Philadelphia

MAN OCCUPIES RITTENHOUSE SQ STREETS Plus Beyonce & JayZ stand me up

September 1, 2012 by HughE Dillon

If you were following me on Twitter you saw I tweeted that Beyonce was going to dinner last night, originally I wasn’t going to go I tweeted, but then @Utobia said it was ok to skip our Friday night dinner to go get the golden couple (Beyonce & Jay-Z). Thanks Mike. Anyway, I was hanging with Big Rube and a few other celebrity photographers when we heard this commotion.

At first we thought it was a fist fight or something. Some guy was chasing another guy around his car and fists were swinging.

We thought two friends had a fight and a guy kicked his friend out of the car or something

But the one guy got in the car, the other stood in front of the car and the guy gunned it, hitting him and spinning the guy around, and originally I thought running over his right leg,

but I can tell from this picture maybe not.

The guy surprisingly got up, and we thought it’s all over

The Parc staff came over to help him collect himself, and at one point a big guy in a chefs outfit came over and was trying to get the guy out of the street. Finally getting him on the sidewalk and talking to him.

But then he ran back into the street. Yelling that there was danger or something like that if they went that way. It was crazy. I called 911 at this time. They told me they had gotten multiple calls and would be there.

Then about this point the crazed guy started to pull the wiper blades off of the cabbie, again the “chef or server” came over and tried to restrain the guy and he fought back. He seemed to exhibit super human strength.

Then the guy takes off his shirt while screaming you can’t go down there. Eventually the cab sped off, hitting the guy but not dropping him. (I didn’t video the event as it was too dark. I didn’t use a flash cause I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, it was truly a scary situation for me and my friends. We were all in shock.)

Another cab, this time heading down 18th Street. I can’t remember how this one ended. I’m sure there are security cameras if they need to see all the action. At the same time as focusing on the crazy guys, my friends and I are trying to watch the door of Barclay Prime for Beyonce and JayZ to arrive.

Then this cab hit the guy, spinning him around. Then a small maroon car came by, barely slowed down and hit him. The car continue on 18th Street with the man reeling in pain as he hit his head when he fell and it was loud. It really was horrific.  (Still no cops on the scene. You can see on my twit pixs timeline that almost 15 minutes before they came with a fire truck.) I then focused back on the Barclay wondering why JayZ and Beyonce were 2 hrs late for their reservation, but knew they would come as there was 4 big black SUV’s still outside the restaurant. By this time Fox 29 stopped by to hang with us. It’s odd cause the TV stations almost never come to hang for celebrity sightings. But…

In the end JayZ and Beyonce never showed up to the Barclay Prime  for
dinner because an insider told me that JayZ didn’t finish rehearsals til 11PM. Who was he supposed to meet Steve Stoute, who is responsible for first putting together the idea for #MadeinAmerica http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/branding/steve-stoute-on-uniting-budweiser-jay-z-1007916952.story . There’s no photo because I didn’t recognize him. The other photographer did, but neither of us could come up with a name. I asked one of the Steve’s friends and he told us, but Steve had pulled off already. Follow my twitter today for updates   about  #MadeinAmerica, I was finally credentialed to shoot the event for my local media outlets.

Also check out Jim MacMillan’s blog for the last shot of the man who tried to stop traffic in Rittenhouse Square


Evening in Rittenhouse Square

Check out Brian Hickey too http://www.brianphickey.com/guy-fights-cars-on-rittenhouse-square-loses/ 

Update:

. I was at 10th & Spruce when you tweeted the second hit; I was walking that way and still got there before the ambulance.