In The News

The New York Times spoke with Daniel Fine, a serial entrepreneur and Wharton student who's staying in school.

Daniel Fine is the founder and chief executive of Glass-U, a two-year-old, 10-employee maker of foldable sunglasses bearing the licensed brands of universities, music festivals like Lollapalooza, and the World Cup soccer tournament last summer. He arranges for the manufacture of the glasses in China and their distribution around the country. He’s also a senior in college.

Mr. Fine financed Glass-U, which operates out of off-campus housing, in part with proceeds from a tutoring company, NexTutors, that he started right after high school. He has also founded Fine Prints, a custom apparel company he started during high school, and Dosed, a health care technology company that is working on a smartphone app to help diabetics...

Q. You considered applying for a Thiel Fellowship, a $100,000 grant to forgo college and pursue your dream?
A. I made it through the second round, but I didn’t complete my application. At Penn, I’ve absolutely learned in the classroom, but it’s been a much greater benefit being here and growing as a person and learning who I am, what I’m becoming and what I’m hoping to be.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the complete story here.

A writer for the Huffington Post reflects on the Phillies great's impressive legacy.

Rollins ends his decade-and-a-half tenure in Philadelphia this week. His final curtain call comes as the franchise's all-time leader in hits, at-bats, doubles, and stolen bases. He also ranks second in games, singles, triples, runs, total bases and extra-base hits. With all due respect to Phillie-for-Life Larry Bowa, the man affectionately known as J-Roll stands as the clear choice for Greatest Shortstop in Phillies History...

Where Iverson and Dawkin came up short, Rollins delivered. For the first time in a quarter of a century, the sports fanatics of Philadelphia could raise their heads high and call themselves World F&%$ing Champions... just like Jimmy had promised.
The Phillies would remain the team to beat in the NL East for three more seasons, including a franchise record 102-wins in 2011, however it was those delivered-upon promises that will forever define J-Roll's time in South Philly.

Jimmy preached expecting the best at a time when Philadelphians were instinctively expecting the worst. More than any other player, Rollins changed the culture, not just in the clubhouse, but in the city itself.

Original source: Huffington Post
Read the complete story here. 

Pulitzer Prize winner Wesley Morris included his thoughts on Philly's own Taney Dragon Mo'ne Davis in his end-of-year reflections.

In mid-August, as racial protests roiled suburban St. Louis, sectarian violence inflamed the Middle East, and Vladimir Putin toyed with the mouse also known as Ukraine, a force of serenity seemed to emanate from South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. A girl stood on a hill of dirt and, with great style and cool poise, threw baseballs to boys at bat. Except this wasn’t just some girl. This was a goddess of bewitching precision, the apotheosis of seizing a moment before a moment seizes you. In the two star-making shutouts pitched by Mo’ne Davis at the Little League World Series, 14 batters were sent trudging back to the dugout. I felt for them. No one could touch her fastball. No one could handle her changeup. But most important: Nothing could stop her hair.

I know. That hair.

...It’s possible that the hair’s motion — part whip, part whirlpool; some combination of violence, beauty, and grace — seduced constituencies predisposed to understand the story of that hair. It invoked Valkyries, graphic novels, and photo shoots. Her hair effortlessly did whatcertain pop stars need industrial-strength wind-generating fans to do. By itself, the hair would give you pause. As worn by Davis, it conferred upon her unself-conscious strength, majesty, otherworldliness. That’s how she seemed to throw: with abandon.

Original source: Grantland
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An exciting new cycling-centric project has been proposed for South Philly. Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron weighs in.

A group of Philadelphia bicycle-racing enthusiasts is speeding ahead with plans for an ambitious, Olympic-class arena that is intended to position the city as the leader of the nation's growing track-cycling culture, while also providing space for the public to learn and practice the sport.

But to realize the $100 million velodrome, whose swooping form would echo the banked curves of a bicycle track, the city would have to give the organizers a four-acre parcel in South Philadelphia's historic FDR Park, the city's only green space designed by the famous firm founded by Frederick Law Olmsted.

Named Project 250, the privately planned arena has excited the imaginations of cyclists, who believe a state-of-the-art, 250-meter bike track would become a top U.S. venue for international races. The arena, which would occupy a Broad Street site across from the Sports Complex, has already won strong backing from Mayor Nutter and Councilman Kenyatta Johnson, as well as from the Friends of FDR Park and neighborhood groups.

Original source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
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Septa's long-anticipated high-tech update is on the way -- and Philly is jumping straight to the top of the queue. 

A public transit system that still uses metal tokens and paper transfers - yes, in the 21st century - appears finally to be moving into the era of debit cards and pay-by-cellphone technology.

Philadelphia riders can now see evidence of SEPTA Key, the long-awaited smart card system for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. Dozens of computerized kiosks, turnstiles and fare boxes have popped up in stations and on vehicles, and testing begins this month.

"We see this project as taking us in the fare payment industry from last place to first place," said Kevin O'Brien, SEPTA senior program manager.

Original source: The Associated Press via The Philadelphia Inquirer
Read the complete story here.

MSNBC's Your Business highlights the story of Wash Cycle Laundry, one of Philadelphia's most innovative -- and greenest -- startups. 

Check out the video here.

Stats hub FiveThirtyEight is the latest national publication to take notice of the 76ers' clinic in the art of losing.

The Philadelphia 76ers are in a bit of a tailspin right now. Monday night’s loss, against a San Antonio Spurs team that was sitting both Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, was Philadelphia’s 17th straight to start the season, a franchise record and one shy of the all-time NBA record set by the New Jersey Nets in 2009. It’s been 230 days since the Sixers won a basketball game.

Back in mid-November, our friends at the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective anticipated the Sixers’ woes and computed the odds of the team’s season-opening losing streak reaching various lengths. The chances of a 17-game streak back then were just 20 percent; Philadelphia still had to lose a few theoretically winnable games (of course, it obliged). Now we need to update the probabilities and ask just how long this Sixers skid might last.

The New York Times also entered the fray last week: "At 0-15, 76ers Are Perfecting the Art of Tanking"

Original source: FiveThirtyEight
Read the complete story here.

Philly's latest upscale hotel gets some attention.

Walking into the Radisson Blu Warwick Hotel is like walking into a modern European techno club — which is either good or bad depending on your taste. The Blu brand is literally reflected in light strips surrounding mirrored entryways, while electronic music plays at medium volume in the background of the white and silver lobby. With all new guest rooms, fitness center and lobby, the hotel reopened as a Radisson Blu last November. The exterior of the hotel, a landmark that opened in 1926 as the Warwick Hotel, was mostly left intact during the $20 million renovation.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the complete review here.

Philadelphia's latest gambling license was awarded to a South Philadelphia project. It's the latest in a wave of casino projects coming to the East Coast.

A $425 million project with a casino and a boutique hotel rising in the stadium district of Philadelphia is the latest entrant into the tumultuous world of East Coast gambling.

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board awarded a license on Tuesday to a joint venture of Cordish Companies and Greenwood Gaming and Entertainment to build the Philadelphia area’s fourth gambling hall and the 13th casino in the state.

The decision came as New York is edging closer to approving up to four Las Vegas-style casinos at locations outside of New York City. Massachusetts recently approved two billion-dollar casinos, one at either end of the state. And in Connecticut, some lawmakers are talking about expanding the state’s casino industry to protect its market share.

The frenzy of casino building is taking place in what is widely regarded as the most competitive market in the country despite flat or falling gambling revenues in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the complete story here.

A Temple professor Frank Farley posits that the term "Black Friday" originated in the City of Brotherly Love.

In an interview with NBC10, he said that the term was coined by the Philadelphia Police Department after the city was overrun with fans coming to town for the Army-Navy game. With the game typically held on a Saturday, the city was full of rowdy fans on Friday — creating chaos and overrunning retail stores.

"The day before, people are rushing into Philly for the game," Farley told NBC10. "The police are overwhelmed. The idea of this day — that was a very bad day for the cops — became labeled Black Friday."

Original source: Philadelphia Business Journal
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The New York Times asked leading food personalities about their fantasy Thanksgiving meals, including Philly's own Madame Fromage.

What do some Americans want for Thanksgiving dinner? They want lobster. They want Alaskan king crab and West African peanut stew, Peking duck and pad thai, Neapolitan pizza and Brazilian feijoada. In some cases, they want any form of meat that doesn’t gobble: osso buco, rack of lamb, suckling pig. For Tenaya Darlington, who lives in Philadelphia and blogs about cheese as Madame Fromage, nothing would beat “a Raclette party: quick prep, followed by satisfying stink and a long supper around a warm oven,” she said.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the complete story here.

A staple of Philadelphia's skyline, the PNB sign, finally finished coming down last week. It was a surprisingly quick process.

In just 34 minutes Sunday, the Philadelphia skyline was changed forever as crews removed the remaining parts of the PNB sign from its perch high above Center City.

The removal went far quicker than the last attempt in August when it took workers 7 hours to shuttle only three letters of the iconic sign to ground level. They were forced to reschedule the complete removal to Sunday.

Crews used a helicopter to lift the nine letters from the crown of the One South Broad building, over Dilworth Park and to a staging area along JFK Boulevard.

By 8:10 a.m., the final 16-foot-tall letter — an "N" from the tower's eastern face — touched the asphalt outside City Hall. The letters, each weighing 3,000 lbs., were loaded by crane onto a flatbed trailer and taken away.

The "PNB" letters have graced the Philadelphia skyline for the past 60 years. The sign was installed to signify the One South Broad as the headquarters for the now-defunct Philadelphia National Bank.

Original source: NBC 10
Check out the complete story here.

That stinky menace, the ginkgo tree, has traditionally been used in Chinese dishes -- and foraged by locals.

On her way to get coffee the other day, Margaret Chin passed a female ginkgo tree outside Holy Redeemer Chinese Catholic Church at 9th and Vine streets and picked up two fallen ginkgo fruits from the parking lot.

She went home to Chinatown, cleaned off the fleshy pulps and let the nuts dry. Then she cracked the shells and added the meaty kernels to a collection in her freezer to be cooked in soup...

Helen Wen, a Northeast Philadelphia resident who came here from China in 1997, says her mother and mother-in-law have often picked the fallen ginkgo fruits from the ground. She believes in the health benefits of the nuts inside and eats them in congee, or rice porridge. Ginkgo nuts are good for one’s memory, kidneys and urinary tract, she said.

Wen said her mother, now in her 70s, used to pick up the fallen fruits in and around Chinatown. Last year and again this year, her mother went with a friend to scour for the fruit in Northeast Philadelphia.

Original source: The Associated Press
Read the complete story here.

Pope Francis has announced a 2015 U.S. trip with Philadelphia as the flagship stop.

Pope Francis confirmed on Monday that he will make his first papal visit to the United States in September to attend an international meeting in Philadelphia on the theme of family, as part of an American journey that is also expected to include a stop in New York...

Francis’ visit to Philadelphia is expected to draw as many as a million people to a Mass on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in the heart of the city.

Original source: The New York Times
Read the complete story here.

On Tuesday, Pennsylvanians headed to the poll and elected Tom Wolf (D) as our new governor.

Democrat Tom Wolf, a businessman from central Pennsylvania, was elected governor Tuesday in his first campaign for political office...

"We need to reestablish education as the priority," Wolf told supporters at the York Expo Center shortly after 10 p.m., after thanking Corbett for his service.

He exhorted Pennsylvanians to believe in themselves and their future. "Let's make this the time," Wolf said. "Let's get started."

Original source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
Read the complete story here.