For nearly a century, the Samuel Pennypacker School has survived — a three-story brick anchor of the West Oak Lane neighborhood in Northwest Philadelphia.
Now it faces the threat of extinction.
ThePhiladelphia School District says the school’s building score is “unsatisfactory” and modernizing it would cost more than $30 million. District officials are calling for shutteringPennypacker following the 2026-27 school year, funnelingits students to nearby Franklin S. Edmonds or Anna B. Day schools— part of a citywide proposal to close20 district schools.
The recommendation, district officials say, is no reflection of the “incredible teachers, community, [and] students” at Pennypacker. Rather, it is an attempt by the district to optimize resources and equity for students.
Like many district schools, Pennypacker, which serves students in kindergarten through eighth grade, is aging and outdated, having opened in 1930. At just over 300 students, it is among the city’s smaller schools — and operating at about64% of building capacity.
Yet, it is those same qualities — its size and longevity — that represent some of its greatest strengths, say those in the school community who are not happy about the proposed closure.
It’s a school, they say, that is more than the sum of its aging parts.
On the school’s walls are pocks of chipped paint, yes, but also the colorful detritus of a small but vibrant student population: a poster composed of tiny handprints in honor of Black History Month; a “Blizzard of Positivity” — handwritten messages reading “Smile” and “Hugs” and “Help your friends when they fall.”
It’s where Wonika Archer’s children enrolled soon after the family emigrated from Guyana — the first school they had ever known.
“A lot of firsts,” Archer said. “Their first friends, their first teachers outside of their parents.”
It’s where, since 1992, Andreas Roberts’ youth drill team has been allowed to practice. The team, which includessome Pennypacker students, recently participated in its first competition andwon first place.
“Pennypacker has been very, very useful to us,” he said. “We have nowhere else to practice for the kids.”
It’s where Christine Thorne put her kids through school, her son and her daughter, and where her grandchildren now go. Around the school, they call her “Grandmama.”
“I feel as if my household is being destroyed,” she said recently.
For students, news of the imminent closure has been no less jarring.
When Janelle Pearson’s fourth-grade students learned recently that their school was poised to be shuttered under the district’s plan, they took it as a grim reflection on themselves.
“It makes them feel like, ‘What did we do wrong that they want to close our school?’” said Pearson, who has taught at Pennypacker for abouta decade. “That’s the part that tugs at your heart.”
Unwilling to go down without a fight, the fourth graders resolved to do what they could. Soon, a poster took shape, in marker and crayon, a series of pleas addressed to Philadelphia Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr.
“Pennypacker is our home.”
“Don’t uproot our education.”
“Our neighborhood depends on this school!”
The poster was presented to district officials earlier this month at a community meeting held in the school’s wood-seated auditorium.
At that meeting, representatives from the district did their best to explain the reasoning for the proposed closures. They presented a tidy PowerPoint and talked of student retention and program alignment, of building capacity and neighborhood vulnerability scores.
It stood in stark contrast to the parents and teachers and staffers who, one by one, held a microphone and spoke of love and family and community, of teachers and staffers who routinely went above and beyond to make their children feel safe. To make them feel special.
“It’s not just about a building,” said Richard Levy, a onetime Pennypacker teacher who now works at St. Joseph’s University. “The challenges here aren’t reasons to close the school — they’re reasons to strengthen it.”
Whether their appeals might affect the district’s decision remains to be seen. Other schools in the district slated for closure have mounted efforts of their own, and, despite a recent grilling by City Council members, it seems all but certain that several schools will ultimately shutter.
To explain his journey from Ukraine to Huntingdon Valley in Montgomery County, Ukraine army veteran Illia Haiduk first must explain one of the worst days of his life.
On Nov. 3, 2023, Haiduk and about 70 other Ukrainian soldiers were at an outdoor awards ceremony in Zaporizhzhia, near the war’s front line. After an enemy drone spotted the gathering, the Russians launched an Iskander-M ballistic missile.
“You hear nothing,” Haiduk said. “It just hits immediately.”
Haiduk awoke on the ground. To his left, people were moving. To his right was “a mess, fire, and smoke.”
He tried to get up. That was when he realized shrapnel had mangled his lower right leg.
Haiduk belted a tourniquet around his thigh and tried to crawl to another soldier from his unit, the 128th Mountain Division. “I wanted to get to him. And there was this hole in his chest. Nothing could save him. He was the same age as me,” the 35-year-old said.
The attack killed at least 19 soldiers and wounded dozens more, according to news reports.
Haiduk’s injury sent him on a long path of healing that ultimately brought him to the Philadelphia area. But more than two years later, the attack is just one incident in a war that has claimed an estimated 2 million lives.
Vladislaw Romanenko (left) and Ilia Haiduk in a community-living home where veterans of the war in Ukraine support each other through their medical journeys, in Philadelphia, Feb. 13, 2026.
Four years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the war’s effects can be found throughout the region, among refugees and veterans seeking support services and the advocates helping them. Many are concerned about the future.
“In 2022, support and donations poured, but every year they become smaller and smaller,” said Roman Vengrenyuk of Philadelphia, who helps run the Revived Soldiers Ukraine program that brought Haiduk to the U.S. “A lot of nonprofits closed.”
Vengrenyuk said he has no expectation that the war will end this year. The Trump administration has failed to provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to win, he said. Meanwhile, the bloodshed has left 60,000 Ukrainians in need of amputations, overwhelming hospitals in Ukraine and Europe.
Though it has gotten harder to get attention for their cause, an alliance of healthcare providers, nonprofits, and advocates across Philadelphia has continued to help wounded veterans and refugees. And for that, Vengrenyuk said, he is grateful.
“The Philadelphia community of doctors really stepped in,” Vengrenyuk said.
Life after war
After recovering from his injury, Haiduk went home and attempted to return to civilian life, but he felt depressed. That changed, however, in 2025, when he traveled to Canada to compete in the Invictus Winter Games, a multisport event for disabled veterans. He won a bronze medal in the skeleton race, and he found purpose and fellowship with others who had similar experiences.
“We can talk really freely, because we know that this man will understand me,” Haiduk said of his fellow veterans.
Vladyslaw Romanenko at a community-living home where veterans of the war in Ukraine support each other through their medical journeys, in Philadelphia, Feb. 13, 2026.
Later that year,Revived Soldiers Ukraine sent Haiduk to Orlando , where he received a prosthetic lower leg.
Haiduk got more involved with the Florida-based nonprofit. He has since helped numerous disabled veterans who were routed to the Philadelphia region for medical care.
One is 30-year-old Vladyslav Romanenko, a former engineering student from Kharkiv who joined the army in 2022 and lost his lower arms in a drone strike last May. Romanenko is one of six Ukrainian war veterans living together at two homes in Huntingdon Valley.
Revived Soldiers Ukraine flew Romanenko and his partner to Philadelphia. At Wills Eye Hospital, a Ukrainian-speaking doctor, Michael Klufas, helped to restore vision in his right eye. Then, Prosthetic Innovations in Eddystone, Delaware County, outfitted him with bionic arms. “I’m very grateful to the Ukrainian and American doctors,” Romanenko said in Ukrainian, as Haiduk translated.
Oleksii Kondratenko at a community-living home where veterans of the war in Ukraine support each other through their medical journeys, in Philadelphia, Feb. 13, 2026.
Haiduk said Romanenko’s story is typical of the soldiers he works with: men from a wide range of professions and ages, who signed up to save their people. “I would never have joined the army, but because the war started, it was my responsibility to join, for my country,” Romanenko said.
Haiduk said people in the U.S., and most of the world, support the Ukrainian cause of “democracy and humanity.” However, more pressure needs to be put on Russia, he said.
“There is support, but it isn’t enough support to end this war,” Haiduk said.
Paying to stay in the U.S.
As an American-born Ukrainian whose parents were displaced after World War II, 71-year-old Mary Kalyna said, she considers it her mission to help those in “the Ukrainian diaspora.” The fluent Ukrainian speaker from Mount Airy said the situation has gotten worse for Ukrainian refugees since last year.
“Even though Ukraine is not in the news as much, I believe people still support Ukraine,” Kalyna said. “The problem is our government has changed. Now we have a government that is less supportive of Ukraine.”
The Konoshchuk family has lunch Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. The family, from Ukraine, lives in Delaware County.
She criticized President Donald Trump for welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin and holding peace talks where Ukraine was expected to cede land to Russia.
To her, Trump administration policy is working against local efforts from churches and communities that have embraced Ukrainians.
“There are many, many screws being tightened,” Kalyna said.
She provided an example: Due to one provision in Trump’s “OneBig Beautiful Bill,” thousands of Ukrainians who previously had been invited to the U.S. through the federal United for Ukraine program have to pay $1,000 per family member to maintain their humanitarian parole status.
On a Sunday afternoon at an apartment in Norwood, Delaware County, Kalyna met with one family who received such a notice at the end of December. Yurii Konoshchuk, 43, explained that he and his wife and four children came to the U.S. in May 2023. His 9-year-old daughter, Milana, has leukemia and is receiving treatment at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“We don’t have any safe place in Ukraine,” Konoshchuk said. “It is so important for us to be here. We thank God that we’re in Philadelphia.”
Though Konoshchuk works full-time at the Barry Callebaut chocolate factory in Eddystone, and has a supportive community at the nearby Living Hope Ukrainian Baptist Church, money has been tight. Then, he got a bill from the federal government to pay $6,000 or risk his familybeing deported.
As Kalyna prayed with the family and shared in the Sunday dinner they had prepared, she was brought to tears when asked about the money. Kalyna said that after people in the Northwest Regional Refugee and Immigrant Network sent out emails, they raised $6,000 within a few hours.
“People really want to give,” she said. “They understand.”
Milana Konoshchuk smiles for a portrait between her parents, Yurii (left) and Anna on Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026. Refugees from Ukraine, the Konoshchuks are living in Delaware County while their daughter receives medical treatment for leukemia at CHOP.
At the dinner table, the Konoshchuk family recounted their journey. Katie Konoshchuk, 14, remembered going weeks without school, and having to evacuate to the schoolbasement during air raids. Each child had to carry a flashlight. Her 13-year-old sister, Ohli, said they used to hope that if the bombs came, they would come on a day they had to take a test.
“People adjust to the situation that they’re in,” their mother, Anna Konoshchuk, said.
Yurii Konoshchuk said he saw missiles flying so low overhead that he could read the words written on them. “It’s good then, because you think it will not fall on you, but you don’t know about next time, and you don’t know who it did fall on.”
One of the missiles struck an electric power station less than a mile away, he said, and over the winter of 2022-23, it was a regular occurrence to rush from their home to the air-raid shelter in a city without light.
“We never in the city saw such bright stars,” he said. “It was beautiful on the heaven, but not on the earth.”
Yurii Konoshchuk struggled to predict what will happen next. “We are thankful, first to God, and to American nation, to give us the possibility of treatment here,” he said.
When they came to the U.S., Anna Konoshchuk said, she told her children life would be better, more peaceful. “But we’re treating it as an experience,” she said. “We don’t know how long America will allow us to stay. We’re being flexible.”
Isaiah Zagar, 86, of South Philadelphia, the renowned mosaic artist who crafted glittering glass art on 50,000 square feet of walls and buildings across the city and founded Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, has died.
Mr. Zagar died Thursday of complications from heart failure and Parkinson’s disease at his home in Philadelphia, the Magic Gardens confirmed.
“The scale of Isaiah Zagar’s body of work and his relentless artmaking at all costs is truly astounding,” said Emily Smith, executive director of the Magic Gardens. “Most people do not yet understand the importance of what he created, nor do they understand the sheer volume of what he has made.”
His art, Smith said, “is distinctive and wholly unique to Philadelphia, and it has forever changed the face of our city.”
saiah and Julia Zagar in their mosaic-adorned home in South Philadelphia in October 2024. The couple married in 1963 and moved to South Philly in 1968 after serving in the Peace Corps in Peru.
Mr. Zagar was born in Philadelphia in 1939, grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and received a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting and graphics at the Pratt Institute of Art in New York. He met his wife, artist Julia Zagar, in 1963. The couple married the same year and moved to South Philadelphia in 1968 after serving in the Peace Corps in Peru. Together, they founded Eye’s Gallery at 402 South St., focusing on Latin American folk art.
In the 1970s, the Zagars were part of a group of artists, activists, and business owners who pushed back against development of a Crosstown Expressway that would have demolished South Street. Their contributions helped lead to a neighborhood revitalization later called the South Street Renaissance.
“Philadelphia’s iconic South Street area has become inseparable from Isaiah Zagar’s singular artistic vision,” said Val Gay, chief cultural officer and executive director of Creative Philadelphia, the city’s arts office. “His mosaics redefine the very framework of the public space they inhabit. Isaiah Zagar reshaped the visual identity of Philadelphia, and his legacy will endure through all that he transformed.”
A self-taught mosaicist, Mr. Zagar used broken bottles, handmade tiles, mirrors, and other found objects to cover walls across the city, particularly in South Philly. The artist, who struggled with mental health over many years, found that creating mosaics was a therapeutic practice. He was inspired by artists Pablo Picasso, Jean Dubuffet, Kurt Schwitters, and Antonio Gaudí.
“He worked with found objects that he found everywhere and put them to use. So, [he thought], ‘Why is the thing a piece of trash? Well, it doesn’t have to be a piece of trash. It could be a piece of art, too, and still be a piece of trash,’” said longtime friend Rick Snyderman, 89, a renowned Philadelphia gallerist based in Old City. An object “in the hands of the right person changes your perspective about it. That’s, I think, what the greatest gift of Isaiah was — to change your perspective.”
Mr. Zagar’s son, the filmmaker Jeremiah Zagar, documented his father’s life in a 2008 documentary, In a Dream. Jeremiah Zagar recently directed episodes of the HBO miniseries Task. His father came to the show’s New York City premiere last September carrying a mosaicked cane.
Snyderman remembers Mr. Zagar as a big reader and world traveler who was “eternally curious” and created artwork to make people smile. They first met in the 1960s and their families were part of the South Street community of “creative thinkers” who bonded “because they were misfits in some other world, perhaps.”
“He was a man who just didn’t pay attention to his own world, he paid attention to the larger world. One of his favorite sayings was that ‘Philadelphia is the center of the art world, and art is the center of the real world,’” Snyderman said.
More than 200 of Mr. Zagar’s mosaics adorn public walls from California and Hawaii to Mexico and Chile. His artwork is in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, among other museums, and has been shown in solo exhibitions at cultural institutions including Washington’s Hinckley Pottery Gallery and New York’s Kornblee Gallery.
“Isaiah Zagar was devoted to mosaic work and the creation of immersive art environments. Internationally recognized, he is proudly claimed by Philadelphia as our own,” said Elisabeth Agro, the Nancy M. McNeil curator of modern and contemporary craft and decorative arts at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “Although his death is a profound loss to our city’s culture and creative economy, Zagar’s indelible imprint remains inextricably linked to Philadelphia’s soul.”
Synonymous with Philadelphia’s public art
Mr. Zagar’s colorful and eclectic mosaic murals have become synonymous with Philadelphia’s public art scene.
After arriving in the city, Mr. Zagar soon set about modifying Eye’s Gallery, which was then also his home. The building, the Daily News reported in 1975, was dilapidated when he took possession of it, and at one point lacked plumbing and had a wood-burning stove.
Several years into his ownership, the Daily News wrote, Mr. Zagar had evolved the rowhouse into a “womb-like living space with undulating cement walls.” Materials for its decoration were largely scavenged, and included thousands of pieces of broken glass and mirrors.
Changes, the People Paper reported, started with the cementing of a stairway wall that had become wet. Lacking experience in carpentry, plastering, and home repairs, Mr. Zagar said, he and a fellow artist cemented the wall to hide the leak, and covered it in mirrors to disguise the issue. That didn’t fix the leak, but it did inspire a kind of operating logic for his home repairs.
“We would do something artistic to hide a fault, then have to correct the fault to save the artwork,” Mr. Zagar said in 1975.
Isaiah Zagar in May 2004, in front of a wall he was working in Bella Vista, on Clifton Street between Fitzwater and Catharine.
His process included embedding everything from broken teapots and cups to plates and crystal into the cement while it was still wet. Mirrors, however, were an early favorite of Mr. Zagar’s.
That idea, he told the Daily News, came from Woodstock, N.Y.-based artist Clarence Schmidt, who covered the outside of his home in broken mirrors embedded in tar.
“Mirrors intercept space, they keep poking holes in things,” Mr. Zagar said. “If they’re in the sun, they throw prisms around. You can’t fashion a mirror into an anatomical human being. It freed me from the concept of what things were supposed to look like.”
Preservation challenges
New development in Philadelphia in recent decades has led to the demolition of many of Mr. Zagar’s mosaic murals, most of which have been on private property.
By the turn of the century, Mr. Zagar had covered about 30 buildings in the city — largely then in Old City and on South Street — in his distinctive mosaic work, according to reports from the time. Among his largest passions in that medium, he told The Inquirer in 1991, were the colorful mirror and tile murals that today dot the city.
“These materials have a lasting quality,” he said at the time. “I have never seen an ugly piece of tile, it’s all beautiful.”
Detail of the wall of the former home of the Painted Bride Art Center at 230 Vine St. on Oct. 19, 2025. The building is covered by “Skin of the Bride,” a mosaic by Philadelphia artist Isaiah Zagar, created between 1991 and 2000.
Mr. Zagar held grand ambitions for Philadelphia as the home of his mosaics by the mid-1990s. As he told the Daily News in 1993, he hoped to see Philly changed “into a city of the imagination.”
“My dream is [to] turn all of Philadelphia into tile city — to turn all these ugly old brick and stucco walls into a manifesto of magic,” he said.
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Perhaps the prototypical example of that dream was the Painted Bride Art Center, which once was home to Mr. Zagar’s Skin of the Bride — a massive, 7,000-square-foot mosaic work that came to envelop the exterior of the building. Demolition of the Painted Bride began in December after a lengthy legal battle, but members of the Magic Gardens Preservation Team had been able to remove about 30% of the tiles for reuse in new mosaics in 2023.
Mr. Zagar’s work on the Painted Bride began in 1991 and carried on for about nine years. The work was exhausting, and his wife recalled Mr. Zagar working up to 12 hours a day for years to create what he viewed as his masterpiece.
In 1993, however, he took some creative liberties with the number of tiles, mirrors, and pieces of pottery involved with its creation.
“I’ve counted them,” he jokingly told the Daily News. “There are exactly 3,333,333.”
In summer 2022, a fire at Jim’s Steaks damaged the neighboring Eye’s Gallery, requiring lengthy restoration work that Julia Zagar spearheaded. She called the space a landmark “for the creative spirit of South Street.” The fire eventually uncovered a hidden mural by Mr. Zagar from the 1970s that had been covered up by drywall.
Tourists at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens in July 2017. The Magic Gardens has become a Philadelphia landmark, attracting about 150,000 visitors a year to walk through the immersive, labyrinthine indoor and outdoor spaces.
The Magic Gardens
In the late 1990s, Mr. Zagar expanded his sculpture and mosaic art into two empty lots neighboring his South Street home. The lots were owned by a group of Boston businessmen who had abandoned them, so with permission from the owners’ agent, Mr. Zagar cleared and transformed the space.
Chelsey Luster, Exhibition Manager at Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, places flowers on an Ofrenda that friends and staff members are putting together in honor of artist Isaiah Zagar who passed earlier today, at Philadelphia’s Magic Garden, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Feb. 19, 2026, in Philadelphia
It would go on to become Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens, but it took a legal battle in the 2000s to keep it there.
In 2004, about a decade after Mr. Zagar started building in the space, the owners of the land ordered the artist to dismantle and remove the work ahead of plans to market the property for sale.
Mr. Zagar and a group of volunteers formed the nonprofit organization known as Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens and, with help from an anonymous benefactor, purchased the lot for $300,000, The Inquirer reported that year. The nonprofit had begun collecting donations and was tasked with raising a majority of the funding, and, if successful, the benefactor planned to donate $100,000 to the cause.
“Why it’s so important for me to save the garden is that it’s not finished,” Mr. Zagar told The Inquirer in late 2005. “The too-muchness of it is the artist’s life.”
Isaiah Zagar in April 2007, applying colored cement to his mosaic on the 300 block of Christian Street. He was perched in a cage of a 90-foot boom truck reaching to the top of a 60-foot wall.
By that time, the garden was open on a limited basis for visitors to help with fundraising efforts, and adopted a more regular schedule several years later. A swing-top trash can was placed just inside the property’s front fence to collect donations from passersby, collecting about $100 a month in its early days, The Inquirer reported.
“I make art voluminously,” Mr. Zagar told The Inquirer in 2005. “The common man is clear about it: This is art.”
The Magic Gardens has become a Philadelphia landmark, attracting about 150,000 visitors a year to walk through the immersive, labyrinthine indoor and outdoor spaces.
In 2020, after allegations of sexual harassment were leveled against Mr. Zagar, the Magic Gardens issued a statement from its board and staff reacting to concerns raised over “inappropriate past behavior.”
“Though the Gardens were originally created by Isaiah Zagar, he does not own the Gardens or have a vote on its Board of Directors,” the statement read before clarifying that the Magic Gardens operated as an independent nonprofit with its own staff and board of directors.
The allegations, the statement said, left the staff and board “hurt, angry and confused as we confronted a reality that was in every way the opposite of what we stood for.”
When asked if there was a formal investigation into Mr. Zagar’s behavior, Leah Reisman, board member of Gardens said on Friday, “Isaiah Zagar experienced mental health struggles throughout his life. While this experience often propelled his artmaking, it also at times led to challenges and repercussions in his personal and professional relationships.”
In 2020, she said, the Gardens’ staff and board “brought these concerns directly to Isaiah and assisted him in accessing professional support to address these concerns.” Mr. Zagar’s presence on site, she added, was “carefully scaffolded through the years.”
In 2023, the Zagars donated his Watkins Street Studio to Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens to open a secondary space — also entirely covered in mosaics, of course — to host arts workshops and educational programming.
In the wake of the U.S. Bicentennial, in which Philadelphia was at the center of a yearlong celebration of the country’s 200th birthday, one of the city’s contributions to public health was put on the chopping block.
On Feb. 15, 1977, city officials confirmed that Mayor Frank Rizzo was closing Philadelphia General Hospital.
The poorhouse
Philadelphia General Hospital traced its lineage back to 1729, predating even therevered Pennsylvania Hospital, which was founded in 1751 andis generally considered the nation’s first chartered hospital.
Philadelphia General Hospital was originally established at 10th and Spruce Streetsas an almshouse, also known as an English poorhouse.
“The institution reflected the idea that communities assume some responsibility for those unable to do so themselves,” Jean Whelan, former president of the American Association for the History of Nursing, wrotein 2014.
The almshouse was used as housing for the poor and elderly, as well as a workhouse. It also provided some psychiatric and medical care.
It moved in the mid-1800s into what was then Blockley Township, atwhat is now 34th Street and Civic Center Boulevard, and began offering more traditional medical services. The Blockley Almshouse’s barrage of patients and their variety of maladies helped it naturally grow into a teaching tool for nursing and medical students.
And by turn of the 20th century, it had become a full-blown medical center, made official by its new name: Philadelphia General Hospital.
But it held onto its spirit.
Its doors were open to anyone who needed care, no matter that person’s race, ethnicity, class, or income.
Healthcare was a given. Workers saw it as a responsibility.
Even if it wasn’t always the best care.
Poor health
The hospital relied on tax dollars, and as a result was often short on staffing and low on supplies. It was a source of political corruption, scandal,and discord among its melting pot of patients.
Patients in the hallways of Philadelphia General Hospital in the 1940s.
Eventually, it collapsed under the weight of its mission.
Its facilities became outdated, its services could not keep up, and its role as educator was outsourced to colleges and universities.
Philadelphia General Hospital’s closure left a gaping hole in available services in West Philadelphia. It was no longer there to help support the uninsured.
Before it officially closed in June 1977, it was considered the oldest tax-supported municipal hospital in the United States.
“There’s a common misunderstanding that PGH recently has become a poor people’s hospital,” said Lewis Polk, acting city health commissioner, in 1977. “It’s always been a poor people’s hospital. The wealthy never chose to go there.”
Its old grounds are now occupied by several top-rated facilities, including Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania medical campus.
A historical marker there notes Philadelphia General Hospital’s nearly 250 years of service to the community.
Mijuel K. Johnson stood on theground where the dining room of the first president’s residence once stood as he told the story of Ona Judge’s path to freedom.
Speaking to a group assembled just steps from the Liberty Bell, Johnson recounted how Judge escaped George Washington’s household in Philadelphia into the city’s free Black community before eventually making her way to New Hampshire, and evading the Washingtons’ several attempts to recapture her.
It’s a story Johnson has told many times as a guide for the Black Journey, which offers walking tours focused on African American history in Philadelphia. One of the first stops on “The Original Black History Tour” is the President’s House Site, an open-air exhibit at Sixth and Market Streets that memorializes Judge and the eight other people enslaved by the first president here.
But last weekend, instead of the educational panels and informative videos displayed for the last 15 years, the guide and his group were faced with faded brick walls and blank TV screens. Adhesive residue marked the spots where colorful panels had been.
Mijuel K. Johnson guides Judge Cynthia M. Rufe as she visits the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026.
It was Johnson’s first group tour since National Park Service employees wielding wrenches and crowbars — acting at the direction of President Donald Trump’s administration — last month stripped out every panel at the President’s House, censoring roughly 400 years of history. Judge’s name was still inscribed on the Memorial Wall and her footprints still imprinted into the concrete as the group walked through the site, but her story was missing. Television screens recounting her life had been abruptly disconnected.
Black History Month began this year with visitors unable to read displays juxtaposing the cruelty of slavery with the country’s founding principles for the first time since the site opened in late 2010. For many tourists and the guides who know the site best, the removal was a call to action.
Workers remove the displays at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. More than a dozen displays about slavery were flagged for the Trump administration’s review, with the President’s House coming under particular scrutiny.Maria Felton (middle) and Jahmitza Perez (right) of Philadelphia listen to Mijuel K. Johnson (left) during The Black Journey tour in Philadelphia on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026.
“In telling their stories, I’m telling my own,” Johnson, 34, of South Philadelphia, said of the nine people the site memorializes, “and that’s where it becomes personal, so that in trying to erase their story, they’re effectively trying to erase me, too, and I just refuse to be erased.”
Parker celebrated the reinstallation in a post on social media Thursday but cautioned: “We know that this is not the end of the legal road.”
The Trump administration is appealing the ruling, so the future of the site remains uncertain even after this week’s victory. On Friday, a federal appeals judge said that the Trump administration does not have to restore more panels while the appeal is pending.
Seeing the site bare without the panels last weekend felt like a “slap in the face” for Maria Felton, 31, a stay-at-home mom from Roxborough. Felton, who is Afro-Latina, joined the Black Journey’s tour with best friend Jahmitza Perez, 37, as part of her quest to reconnect with her heritage.
“The administration can take away physical things. They can’t take away our ability to connect and learn and share our culture,” Felton said.
Passing a wall where panels about slavery were removed, Mijuel K. Johnson (left) with The Black Journey: African-American Walking Tour of Philadelphia, leads Judge Cynthia M. Rufe (second from left) as she visits the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026.
‘A sign of the revolution’
Johnson has been giving tours since 2019, delivering rousing accounts of U.S. history interwoven with humor and theatrical gestures. He tells his patrons, who come from around the country, that long before cheesesteaks became Philly’s iconic food,the city was known for its pepper pot stew, an African dish.
“We can tell the full story of America,” he said.
Last weekend, Johnson’s tour group was more “somber” than usual, he said, as they saw the bare walls of the “desecrated” site.
“People seeing it for themselves that this actually did happen,” Johnson said.
For Toi Rachal, 47, a pharmacist from Dallas, and her husband, the tour was eye-opening. The couple had been unaware of the Trump administration’s changes to the site until they joined the tour during their visit to Philadelphia. The work of Johnson and other community members to continue telling the story was even more crucial with the exhibits gone, Rachal said.
“If we just walked in these areas on our own, eventually we would have probably figured it out,” she said, “but you may not have known exactly what happened.”
The exhibits were removed under an order issued by Trump instructing the Department of the Interior to remove materials at national parks that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” widely criticized as an effort to whitewash history ahead of this year’s celebrations of the country’s 250th anniversary.
But the move brought unprecedented attention to the President’s House, drawing curious onlookers. When the panels were beginning to be restored Thursday, a group observed as park employees put history back in its rightful place.
Shortly before Johnson’s tour group stopped at the site, a volunteer read from a binder containing the informational text that had been removed. The volunteer was one of dozens of people who had signed up for a shift with Old City Remembers, a grassroots effort to speak the history of the President’s House even if the panels were no longer there.
Mijuel K. Johnson leads visitors from Charlotte, North Carolina, at the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park on Wednesday, July 23, 2025.
“Because those have been removed, somebody needs to tell the story, somebody needs to make sure that we’re not going to let that history be erased,” Matt Hall, a professor and the organizer of the group, said in an interview earlier this month.
It’s “active history,” said Ashley Jordan, president and CEO of the African American Museum in Philadelphia, located blocks away from the site. “The fact that they are using their words, their demonstrations, through art-making, through signage, through print materials — that has always been a sign of the revolution in America.”
Ahead of Johnson’s tour last Saturday, visitors taking advantage of the warmest winter day in weeks congregated around the bare exhibit wall. In its place were educational fliers about Washington, Ona Judge, and other historical figures. Posters displayed messages: “Truth Matters,” “Erasing Slavery is Pro-slavery,” and “Dump Trump Not History.”
The Black Journey and the 1838 Black Metropolis tour guide Mijuel K. Johnson (right) is reflected in the Liberty Bell Center window as he talks about James Forten (top left) 1746-1842 during a Black History tour in Philadelphia on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. Forten was a Revolutionary War veteran, sailmaker, business owner, and a leader of Philadelphia’s free Black community.
Philadelphians celebrate, but prepare for more fights ahead
Avenging the Ancestors Coalition members gathered Thursday afternoon at the President’s House, celebrating the reinstallation earlier in the day.
“This is actually a moment in time,” said Michael Coard, attorney and leader of the coalition, which had fought tirelessly to develop and, now, protect the site. “Your children, your grandchildren, your great-grandchildren are going to be talking about this for years.”
Coard emphasized the fight was not yet over while highlighting the significance of the community’s contributions in the fight to safeguard the President’s House.
“I just want you for a few seconds just to think about what you all have done,” Coard told the crowd. “Because what you’ve done is to actually create history. … Think about it. You fought the most powerful man on the planet, and you won.”
Attorney Michael Coard, leader of the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition, speaks at the President’s House site on Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, during their annual gathering for a Presidents’ Day observance. While there, they learned a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore the slavery exhibits that the National Park Service removed from the site last month. The names of nine enslaved people who lived and worked in the household of George Washington engraved in stone behind him were not removed by the NPS.
Even as Philadelphians celebrated the reinstallation, more efforts were being planned to continue sharing the story of the President’s House.
Mona Washington, a playwright and Avenging the Ancestors Coalition board member,is crafting a series of plays related to the President’s House, which she hopes to showcase this summer, during the height of the 250th anniversary celebrations. Some of the plays, she said, are written in the first person for the people who were enslaved by the first president at his Philadelphia residence.
“We’re here, and you can try and erase whatever you want, as much as you want, but guess what? There are lots of us, and we’re just going to keep moving and moving and moving toward truth,” Washington said.
At the President’s House last Saturday, there were few pieces that Johnson could share with the group that had not been tainted by the Trump administration. One of them was the Memorial Wall, which is engraved with the names of Ona Judge and the eight other people George Washington enslaved — Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Moll, and Joe. A few paces away, their quarters once stood, where at least four of the nine individuals would stay at any given time, Johnson said.
Mijuel Johnson, a guide with The Black Journey: African-American Walking Tour of Philadelphia, leads visitors in the President’s House in Independence National Historical Park Wednesday, July 23, 2025. The names of nine enslaved people who lived and worked at the House are engraved in stone on the site.
Outside the quarters appears a plaque signed by the city and the National Park Service that reads: “It is difficult to understand how men who spoke so passionately of liberty and freedom were unable to see the contradiction, the injustice, and the immorality of their actions.”
These words are preceded by an italicized quote from former President Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president: “It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom … yes we can, yes we can.”
A lack of proper tools and the snow were the only things standing in the way of the Trump administration making further alterations to the President’s House last month.U.S. District Judge Cynthia M.Rufe has now ordered that the President’s House cannot be further altered.
Last Saturday, Johnson assured his tour group as they were filing through the quarters that this piece of history would remain.
“They can’t touch this,” he said.
Staff writer Maggie Prosser contributed to this article.
During a talkby an Israeli journalist at Haverford College earlier this month, a group of about a dozen masked people sat and stood in the audience.
At one point, one of them began shouting through a bullhorn, “Death to IOF,” or Israeli Occupying Forces, a name critics use to refer to Israel Defense Forces,and “Shame,” according to a video of the incident and people who attended the event. The protesters’ faces were covered by masks or keffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian identity.
“When Gaza has burned, you will all burn, too,” the protester shouted at the audience of about 180 people, many of them members of the local Jewish community, according to another video viewed by The Inquirer.
An audience member grabbed at the bullhorn and appeared to make contact with the protester as the protester yelled in his face, according to a video. The college’s campus safety personnel ejected both the bullhorn user and the audience member and has since banned both from campus, college officials said, noting that neither is an employee, student, or alumnus of Haverford.
The event sparked renewed charges of antisemitism on the highly selective liberal arts campus, which already is under scrutiny by a Republican-led congressional committee for its handling of antisemitism complaints and is the subject of an open investigation by the U.S. Department of Education.
It will also lead to changes in Haverford’s policies. In a message to the campus after the event, president Wendy Raymond — who faced intense questioning from the congressional committee about the school’s response to antisemitism last year — said “shouting down a speaker whom one does not agree with is never acceptable and stands outside of our shared community values.”
College officials acknowledged that Haverford needs to upgrade its event policies andsaid changes would be rolled out no later than after spring break.
Some people who attended the event to hear journalist Haviv Rettig Gur said they were afraid because they did not know who the masked attendees were or what they had in their belongings, and in light of recent mass violence at Jewish events around the world.
“I was scared to walk back to my car by myself, which is the only time I ever felt that way in Lower Merion, where I live,” said Susan Taichman, a resident of Bala Cynwyd, who was in the audience.
Barak Mendelsohn,professor of political science at Haverford College
Several students in attendance that night said most of the protesters sat or stood silently during the event — which is permitted under campus policy.
“I went into that event not with hatred for Jewish people, as some … have claimed was the intention of the protesters at the event,” said one Haverford student protester who asked that her name be withheld for safety reasons. “I went in with love, empathy, and deep concern for the Palestinians experiencing abhorrent amounts of violence in their homeland, as well as an understanding of the historical contexts that led to this violence, including the historic persecution of Jewish people that led to the development of Zionist thought.
“This context, in my opinion, is not an excuse for the genocide. It’s something really tragic that is going on, and I feel really strongly that it has to be stopped.”
Cade Fanning, the associate editor of the Clerk, Haverford’s student newspaper, cited three interruptions by protesters. One early on argued with Gur for an extended period, followed by the bullhorn incident less than an hour into the event, and then some banging on doors and yelling outside the room, said Fanning, 21, a senior history major from Annapolis, who attended the event.
Haverford professor Barak Mendelsohn, who helped organize the nearly three-hour event and has complained about the college’s handling of antisemitism in the past, said attendees were terrified as disruptions continued.
“I can’t tell you how ashamed I am as one of the organizers,” said Mendelsohn, an Israeli-born professor of political science and a terrorism scholar.
Leaders of Haverford’s students’ council, meanwhile, voiced concerns that an audience member had initiated physical contact with the protester, “which deeply frightened and disturbed members of Students’ Council,” they wrote. “We believe it is paramount to prioritize the safety of members of our college community. Actions like this have no place in our community.”
Some community members also interrupted and “heckled” protesters, Fanning said, adding that Gur belittled the activists as “children” who did not know enough about the world. The college, Fanning said, should have addressed that in its statement to the community.
“It would have been beneficial had they at least acknowledged that he wasn’t the most conducive to respectful, honest, open debate either,” Fanning said of Gur. “He didn’t treat the students with the most respect.”
But Anna Braun, 21, a senior English major from New York City who attended the event, said she was impressed with how Gur handled the protesters.
“He decided to engage with them one on one to really ask them questions and try to deconstruct why they were protesting,” she said. “The only way we can have any hope for peace is for people to listen to each other and to find some middle ground. And if you’re ignoring each other or if you are interrupting each other, then there is no potential for seeing eye to eye.”
An effort to ensure safe events
“It has become clear that there are gaps in how events are reviewed, supported, and managed on campus,” Raymond said in her message to campus. “We are actively revising our event management and space use policies to improve clarity and processes.”
Wendy Raymond, president of Haverford College, testifies before the House Committee on Education and Workforce hearing on antisemitism on American campuses on May 7, 2025.
The new policy, she said, “will clarify expectations for different types of events, strengthen coordination among College offices, and establish additional planning and support for events that require heightened attention.”
Factors such as “significant attendance or operational complexity, heightened public visibility, safety, security, or crowd-management considerations, media presence or external participation, and increased likelihood of disruption or protest activity” may trigger the need for additional review to determine whether more resources are needed, said Melissa Shaffmaster, Haverford’s vice president for marketing and communication.
“Our intention … is not in any way to restrict free speech or restrict access for different speakers or topics to be discussed on campus,” she said. “We want to make sure that the proper resources are allocated so events can happen safely, people can have really thoughtful discourse, and these events can go off the way they are intended.”
The indoor use of bullhorns violated the school’s “expressive freedom” policy put in place last spring, she said.
The college is participating in the Hillel Campus Climate Initiative, touted as an effort to help college leaders counter antisemitism. A survey “to better understand the current climate for Jewish students” will be part of the effort.
Haverford also is preparing for a major change in leadership. Raymond said in November she would step down as president in June 2027; John McKnight, the dean of the college, also announced he would be leaving at the end of this semester for a new role at Dartmouth College; and the college’s vice president for institutional equity and access also will exit that post in May.
‘The howling cry of an uneducated child’
Gur’s talk was titled “Roots, Return, and Reality: Jews, Israel, and the Myth of Settler Colonialism.” In an opinion piece for the Free Press after the talk, Gur said he had gone to Haverford to talk “about the Jewish history that forged Israeli identity.”
While he saw the audience “tense up” when protesters entered, he wrote, he saw it as “a chance to explore managing an encounter with the abusive ideologues.”
He said he invited protesters to stay, but told them they had to remove their masks, which they did not do. Most protesters remained for the entire talk, he said, some even crying and engaging in dialogue with him.
“The more I treated them like neglected children hungry for knowledge, the more likely they were to respond in healthy and productive ways,” he wrote.
The event was organized by Kevin Foley, a 1983 Haverford graduate. Foley said he was impressed with Gur, a political correspondent and senior analyst for the Times of Israel, after seeing a video of him teaching.
“I thought I could do something good for Haverford by having him teach there,” said Foley, who lives in Connecticut and New York City and spent his career running electronic trading businesses at Bloomberg and Cantor Fitzgerald.
Foley’s best friend was killed in the 9/11 attacks and he said he experienced Hamas’ October 2023 attack on Israel as an “echo trauma.” To see concerns at Haverford about its handling of antisemitism “was disappointing,” he said, and what happened at Gur’s talk reinforced those concerns.
“What I can’t believe is that Haverford has so abandoned its liberal values of academic freedom, freedom of inquiry, that it’s considered acceptable for protesters to come in and disrupt and shut down an educational class,” Foley said.
Foley called on the college to ban masks and have metal detectors available when needed, and to apologize to Gur’s audience.
Shaffmaster said the college’s policy allows people to wear masks, but they must remove them if they are asked by campus safety officers or administrators for identification purposes.
Ongoing tensions on campus
Several students in attendance, who asked not to be named because of tensions on campus over the issue, said they thought campus safety and the college handled the event as best they could without silencing either side.
“No matter what they had done, people would be mad at them,” one said.
Fanning, the student editor, understood why older community members may have been fearful, but said protesters also have fears of being harassed or doxed for their pro-Palestinian advocacy if their identity is known.
“They are not fearless themselves,” Fanning said. “Nobody is.”
But Mendelsohn, the professor, was disturbed that Haverford seemed to equate the actions of the audience member who grabbed the bullhorn with those of the protester.
“The person acted in self-defense and managed to get the bullhorn from her hands,” he said. “If someone turned to you with a microphone and screamed, you would not sit there and do nothing.”
Mendelsohn has been at the forefront of allegations that Haverford has not done enough to address antisemitism, and the college has investigated him for speaking out on social media and in emails, according to a lawsuit filed against the college last year by a Jewish group. Much of the complaint was dismissed, but the judge allowed a portion involving breach of contract that would result in nominal damages to proceed, and that is in mediation, court records show.
The actions at Gur’s speech were just one of several ongoing problems with antisemitism on the campus, Mendelsohn said. His mezuzah — an object signifying the Jewish faith — was stolen from his office door a couple of months ago, he said. And he referred to a bias complaint over comments made around funding for the Haverford Chabad board. That remains under review, the college said.
Braun, the English major, said that she was heartened to see improvement in Haverford’s handling of the Gur event and that the campus has been more welcoming to Jewish students. Most people she has spoken with, she said, did not think the use of the bullhorn was appropriate.
“That’s not something I would have heard two years ago on this campus,” she said. “I sincerely believe there is more of a desire to create an inclusive environment.”
Rudolph Blankenburg Elementary School in West Philadelphia serves kids with complex needs — and test scores reflect that.
The school, where nearly 95% of students are considered economically disadvantaged, had been a Comprehensive Support and Improvement school — a federally mandated designation for schools performing in the bottom 5% statewide.
But last fall, Blankenburg shed that label. Many students are still struggling but are making gains, teachers said — progress they fear will be threatened by a district proposal to close the schoolas part of a sweeping facilities plan.
“We’ve worked really hard, with a consistent staff and all types of resources in place, for our students to pull ourselves out of that status,” said Flori Thomas, a middle school science teacher at Blankenburg.
That’s her biggest fear, she said: “You’re going to impact our scholars.”
Blankenburg is one of 20 district schools proposed for closure under the plan released last month. Six other schools would be colocated and more than 150 modernized as part of the proposal — which is facing resistance from City Council.
District officials say closures are needed in a system that has lost more than 80,000 students over the last 30 years, many to charter schools. The district has struggled to fund repairs of aging buildings — including at Blankenburg, where staff report chipping paint and roof leaks.
Marquita Jenkins, the school’s dean of climate and culture, does not disagree that the building, which opened in 1925, needs repairs — or that it is underutilized. The K-8 school, which currently enrolls 278 students, has room for almost 600. Officials said the school’s enrollment has declined by about 100 students over the last four years.
But the relatively low enrollment has also enabled smaller class sizes, helping student growth, Jenkins said. A former fourth- and sixth-grade teacher at Blankenburg, she recalled teaching a class of 33 students, 11 of whom had individualized special education plans: “It was tough.” Classes now are smaller, she said.
Like other staff, she worried about where Blankenburg students would end up. The district proposes to reassign them to Edward Heston School, James Rhoads Elementary School, and a newly colocated Martha Washington Academics Plus School and Middle Years Alternative School.
Blankenburg‘s building near 46th and Girard, meanwhile, would be conveyed to the city for “affordable workforce housing and/or job creation,” according to the district.
Jenkins and other staff questioned the safety of the routes to schoolfor reassigned students.
They also voiced concern for particularly vulnerable students: Blankenburg is surrounded by at least seven homeless shelters and “tends to have attendance fluctuations,” assistant principal Sandra Pitts said at a virtual community meeting with district officials this month. She questioned how families would be “assisted to avoid further trauma.” (Officials said they would be supporting students with housing instability in placements.)
Staffers noted that Blankenburg also has a significant population of students with special needs, who make up 25% of its enrollment.
Among them is Sherell Robinson’s kindergartener, Illiyin, who has autism and medical complexities.
Robinson, who lives in West Philadelphia, said that Illiyin had been denied enrollment at other district schools, and that she was told she had to send her daughter to Blankenburg.
Robinson initially had a negative impression of Blankenburg but was impressed with the school’s principal, Sheena Wilson, who “didn’t try to sell me, or placate me” — just presented what the school had to offer, she said.
What Robinson found was a small environment, “loving people,” and a routine for Illiyin. Now she is panicked at the prospect of the school closing.
“For them to be taking this whole community away is really devastating,” Robinson said. “It takes time to find the correct programming and environment and teachers who are neuro-affirming, especially for Black children.”
A real estate agent, Robinson said there was an irony to the district’s plan to convert Blankenburg to workforce housing — something she believes she currently would qualify for. But if she does not find a stable school environment for her daughter, she isn’t sure she will be able to keep her job.
“They might look at me as a single case, but I can assure you I am not an anomaly,” said Robinson, who also works for a disability nonprofit and is in touch with other parents of autistic children. “This is going to affect how we can take care of our families, how that perpetuates what we’re already experiencing. … I don’t want to normalize that struggle to them.”
Teachers said they are committed to Blankenburg’s students. “We bring a lot of positivity and try to keep our kids safe,” said Jenkins, who has led field trips to places including the Kimmel Center in Center City and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington.
Thomas, who grew up in the neighborhood around Blankenburg and now lives in New Jersey, said that whenever students learn about her commute, she tells them they are worth the drive.
Others outside the city see headlines about crime, Thomas said, but she tells students: “I see you.”
A high-stakes fight is brewing between President Donald Trump’s administration and states such as Pennsylvania and New Jersey over the regulation of prediction markets, the online platforms that allow users to wager on everything from sports and elections to the weather.
States that have legalized sports betting in recent years say prediction markets amount to unauthorized gambling, putting consumers at risk and threatening tax revenues generated by regulated entities like casinos.
But the Trump administration this week said the federal government was the appropriate regulator, siding with the industry’s argument that the markets’ “event contracts” are financial derivatives that allow investors to hedge against risks.
The chair of the federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Tuesday said the CFTChad filed a brief in federal court to “defend its exclusive jurisdiction” to oversee these markets, amid litigation between state governments and platforms such as Kalshi and Polymarket.
Prediction markets “provide useful functions for society by allowing everyday Americans to hedge commercial risks like increases in temperature and energy price spikes,” CFTC Chairman Mike Selig said in a video posted on X.
New Jersey collected more than $880 million in gaming tax revenues last year, while Pennsylvania brought in almost $3 billion, according to regulators. The revenues fund property tax relief programs and the horse racing industry, as well as programs for senior citizens and disabled residents.
Pennsylvania’s gaming regulator has previously warned that prediction markets risk “creating a backdoor to legalized sports betting,” without strict oversight.
The state Gaming Control Board’s Office of Chief Counsel told The Inquirer Wednesday that it sees a distinction between certain futures markets — like those for agricultural commodities, which have long been regulated by the CFTC — and “event contracts” tied to “the outcome of a random Wednesday night NBA basketball game.”
Representatives for Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, both Democrats, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
But former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — a Republican who worked to legalize sports betting while in office and who’s now advising the American Gaming Association — said Tuesday on X that the Trump administration is trying to “grow the size of the federal government & their own power while trying to crush states rights and take advantage of our citizens.”
Beyond the courts, the GOP-led Congress could also choose to step in. Some Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about a “Wild West” in prediction markets, notwithstanding Trump’s support for the industry.
Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) welcomed the CFTC’s announcement, writing on X that prediction markets “offer tremendous benefits to consumers and businesses.”
“A consistent, uniform framework for derivatives is essential to supporting U.S. markets,” he said.
The CFTC’s action means the federal government is backing an industry in which the Trump family has a financial stake. The agency’s brief supports Crypto.com, a platform that last year partnered with the Trump family’s social media company to launch a prediction market.
Ethics experts have said the Trump family’s ties to Crypto.com create a conflict of interest. The White House denies that and says the president’s holdings are in a trust controlled by his children.
Winding through courts
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 struck down a federal law that prohibited sports betting in most states, paving the way for states to legalize it. Pennsylvania and New Jersey both enacted laws authorizing sports gambling and imposing requirements on betting operators such as taxation on gaming revenues, consumer protection rules, and licensing fees.
Despite state laws, prediction markets now operate nationwide — even in states that prohibit gambling altogether, like Utah.
New York-based Kalshi launched its platform in 2021. The CFTC initially opposed Kalshi’s election-related contracts, but in the fall of 2024 the company won a case in which courts found the regulator failed to show how the platform’s “event contracts” would harm the public interest. Kalshi users proceeded to trade more than $500 million on the “Who will win the Presidential Election?” market.
Then came sports contracts. In January 2025, following the CFTC’s protocols, Kalshi “self-certified” that its contracts tied to the outcome of sports games complied with relevant laws.
The company has since offered event contracts on everything from the Super Bowl to Olympic Male Curling. Some established sportsbooks like Fanatics and DraftKings have also jumped into prediction markets.
States have tried to intervene. In March, New Jersey’s gaming regulator ordered Kalshi to cease and desist operations in the Garden State, alleging the company issued unauthorized sports wagers in violation of the law and state Constitution.
Kalshi filed a lawsuit, and a federal court issued an injunction prohibiting New Jersey from pursuing enforcement actions. Kalshi and other platforms have filed suits against other states, and courts have issued conflicting rulings.
The CFTC said it filed a brief in one such suit this week.
“To those who seek to challenge our authority in this space, let me be clear: we’ll see you in court,” Selig, the Trump-appointed CFTC chairman, said Tuesday.
Advertisements by the company Kalshi predict a victory for Zohran Mamdani in the New York City mayoral election before the votes are counted and polls close, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in New York.
‘Event contracts’
At issue is whether the “event contracts” offered by prediction markets amount to gambling — regulated by states — or, as Selig says, financial instruments “that allow two parties to speculate on future market conditions without owning the underlying asset.”
Platforms like Kalshi say they are similar to stock exchanges, where people on both sides of a trade can meet — and therefore subject to federal regulation of commodities. Unlike a casino, the platforms say, they don’t win when customers lose.
Pennsylvania regulators see it differently.
The state Gaming Control Board told The Inquirer Wednesday that it takes issue with “‘prediction markets’ allowing any consumer, age 18 years old or older, to purchase a ‘contract’ on any potential future event occurring, even when that event does not have any broad economic impact or consequence, such as the outcome of a random Wednesday night NBA basketball game.”
(Under Pennsylvania law, gambling is limited to those who are 21 or older.)
“The Board believes that is not what the Commodities Exchange Act contemplated when it was enacted by Congress and established the CFTC and is, in fact, gambling,” the board’s Office of Chief Counsel said in a statement.
If the courts side with the Trump administration, states worry that tax revenues from regulated sportsbooks would fall and customers would be vulnerable to markets they say are easily exploited by insiders.
“If prediction markets successfully carve themselves out of the ‘gaming’ definition, they risk creating a parallel wagering ecosystem where bets on sports outcomes occur with significantly less oversight regarding potential match-fixing,” Kevin F. O’Toole, executive director of the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, wrote in an October letter to the state’s congressional delegation.
For example, the gaming board has the ability to penalize licensed operators if they violate state regulations, O’Toole wrote, “something that an operator who ‘self-certifies’ their contracts/wagers [under CFTC rules] would never be subjected to.”
O’Toole said the board’s regulatory role in this area is limited to sports wagering, but he added that markets on non-sports related events — he cited examples from Polymarket such as whether there will be a civil war in the United States this year — are equally “if not more troubling.”
The CFTC says it is capable of overseeing the industry. “America is home to the most liquid and vibrant financial markets in the world because our regulators take seriously their obligation to police fraud and institute appropriate investor safeguards,” Selig wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece this week.
The Philadelphia Housing Authority embarked on a strategy last year unlike anything it has done before.
The agency is known as the largest affordable housing provider in the city. But in 2025, under the leadership of CEO Kelvin Jeremiah, it began buying struggling private-sector apartment buildings all over the city to expand the affordable housing supply.
Over the last 14 months, the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) has spent $280.6 million to acquire 17 multifamily properties, totaling 1,515 units. Some have been student apartments or largely empty new buildings. But most have been full of tenants paying market-rate rents, ranging from $1,106 to $2,323.
That’s a new demographic for PHA, whose renter base often makes less than $30,000 a year.
PHA plans to fillthese buildings with Section 8 voucher holders, who often have a difficult time finding rentals in higher income areas.
“It’s part of the strategy … to give residents the broadest possible options in terms of their housing choice and one that is not limited to particular neighborhoods,” Jeremiah said.
In an innovation, the agency intends to keep renting some units in the newly acquired buildings at the market rate, using the income to support operating expenses.
The first PHA purchase in 2025 was The Dane, a 233-unit building in Wynnefield. It now houses some tenants paying market-rate rents and others using government subsidies.
Last year, several tenants contacted The Inquirer with concerns about what they described asa rocky transition to PHA ownership. Since then, interviews with 18 tenants at The Dane have laid out challenges within PHA’s new model — and the potential difficulty of retaining renters with options elsewhere.
Eighty-six people have moved out of The Dane over the last year. That’s about half the original occupants as the building was only 75% occupied when purchased.
The overwhelming majority of tenants interviewed by The Inquirer said PHA is a better landlord than the previous owner, Cross Properties. But most have moved out or are planning to.
“The management staff that are there now are better than what we had, but they’re still pretty mediocre,” said one resident, who, like many of the tenants, asked that their name be withheld to preserve relations in the building.
“Everybody’s very polite; everybody’s very cordial, but it’s only maybe one or two maintenance people,” this multiyear resident said. “The trash pileup is very bad right now … I plan to move elsewhere.”
Jeremiah noted that most of the properties PHA acquired have not experienced the kind of turnover that The Dane has seen. The building is now almost completely occupied with both market-rate and subsidized tenants, said a PHA spokesperson.
He said some tenants moved out after the agency began collecting rent again. Many had been withholding payments to Cross, which lacked a rental license at the end of its tenure.
It’s possible that the turnover at The Dane is largely the result of a difficult property transfer from a troubled previous owner. (Cross Properties is no longer in business.) In that case, the tenant exodus may not be a predictor for PHA’s larger ambitions.
But given the skepticism PHA faces in many neighborhoods, outside observers say, the agency’s new expansion strategy faces high expectations to get everything right.
“PHA is under a tremendous amount of pressure,” said Akira Rodriguez, a professor of housing policy at the University of Pennsylvania. “There’s going to be experiences that are uneven for tenants as they navigate this new model of housing provision … [and The Dane] is a really high visibility example.”
A long troubled apartment building
In November 2024, residents of The Dane were fed up. Their hot water wasn’t working — again — in apartments where many households paid over $2,000 a month in rent.
“The owner [Cross Properties] was not the best,” said Akeesha Washington, who has lived in The Dane since 2020. “He just didn’t maintain the building. Over the years, you saw the amenities dwindle.”
Cross Properties acquired the building in 2016 when it was the Penn Wynn House and converted the rent-subsidized building into market-rate apartments.
When Washington moved in, she was impressed. The staff were kind to her in 2020 when she contracted COVID-19. They coordinated care with Washington’s mother so she had access to medication without infecting anyone.
“It was a really nice community. It’s luxury in the 19131 section, where not everyone feels like they can afford it,” said Washington, who loves the diversity of the tenants, which included university students, working-class residents, and doctors and lawyers.
“You had so many layers of people living and coexisting in this building,” Washington recalled. Rents ranged from $1,100 for a studio to $2,200 for a two-bedroom unit with two bathrooms.
But by 2024, most tenants said, building management had fallen off. Trash wasn’t picked up regularly; lawns went unmowed and snow unshoveled, and basic amenities like the parking garage door often didn’t work.
Shortly after another hot water outage, tenants got news in late 2024 that Cross Properties was out.
“When residents heard it was being acquired, we were excited because we won’t have to deal with not having hot water, especially during the holidays,” Washington said.
Akeesha Washington in the lobby of her apartment building in the Wynnefield neighborhood in December. She was living in the market-rate building before the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA) purchased it to expand the city’s affordable housing supply.
New management, new problems
When PHA purchased The Dane, the building had many unresolved issues, said Tonya Looney, who worked for Cross Properties as the building’s manager. And she said there was scarce planning for the details of the transfer.
“To be fair, this is something new and I understand from a real estate professional’s perspective that there’s going to be hiccups,” said Looney, who stopped working at The Dane last May, although she still manages 15 apartments for long-term corporate stays in the building.
Looney is in a legal dispute with PHA, which says she owes substantial back rent. “We do not intend to renew the leases that she has in her name,” Jeremiah said. “I do not think she is a good arbiter of the facts in this case.”
Both Jeremiah and Looney say that after the sale closed, Cross Properties shut down the operating software, cutting off tenants’ ability to pay rent online, see their rental histories, and submit maintenance requests.
“We had 200 people with no way to log in to pay their rent, no way to submit a maintenance ticket, no idea who to talk to about any issues at the building unless they came downstairs to see what’s going on,” Looney said. “Needless to say, it was chaotic.”
For much of 2025, residents had to pay with checks, which sometimes went uncashed, according to Washington and Looney.
Jeremiah says that Cross Properties’ owner asked PHA to pay to access the former tenant managementsystem, although PHA eventually figured out how to get the records.
Despite the chaotic transition, many tenants said PHA’s ownership brought improvements from previous conditions, especially after Maryland-based HH Redstone was brought in to operate The Dane in August. (That’s when online payments, for example, started working again.)
“HH Redstone is doing what they can, and I’ve re-signed my lease for one year because I am willing to see what change they can continue to make,” said another tenant who asked not to be named.
Why tenants are leaving, even with improved conditions
Other tenants say property services continue to suffer.
Trash pickup is still persistently late, several tenants said. Pest outbreaks such as bedbug, mouse, and cockroach infestations flare up, which is new in the building, according to Washington and two other tenants. The dog washing station and the dog run are often messy. The garage door continues to break down. This winter, a rash of burglaries spooked residents.
Jeremiah said PHA is addressing these concerns, and in some cases — such as the dirty dog run — residents are expected to clean up after themselves. He also noted that the agency installed 24-hour security.
“The idea that this is a new phenomenon to that building, given where it’s located, is just nonsense,” Jeremiah said of the security concerns. “We have a very robust set of layered access control systems in place [and] CCTVs.”
The exterior of Brith Sholom House on May 8, 2023.
When they first arrived at The Dane, some elderly residents were not getting the care they need, Washington said.
One man she ran into frequently often smelled of urine and would walk around with visibly wet pants. She said building management addressed the issues by spraying Febreze on benches the tenant used after he left an area. He has since died.
Another man screamed for help from his balcony and has since been moved out of the building.
“We are very used to all kinds of things happening here, from the students being wild to elderly being wild, but not to the level of being unable to take care of themselves,” Washington said.
Jeremiah says that PHA keeps tabs on the rehoused Brith Shalom residents — who previously were living with no oversight, although there are limits to what it can do. He encouraged tenants to report anyone who needs aid.
“We provide a robust set of social services to residents we inherited at Brith Shalom,” Jeremiah said. “PHA is not a healthcare provider. We are a housing provider, though we provide access to opportunities for residents who are interested in aging in place.”
A former Brith Shalom resident had no complaints with The Dane and praised PHA for the improvements in his life.
“I have no problem with them. I’m happy,” said Barry Brahn, who is blind and has AIDS. “They’re slow at getting things fixed, but they can only do so much and they’ll eventually get on it.”
What comes next?
Some aspects of the rocky transition from Cross Properties to PHA have eased. Since October, tenants were able to pay their rent online and submit maintenance requests. Washington says she does not see obviously distressed elderly residents any longer.
But tensions remain.
“The transition to PHA has been challenging, and their communication has been sorely lacking,” said Lanese Rogers, who has lived in The Dane for two years.“As someone who pays unsubsidized rent, they deal with us in a condescending manner.”
Kelvin Jeremiah, PHA president and chief executive officer, at PHA headquarters, in Philadelphia.
Jeremiah says he believes some of the pushback against PHA is due to class prejudice and bias against subsidized tenants.
“I don’t believe that there is anywhere any Philadelphian, whether or not they’re high income, middle income, low income, shouldn’t be permitted to live,” Jeremiah said.
He is committed to providing accessibility and affordability throughout the city, he said, and he hopes to retain mixed-income residency innewly acquired buildings with existing tenants.
So far at The Dane, many of the market-rate tenants are leaving.
“If I could pick up my apartment and move it to another location, I would,” Rogers said. “The building is changing, and I don’t like the direction it’s moving in.”
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration last August told the U.S. Department of Justice that Philadelphia remains a “welcoming city” for immigrants and that it had no plans to change the policies the Trump administration has said make it a “sanctuary city,” according to a letter obtained by The Inquirer through an open-records request.
“To be clear, the City of Philadelphia is firmly committed to supporting our immigrant communities and remaining a welcoming city,” City Solicitor Renee Garcia wrote in the Aug. 25, 2025, letter. “At the same time, the City does not maintain any policies or practices that violate federal immigration laws or obstruct federal immigration enforcement.”
Garcia sent the letter last summer in response to a demand from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that Philadelphia end its so-called sanctuary city policies, which prohibit the city from assisting some federal immigration tactics. Bondi sent similar requests to other jurisdictions that President Donald Trump’s administration contends illegally obstruct immigration enforcement, threatening to withhold federal funds and potentially charge local officials with crimes.
Although some other cities quickly publicized their responses to Bondi, Parker’s administration fought to keep Garcia’s letter secret for months and initially denied a records request submitted by The Inquirer under Pennsylvania’s Right-To-Know Law.
The city released the letter this week after The Inquirer appealed to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, which ruled that the Parker administration’s grounds for withholding it were invalid.
The letter largely mirrors Parker’s public talking points about immigration policy, raising questions about why her administration sought to keep it confidential.
But the administration’s opaque handling of the letter keeps with the approach Parker has taken to immigration issues since Trump returned to office 13 months ago. Parker has vowed not to change immigrant-friendly policies enacted by past mayors, while avoiding confrontation with the federal government in a strategy aimed at keeping Philadelphia out of the president’s crosshairs as he pursues a nationwide deportation campaign.
Although U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers operate in the city, Philadelphia has not seen a surge in federal agents like the ones Trump sent to Minneapolis and other jurisdictions.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Immigrant advocates have called on Parker to take a more aggressive stand against Trump, and City Council may soon force the conversation. Councilmembers Rue Landau and Kendra Brooks have proposed a package of bills aimed at further constricting ICE operations in the city, including a proposal to ban law enforcement officers from wearing masks. The bills will likely advance this spring.
Advocates and protesters call for ICE to get out of Philadelphia in Center City on January 27, 2026.
Parker’s delicate handling of immigration issues stands in contrast to her aggressive response to the Trump administration’s removal last month of exhibits related to slavery at the President’s House Site on Independence Mall.
The city sued to have the panels restored almost immediately after they were taken down. After a federal judge sided with the Parker administration, National Park Service employees on Thursday restored the panels to the exhibit in a notable win for the mayor.
Bondi’s letter, which was addressed to Parker, demanded the city produce a plan to eliminate its “sanctuary” policies or face consequences, including the potential loss of federal funds.
“Individuals operating under the color of law, using their official position to obstruct federal immigration enforcement efforts and facilitating or inducing illegal immigration may be subject to criminal charges,” Bondi wrote in the letter, which is dated Aug. 13. “You are hereby notified that your jurisdiction has been identified as one that engages in sanctuary policies and practices that thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States. This ends now.”
“Sanctuary city” is not a legal term, but Philadelphia’s policies are in line with how the phrase is typically usedto describe jurisdictions that decline to assist ICE.
Immigrant advocates have in recent years shifted to using the label “welcoming city,” in part because calling any place a “sanctuary” is misleading when ICE can still operate throughout the country. The newer term is also useful for local officials hoping to evade Trump’s wrath, as it allows them to avoid the politically hazardous “sanctuary city” label.
Philly’s most notable immigration policy is a 2016 executive order signed by then-Mayor Jim Kenney that prohibits city jails from honoring ICE detainer requests, in which ICE agents ask local prisons to extend inmates’ time behind bars to facilitate their transfer into federal custody. The city also prohibits its police officers from inquiring about immigration status when it is not necessary to enforce local law.
Renee Garcia, Philadelphia City Solicitor speaks before City Council on Jan 22, 2025.
Garcia wrote in the August letter that Kenney’s order “was not designed to obstruct federal immigration laws, but rather to clarify the respective roles of the Police Department and the Department of Prisons in their interactions with the Department of Homeland Security when immigrants are in City custody.” The city, she wrote, honors ICE requests when they are accompanied by judicial warrants.
Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and — in a case centered on Kenney’s order — the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled in 2019 that cities do not have to assist ICE.
The court, Garcia wrote, “held that the federal government could not coerce Philadelphia into performing immigration tasks under threat of federal repercussions, including the loss of federal funds.”
City loses fight over records
In Pennsylvania, all government records are considered public unless they are specifically exempted from disclosure under the Right-To-Know Law. In justifying its attempt to prevent the city’s response to the Trump administration from becoming public, the Parker administration cited two exemptions that had little to do with the circumstances surrounding Garcia’s letter.
First, the administration argued that the letter was protected by the work product doctrine, which prevents attorneys’ legal work and conclusions from being shared with opposing parties. Given that the letter had already been sent to the federal government — the city’s opponent in any potential litigation — the doctrine “has been effectively waived,” Magdalene C. Zeppos-Brown, deputy chief counsel in the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, wrote in her decision in favor of The Inquirer.
“Despite the [city’s] argument, the Bondi Letter clearly establishes that the Department of Justice is a potential adversary in anticipated litigation,” Zeppos-Brown wrote.
Second, the city argued that the records were exempted from disclosure under the Right-To-Know Law because they were related to a noncriminal investigation. The law, however, prevents disclosure of records related to Pennsylvania government agencies’ own investigations — not of records related to a federal investigation that happen to be in the possession of a local agency.
“Notably, the [city] acknowledges that the investigation at issue was conducted by the DOJ, a federal agency, rather than the [city] itself,” Zeppos-Brown wrote. “Since the DOJ is a federal agency, the noncriminal investigation exemption would not apply.”
Garcia’s office declined to appeal the decision, which would have required the city to file a petition in Common Pleas Court.
“As we stated, the City of Philadelphia is firmly committed to supporting our immigrant communities as a Welcoming City,” Garcia said in a statement Wednesday after the court instructed the city to release the letter. “At the same time, we have a long-standing collaborative relationship with federal, state, and local partners to protect the health and safety of Philadelphia, and we remain [in] compliance with federal immigration laws.”
Staff writers Anna Orso and Jeff Gammage contributed to this article.
