philly

I tagged along with Peggy Banaszek on Monday on a trip to Benjamin Franklin High School to deliver about 250 books for her 10,000 Pages Book Drive (more books are ready for another drop off at another school soon). I briefly wrote about the initial getting the word out event at Rittenhouse Square last month. I met Peggy, Florence and a bunch of students to unload the boxes of books up at Broad & Spring Garden Sts.

Peggy took a PhillyCarShare Honda Fit and it was packed to the brim with books. I could only stick my head in for a photo of the unloading after half of the books were already taken out.

We loaded up a cart and got onto a gigantic elevator. You could fit a few golf carts in there. I guess that's what you need when dealing with moving tons of desks, tables, cabinets, copy machines and the other large objects in a high school. When we got to the 3rd floor, where the library is, this student grabbed a college guide book and posed for a photo. I really like how this one turned out. He's looking confidently right at me carefully holding up the book. Not smiling, but you can tell he's happy and proud. If he had moved his chin an inch higher he might have looked a little cocky, but no.

The overflowing cart of books was wheeled down the colorful hallway. There was a series of murals reminiscent of Isaiah Zagar's Magic Garden.

Into the library we went.

The librarian was a little shocked to see so many books. That's Peggy at center.

The boxes of books were unloaded onto a large table in front of the check out desk and everyone started to go through them to see what would be added to their lovely library.

And here's the gang with all the books.

Peggy wants to do good things in government. She didn't wait until she was in office to do the little constituent services things, like holding a book drive, she went right ahead and dove right in. I've had dinner with her at a friend's, I've had drinks with her at Drinking Liberally and now I've helped out on a little campaign with her. Learn more about what Peggy stands for on her Issues page. If you like what you see, get involved.

Peggy's running for PA State Rep in the 182nd District.

I almost feel bad publishing the photos and further publishing the recipe of e's coconut toffee almond crunch cookies. Why? They're so damn good you may never go back to making other cookies. They're no harder than making your basic chocolate chip cookie, just a couple more ingredients. I met e at the food blogger potluck and I had half a dozen cookies that night. Having several glasses of Dave's wine helped a bit in eating as much as I did, but it was the magic of the cookie that had me coming back and finishing off the cookies e brought when she was about to leave.

You can go here for the recipe and below [and above] are a few photos of the process. The shot above is everything mixed in and just before I spooned the dough onto the cookie sheet.

I didn't have any parchment paper or a silicon mat, so used some aluminum foil. It worked okay, but the toffee stuck to it a bit and it wasn't the easiest thing to scrape off. Since then, we bought some parchment paper for future batches.

And here's the first 2 sheets of cookies. I think all in all, they filled 4 of those Chinese food containers for storage. They didn't last long though, a little over a week and we had 4 left. The only thing that slows me down in eating them is having milk on hand to drink with the cookies. I gotta have my milk and cookies.

Two Fat Als (neither of which are fat!) baked themselves some of these delicious cookies too. Theirs look a bit different. I think our oven is running hot. Gotta pick up one of them oven thermometers that Mark suggests; his oven was running a solid 50° hot he found out!

The only trick about this recipe is finding the Heath 'Bits 'o Brickle' toffee pieces pictured here. So far, the gang has put together a shortlist of places to find them around them around Philly: Shop Rite down in South Philly and Fresh Grocer in University City. I took the trip down to South Philly and picked up 2 packages.

You've been warned. These cookies are addictive.

The caption for the photo above reads:

A Haitian boy plays in front of coffins in the neighborhood of Cite-Militaire in Port-au-Prince March 27, 2007.

REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

At the end of each year, Reuters publishes their Pictures of the Year and here's 110 of them. This is photojournalism at its finest. Photos illustrating stories and a single photo telling an entire story all by itself. The photo above is slide 51 of the slideshow. I think #34 is my second favorite of the bunch.

Photo: REUTERS/Eduwardo Munoz

via Reuters Photographers blog

Go to Foster's! They're at 4/Market Sts. I've written before of my love for this store. It's the best. I was in there with Lady last week and I was shocked to see that they still had Moleskine 2008 planners in stock. I got my pocket daily planner months ago just in case I couldn't find it. I tried to get one for 2006, but I couldn't find one. They're $16 at Foster's.

I've updated my Foster's flickr set with some shots from this visit starting at this shot.

I took a walk by the Comcast Center on my way back from the CCD event at the Bell Atlantic Building. I hadn't seen it since the opening. It looked great at night. This cool blue light coming out with that really nice sculpture piece in the atrium. The shot above is a few steps into the street of the south side of JFK in between 17th and 18th Sts with the Tokina 12-24mm f/4 and the D200. I had room to spare too!

I took a few more shots from a couple different angles and they're up here. Quite a different look at the Comcast Center from my last visit in August.

In the set are a couple shots around City Hall and the newly revamped Centre Square too.

I headed to the Top of the Tower for the Central Philadelphia Development Corporation's holiday event. Incoming mayor (under 30 days to go) Michael Nutter was to give the keynote address on the state of downtown Philadelphia. You can check out their April 2007 State of Center City study which has some familiar images of Brad's.

Needless to say, the view from the 50th floor was nice. Too bad there was all that glass in the way making for a subpar image – slightly cloudy and with a reflection from the lights behind me at the left side of the image. A look at the city from the 57th floor of the Comcast Center (before construction was completed) here.

After a short presentation by President of the CCD, Paul Levy, Nutter arrived and took to the podium. My notes were subpar, but here are some points that stuck with me. He spoke of his ex-offender hiring program. He repeatedly said that once a person has paid their dues to society via serving jailtime, s/he should be allowed to re-enter society. He said that the people who go to jail usually end up back at home and don't move on to another city. But once back at home here in Philly, there are no jobs. His plan is to offer businesses a $30,000/year tax credit for each ex-offender hired through the program. The high recidivism rate can be fought though gainful employment or else the perpetual cycle in and out of the doors of jails and prisons will continue.

He spoke a bunch about homelessness. His first meeting of his busy day was with Sister Mary Scullion and the people at Project H.O.M.E.. He wanted to perform a full review of every city owned shelter and implement new standards for the shelters. He's been in them and he knows the conditions in some of them are inhuman. He said that in rethinking the approach to end homelessness the city must provide adequate accessibility to medicines, drug rehabilitation programs and affordable/subsidized housing. He asked the group of 150 or so if they knew of the scene at dusk on the west side of City Hall. Being on City Council for as long as he has, he knows it all too well: every single bench in that area is occupied with some of the city's homeless. He said that parts of the city were becoming Cape Town, South Africa-like tent towns.

He had another example at 18th St and Ben Franklin Parkway. He pointed to the SE corner where The Four Seasons Philadelphia is located. He said on the NE corner many homeless sleep on the grass [I believe he meant the NE corner of 21/Parkway in front of the Youth Study Center, close]. He said that we must invest money in affordable housing. With a 60,000 home shortage of affordable housing in the city, there is plenty of demand for it, making it happen is the tough part as teh cost of building is too high. He closed his remarks by saying that with a 50% unemployment rate for black males, one of the lowest number of college degrees for a city and 25% of the population at or below the poverty line, the violent crime situation should come as no surprise.

Following a standing ovation from the crowd, it was time for a bit of Q&A time (there was plenty of press present). The first question was about to-be Mayor Nutter's commitment to work with the ring counties and build relationships. He spoke of forming a Chicago-like Metro County Caucus to bring together the 5 counties. He noted that he'd be traveling out to Pittsburgh for the inauguration of [younger than me] Mayor Ravenstahl and would discuss an east-west partnership with Pittsburgh and its surrounding counties. He wanted to do this because with the two ends of the state aligned, they would be able to leverage lots of influence as all roads lead to Harrisburg.

The third question was on homelessness and Nutter's commitment to cracking down on the current problem through police force. I forget if it was Nutter or Levy who noted that the #1 complaint by residents downtown was homeless sleeping on the streets. Nutter said that yes, he'd commit to enforcing the laws, but that a zero tolerance level wasn't reasonable as there currently aren't places for everyone to go. Nutter noted that 20% – 25% of the homeless are Vetarans and that their country had literally left them on the sidewalk after they risked their lives to protect it. I believe he called it a "disgrace", but noted Rep. Bob Brady's (D-PA01) work on the House Armed Services Committee [didn't cite any specifics].

The final question I heard, before leaving, was that on guns. Nutter called on a lady in the front row who responded by just saying "Guns" to which Nutter replied "I don't have one." The lady went on to ask what Nutter was prepared to do to get guns off the streets. Nutter said that the legislators from across the entire state must hear from their constituents. While Philadelphia can scream all it wants, legislators are bound to the wants of their constituents, not those of another district. He said that there is no point of a handgun as handguns are not used for hunting. The only hunting handguns are used for are for humans, he said. But he wanted people to keep hope alive. He said that civil rights matters always take longer than people would like, but that people must keep on fighting as they are fighting for what's right.

Councilman Frank Rizzo Jr. (R, At-Large) was angry at Tuesday's municipal wifi meeting at City Hall and rightfully so. His concerns about the state of the ongoing Wireless Philadelphia project, in conjunction with EarthLink, were not being addressed and his concerns are the concerns of the people. Let me just add that the City Council room (City Hall 400), pictured above, is gorgeous. This was the first time I had attended a City Council hearing and I hope it won't be my last. I got to the meeting at 2.15p, after waiting in line downstairs for a pass, and the meeting was already underway.

While Councilman Brian O'Neill (R, 10th District [NE]) is the chair of the Technology and Information Services committee, it was Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown (D, At-Large) and Councilman Rizzo (both pictured above, Ms. Reynolds Brown sitting in the wrong seat) who did most of the talking while I was there for 90 minutes.

O'Neill was on his cell phone for a good portion of the meeting while I was there. I thought it was odd that he sat there, two chairs away from Brown and Rizzo talking, softly, on his cell phone. He did get up to talk more away from his seat, but still in the room.

I listened to most of the testimony of the CEO of Wireless Philadelphia, Greg Goldman, the first permanent CEO of the project. He blogged about his, then, upcoming testimony [.pdf]. I wonder if he was prepared to get grilled like he did.

Rizzo asked Goldman if he was aware of the November 17 news that EarthLink would be backing out their municipal wifi initiative (which was followed by an August 29 announcement that it would cut 900 jobs, half its workforce, and close up shop in PA). Goldman said he was aware of the statement, but that he was confident that the current contract would be fulfilled as there was a 10 year agreement in place. According to WiFi Net News, EarthLink must complete the construction of the infrastructure (currently at 75% completion with the final hole being a section between the Schuylkill to Broad St, from Diamond St to Roosevelt Blvd. and the area NW of the Blvd which I'm not sure they're planning on covering), but they are not bound to operate it. Rizzo pressed on and asked about the number of subscribers currently signed up for Wireless Philadelphia. Goldman said that he did not have exact numbers and that under the agreement, EarthLink was not bound to provide specific numbers – pretty nuts, eh? Rizzo asked how that was possible: to enter into a contract with EarthLink and have no idea as to how well the program is going through hard numbers. Goldman said that EarthLink does provide a range, which Rizzo eagerly asked for. "Several thousand" replied Goldman.

Rizzo took that number to mean around 3,000 and was shocked that EarthLink would be okay with sinking $20M worth of infrastructure into a program which had a total of 3,000 subscribers. Rizzo said that it was no wonder EarthLink was pulling up roots all over the country and said that if he was in charge of EarthLink, he'd be awfully troubled by the low numbers. Goldman noted that he did not state 3,000 as the actual number to which Rizzo angrily retorted that "several thousand" to him signifies 2,000 – 3,000 and that he was astounded that EarthLink did not bother to show up for this hearing to speak for themselves.

Rizzo continued his questioning and wondered what was going on as far as advertising the service. He said that since it's initial rollout, he had not seen any advertisements anywhere across the city. Goldman said that there was no formal agreement with EarthLink for advertising, there was no marketing plan in place. This set Rizzo over the top. He suggested that the City consider backing out of the initiative, to pull its name from the project and change the name to something like "EarthLink Wireless" and that he was extremely troubled that the CEO of Wireless Philadelphia couldn't be trusted with the exact numbers of subscribers and that there was no marketing plan whatsoever to increase membership (nuts!). He called the entire ordeal "embarrassing" and I couldn't agree more.

Councilman O'Neill asked about the capabilities of the service. This launched the part of the hearing which showed how poorly the council understood technology. It wasn't at the level of understanding that Sen. Ted Stevens (R, AK) has of the internet's tubes, but it was worrisome. Do they not have some younger staffers or somebody who simply briefed them on how things work? O'Neill asked if the network was sufficient for people to perform basic web surfing and email. Chroist. Could he not have done a little research himself? Goldman replied by saying that the network is capable of 1Mbps speeds which is faster than dial-up and the lower rung of Verizon's DSL plan, but not faster than the full Verizon DSL and Comcast cable networks. He was later corrected by one of his colleagues that the EarthLink service offered 1.5Mbps download and 1Mbps upload speeds, I'm sure nobody on the panel knew what the hell he was talking about. Rizzo chimed in and asked if the network was capable of streaming audio (doh!). Goldman replied, sheepishly, that yes it was, but not as well as Verizon or Comcast's faster plans could.

And here's another shot of Councilwoman Brown, she didn't get enough face time in this post. She asked plenty of questions too, but mainly about internal infrastructure. She was very curious about the makeup of the Board of Directors of the company. Goldman didn't know off the top of his head, but assured the panel that it was diverse in regards to backgrounds and race. Brown drilled it home by saying that a board which reflects the community it serves is more apt to understand the wants and needs of the community it serves.

The project is well short of the expectations laid out in this Inquirer story after the project was well underway in June of this year. EarthLink estimated that they'd have 5,000 subscribers by the end of July 2007 and 12,000 the end of 2007.

I picked up a copy of The Philadelphia Story, a report put together by the New America Foundation on the municipal wireless project. It's a 64 page report which I haven't read, but plan on doing so. You can download a the .pdf here.

More coverage of the meeting from the Daily News.

I took the stairs down from the NE corridor's 4th floor. It's a nice stairwell they built way back when.

CORRECTION: Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown was incorrectly identified as Councilwoman Marian Tasco. Ms. Brown was sitting behind Ms. Tasco's nameplate.

You Tube link

Until early this morning, I had no idea who Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings were. I was over at the WXPN Free at Noon page and it listed them as the performers this Friday. I clicked away and found the video above and now I very much want to see them live. From the WXPN blurb:

Brooklyn-based funk/soul band, the Dap-Kings are a mixture of percussion, trumpets, guitar, organs and bass, wrapped up with the incredible soulful voice of Sharon Jones. The band emulates a classic 60's/70's funk style, and in keeping with the 60's era, they use only analog recording equipment and instruments that could have been found up until the seventies. Most recently they have contributed to more than half of Amy Winehouse's tracks on her debut album Back to Black.

The band tours extensively. Their latest release is 100 Days, 100 Nights. The titular single embodies their powerful sound. The music video for the single, maintaining the same nostalgic feel, appears to be a 60's black and white video recording with hazy transitions.

The 2 cameras they used in the video above were bought off of eBay for $50. It's not always about what's new, it's what you do with what you got. I think this group would make some fantastic photos.

And as part of the show, there will be a Philabundance food drive. A friend of mine told me that monetary donations go a long way with Philabundance providing meals for under 25¢.

Go see some great music, donate some food, have a great time. I had a great time at the Nellie McKay Free at Noon show at World Cafe Live in October.

My final session for the day was transportation. It was a smaller group of about 10, with 2 moderators, spread out a large circle. Why we didn't move close to each other, I'm not quite sure. That didn't stop a spirited discussion focused around SEPTA and the PPA. Skip opened up the discussion with concerns about limited English seniors who get no sympathy from SEPTA. He said that he's tried numerous times to initiate talks with SEPTA about the issue, but they refuse to meet him and his minority-represented groups. One of the moderators, Carol, added that many seniors don't know that they can ride SEPTA for free.

Greg, who was the youngest participant I saw, had a lot to say during the meeting. He wondered why SEPTA didn't have free systemwide maps. Another participant, Debi, said she recently bought the systemwide map. It set her back $10. NYC's MTA has the full color, zebra-folding maps all over the city. DC's Metro offers maps that you can download to your iPod. Boston's T has downloadable maps for all their lines. Chicago's CTA also has maps you can download in .pdf. Would it kill SEPTA to stitch together some printable resolution .pdfs for people? How many people are buying those $10 maps anyway? I've lived here for 3.5 years and I didn't know they existed until Debi said she actually owned one.

Steve, who walks with the help of a cane, but still an avid biker, was very concerned about bike lanes throughout Philadelphia. He said that the dedicated bus/bike lanes are treacherous and that he opts to ride behind buses breathing in the soot and fumes rather than risk riding in front of the buses. Skip, who also uses a cane, added that he'd take SEPTA more often if he knew which subway stations had elevators or escalators. He said he's forced to drive into town because there's no easy way to know if certain stations are accessible.

One of Nutter's wishes is to have SEPTA employees smile more often. It was one of the bullet points on the agenda as well. Sue pointed out that good customer service is more than a smile. Debi wanted trip planning capabilities between SETPA, NJT and DART to be linked for easier trip planning. SEPTA's R7 train schedule does have the times for the connecting NJT trains to NYC, but you can't access those timetables via the Trip Planner.

Marsha wanted to see the transit stations to undergo a beautification project and for the community to be a part of the planning process. While Philly's system is never going to look like the gorgeous Stockholm Metro, there's plenty of room for improvement.

So many wishes, but where will the money come from? Well, SEPTA has been promised money by the state. But Carol noted that the state isn't 100% sure where it will come from. Once SEPTA does get the money, what then? They're a private company not beholden to the City of Philadelphia. With only 2 board members representing the city, while the city represents the majority of the ridership, Philadelphians cannot control the fate of their own transit system.

Shifting gears for a sec, here's Sol, he works at the airport. We were discussing patronage issues within the city and he had some insight on the matter. He noted that while things may seem fair on the top of the picture with numerous contractors bidding on projects, it's the subcontractors who are the recipients of the big patronage contracts. Transit to/fro PHL and the other area airports was another issue. How to facilitate transit between the various airports with each other and to Center City Philadelphia. One suggestion was to create an airport authority overseeing all of the area airports (PNE, LVI, PHL) instead of one overseeing PHL. A rail system connecting the airports and the hotels in Center City would attract more options for travelers. The situation at U.S. Airways is another story altogether.

The group wanted to see improvement in access to information about transit and a revived Department of Transportation in the Mayor's office (something Nutter has promised to bring back). But with so much out of the hands of the ordinary citizen, it was frustrating to come up with ideas as they were, in the end, reliant on agencies like SEPTA and the PPA to act first.

So that brings us to the closing of the day-long convention. We all headed to the auditorium and took our seats. The Inquirer's Chris Satullo urged everyone to take their seats for a special guest to come to the stage straight from South Philly. Who could it be? Was it going to be one of the Eagles? No, they were busy getting beat by the 'Hawks. A Flyer or 76er concerned about the fate of Philly?

It was Patsy. I have no idea who she was. She told some jokes, South Philly styles.

Jodie Chester of Philly.com and Chris Satullo went through a slideshow of what was to come for the Great Expectations project on the gigantic movie screen.

In January and February of 2008, they said numerous neighborhood agenda forums would be held. Also, the final agenda would be presented to then Mayor Nutter and the new City Council. Throughout 2008, there will be issue forums on topics like policing strategy, immigration and gentrification. In addition, GE would be monitoring the progress of the agenda through follow-up forums.

5p rolled around and the auditorium let out. It was dark, rainy and still cold outside, but the 500+ of us said a lot and talked about some important issues. I hope that Mayor Nutter takes a nice long look at the agenda booklet he will be given in the next 2 months. A lot of real people, not consultants, put in many hours to develop it.

Part I | Part II | Part III

The biggest issue in the Arts & Culture session was the creation of a regional fund to support the arts. The group of 20 was split into two groups that did not come back together to discuss as a whole. The side I was in did not come up with the how to get that money. People were confused as to where it would come from. It could come from tax money, a pledge of 1% of the city's budget, somewhere else. Taking the leap of faith that hundreds of millions of dollars would be poured into Philly's thriving arts scene, where would it go and what would it do?

An artist, Sue, was concerned that much of the money would end up going to administrative costs. She said that usually, 80% of monies end up going to admin costs and a trickle ends up in the pockets of the artists themselves. She stressed that the message must be clear that artists cannot create art for free and they must be paid for their contributions to the city. Sue added that the old Office of Arts & Culture (it currently doesn't exist, but I believe Nutter has pledged to reopen it) did not do anything other than organize artists around Christmas time to create displays around City Hall. She said that a revived Office of Arts & Culture must actively act as a liaison between all of the arts groups in the city. A well designed website would be a huge step; the group agreed.

Several in the group noted their frustration in not being able to know what's going on around the city at the hundreds of arts and culture venues. Sure, you could find out what was going on at the Kimmel Center, but the small venues have a hard time getting their word out. The group liked the notion of offering bundled ticket incentives. Say you were to go see the orchestra for $50 (pulling that number out of nowhere). On the ticket would be a notice that if you were to go to "studio x" for a show, you'd get 10% off admission or something similar, in order to simply let people know of the smaller galleries and give them a little push towards going to them. Russell said that one of Nutter's proposals to bring the youth out of the classroom is to offer 2 tickets to every child, each year.

The library was another biggie. The expansion of the main branch was one of the 'long-term efforts' outlined in the agenda.

Fund the expansion of the Central Library of the Free Library of Philadelphia. This is the people’s Taj Mahal of culture, and the inspired design for its expansion by "starchitect" Moshe Safdie should be a top public-funding priority.

With the closing of so many branches around the city, I think that it's insane to plunk $30M into the central branch. Yes, as Sue pointed out, their lecture series (mostly free lectures at that!) is second to none in the city. But, I added, if people were able to go their own branch and watch a simulcast, that would only increase the reach of these fantastic sold-out appearances. What good does an astounding lecture series do for the kid who lives 45 minutes away from the central branch with no way to get there? What good does a $30M expansion project do the kid who can't get a book from her/his local, closed branch down the street? Keep the existing branches open. Open up the ones which have recently been closed. Keep them open more than 3 days a week. Then, then you can think about plunking $30M into the central branch.

Rob took a second to address the artwork outside the room. The My Philadelphia contest winners' artwork was in the area between 4 meeting rooms. He noted that the work out there was shockingly from high schoolers. He thought that the work was on par with the middle schoolers from where he grew up in a small town in North Carolina. This was not a knock on the talents of the winners here, but the acknowledgment that these kids don't have what they need to explore their artistic talents in schools. I recall seeing a statistic that Philadelphia spends something like 13¢ per student per year on art supplies.

I went outside after the session to take a look at the artwork and I wasn't surprised at the content of the pieces, but I was absolutely disheartened at the repetition of the theme I knew would take center stage. There were about 15 displays, here are photos of 9 of them. See a pattern?

As a student at Kensington CAPA high school, David Martinez ranked among the contest finalists for his piece "Go Philly." The drawing depicts the gun violence in the city, and issue that has risen to the top of the list of concerns for many in the community.

Hood Violence, didn't catch the name.

Didn't catch the title/name.

Didn't catch the title/name.

Jocelyn DeGroot-Lutzner's submission, "The Bleeding City," was part of her work as a student at Philadelphia's Central High School.

Didn't catch the title/name.

Didn't catch the title/name.

Cashmier Fields of Benjamin Franklin High School submitted "Study in Red" (above) in the art category. His teacher was Richard Dunoff.

But we ended the session talking about what each of us could/would do. Rob pledged to go to an arts venue he wouldn't normally go to and be a patron. Sue said becoming a member of an organization is great since the dues go to a general fund and not to a specific function. Peg hoped that the local universities and colleges would start mentor programs with their student artists and the children from their communities. The final order of business was to rank the priorities for the Arts. #1 was to support the artists. #2 was to make sure the Office of Arts & Culture was a strong office, but that clout would need to be earned. #3 to make sure kids were exposed to the arts in Philadelphia and ensure they have access to the arts. #4 increase corporate involvement in spreading the gospel that is the arts.

The final session I attended was on transportation and that post will come shortly.

Part I | Part II | Part III