What it Feels Like When The Band You Love Hates You BY JONATHAN VALANIA We all have bands we hate, really hate-you know, with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. You hate REM, I still hate Journey. There’s a lot of that going around. But how many people can say a band hates them? Tin-eared soundmen, people who jack the gear out of their van while they sleep, and the tiresome jokesters who still yell “Freebird!”–and that’s about it. And when you narrow it down to people who are hated by their favorite bands, well, it’s a very elite […]
THIS JUST IN: RITZ THEATERS TO BE SOLD
The Ritz Theatres, Center City’s beloved movie shrines, are on the brink of acquisition by Landmark Theatres. The nation’s premier chain devoted to indie and art films confirmed yesterday that it was in negotiations to buy the Philadelphia operations of the Ritz. Although the pact is not final, Landmark may take ownership of the 12 screens at Society Hill’s Ritz Five, Ritz East, and Ritz at the Bourse as early as March 30. Those close to negotiations would not comment on a purchase price. Landmark would buy the Ritz Five at Second and Walnut outright and assume the leases on […]
BAIT & SWITCH: Lincoln Financial ‘Still Committed To The City’ While Moving 400 Jobs Outta Town
Lincoln National Corp. will move 400 jobs, including the chief executive’s, to Radnor from Center City, a spokeswoman for the financial-services company said yesterday.The company had been “looking for space that will meet our needs going forward . . . where people can interact a little more easily,” the spokeswoman, Laurel O’Brien, said. The corporate headquarters will remain in Philadelphia. The move to 180,000 square feet of office space in the Radnor Financial Center will occur in phases into next year and will involve such functions as sales and finance. “We still are very committed to the city,” O’Brien said. […]
HIZZONER ’07: Jesus & Uncle Milty Pass 1st Ballot Hurdle
MILTON STREET’s bid for a City Council seat is still alive, along with the longer-than-longshot mayoral hopes of Queena Bass and Jesus White.But four other political candidates were knocked off the ballot yesterday for alleged problems with their financial disclosures or voter petitions. A squadron of seven Common Pleas judges began yesterday to plow through three dozen election-law challenges. Street’s candidacy for Council at large survived an attack based on his alleged failure to list all his creditors. Bass, the only woman in the mayor’s race, and White, a part-time security guard living in temporary housing, had been challenged for […]
ALMOST GONE WITH THE WIND: 40-Year-Old Intern Rips Off U.S. History, Re-Sells It For Profit On eBay
BY JOHN SHIFFMAN OF THE INQUIRER A 40-year-old summer intern smuggled 165 Civil War-era documents from National Archives offices in Philadelphia and sold them on eBay, officials said yesterday. The intern, Denning McTague, used a backpack to sneak letters, telegrams and military orders — including one announcing the death of President Lincoln — from the archives’ Market Street office. McTague, a Philadelphia resident who has a master’s degree in history and operates a rare-manuscripts business, has helped FBI agents and archives officials retrieve 161 of the 165 documents, said Sitarchuk and prosecutors. As an intern last summer, McTague had been […]
Cover Wars: Whose Artfag Kung-Fu Is Stronger?
This week was easy. We were gonna make CP’s Big Battel-esque Re-Formers cover the winner. But then CP’s blog thingee gave Phawker talk-to-the-hand in their March Madness pool. Just to show that we can be just as petty and small as the rest of the pricks in the blog pond, this week CP snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. Besides, we really, really like the sangria at Amada. WINNER: PW
TODAY I SAW…
BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, which […]
FORECAST: Shit Sandwich
[Click map for latest update]