Dirty Franks says ’25 and up’ — and the regulars reclaim the bar: B+
Dirty Franks banning 24-year-olds and under sounds, on paper, like the plot of a generational culture war. In reality, it’s a dive bar doing what dive bars have always done: protecting the room.
The catalyst? A fake ID featuring Ben Franklin that successfully scanned. Over the past year, Franks has been overrun by increasingly bold fake IDs, TikTok-fueled crowds, and behavior that doesn’t match the unspoken social contract of a place where regulars expect to sit, talk, and not babysit a bar.
This isn’t about hating young people. It’s about a bar that has never been a college bar suddenly being treated like one. Quantity over quality, as owner Jody Sweitzer put it. More bodies, same money, harder nights.
The temporary 25-plus rule is blunt, maybe even unfair to the responsible 22-year-olds who just want a cheap beer and a dart board. But Philly bars have always operated on feel as much as fairness. When something’s off, you fix it first and argue about it later.
And by most accounts, it worked. The room is calmer. Regulars are back. People can sit again. Staff aren’t playing bouncer-scanner-detective every five minutes, trying to outsmart IDs that look like they came straight out of a CIA prop department.
Is it sustainable? Probably not. Is it extremely Philly to say “we’ll relax when the nonsense stops”? Absolutely.
Groundhog Club handler A.J. Dereume holds Punxsutawney Phil, the weather prognosticating groundhog, during the 140th celebration of Groundhog Day on Gobbler’s Knob in Punxsutawney, Pa., Monday, Feb. 2, 2026. Phil’s handlers said that the groundhog has forecast six more weeks of winter. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)
Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow, condemning Philly to six more weeks of this: D
Six more weeks of winter doesn’t mean snowflakes and cozy vibes in Philadelphia. It means gray piles of ice that never melt, sidewalks that double as obstacle courses, and that specific kind of cold that seeps through gloves.
Phil seeing his shadow wasn’t news. The snow is still here. The side streets are still a mess. The wind is still disrespectful. And now we’re being told to mentally prepare for another month and a half of bundling up just to take out the trash.
Phil’s track record doesn’t help his case. He’s been wrong more often than right, but somehow still gets the power to set the emotional tone for an entire region. And the tone this year is simple: exhausted, sore, and deeply over it.
We don’t hate Phil. We just resent him for reminding us that winter in Philadelphia isn’t a season: It’s a long, drawn-out test of patience, balance, and civic infrastructure.
Six more weeks? Fine. We’ll survive. But we’re not happy about it.
Heavy equipment clears snow and ice from South Broad Street near Tasker Street in South Philadelphia, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
Philly sends in ‘snow ambassadors’ because the cleanup still isn’t done: C
At this point, the storm itself is old news. What isn’t: frozen crosswalks, ice-packed corners, and a city that still feels stuck in cleanup mode.
So now comes the next phase of winter in Philadelphia: improvisation.
The city is deploying 300 “snow ambassadors” to manually chip away at ice piled up at crosswalks and corners. We’re well past the point where plows and salt were enough, and if the choice is between stubborn ice lingering for weeks or sending people out with tools to break it up, the latter is the only real answer.
But it also says a lot about how this cleanup has gone.
The city is now in hand-to-hand combat with the leftovers of a storm that dropped 9.3 inches and then immediately locked them in place with days of deep cold. The fact that crosswalks still need this level of attention, days later, underscores how uneven the original response was, especially on side streets and pedestrian infrastructure.
Calling them “ambassadors” doesn’t change the reality: This is a workaround. A necessary one but still a sign that the system didn’t fully deliver the first time around.
That said, credit where it’s due. The city didn’t just shrug and tell people to wait for a thaw. It adjusted. It added manpower. It acknowledged that what’s left isn’t just inconvenient but dangerous. And focusing on crosswalks and ADA ramps is exactly where the effort should be right now.
This isn’t a win. It’s a course correction.
Phillies designated hitter Kyle Schwarber celebrates his solo home run with teammate J.T. Realmuto against the Kansas City Royals on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025, in Philadelphia.
Phillies spring training hope (and the kids knocking): A
This is the part of the calendar where Philly collectively exhales.
Spring training is just getting started, and already the Phillies feel lighter. Not because anything’s been won. Not because the roster is flawless. But because February baseball is where optimism still gets the benefit of the doubt.
Clearwater represents a reset. New grass. Fresh routines. The annual illusion that this version of the team will be the one where everything clicks at the right time. It doesn’t matter how last season ended, spring training always feels like permission to believe again.
And for the first time in a while, the kids are actually coming. Justin Crawford looks like the opening-day center fielder. Andrew Painter is finally healthy enough to matter again. Aidan Miller is looming. The Phillies’ farm system has spent years as a drip-feed; now it feels like a faucet that might finally turn on.
That matters for a team that’s been built around a veteran core for so long. Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber anchoring things in Clearwater feels familiar in the best way, but the real intrigue is whether the next wave can actually stick. Whether this spring is the start of something sustainable, not just another “run it back.”
Spring training is baseball’s softest sell. No standings. No scoreboard pressure. Just story lines, roster battles, and enough sun to trick you into thinking October is guaranteed. Philly knows better than to fully trust it, but we still show up every year.
Because hope is part of the ritual. And for now, it’s earned.
If nothing else, pitchers and catchers reporting means one undeniable thing: Winter is losing leverage, and baseball is back in the conversation. Around here, that’s worth an A all by itself.
A rolling video screen above the admissions counter at the West Entrance at the Philadelphia Museum of Art Monday, Oct. 6, 2025, features a “youse should visit” slide and a new logo. The name change was eventually reversed back to its original – Philadelphia Museum of Art – but the griffin was kept.
The Art Museum walks it back (somewhat): B+
Four months after trying to rename itself the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art has decided to do what Philadelphians do best: Stop pretending and call it what everyone was calling it anyway.
But this wasn’t a full rewind. The museum kept the updated look — the bold fonts, the sharper visual identity, the griffin logo pulled from the building’s roofline. The feedback was clear and consistent: People who know the institution (members, donors, staff) felt alienated by the name change.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art isn’t just branding; it’s muscle memory. You don’t casually swap that out without expecting pushback. But surveys also showed that the broader public didn’t hate the new look itself. So the museum split the difference.
It kept the visual refresh. It dropped the name change, which felt unnecessary and confusing. And it signaled, intentionally or not, that listening matters more than doubling down.
Philly gets its own Monopoly board, and the arguments have already started: A
A Philadelphia edition of Monopoly is coming this fall, and honestly, the game itself almost feels beside the point. The real action is happening now, in the collective act of imagining what would, and absolutely would not, be allowed on a Philly board.
The gaming company behind the project is soliciting public nominations for landmarks, businesses, and nonprofits, which means we’re about two seconds away from the most Philly fight imaginable: not about what belongs on the board, but what deserves Boardwalk money and what gets stuck near Baltic Avenue out of spite.
Picture it. Pass GO at City Hall. Community Chest immediately fines you for blocking a crosswalk. Chance card sends you directly to SEPTA delays — do not collect $200. Jail is the Roundhouse. Free Parking is somehow still under construction.
Some squares feel obvious: the Art Museum steps, LOVE Park, Independence Hall. Others are going to be chaos picks. Wawa utilities. Delco railroads. A corner bar that hasn’t changed since 1987 somehow costing more than Center City. Someone will nominate their neighborhood dive and mean it sincerely. Someone else will nominate their rowhouse just to prove a point.
And that’s where this gets interesting. A Philly Monopoly board isn’t really about the game. It’s about which places people think matter, and which ones they’ll argue should’ve made the cut.
‘We’ll shew ya whereta gew in the snew’: Visit PA leans into accents — and Philly winter energy: B+
If you’re going to tell Philadelphians to leave the house in February, you’d better sound like someone we trust. Preferably someone who says “youse.”
The Pennsylvania Tourism Office seems to get that, according to WHYY. Its new winter “Snow Day Hotline” is staffed by prerecorded Philly and Pittsburgh accents, plus live comedians during select hours.
Call the number and you’re greeted by exaggerated but affectionate regional voices walking you through things to do around the state, from museums to indoor hangs. It’s intentionally old-school, phone only, no app.
The Philly side of the operation is handled by comedian Betsy Kenney, whose accent isn’t natural but feels familiar anyway: a composite of neighbors, aunts, and the person behind you in line at Wawa explaining why something is “not worth it, but also maybe worth it.” The advice isn’t groundbreaking. The delivery is the point.
So when a highly accomplished Jeopardy! champion (16-game winner, nearly half a million dollars in earnings) visibly struggled to pronounce “Schuylkill” on national television this week, Philly collectively leaned forward and went, here we go.
To Scott Riccardi’s credit, he got the answer right. The river that runs through Pottsville, Reading, and Philadelphia? Yes. Correct. No notes. But the pronunciation (Skol-kull) sent Ken Jennings into referee mode, which is never where you want to be when the clue involves Pennsylvania geography.
For the record (again): it’s Skoo-kl. Two syllables. No drama. No extra letters pronounced.
Riccardi walks away with a B: smart, successful, and close enough to get partial credit. But full points are reserved for anyone who can say Schuylkill on the first try without breaking eye contact.
Lou Turk’s, a Delaware County strip club with more than 50 years in business, announced it will change its name to the Carousel Delco.
Lou Turk’s rebrands, Delco shrugs: A
Only in Delco could a strip club rebrand spark genuine cultural concern. Not about the name, but about whether Mother’s Day flower sales would survive.
Lou Turk’s, Delaware County’s lone strip club and one of its most stubborn institutions, announced it’s changing its name to the Carousel Delco. The response was immediate disbelief, light outrage, and a collective understanding that no one is actually calling it that. Ever. This is Gallery/Fashion District math.
Stephanie Farr laid it out perfectly: Lou Turk’s isn’t just a business, it’s a landmark. A place that exists in the Delco imagination as much as it does off Route 291, wedged between a Wawa and an Irish pub like it was placed there by a zoning board with a sense of humor.
The new name raises questions (mostly “why?”), but Delco culture is resilient. The club can swap signage, management, and branding buzzwords all it wants. It will still be Lou Turk’s. And more importantly, it will still sell flowers on Mother’s Day, preserving one of the county’s most unhinged and beloved traditions.
A tiny state, more than a third of which represents conserved land, Vermont has done things its own way since the colonial era. Its Green Mountain Boys militia once fended off land claims from New York and New Hampshire, and for a brief moment, Vermont even functioned as its own republic. That don’t-tread-on-me energy still lingers today, blended with a deep respect for the arts, outdoors, history, and small business. In southern Vermont, less than five hours from Philly, the village of Manchester is a microcosm of that personality. Slung between the Green Mountains, the glowing town looks like something straight out of a Hallmark movie — especially in winter, when snow this time of year is nearly guaranteed.
Stone fireplaces, leather chairs, plaid wallpaper, draft-blocking drapes, a grand front porch … Kimpton Taconic hits the winter-in-New-England vibes hard. The 86-room boutique hotel sits right on Main Street, close to everything in town, and has a solid on-site tavern, the Copper Grouse (think cider-brined chicken and maple crème brulée). The hotel also offers seamless equipment rentals through a Ski Butlers partnership. Bookings also include two free adult tickets to Hildene.
📍 3835 Main St., Manchester, Vt. 05254
Visit: Hildene
Just south of town, surrounded by woods and snow, Hildene was built at the turn of the 20th century by Mary and Robert Lincoln, the only son of Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln. Run as a museum nonprofit since 1978, the Georgian Revival estate, gardens, and 12 miles of trails are open to visitors, making it a must-stop whether you’re into history, architecture, design, or horticulture. Train buffs will love Sunbeam, the restored Pullman carriage from Robert Lincoln’s tenure as president of the Pullman Co. from 1897 to 1911.
Take a short detour off Main Street into the forest and you’ll find Southern Vermont Arts Center. This estate includes classrooms, museum galleries, performance space, a yoga studio, and a café. Originally built in 1917 as a summer estate for an Ohio socialite and philanthropist, the property was acquired by the arts center in 1950. Grab a coffee at the café and walk — or snowshoe, or cross-country ski — through their epic sculpture park.
📍 860 Southern Vermont Arts Center Dr., Manchester, Vt. 05254
Shop: Northshire Bookstore
Northshire Bookstore is almost a caricature of Vermont: a rambling country house riddled with cozy alcoves. Opened in 1976 and now run by three sisters who grew up shopping there, the store leans hard into its indie roots — staff bios list genre specialties and years of service. They’ve got the bestsellers, sure, but it’s their rare-books collection that’s really special. A signed Jimmy Carter autobiography, for example, or an alternatively illustrated British edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Located only 10 minutes from town, Bromley Mountain’s 47 trails represent a solid mix of expertise levels. If you’re skiing experience begins and ends with the Poconos, maybe start with a few runs on the family-friendly Chase-It trail before leveling up to the Lord’s Prayer, the Plunge, and Havoc.
📍 124 Bromley Lodge Rd., Peru, Vt. 05152
Relax: Spa at the Equinox
After a day on the slopes, soothe those boot-bound feet and sore hammies at the Spa at the Equinox. Deep-tissue massage, Ayurveda treatments, cupping therapy, maple sugar scrubs — get one, get them all. You won’t want to leave the spa. It’s got cozy relaxation lounges, a huge indoor pool stretching out beneath an open-beam ceiling, and an outdoor hot tub perpetually cloaked in steam.
Points for the name alone. The Reluctant Panther, whose moniker nods to Vermont’s resistance to outside rule in the late 1700s, has been operating as a bed-and-breakfast since the 1960s — but its restaurant is open to the public. The food is exactly what you want to eat in the winter here: a Vermont cheese board, thick pork chops with German potato salad and smoked maple gastrique, venison osso buco, all served in a fireplace-warmed dining room. The wine list has earned Wine Spectator recognition four years straight. Meow.
Scott Harmon and Mark Williams met each other in a maximum-security prison in the heart of Pennsylvania coal country in 2012.
They had both grown up in the Philly area; both were in their early 20s, at the very beginning of life sentences without the possibility of parole for homicide convictions. Both had sons.
They were also both desperate to leave State Correctional Institution (SCI) Greene, the isolated prison where they met and which they described as harrowing. They aimed to appeal their convictions and get free.
They clicked as lifelong friends.
In 2018, Williams was transferred to the more desirable SCI Phoenix, in Montgomery County, and soon Harmon was transferred there as well. Both saw the reunion as an unexpected gift, and they became cellmates, or “cellies.”
While organizing with the activist group the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration and working with the same attorney to appeal their separate cases, they maintained a similar mindset: Despite what the courts said, their sentences would not last the length of their lives.
“When you’re sentenced to life, there’s really very little reason to hope that you’re ever going to get out again,” said Catherine Trama, an attorney with Wiseman, Schwartz, Cioschi & Trama who represented both men. They showed “a positivity that would be impossible for most people.”
Harmon was 22 when he was arrested for killing a 24-year-old man, Timothy Haines, in North Philadelphia. In 2011, he was convicted and given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. He maintained his innocence for the next decade-plus.
In 2024, his murder convictionwas overturned. The District Attorney’s Office stopped short of endorsing his innocence but offered him a plea deal, in which he pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and firearms violations to get out of prison in April 2025. (“When that opportunity is offered to you: you can go home today, or you can take a chance fighting the system again, you don’t fight the system again,” Harmon, 39, said).
Harmon and Williams, who call each other chosen brothers, had been working toward the same goal, but now one had achieved freedom and the other had not.
“It was really difficult for a while. I didn’t want him to feel as though I was upset that he was leaving, or wasn’t happy for him,” Williams, 36, said.
Mark Williams, 36, is currently incarcerated at SCI Phoenix, and challenging his conviction through the Post Conviction Relief Act. He and Scott Harmon call each other chosen brothers.
Williams is still incarcerated at SCI Phoenix, and is currently challenging his conviction through the Post Conviction Relief Act, claiming the state violated his right to due process. He was 21 when he was convicted of killing a 21-year-old man, Isaiah McLendon, in Darby Borough and also given a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Harmon is now a utility worker at a country club and lives in the Philadelphia suburbs. He has a girlfriend who he met as a teenager and reconnected with while in prison.
It is against state Department of Corrections policy for Harmon and Williams to meet in person because Harmon was formerly incarcerated, a spokesperson for the PA DOC said. Instead, they speak almost every day by phone.
The following, as told to Zoe Greenberg in separate interviews, has been edited for length and clarity and combined.
On meeting at a maximum-security prison in southwestern Pa.
Mark: Everybody calls Scott “Slim.” I met Slim when he came upstate in 2012. We were young. Just seeing the shock of our new reality setting in with him, I had just experienced that a year ago. I could share how I made it through and hopefully it could help.
Scott: He seemed like a cool dude. We didn’t dive into each other’s cases, we just both knew that we were sentenced to die at such a young age. We call it death by incarceration, or a “DBI” sentence.
We had the same intention, which was getting out of prison.
On boiling water in buckets and grueling workouts together
Scott: We ate together all the time. The commissary is extremely limited — for the bags of instant rice that they sell, you need really hot water, which we figured out ways to make.
We would buy an extra bucket, put water and baking soda or denture tabs in it with an extension cord, and it heats up. You put your food inside a trash bag, you put a trash bag over the bucket, and you set your food on it, and it cooks.
Scott Harmon, who is now a utility worker at a country club, pictured at home.
We also started working out together. In prison, we work out so hard because it’s stress relief. We punish our bodies physically: 100 burpees may be a warm-up.
On the outside, I tried to do 10 sets of 10 pull-ups. Mark laughed at me when I told him I couldn’t.
On being transferred to the same prison, 35 miles from Philly
Mark: SCI Greene was in a very, very racist part of the state. That environment kind of makes tighter bonds in people.
I transferred to SCI Phoenix [35 miles from Philly] maybe six months before Slim did. When I got transferred, it was an emotional time. It was hard. I didn’t really understand how close we were, until it was severed in that way.
Scott: You can’t choose what prison you go to. It’s like rolling a dice.
For those that were sentenced to “death by incarceration,” you have to stay seven years write-up free to get transferred. Now, mind you, you can get a write-up for having the thing that I just told you that we used to cook with. [The state DOC confirmed this.]
Mark: When he got here, that was a huge relief. To have someone back where it’s like, I know this is one of my brothers. It’s something I wasn’t expecting.
At the time, I think I was collecting trash on the walk. He was coming around the walk. And I saw him. We just were yelling and hugging.
On becoming cellies at SCI Phoenix
Mark: As soon as he got to Phoenix, we start pulling strings to get in the cell together.We had to talk to the unit managers, talk about why we wanted to be cellmates, how it would make sense for our incarceration. Our argument was all about compatibility: I’m compatible with this person, and I won’t keep asking you to move me from cell to cell to cell.
Scott: We had bunk beds — two grown men. It’s not normal for two fully grown men to be in such a small space: maybe eight steps to the door, and four steps sideways.
We talked about being free, and what that freedom will look like, and reaching back for each other. He would say, “If I get out, you don’t have to worry, I’m not gonna be like other guys,” and I’m saying the same thing.
On trying to stay connected to the outside together
Scott: I was trying to build a relationship with my son. Mark told me, “Just keep at it, just keep writing, just keep calling.”
It is extremely frustrating when you want to be there, and you’re not being allowed. Had Mark not been there to advise me about the best way to go about it, I may not have the relationship I have with my son today.
Mark: Going through COVID was one of the hardest times. We were locked down all the time — we were getting out less than an hour a day.
The person that you were living with, you had to really be able to tolerate. We were in there, tight, every day, annoying each other, annoyed with what was going on.
You don’t know what your relationship will be with somebody until you’re actually trapped in a small space with them for a year.
On freedom — for one of them
Scott: I get on the phone and my attorney is like, “We heard back from the judge, and they overturned your conviction.”
I lost my breath, got nauseated, I started crying. Mark is two phones down. He started hugging me. It was a moment, man. I couldn’t even talk to him, snot was running down my nose. He was just happy for me, man. So happy for me.
Mark: It was a shock to me, just like it was a shock to him.Immediately I just felt joy, and excitement.
Then as time passed, it was more complicated. It wasn’t anger or jealousy. It was more of maybe sadness, and trying to reconcile the feelings of gain and loss at the same time. The situation was bringing up all types of feelings.
Scott: It’s never a conversation about him not getting out. The conversation is always like, “You’ll be out here soon.”
On saying goodbye
Mark: I think I probably did have a fear that we wouldn’t be as close as we are. Over the years, we experienced a lot of people that we built bonds with who went home. We might still be close with them, but we don’t talk as frequently. It’s not what it was.
Scott: We both worked in hospice, so the nurse allowed us to come down to the hospital and say goodbye to each other a day or two before I left.
I left him all my property. I left my TV to him. I left the books and stuff that he wanted, any clothes or sneakers that I had that he might want. I didn’t take anything out with me.
On keeping in touch now
Scott: I talk to him every day. I know intimately what type of support he needs. Our conversations have changed in that it’s not about our freedom, it’s about his freedom.
The experience is like how guys are in theArmy: because I was dead to the world. I was maybe in contact with 10 people out of the billions and billions of people on the Earth. He talks to maybe 20 people outside of prison. That’s nothing.
Scott Harmon takes a call from Mark Williams at his home in the Philadelphia suburbs.
Mark: We talk about the new realities that he’s facing, and some of the ones that I have to look forward to.
It might have been harder for me to leave him behind. Survivor’s remorse — that can be tough to deal with.
Yes, I want my freedom, but it’s not much more than I wanted him to have his freedom.
This story is part of a new series about life partners across the Philadelphia area.
If you want to share your story about who you’re navigating life with romantically or otherwise, write to lifepartners@inquirer.com. We won’t publish anything without speaking to you first.
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 is all about shiny, classic, and infamous automobiles! Good luck!
Round #19
Question 1
Where is this show room?
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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
Jose F. Moreno / 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.
This photo was taken during the 2022 Philly Auto Show at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. This year’s show runs until February 8, once again at the Convention Center. Organized by the Auto Dealers Association of Greater Philadelphia, it spans nearly 700,000 square feet.
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Question 2
Where is this famously frozen car?
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Joe Lamberti / For The Inquirer
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.
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.
OCEAN CITY, N.J. — Marie Crawford was immediately charmed in 2021 when she and her soon-to-be-surfer husband Rich moved into their historic house in the literal shadow of Gillian’s Wonderland Pier.
They’d come from Blue Bell, Pa., to live year-round by the ocean, and landed with an amusement park right up the street.
“The ball drop, that was what we heard from my house,” she said, referring to the 130-foot-high Drop Tower ride. “It was, ‘Ah, ah, ahhhhhhhh,‘” she said, imitating the screams she would sometimes hear.
Jack Gutenkunst, left, Marie Crawford and her husband Richard with Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft coated wheaten terrier, walk along Plaza Place, in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
“It was so beautiful and romantic. On our porches, we would hear the ocean, not the amusement park. There were families, babies in strollers, coming up the street, flowing up to Wonderland. We were kind of ambassadors.”
Now, more than a year after the closing of Gillian’s, the residents are faced with the possibility of a seven-story hotel they fear will block their sun, bring traffic to their streets, and threaten the small-town charm they found in their little pocket of Ocean City.
“It’s just another example of maximizing, pushing,” said Rich Crawford, Marie’s husband, who programs music for his family’s Christian radio station, WDAC, located in Lancaster, Pa. In his 60s, Rich fell in with Ocean City’s surfing crowd and unexpectedly grew to love his little community.
The Crawfords’ neighborhood of 100-year-old homes and 153 trees is called Plaza Place, which is one block each of Pelham Place, Plaza Place, and the north side of Seventh Street, between Wayne Avenue and Atlantic.
Across Wayne Avenue, toward the ocean, was Wonderland. On a clear day, a red ball of sun creeps up above the boardwalk and peeks into their little neighborhood.
On Pelham Place, residents each also own a two-foot- wide stretch of land across the street from their houses, a quirk of their deeds originally designed to prevent the rooming houses on Plaza Place that backed up against Pelham Place from using Pelham as an alleyway for their trash. There are dedicated gardeners on the streets who turn those strips into showpieces.
The sun sets behind the Ferris wheel on the final day for the beloved Wonderland Pier in Ocean City Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024.
Neighbor Barb Doctorman, whose family owns the Islander store on the boardwalk, said she used to take her children up on the Ferris wheel and peer down at their neighborhood. So lush, it looked like a forest, she said.
“I looked up the impact of a high-rise,” said Doctorman. “We’re going to lose some sun. The airflow is going to be totally changed from what it was. There’s a heat radiant that comes off it.”
Her husband, Doc, said: “We want something up there, but we know there could be more of a draw to that boardwalk than just the hotel.”
Marie Crawford (left) holds the leash of Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft-coated wheaten terrier, while standing with her husband Richard (center) and neighbor Jack Gutenkunst at the end of Pelham Place in Ocean City.
The land is owned by developer Eustace Mita, who has proposed Icona in Wonderland, a 252-room hotel that would preserve the Ferris wheel, carousel, and some kiddie rides.
So far, the city has not declared the site in need of rehabilitation, as Mita has requested, or otherwise moved to rezone the area to allow a hotel.
Merchants have begged the city to allow the hotel, and described how their businesses have suffered since the closure of Wonderland. Some residents have clung to the idea that an amusement park can return, though those numbers are dwindling.
Marie Crawford, her husband Richard, right, along with Shiloh, a 9-year-old soft coated wheaten terrier, and their neighbor Jack Gutenkunst, walk past a sign against the development of a hotel at the site of the old Wonderland Pier on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026.
In Plaza Place, the opposition is less sentimental, more practical. They fear traffic, and the shadow from a neighboring seven-story hotel. Like residents in other towns who fought dunes, they fear the loss of the ocean breeze, or a shift in wind patterns that will affect surfing at the popular Seventh Street Beach.
“It’s got that old feel to it, and everybody’s house is different,” said Marie Crawford, who bought her Craftsman Colonial on the north side of Pelham for $905,000 in 2021. She estimates it’s worth $2.5 million now. There are about 60 homes in the Plaza Place civic association.
The association is one of several groups that are prepared to go to court if the city tries to change the zoning to allow a hotel, without going through a thorough master plan process, said Jack Gutenkunst, the Plaza Place Association president.
While Wonderland brought thousands of people on a summer night, the pier itself had no parking. So people parked elsewhere and excitedly walked through their neighborhood on their way to the rides. People on their porches called out, “Have a blessed evening,” and chatted the night away, said Crawford. The hotel proposal calls for parking underneath the structure.
A sign stands near the historic neighborhood behind the old site of the Wonderland Pier in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. Residents are against the development of a hotel at the boardwalk site.
Crawford stressed that it’s not a case of selfish NIMBY, Not In My Backyard. Despite Ocean City’s decades-old pattern of replacing single-family homes with duplexes, there are nearly 1,400 homes over 100 years old still left in Ocean City, said Bill Merritt, president of Friends of OCNJ History & Culture.
Being a block from the boardwalk, and living in a beach town, does not mean the neighborhood’s purpose is primarily hospitality, said Crawford. Its distinct, increasingly rare Jersey Shore character deserves to be valued, she said.
“It’s height. It’s chaos. It’s the change in culture,” she said, when asked what specifically worries her about the hotel. “It’s a transient population coming through here for three nights at a time. That’s in the hospitality district. We are not the hospitality district.”
The neighborhood behind the old Wonderland Pier site on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2026. Residents are against the development of a hotel at the boardwalk site.
The demolish-and-rebuild mania that took over a lot of the rest of the island has mostly left Plaza Place alone, though residents acknowledge that is also a threat to their way of life. They also fear a hotel will prompt Plaza Placeans to sell.
“It’s a Norman Rockwell painting, it just is,” Councilman Keith Hartzell says in the documentaryPlaza Place: The Enigmatic Street, a locally made short film about the neighborhood. “It’s right here in Ocean City, and you kind of don’t expect it, when there’s two streets away a bunch of duplexes.”
Hartzell, who is running for mayor against incumbent Jay Gillian, the former owner of Wonderland who sold to Mita, says he hopes to negotiate with Mita over height, parking, and other issues before considering any kind of zoning allowance or rehabilitation designation. A city council-appointed subcommittee tasked with assessing the boardwalk’s usage as a whole is holding a public meeting at 10 a.m. on Feb. 7 at the city’s library.
The residents of Plaza Place worry about the survival of the hidden little neighborhood by the beach they fell in love with. “The neighborhood is so beautiful and so old,” said Marie Crawford. “If the hotel goes in, the dramatic change that will be for all of us with the traffic, the tone of the neighborhood — you’re going to see people sell. That threatens the neighborhood. The people won’t want to stay.”
The house: A 1,590-square-foot rowhouse in West Philly with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, built in 1925.
The price: listed for $425,000; purchased for $410,000
The agent: Benjamin Camp, Elfant Wissahickon
Rhiannon and Malcolm Critcher bought their West Philly home after a very short search. They saw only two other homes.
The ask: After a few years in Tucson, Ariz., Malcolm and Rhiannon Critcher knew they wanted to return to the East Coast. They tested a few cities first. Washington felt “a little too nerdy,” Malcolm Critcher said. New York swung too far in the other direction: “a little too main character.” Philadelphia felt just right. “It was a Goldilocks situation,” Critcher said. “We both came here and instantly fell in love.”
They moved in 2023 and rented in Center City for a year to get their bearings and explore neighborhoods. They fell in love with South and West Philly, but the latter’s parks and tree-lined streets ultimately won them over. They wanted to start a family soon, and West Philly‘s “green, verdant life,” Critcher said, “just felt like a really cool place to be a kid.”
Their must-have list was short but specific: a kitchen meant for hosting, an open-concept floor plan, and a basement big enough for Critcher, who is 6-foot-4, to stand in.
The search: One morning in November 2024, after getting breakfast in West Philly, they decided to walk to nearby open houses. They saw three houses. The third was a recently renovated semi-detached twin with light pouring in from multiple sides.
One of three bedrooms in Malcolm and Rhiannon Critcher’s home.
They both wanted to buy it right away, but worried they were being impulsive, so they decided to test the walk to the train. The couple doesn’t have a car and relies heavily on public transportation. It took less than five minutes. On the ride home, they realized they weren’t interested in delaying for the sake of process. “If you find the perfect thing early on, it’s still the perfect thing,” Critcher said.
Having previouslybought and sold three houses, Critcher had the confidence to move quickly. “I know what I’m looking for and what I want,” he said. They called their agent and made an offer that afternoon.
The appeal: The layout was the first draw. The open first floor flowed naturally from the living room to the kitchen, making it feel larger than its footprint. Then there was the renovation. Unlike the gray-floored, hastily flipped houses they had seen elsewhere, this one felt considered, as if the sellers had remodeled it for themselves, not for resale. They liked the finishes, the flow, and little design choices like the kitchen backsplash. “My wife walked into the kitchen and was just like, ‘Wow, this is my favorite kitchen I’ve ever been in,’” Critcher said.
The couple wanted a kitchen that would be great for hosting.
For him, the basement stole the show. It was finished, spacious, and didn’t require him to duck.
The deal: The house was listed at $425,000 — the very top of the couple’s budget. It had been on the market for justone day when they saw it. They decided to offer $25,000 below the asking price, but they promised to take it as-is, as long as the inspection didn’t reveal anything concerning. The sellers agreed to the terms but requested $410,000, which the couple agreed to.
Light pours in from multiple sides of the Cratchers’ semi-detached twin.
The inspection came back spotless. The appliances had all been replaced in 2018. The sewer line had recently been redone. There were no structural issues. “Literally the most perfect housing inspection possible,” Critcher said.
The money: All told, Critcher and his wife brought a little over $100,000 to closing. Most came from the sale of their previous home in Tucson. They bought that house in early 2020 for $179,000 and sold it in 2024 for $300,000. The proceeds went straight into a high-yield savings account and remained untouched until the couple was ready to buy again.
The couple’s dog, Pablo, likes to hang out in the second bedroom.
The down payment on their new house came in just under 20% — about $82,000 — and closing costs were $26,000.
For Critcher, the exact breakdown mattered less than the total. He approached the purchase with a fixed pot of money and trusted their lender and agent to structure the details responsibly.
The couple loved the open floor plan on the first floor.
The move: The couple closed in mid-December 2024 while they were out of town. A notary in Arizona helped them file the necessary paperwork. The move itself happened in mid-January. Compared to moving across the country a year earlier, moving from Center City to West Philly wasn’t too bad. They hired movers to load a U-Haul from their sixth-floor apartment, then unloaded it themselves at the new house. Packing took about a week. The move took two days. Unpacking stretched on for a month.
Any reservations? Critcher wouldn’t recommend their approach to first-time homebuyers. “It was very impulsive,” he said. “But we both just fell deeply in love with it.”
Life after close: They’ve kept things simple since moving in. They haven’t undertaken any major renovations or upgrades. “We’re just kind of floating,” Critcher said.
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.
