshmi Ramachandran (partially hidden); brother Gautham Ramachandran; and her sister-in-law Janani Gautham who all live in Bangalore, India.January 5, 2026: Parade marshals trail behind the musicians of the Greater Kensington String Band heading to their #9 position start in the Mummers Parade. Spray paint by comic wenches earlier in the day left “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers” shadows on the pavement of Market Street. This year marked the 125th anniversary of Philly’s iconic New Year’s Day celebration.Dec. 29, 2025: Canada geese at sunrise in Evans Pond in Haddonfield, during the week of the Winter Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere. December 22, 2025: SEPTA trolley operator Victoria Daniels approaches the end of the Center City Tunnel, heading toward the 40th Street trolley portal after a tour to update the news media on overhead wire repairs in the closed tunnel due to unexpected issues from new slider parts.December 15, 2025: A historical interpreter waits at the parking garage elevators headed not to a December crossing of the Delaware River, but an event at the National Constitution Center. General George Washington was on his way to an unveiling of the U.S. Mint’s new 2026 coins for the Semiquincentennial, December 8, 2025: The Benjamin Franklin Bridge and pedestrians on the Delaware River Trail are reflected in mirrored spheres of the “Weaver’s Knot: Sheet Bend” public artwork on Columbus Boulevard. The site-specific stainless steel piece located between the Cherry Street and Race Street Piers was commissioned by the City’s Public Art Office and the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation and created and installed in 2022 by the design and fabrication group Ball-Nogues Studio. The name recalls a history that dominated the region for hundreds of years. “Weaver’s knot” derives from use in textile mills and the “Sheet bend” or “sheet knot” was used on sailing vessels for bending ropes to sails. November 29, 2025: t’s ginkgo time in our region again when the distinctive fan-shaped leaves turn yellow and then, on one day, lose all their leaves at the same time laying a carpet on city streets and sidewalks. A squirrel leaps over leaves in the 18th Century Garden in Independence National Historical Park Nov. 25, 2025. The ginkgo (Ginkgo biloba) is considered a living fossil as it’s the only surviving species of a group of trees that existed before dinosaurs. Genetically, it has remained unchanged over the past 200 million years. William Hamilton, owner the Woodlands in SW Phila (no relation to Alexander Hamilton) brought the first ginkgo trees to North America in 1785.November 24, 2025: The old waiting room at 30th Street Station that most people only pass through on their way to the restrooms has been spiffed up with benches – and a Christmas tree. It was placed there this year in front of the 30-foot frieze, “The Spirit of Transportation” while the lobby of Amtrak’s $550 million station restoration is underway. The 1895 relief sculpture by Karl Bitter was originally hung in the Broad Street Station by City Hall, but was moved in 1933. It depicts travel from ancient to modern and even futuristic times. November 17, 2025: Students on a field trip from the Christian Academy in Brookhaven, Delaware County, pose for a group photo in front of the Liberty Bell in Independence National Historical Park on Thursday. The trip was planned weeks earlier, before they knew it would be on the day park buildings were reopening after the government shutdown ended. “We got so lucky,” a teacher said. Then corrected herself. “It’s because we prayed for it.” November 8, 2025: Multitasking during the Festival de Día de Muertos – Day of the Dead – in South Philadelphia.November 1, 2025: Marcy Boroff is at City Hall dressed as a Coke can, along with preschoolers and their caregivers, in support of former Mayor Jim Kenney’s 2017 tax on sweetened beverages. City Council is considering repealing the tax, which funds the city’s pre-K programs. October 25, 2025: Austin Gabauer, paint and production assistant at the Johnson Atelier, in Hamilton Twp, N.J. as the finished “O” letter awaits the return to Philadelphia. The “Y” part of the OY/YO sculpture is inside the painting booth. The well-known sculpture outside the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History was removed in May while construction continues on Market Street and has been undergoing refurbishment at the Atelier at the Grounds for Sculpture outside of Trenton.
More than two dozen Philadelphia-area real estate professionals helped arrange $45 million worth of questionable deals around Temple University in which student rentals that had sat on the market for months abruptly sold for about double their asking prices, an Inquirer investigation has found.
In 52 settled or still-pending sales over roughly the last year, apartment buildings were listed for sale at an average price of $450,000, but found no takers. Within days of being re-listed for a higher price, the same properties sold for as much as $905,000 — at least on paper — to buyers who took out mortgages that far exceeded the original asking price.
Eight sellers or their agents now say they entered into the deals with the understanding that they would actually receive close to the original asking price — not the much higher amount that was officially listed on deeds and other public records. And an appraiser said that real estate agents on both sides of a proposed deal tried to pressure him to raise the valuation of a property.
The sales have raised concerns about possible mortgage fraud in the area around Temple, which could lead to a spate of foreclosures and affect property assessments, tax bills, and student rentals. At least one such property has gone into foreclosure over an unpaid mortgage, according to court records.
Solomon Wisenberg, a former assistant U.S. attorney in North Carolina and Texas who specialized in white-collar crime and bank fraud, said the people involved in the deals could face scrutiny from criminal investigators.
“I don’t know any fraud prosecutor who wouldn’t be interested in looking at that,” Wisenberg said. “Settlement statements have to reflect reality. If you don’t present an accurate picture to the financial institution that is financing the loan, you’ve got problems.”
Patrick C. Fay, a real estate agent in Coldwell Banker’s Old City office, was involved in every deal, representing at least seven buyers who purchased the properties through limited liability companies. One of those buyers had been convicted of an earlier mortgage fraud scheme.
Pat Fay had been one of the top real estate agents last in Coldwell Banker’s Old City office. His clients have purchased properties around Temple University — at twice the listing price.
Coldwell Banker cut ties with Fay in December, hours after The Inquirer published a story concerning 33 of his deals around Temple.
But Fay had a counterpart on the other side of every transaction. They included agents at major brokerages such as Keller Williams, Long & Foster, and eXp — as well as three agents who worked in the same Coldwell office as Fay and helped him close 13 sales.
Coldwell Banker’s national office said this month that it has launched an internal investigation into the matter.
Fay, who was one of the top agents in his Coldwell office, has denied wrongdoing. He declined to discuss specific sales.
“In my over 20 years in real estate, I have maintained an unblemished record with no ethical violations or complaints filed against me,” Fay wrote in a text message last week. “These claims are without merit.”
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Steve Orbanek, a spokesperson for Temple University, said the university learned about the situation from The Inquirer’s previous report and is now investigating possible impacts on its student renters.
“It goes without saying that the university condemns any unlawful behavior, and we find these allegations deeply concerning, both for our students and neighbors who reside in the community,” he said.
‘Fat Pay’
Fay, of Moorestown, Burlington County, started arranging deals in December 2024 to purchase apartment buildings around Temple University that owners had been struggling to sell.
The value of those properties, which are largely marketed as student rentals, has fallen in recent years. A local landlords association said vacancy rates are up and rents down amid declining enrollment at the university, which has shed 10,000 students in under a decade.
Fay, who has used the handle “Fat Pay” on social media, had buyers willing to make a deal. However, in multiple cases identified by The Inquirer, that was true only after the sellers and their real estate agents agreed to sign a deed showing that the property had sold for much more than the original asking price.
Joelle Delprete, a former Temple grad student who works for the university, lives in an apartment unit that Fay helped purchase. Soon, unpaid water and trash collection bills started piling up.
Shaina Levin, a Coldwell agent who worked with Fay in his Old City office, represented a seller in one such deal on 15th Street. The property was initially listed for sale last July at $375,000. Records show Fay’s client bought it for $842,000 in September 2025 after securing a $673,600 mortgage.
“It’s a bonus when we can keep it in the Coldwell Banker family,” Levin posted on Facebook, referring to the sale. “Thanks Pat Fay for teaming up on this one. Congratulations to your buyer!”
In an interview, Levin said her client received an amount closer to the original listing price, not the $842,0000 sales price recorded on the deed.
She saidthe buyer contended that thehigher sales price was tied to a planned renovation. City permit records show no evidence of construction or renovation work on the building.
Levin said that Fay’s proposal was “totally unconventional,” but that her office manager at Coldwell Banker ran it by the company’s legal department, which signed off.
“Legal said, ‘Yep, all good,’” Levin said. She referred additional questions about the sale to her manager, who declined to comment.
Fay’s buyer in that deal was UrbanNest Acquisitions, a limited liability company created the same month as the sale by Tanjania Powell-Avery, a former real estate agent from Pottstown, Montgomery County. Federal prosecutors with the Eastern District of Pennsylvania indicted Powell-Avery and two others in 2010 for participating in a mortgage fraud ring in the Philadelphia area. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years’ probation and nine months’ house arrest.
Powell-Avery declined to comment.
Two other colleagues of Fay’s at his former Old City office also brokered sales with him, according to data from the Multiple Listing Service, a shared database that real estate professionals use to track and arrange deals.
Karl Klotzbach represented sellers in eight deals with Fay over five months last year — more than any other seller’s agent, records show. The eight properties had originally been listed for a total of $3.4 million before they were each re-listed and sold for a combined $7 million.
Klotzbach did not respond to requests for comment.
Matthew Greene, another Coldwell agent, brokered four sales with Fay on North 12th Street. The properties were each listed for $450,000 last April, then re-listed at $879,000 the following month. In July, each property sold at the higher amount within days of one another, with all four sales backed by a separate $703,200 mortgage.
Greene would not discuss the sales.
“I’m happy to direct you to our legal team for any comment,” he said. Greene hung up the phone without providing any contact information.
Daryl Turner, the branch vice president at Coldwell Banker’s Old City office, referred questions to the company’s legal department. Andrea Gillespie, a national spokesperson for Coldwell Banker, which operates in 49 countries and territories, would not comment on the sales.
“We immediately disaffiliated Pat Fay and are continuing to investigate the matter internally,” Gillespie said in an email. “Coldwell Banker stands for trust and integrity, and we hold our agents to the highest ethical standards.”
‘This is my livelihood’
While sellers were eager to offload their toxic real estate investments, not every deal went smoothly.
John Sexton, an independent licensed appraiser with twenty years’ experience in the Philadelphia market, said in an interview that an appraisal company working for a lender contracted him last year to evaluate a property on North Park Avenue, near Temple’s campus. The sale was being brokered by Fay and Peter Lien, an eXp real estate agent representing the seller.
It was the kind of property common around Temple: a Victorian-era rowhouse that had been converted into a three-unit, nine-bedroom student rental. And, like similar properties in the area, it sat on the market unsold for more than two months, with no takers, at its $408,000 asking price.
The property was taken off the market in October, but then reappeared as a pending sale at $879,000, according to MLS data. Fay had found another buyer ready to pay more than double.
Sexton said he quizzed Lien about why a property that had not undergone recent renovations would suddenly jump in price. Sexton said Lien responded that an earlier broker simply “hadn’t been familiar with the real estate market” around Temple.
Sexton said the implication of these conversations was that Lien “had a person who would pay $879,000, so I should just do my job and mark it at $879,000.”
The 1700 block of Arlington St. in North Philadelphia Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. Buyers have snapped up $48 million in student housing around Temple University, often paying more than twice what properties were originally listed for even though rents are down and vacancies are up for student housing.
Sexton said he then received an unusual email from an individual named “Jay Jay,” who indicated he was working with Fay. The email included a list of nearby properties that had all sold in the $800,000 range, establishing that the sales price was reasonable.
Sexton looked into the comparable sales and found that they had all been brokered by Fay. “Jay Jay” also sent Sexton copies of leases for apartments in the same building, purporting to show units leasing for $2,500 a month. But when Sexton dug up sales listings for the same building from a few weeks earlier, they advertised that the units had been leased for closer to half that amount.
“Jay Jay” did not respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
Sexton said he called Fay to discuss the discrepancies, and the real estate agent accused him of being inexperienced and pushed him to approve the higher value.
“It’s a tough situation,” Sexton said. “You have two brokers pressuring you and sending you signed documents saying the sale price is valid.”
Sexton said after he told Fay he would need to further substantiate the higher asking price, Fay stopped responding.
The property never sold and is now off the market.Sexton never heard from Fay again.
“It’s infuriating to me, because he’s putting my license in jeopardy,” Sexton said. “This is my livelihood.”
In a text message, Fay denied “any claim that I have ever manipulated or influenced an appraisal in any fashion.” He did not respond to questions about the sale.
Lien said he could not comment on the failed deal.
“I was instructed by my brokerage that any press would have to go through our office, and we’re not allowed to speak on it,” said Lien, who works out of eXp’s King of Prussia office.
The manager of that eXP office did not return a request for comment.
‘Really bad stuff’
Daniel Perlman, a former prosecutor in the Maryland State’s Attorney’s Office who now practices white-collar criminal defense, said anyone who signed documents they knew to be false could potentially face legal problems.
“If there are documents that have incorrect information for a mortgage, then yeah, somebody has criminal liability,” Perlman said. “You’re under penalty of perjury for signing these documents.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said the office does not confirm or deny the existence of investigations, as did a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania State Real Estate Commission, which licenses agents.
Nick Pizzola, vice president of the Temple Area Property Association, which represents local landlords, said the COVID-19 pandemic has had a lasting negative impact on the off-campus real estate market, leaving landlords struggling to sign leases and pay their own mortgages.
Still, he said, the seller’s agents had to have known something was amiss when a buyer was offering double the asking price.
“Anyone who knows anything about real estate would have run away from those deals,” Pizzola said. “Some really bad stuff was happening.”
Most participants in Fay’s deals were reluctant to discuss their roles when contacted by The Inquirer this month. Some seller’s agents said their brokerages had instructed them to remain silent. Others claimed ignorance when it came to the details of the deals they had helped arrange.
The 1900 block of N. 18th St in North Philadelphia Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. Buyers have snapped up $48 million in student housing around Temple University, often paying more than twice what properties were originally listed for even though rents are down and vacancies are up for student housing.
In the March 2025 sale of an apartment building on the 2200 block of North Sydenham Street, for example, both the seller and his agent said they could not explain why the sales price did not match the amount listed on the deed.
The property initially went up for sale for $324,900 in December 2024 but was then re-listed and sold to Fay’s client in March 2025 for $789,000. The seller, Alvjod Dedaj, said he did not actually receive that higher amount. He referred further questions to his real estate agent at Long & Foster.
“I have no clue what’s going on,” Dedaj said. “I just cashed out a certain amount of money.”
Dedaj’s agent, Bob Kiziroglou, who works out of Long & Foster’s Devon office, said he, too, could not recall why the asking price suddenly jumped. He referred questions to Fay.
“Reach out to him, man, he’ll give you all the details,” Kiziroglou said.
A message left at Long & Foster’s Devon office was not returned.
The Broad Street office of Keller Williams Realty was another hub for deals involving Fay, with five of its agents representing sellers in eightsales. An office manager did not respond to requests for comment.
Wisenberg, who was a prosecutor in the Whitewater/Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan investigation, said he found it particularly suspicious that Fay arranged deals with mortgages that far exceeded the initial asking price, and with sellers receiving less than the stated purchase price.
“What’s he doing with the rest of the money?” Wisenberg asked.
Trouble brewing
Already, there are signs of trouble in the neighborhood around Temple.
In November, one lender, Easy Street Capital, filed to foreclose on a Park Avenue property that sold in late 2024 for $850,000 — more than double its value just two years prior.
While no buyer’s agent is listed in MLS data for the sale, Lien, the eXp agent, is listed as representing the seller. The buyer, Park Ave Enterprise LLC, is registered to an associate of Fay’s who participated in at least four other sales around Temple that he brokered.
According to court filings, the LLC defaulted on an $807,000 mortgage about four months after purchase.
The lenders that financed Fay’s purchases now bear the most risk of the overvalued and under-occupied rentals lapsing into foreclosure. A private lenders association in Novemberwarned its members of a “fraud scheme” operating around Temple University, and cities like Baltimore have seen hundreds of properties fall into foreclosure as a result of suspected mortgage fraud rings.
A spokesperson for City Councilmember Jeffery “Jay” Young, whose district encompasses the affected properties, said he was “not familiar with the situation.” He called mortgage fraud “a common and unscrupulous real estate practice that happens too often in our city.”
Orbanek, the Temple spokesperson, said the university is working to identify students who may be impacted by potential foreclosures and asked themto contact the university’s Essential Needs Hub, which connects student renters with supportive resources.
Joelle DelPrete, a former Temple grad student who works for the university, lives in an apartment unit that Fay helped purchase. He brokered a sale of the rental property to “18th Estates LLC” in December 2024 for $868,000. It had previously been listed for $385,000.
A few months later, DelPrete said, Fay texted her that he was the property manager, and he wanted her to sign a new lease so he could begin collecting rent.
“We assumed it was a totally legit company,” DelPrete said.
Soon, DelPrete said, unpaid water and trash collection bills started piling up, and maintenance issues went unanswered. In October, she found a document known as an Act 91 notice that was posted on an adjacent property in advance of foreclosure proceedings. It showed the owners — who had been represented in the purchase by Fay — had stopped paying its mortgage and owed roughly $25,000.
DelPrete and her three roommates are hoping to move out before her building goes into foreclosure.
“Especially living around Temple, you just gotta be careful and make sure everything is aboveboard,” she said. “If something feels off, it is off.”
In Philly’s bustling, pop-up-riddled bakery scene, Dead King has some of the most idiosyncratic hours out there: It’s open just twice a week, from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursdays and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. Perhaps as a result, one often needs to brave a long line that snakes through the numerous warehouse spaces inside Manayunk Timber, which houses the bakery. (If you just want sourdough or pizza dough — both excellent — and you live in parts of Northwest Philadelphia, you can subscribe for bread delivery.)
I was rewarded for my pains on an icy Thursday afternoon by a nearly empty parking lot and no line at all. There were plenty of rosemary focaccia slabs, tomato pie slices, and olive-twisted baguettes to be had, plus loaves of plain, cinnamon raisin, and jalapeño-cheddar, saucer-sized chocolate chip cookies, and cream cheese-iced spice cake squares. And that maritozzi? I polished it off in minutes, not taking nearly enough time to savor its buttery brioche cushion, tangy labneh topping, and the bright burst of lemon curd at the center. Oh well. I’ll just have to go back next week. Dead King Bread, 5100 Umbria St., deadkingbread.myshopify.com
— Jenn Ladd
A plate of Manti served at Pera Turkish Cuisine in Northern Liberties.
Manti at Pera Turkish Cuisine
Manti holds a special place in my heart. It’s the dish my family eats when I touch down in Istanbul for my annual trip to Turkey. The second the plates land on our table at Aşkana (one of my favorite restaurants in the city), the ceremony begins, signaling to everyone in the dining room, “This family has reunited!”
Manti is also the dish my mom makes best. Whenever she has guests over, this is what you’ll find on the dinner table. It’s a labor-intensive dish, generally a family affair: one person makes the dough, another prepares the filling, and several fill and fold the dumplings. It’s popular across Turkey, Armenia, and Uzbekistan, but the version served at Pera reminds me of the recipe I grew up with: small, tender dumplings filled with ground lamb — pinched to look like little stars — topped with garlicky yogurt and spiced butter. Is it better than my mom’s manti? I’m obligated to say no. However, it comes close. Pera’s manti is textbook, with each bite containing the sacred combination that makes this dish a comfort meal: lamb, yogurt, and butter. Pera Turkish Cuisine, 944 N. Second St., 215-660-9471, peraphiladelphia.com
— Esra Erol
Kapusniak at Heavy Metal Sausage
Kapusniak (or sauerkraut soup) at Heavy Metal Sausage.
This week, the balm that soothed my frozen body, attained after scaling the mountainous snow piles of South Philly, was a bowl of soup at Heavy Metal Sausage on Thursday. It was kapusniak, a sauerkraut soup with mushrooms that’s currently on their lunchtime specials menu. Tangy, hearty, and lightly smoky, it instantly transported me from the butcher shop to Poland, where I once spent the weeks sipping sour soups. Heavy Metal Sausage Co., 1527 W. Porter St., heavymetalsausage.com
— Kiki Aranita
Fried chicken curry at Gabriella’s Vietnam
Fried chicken curry at Gabriella’s Vietnam
As an antidote to the bitter cold, chef Thanh Nguyen has just put a selection of curries on the menu at Gabriella’s Vietnam, and her fried chicken curry may be the very best version of the dish found in Philly. The chicken is tender, its skin crispy, and the curry meets a Goldilocks ideal — not too thin, not too thick, balanced in creaminess and savoriness, with a touch of spice. It’s extraordinarily restorative when spooned onto steaming hot rice. Gabriella’s Vietnam, 1837 E. Passyunk Ave., 272-888-3298, gabriellasvietnam.com
We’ll show you a photo taken in the Philly-area, you drop a pin where you think it was taken. Closer to the location results in a better score. This week we have three historic sites across the city! Good luck!
Round #18
Question 1
This location has been in the news recently. Where is it?
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ClickTap on map to guess the location in the photo
ClickTap again to change your guess and hit submit when you're happy
You will be scored at the end. The closer to the location the better the score
Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
The President’s House made headlines when the National Park Service removed exhibits about slavery following an executive order by President Donald Trump.
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Question 2
Where can you find the Philly Renaissance Faire and an electronic music festival?
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Don Nigroni / Spotlight PA
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
Fort Mifflin is a Revolutionary War-era historic landmark near Philadelphia International Airport. It recently hosted the Making Time ∞ festival.
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Question 3
Where is this historic house?
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Michael Bryant / Staff Photographer
Pretty good/Not bad/Way off! Your guess was from the location.Spot on! Your guess was exactly at the location. Here's also where a random selection of Inquirer readers guessed.
Stenton, a colonial-era house and museum, is home to the Dinah Memorial – a memorial that honors a one-time enslaved housekeeper who saved the house from destruction by British soldiers.
Your Score
ARank
Amazing work. You know your Philly history.
BRank
Good stuff. You’re almost perfect.
CRank
C is a passing grade, but you could do better.
DRank
D isn’t great. Try again next week!
FRank
We don’t want to say you failed, but you didn’t not fail.
You beat % of other Inquirer readers.
We’ll be back next Saturday for another round of Citywide Quest.
The house: A 960-square-foot townhouse in Norris Square with two bedrooms and one bath, built in 1920.
The price: Listed for $255,000; purchased for $255,000
The agent: Kate McCann, Elfant Wissahickon
Todtz saw potential in the house’s flexible floor plan.
The ask: Evan Todtz was tired of commuting from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. He didn’t want to live in the latter, and he couldn’t find work in the former, so he considered the next-closest big city: Philadelphia.
“I’ve always really loved Philly and wanted to spend more time in it,” Todtz said. When his company approved a transfer to its Philadelphia office, Todtz moved north and rented an apartment in Norris Square. A year later, he was ready to make it official. “I felt like I was getting into a groove in Philly,” he said, “and I wanted to invest in a place and make this my home.”
Transit access was Todtz’s top priority. He frequently travels along the east corridor for work, so being close to the Market-Frankford line, which could take him directly to 30th Street Station in the “wee hours of the morning,” was a nonnegotiable. He wanted two bedrooms, enough space to host visitors, and an outdoor space. Everything else was flexible. “I’m particular, but I’m not picky,” he said.
Todtz liked the living room’s tan walls and dark floors. They made the room feel cozy.
The search: Todtz began looking seriously at the end of 2023, after attending a first-time homebuyers workshop hosted by Philly Home Girls. Over a month, hesaw several homes on weekends and evenings. He saw the house he would eventually buy early in his search, but it felt out of reach. Originally listed at $280,000, it hovered just above what he felt comfortable paying. He put it on a mental “maybe” list and kept looking. One month later, the price dropped to $255,000. “That’s when it felt within striking distance,” Todtz said. “It was closer to comps in the market.”
The appeal: Todtz immediately noticed the quality of the renovation. The house looked polished but not flashy, neat but not boring. “There weren’t super high-end finishes I wasn’t going to appreciate,” Todtz said, “and there wasn’t the gray-washed millennial nothingness design that so many new houses have.”
Instead, the house felt solid and lived-in, with dark wood floors and warm-colored walls. “It was very cozy and pretty,” Todtz said. He also liked the flexible floor plan and could see “potential in the footprint,” he said. Mostly, he liked that there wasn’t anything glaringly wrong with it. “It just felt very manageable,” he said. “It didn’t feel like I was taking on a massive project that I didn’t know how to start.”
Todtz said he would be happy with any kind of outdoor space.
The deal: By the time the price dropped to $255,000, the house had been sitting on the market for months. Todtz and his agent sensed the seller was “eager to get it off his books,” so they offered the asking price and requested a 3% seller’s assist. The seller agreed. “That was a huge win,” Todtz said. It effectively lowered the price to $247,000.
The inspection turned up only minor issues. The silver coating on the roof was wearing, and the seller, a small-time developer from Queens, N.Y., offered to address it without hesitation. “He was very chill,” Todtz said. “It was great to work with him.”
The money: All in, Todtz spent about $21,000 on closing costs and upfront expenses. Todtz’s mortgage is through the Keystone Home Loan Program, which required only a 3.5% down payment, provided he paid mortgage insurance. The money came primarily from his long-term savings.
One of two bedrooms in Evan Todtz’s house.
“Every paycheck since graduating from undergrad, I’ve been putting money away,” Todtz said. “However modestly, whether it was 50 bucks or 100 bucks.” Eventually, he transferred some of those savings into a mutual fund that he let grow for a decade. He put the rest in a high-yield savings account. He also received a few thousand dollars from his grandmother’s estate.
The move: Todtz closed on April Fools’ Day, which he feared was a bad omen. His agent reassured him it wasn’t. He spent the next month moving small items in his car, then hired movers to handle the bulk of the work over a weekend in May. He didn’t ask his friends to help him move. “I want to keep my friends,” Todtz said. ”I don’t want to make them stop talking to me.”
Todtz loves his kitchen even though it’s “a little small,” he says.
The move was mostly smooth, except for one casualty: a box spring that couldn’t fit up the new house’s narrow staircase.
Any reservations? Todtz doesn’t regret buying, though he acknowledges that homeownership comes with new anxieties. Given the current state of the economy, “renting and being able to flee is kind of attractive,” he said.
Still, he’s glad he made the leap. “I’m happy to own,” he said, “and I feel comfortable learning as I go.”
The custom wood butcher block Todtz built with the help of the Philadelphia Table Co.
Life after close: Most of the changes Todtz has made have been cosmetic. “I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew,” he said. He tackled the patio first, pressure-washing the concrete, re-staining the fencing, and adding cafe lights. After that, he partnered with Philadelphia Table Co. to build a custom wood butcher block that has doubled the counter space in his kitchen.
He has a couple of larger projects he plans to tackle next year, such as a full HVAC upgrade, but for now, he’s focused on rebuilding his savings. “I’m happy with the investment,” he said, “but I’m very much in a house-poor moment right now.”
Would you believe it if we told you Asbury Park is the same distance from Philly as Sea Isle? For many Philadelphians, the north end of the Shore might as well exist on another planet. Fortunately, the offseason is the perfect time to broaden one’s horizons — so that come summer, you might break out of the tribal nature that governs which sands you plant your umbrella in.
As one of the larger towns on the coast, with a healthy year-round population, Asbury Park makes an ideal entrée. Things are open in the winter.
Not everything — but enough to keep you busy for a weekend of city-level food, idiosyncratic shopping, and live music. Start the car.
Make your first stop just to the south of Asbury, at Hey Peach in Bradley Beach. This inviting granny-core café-bakery from Erin “Peach” Kilker lines its wooden sideboard and pastry case with holey olive fougasses, crackling croissants, Scottish shortbread, fat cream puffs, and more. If the weather cooperates, grab one of the bistro tables out front and enjoy your pastry (or three) with a Counter Culture coffee.
It might not be beach weather, but the glittering sea views from the 11-foot windows at Asbury Ocean Club are just as dramatic in winter. The soothing dune-and-khaki suites in this luxurious 54-room high-rise — which opened in 2019 — feel especially indulgent in the offseason. Winter rates hover in the mid-$300s; that same room can top $1,000 on a summer weekend.
Cosplay your favorite Stranger Things kid (minus the Vecna creepy-crawlies) at Silverball Retro Arcade. Gamer or not, it’s impossible not to light up like the 1992 Addams Family pinball machine when you step inside this clanging, jangling boardwalk fixture. And because it’s not summer, the chances are good you’ll have no trouble finding an empty Skee-Ball lane. (Fun fact: Skee-Ball was invented in Vineland in 1907, with early alleys manufactured in Philly.)
📍 1000 Ocean Ave. N., Asbury Park, N.J. 07712
Shop: Asbury Park Bazaar
Right in the middle of the boardwalk, where you can shop for travel-inspired hoodies at Promised Land Apparel and thrifted art supplies at Asbury Park Art Club, Asbury Park Bazaar pops up through the year inside the Grand Arcade at Convention Hall. More than 50 vendors will fill the space on Valentine’s Day weekend, selling everything from patch-customized beanies and travel-inspired hoodies to candles that melt into massage oil.
📍 1300 Ocean Ave. N., Unit C-4, Asbury Park, N.J. 07712
Read: Paranormal Books & Curiosities
Ghost ships, Victorian murders, haunted houses — in Asbury Park, spooky season never really ends. Paranormal Books & Curiosities anchors the city’s supernatural streak, selling horror novels, spellbooks, and oddities, while also running ghost tours and curating a small paranormal museum. Whether you’re looking for Grady Hendrix, Paul Tremblay, or something to summon the corners, you’ll find it here.
📍 621 Cookman Ave., Asbury Park, N.J. 07712
Dine: Judy & Harry’s
Named for owner Neilly Robinson’s parents, Judy & Harry’s in the St. Laurent Hotel is a two-in-one restaurant and cocktail bar with butterscotch leather barstools, frosted globe lights, and framed family photos. The menu, by Robinson’s partner and James Beard semifinalist David Viana, blends her Italian and Jewish heritage with dishes like limoncello-splashed hamachi crudo, ricotta-matzo ball soup, schmaltzy potatoes, and chicken and eggplant parm. If you’re visiting Asbury on a Sunday, swing in for their $38 Sunday Sauce prix fixe supper.
📍 408 Seventh Ave., Asbury Park, N.J. 07712
Jam: The Stone Pony
What’s the opposite of a sleeper pick? First opened in 1974, Stone Pony is so deeply and inextricably tethered to Asbury Park. Everyone knows it. The bar and venue runs shows every weekend through the offseason, and the variety is pretty astounding: a Dave Matthews tribute band, country singer Hunter Hayes, a student showcase from Red Bank’s School of Rock, bassist and Phish cofounder Mike Gordon. Tourists go. Summer people go. Locals go. You should go.
