Philly Chit Chat

As I was looking out the office window at the car fire in Center City today
I noticed the boys have finally started with the scafolding on William Penn. Hopefully I will be dilegent and follow along each day with a photograph of the progress
In the evening I had dinner at a friends and watch a magnificent sunset

The Comcast Building is soaring above Liberty One! From Rt 676 and the Ben Franklin Bridge (Nikon D80)

The strike by the carpet baggers, er I mean union, is finally over. My source says that the scaffolding of William Penn should begin by September 20, exactly one month after he was closed. At $5 a head, 20 people an hour, six hours of 20 elevator rides to the observation tower, it adds up to some much needed money for the Tour Office about $2400 a month (& it’s really not about the money, as much as enjoying the view from the City’s only observation tower). If the tour office had their way, they would have opened the observation tower up as soon as possible, but because the elevator is part of “City Property” guess what department couldn’t wrap their head around the idea of opening the tower until the strike was over. I know when Michael Nutter gets into office, “business as usual” will be put to a stop, and the folks that have an ax to grind will no longer be in charge, because when self interest is in charge, it’s the people of Philadelphia and her visitors that pay the price.
The City says the project should be done by November.

The original story I broke on 8/8/07: http://www.phillychitchat.com/would-we-even-recognize-philadelphia/

The story about the strike that occurred on 8/20/07:

http://www.phillychitchat.com/william-penn-is-not-getting-wax-job-yet_30/

HUGHE DILLON

Looks like he made it – for dinner. Barry Manilow, with sidekicks, arrives at the Saloon in South Philadelphia. Manilow was welcomed Friday in a room whose patrons included mayoral candidate Michael Nutter, Q102’s Diego Ramos, lawyer Jimmy Binns, auto magnate Frank Kerbeck, and nightclub owner Larry Cohen. Last night, Manilow played at the Wachovia Center.

HughE Dillon (*I took this on the red carpet at Fashion Rocks)
Tyra Banks rewarded a rabid fan with autographs last Wednesday while she was in town.

As I mentioned in my 8/8/07 entry, City Hall’s William Penn was scheduled to undergo his 10 year cleaning and waxing to waterproof the statue starting 8/20/07. The newly in place $5 observation viewing tower fee would be suspended as it would be closed for about 30 days for obstruction of view and safety issues. So on 8/20/07 I thought I would begin a series of William Penn shots to mark the progression of the scaffolding and cleaning (I am always inspired by http://www.phillyskyline.com/ and http://www.skyscrapersunset.com/)

8/20/07
8/24/07

8/27/07
8/29/07
Lucy there’s something fishy going on ‘er; On my way to work Wednesday morning I see a guy with a picket sign standing in the South archway of City Hall. I asked him if he was with the company that will be cleaning William Penn and if are they on strike. He didn’t want to answer my questions (which I thought meant if you ask one more question I am going to break your camera over your head)
Lucky for me there seemed to be plenty of picketers and maybe one would answer my questions

West side (another shy one)

Mayor’s entrance
East side, and then finallysomeone, who didn’t want to be photographed, tells me that the picketers are from the Carpenters Union. He further states that “A Non-Union carpenter firm is inside City Hall doing work and the Carpenter’s Union doesn’t think its fair that they can pay someone less than Union Scale to do a job.” I then mentioned that because of his picketing, the Union Carpenter guys who were going to scaffold William Penn to prepare him for cleaning and water proofing, won’t cross the picket line and now tourist from all over the world are going to have to wait even longer to view our beautiful City because of the delay. In fact it could even go into winter before all is said and dine, tourist season will be over and dollars will be lost.

He said, “The City should have been better prepared, they knew about the impending strike and should have been flexible to opened the observation tower, since the work hadn’t even started. They could have been collecting the $5 a head, put a smile on at least 120 people a day for the last two weeks grossing $1200, but then again we are talking about the Street Administration.” (OK that wasn’t his quote)