Philly Chit Chat

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)

So you’ve always wanted see New Jersey bred Kelly Ripa first thing in the morning, you can, you could either hang out at the WABC stage door or you could buy an apartment in her building. According to http://www.curbed.com/ , her current neighbor Lenny Kravitz has put his apartment up for sale.

This spectacular duplex PH loft with 6000 SF of interior space and 3000 SF of outdoor space has been newly redesigned and renovated with no expense spared to create the most luxurious and important property downtown. The 1st level contains a grand entrance area w/ 2 powder rms, living rm w/ marble FPL, a large terrace w/ a WBF, Din Rm, Media Rm w/ full bth, and a gourmet state-of- the- art kitchen w/ bth. A suspended glass staircase leads to the 2nd level which features the Mstr BR w/ a sitting area, a huge Mstr Bth and 3 addtl. BRs each w/ their own bath. Another glass staircase leads to an enormous roof deck w/ a built in barbecue. There are two large outfitted storage rooms that are included in the sale.This loft is for the Connoisseur of First Class Luxury Living and Ultimate Entertaining. Only $19 Million

Anthony Fedorov, of American Idol fame, currently appearing Off-Broadway in the Fantastiks, will be coming to Philadelphia with his band on 9/6/07 (I photographed him Sunday at the Grease opening on Broadway)

Anthony Fedorov @ Golden Gates PA – 9/6/2007
Back to Broadway Event Calendar
Anthony Fedorov will perform at the Golden Gates Club in Philadelphia on Thursday, September 6 at 7:30 PM, accompanied by his band.
The Golden Gates club is located at 11058 Rennard Street, Philadelphia, PA 19116. Meet and greet will be held before the show, so please arrive one hour prior to showtime. Parking is free, but the event is cash only.
Anthony Fedorov, who most recently starred in the off-Broadway production of the Fantasticks, will perform songs from his upcoming album, as well as some covers.
To buy tickets or for more information, go to this website: http://www.anthonyfanclub.com/concertafc.html. Tickets are $30 each.

Two-thirds of US adults admit to being in the dark about political issues outside the United States, and only a third are well-versed in US politics, the results of a poll published Tuesday showed. (Wouldn’t that be 2/3 not knowledgeable of foreign politics, and 2/3 not interested in domestic politics? or is my math screwed up?)
Candidates in the US presidential primaries “may have their work cut out for them as they work to get people interested in the election,” wrote the Harris Poll group, which surveyed 2,225 adults between July 6 and 13 for the poll.
A separate survey gave New York Senator Hillary Clinton a healthy lead over her main rival Barack Obama for the Democratic primary race.
More than 40 percent of those who would vote in a Democratic primary or caucus would vote for Clinton while 27 percent said they would vote for Obama, the poll showed.
In the Republican race for the candidacy, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has a three-percentage point lead over ex-senator Fred Thompson, who hasn’t yet declared that he is running, that poll, which surveyed 2,870 adults in the first week of August, showed.
Global political knowledge was miniscule, with just three percent of women and 14 percent of men saying they are extremely knowledgeable on world politics.
One reason for the knowledge gap is lack of interest, according to the poll. (Photo of LL by me)

A Marathon Rain – Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday (?)

According to PhillyWeather.net:

A gentle soaking rain fell throughout much of the region yesterday afternoon, last night [and today]. In some places, over an inch of rain fell, which is welcome news considering the rainfall deficit we’ve been dealing with. Philadelphia received 0.66″ of rain as of 4 AM this morning, the largest rain event in about a month in this area. Northeast Philadelphia received 1.10″ of rain.

I would have cropped this photo or spiffied it up, but I just got the new Vista system and it didn’t support my JASC Photopaint version, and I have been meaning to graduate or grudgely accept the fact that I should be doing photoshop at this point in my life, so you get nothing but virgin shots until I learn all these new applications. Well that explains why there wasn’t a post on Monday. Thanks!