INBOX: Ever Get The Feeling You Are Being Watched?

Hi, phawker (phawker). Larry Mendte (LarryMendte) is now following your updates on Twitter. Check out Larry Mendte’s profile here: http://twitter.com/LarryMendte You may follow Larry Mendte as well by clicking on the “follow” button. Best, Twitter PREVIOUSLY: Ex-Anchor Pleads Guilty To Email Hackery *** NEW FEATURE: Meet Jeff Tweeney Hey folks, Jeff Deeney here to let you know how this new Twitter project we’re rolling out will work. From now until Philadelphia no longer needs me for cannon fodder in the trenches of the War On Poverty, I will be posting the little overheard snippets of unintentional brilliance and frequently unhinged […]

NEW FEATURE: Meet Jeff Tweeney

Hey folks, Jeff Deeney here to let you know how this new Twitter project we’re rolling out will work. From now until Philadelphia no longer needs me for cannon fodder in the trenches of the War On Poverty, I will be posting the little overheard snippets of unintentional brilliance and frequently unhinged insanity that comprise the background noise of my work day.  Think of it as Today I Saw for the ADD set; I will bring you the streets in 160 characters or less. All dialogue 100% overheard. You’re already a couple days behind, so start following the Phawker Twitter […]

2008 THE YEAR IN DEENEY: Why I Had To Kill VALLEY OF THE SHADOW Before It Killed Me

The Valley of the Shadow is was an ongoing series documenting how those in Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods publicly mourn and commemorate their dead. Jeff Deeney, the man who brought you Today I Saw, knows these neighborhoods well from his days as a social worker. The hope is was to shine a light on the city’s untouchables, brighten the darkest corners and gather-and-share ultra-vivid and all-too-real stories of loss, grief and remembrance. BY JEFF DEENEY Initially the Valley of the Shadow series was conceived as a documentary effort aimed at exploring the street memorial phenomenon that has become […]

REWIND 2008: The Year In Obama

[EDITOR’S NOTE: New and improved, with more content than ever!] Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Obama in the White House, the Democrats in control of Congress and the motherf*king Republicans down in flames. If this is a dream, we don’t wanna wake up. Join with us now as we stroll down the memory lane of our in-house commentary and analysis on the 2008 Presidential election (for our complete coverage CLICK HERE). Like Same Cooke prophesied in 1963, a change has come. Truly a once in a lifetime moment in this American life. […]

KILLADELPHIA: 5 Dead In 22 Hours

INQUIRER: Police identified the victims as Jose Ortiz, 45, of the 3200 block of Rorer Street and Roberto Beltran, 38, of the 2900 block of Howard Street. The victims dropped immediately and were declared dead at the scene. Police were still trying to determine whether both men, with criminal histories, were targets.Police said one of the men killed was a suspect in other killings in the area, and authorities said yesterday’s slayings might have been retaliation. The crime scene was at an open-air market on West Indiana Avenue near Mutter Street, where casual merchants do a brisk business selling a […]

EVERY TUESDAY: The Afterlife Of A Statistic

The Valley of the Shadow is an ongoing series documenting how those in Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods publicly mourn and commemorate their dead. Jeff Deeney, the man who brought you Today I Saw, knows these neighborhoods well from his days as a social worker. The hope is to shine a light on the city’s untouchables, brighten the darkest corners and gather-and-share ultra-vivid and all-too-real stories of loss, grief and remembrance. Look for it every Tuesday on Phawker! Why? Because we love you! [Photo by JUSTIN ROMAN]

THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW: Amber & Cambria

[Photos by JUSTIN ROMAN] BY JEFF DEENEY The intersection of Cambria and Amber streets is a good six blocks away from the endemic drug violence of the Badlands — sometimes that seems like six miles, and sometimes like six inches. It sits east of Frankford Avenue and a full five blocks from the El, far enough away that you can’t even see the hulking steel skeleton that straddles Kensington Avenue from here. Crime and violence has seeped north and east from West Kensington over the years, slowly and steadily creeping further and further into the surrounding neighborhoods of the Lower […]

EVERY TUESDAY: The Afterlife Of A Statistic

The Valley of the Shadow is an ongoing series documenting how those in Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods publicly mourn and commemorate their dead. Jeff Deeney, the man who brought you Today I Saw, knows these neighborhoods well from his days as a social worker. The hope is to shine a light on the city’s untouchables, brighten the darkest corners and gather and share ultra-vivid and all-too-real stories of loss, grief and remembrance. Look for it every Tuesday on Phawker! Why? Because we love you!

EVERY TUESDAY: The Afterlife Of A Statistic

The Valley of the Shadow is an ongoing series documenting how those in Philadelphia’s poorest and most violent neighborhoods publicly mourn and commemorate their dead. Jeff Deeney, the man who brought you Today I Saw, knows these neighborhoods well from his days as a social worker. The hope is to shine a light on the city’s untouchables, brighten the darkest corners and gather-and-share ultra-vivid and all-too-real stories of loss, grief and remembrance. Look for it every Tuesday on Phawker! Why? Because we love you! RELATED: The wail that came up from the crowd was as if they heard that Sean […]

RAW FOOTAGE: Demolition Of Mantua Hall

PREVIOUSLY: TODAY I SAW two 16-ft. moving trucks parked back-to-back in front of Mantua Hall, their loading ramps extended so they almost touched each other. Every day is moving day now. The building is slated to be emptied by the end of the year, and while most families have already left there are still some stragglers waiting for the Philadelphia Housing Authority to approve their new scatter-site placements. PHA is paying for the families to relocate, so the moving trucks come in pairs and when one leaves another arrives. The shrill, intermittent symphony of ear-piercing smoke alarms going off about […]

NY TIMES: Has Gawker Jumped The Snark Shark?

NEW YORK TIMES: Is it so? There are certainly signs that Gawker, delivering a daily dose of gossip and commentary about the news business and selected celebrities since 2002, is in the midst of a particularly intense period of turmoil, which has led to a slide in its once-hypnotic influence on the news media world. Before the wave of staff departures at Gawker, New York magazine published an article in October ascribing the site’s popularity to the resentment of the city’s “creative underclass,” and asked whether pandering to the nasty impulses of those who covet an increasingly rare slot among […]

PAPERBOY EXTRA: The Passion Of The Phawker

From this week’s issue of the Philadelphia Weekly: Running about an hour late, local blogger Jonathan Valania, a former PW staff writer, blew into a 300-student journalism class at Temple University last week with a devil-may-care attitude and what he thought were a few sly remarks intended to spark debate. Valania, 41 — founder and editor of a news and culture blog called Phawker — all but sprinted to the front of the room, and without so much as an introduction, asked the class how many students were majoring in journalism. When the majority of the students in the lecture […]

HOT DOCUMENT: We Are Watching You

Hi, Mr. Valania, As you probably know, a lot of the people from my journalism class you visited last Tuesday have pretty strong opinions about some of the things you said, particularly when you talked about journalism being a useless major. Some students, and my professor, George Miller, disagree with what you said. On our class blog, he wrote that you were “Dead wrong.” and that journalists need to have a specific background they can only get by majoring in journalism. I’m working on an article about what you said [for the Philadelphia Weekly], and I’ve talked to a lot […]