In The News

The annual pub crawl continues to grow at an exponential rate.

10,000 Santas.

That's what event organizers for Philadelphia's "Running of the Santas" are expecting to fill the streets of Philadelphia on Dec. 13.

"Running of the Santas" started in 1998 as a bar crawl between 40 friends all decked out in Santa gear. It has since grown, with last year attracting more than 8,000 attendees. It also has gone international, with events happening as far away as New Zealand.

The Philadelphia event begins a 11 a.m. on Dec. 13 at McFaddens (461 N. Third St., Philadelphia), which is dubbed "The South Pole." There  At 4 p.m., participants engage in a short run to "The North Pole," aka the Electric Factory (421 N. Seventh St., Philadelphia). The party ends when "the beer is gone" according to the event's website.

Original source: PennLive
Read the complete story here.

The launch of UberX, the company's more casual cousin, in Philadelphia has been full of drama -- and there's no end in site.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

In its PUC filing, Uber said it "has no intention to launch service in the Counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania without authority from the Commission."

That night, Uber announced the launch of UberX service in Philadelphia, citing the insurance issue and saying it wanted to "ensure you have the convenient and affordable transportation options you deserve."

Asked about the apparent conflict, Uber spokesman Taylor Bennett said in an e-mail:

"What we have in Philadelphia is a real transportation emergency. When a number of taxis still don't have adequate insurance, going from one unrated company to another, Philadelphians deserve the safe and reliable options they're demanding."

From the Daily Pennsylvanian:

During the two days after UberX’s Oct. 24 launch, PPA Officials stopped six UberX drivers and impounded their cars.

“Our policy is to do everything we can to shut them down,” Fenerty said. He explained that when UberX drivers are caught, they will be fined $1,000 and have their cars impounded. Uber will also be fined $1,000 for “aiding and abetting an illegal taxi service,” as well as an additional $750 for operating an illegal dispatch system.

But Uber is fighting back. As of Oct. 15, more than 43,000 individuals signed a petition that asked for the state to legalize UberX, but legislators say that it is not going to be approved until 2015. Uber has spent almost $100,000 on lobbying efforts to get this bill, known as HB 2468 , passed in the house.

“Philadelphians have made it abundantly clear that they demand more transportation options in the city. UberX gives residents and visitors the safe, reliable and affordable ride they deserve,” an Uber representative said via email.


 

Thrillist's list of the top pizzeria in every state singled out South Philly's Gennaro's Tomato Pie -- aka heaven on earth.

Philadelphia’s got some legit classic Italian cred (as well as some innovative spots like Pizzeria Beddia and Pizza Brain), so this was a tough call, but we’ve gotta hand it to South Philly's relative newcomer Gennaro’s. It’s got a pedigree that can be traced from America’s first pizza joint (Lombardi’s, also one of Little Italy’s best), and serves up simple, awesome pies with whole-milk mozzarella and crushed tomatoes.

In other Gennaro's news, the primo pizzeria is moving to a larger location in Passyunk Square. 

Original source: Thrillist
Read the complete list here.

A retrospective of the work of modernist photographer Paul Strand wows at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

Drawing on the Philadelphia museum’s sizable Paul Strand Collection (most of it acquired since 2010), the show of some 250 prints takes in the full sweep of his career and some three-quarters of the 20th century. It includes film excerpts and a generous sampling of his photo books, projects that feed back into the early photographs and reveal longstanding interests in duration and narrative.

Bringing modernism down to earth, Strand branched out from Manhattan’s parks and skyscrapers to Maine forests, Mexican churches and small villages in Italy and New England. The immense but well-paced show makes room for mentors and influences beyond Stieglitz, among them the fin de siècle Parisian photographer Eugène Atget, the Italian neo-realist screenwriter Cesare Zavattini and the American social documentarian Lewis Hine (one of Strand’s teachers at the Ethical Culture School on the Upper West Side of Manhattan).

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

Philadelphia Little League star Mo'ne Davis can't be stopped. She's starring a Spike Lee-helmed commercial and gracing the pages of Teen Vogue. From Time:

The World Series is upon us, but 13-year-old Little League superstar Mo’ne Davis is still the most talked-about player in baseball. Director Spike Lee teamed up with Chevrolet to create a commercial featuring the young pitcher, who made the cover of Sports Illustrated this year after becoming the first girl in history to throw a shutout during the Little League World Series.

In the ad, Davis reads an open letter to America: “I throw 70 miles per hour. That’s throwing like a girl,” she says.

And check out this amazing Teen Vogue image via Jezebel.

Ángel Corella makes his much anticipated debut as artistic director at the Pennsylvania Ballet. The New York Times headed south to Philadelphia to check it out.

In July, the star Spanish dancer Ángel Corella — a principal for many years with American Ballet Theater — was appointed artistic director of Pennsylvania Ballet. On Oct. 16, the company began to perform under his direction, at its main home, the Philadelphia Academy of Musichere, one of America’s most beautiful opera houses; posters have been hanging in downtown Philadelphia with a picture of his face (lightly bearded) to advertise the opening program, “Press Play: The Directorial Debut of Angel Corella.” I attended the Saturday matinee...

Pennsylvania Ballet was founded in 1963 (its first artistic director, Barbara Weisberger, was in Saturday’s audience), and has one of the longest records for performing Balanchine outside New York. (It first danced “Allegro Brillante,” this program’s opener, in 1965.) There were some last-minute cast changes on Saturday, and yet the ballet most affected by substitutions, Mr. Ratmansky’s “Jeu de Cartes” (which joined the Pennsylvania repertory three years ago) was, with “Allegro,” ebullient, with dancers seizing its many opportunities with enthusiasm and glee. Beatrice Jona Affron, the company’s music director and conductor, produced especially fine orchestral playing; there were also excellent contributions from the pianist Martha Koeneman.

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

In a huge boon for food access in the city of Camden, a PriceRite Supermarket has opened.
 
"One year ago, when Pathmark closed, it left many people doubting, could we relocate a supermarket to this same site?" Mayor Dana L. Redd said. "A promise made is a promise kept today. This project and others like it will be the catalyst for the Comeback City."

The store is owned by Ravitz Family Markets, a family-owned business in operation since 1968, which also plans to open a ShopRite in 2016 on Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden. Ravitz owns five ShopRite stores in Burlington and Camden Counties.

Jason Ravitz described the PriceRite store as a hybrid of Aldi and Costco, with low prices and bulk items. Shoppers bring their own bags or pay 10 cents a bag, a cost Ravitz said would go toward keeping prices low. For the first few weeks, PriceRite will give out reusable bags.

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

Since 2010, the Little Berlin artist collective has been activating a vacant lot in East Kensington. Now the land has been sold to a developer. It's the urban-gentrification-circle-of-life!

When the arts collective Little Berlin arrived in the neighborhood in 2010 they started hosting events on the site informally at first, before seeking permission from Hirsh, who had purchased the lot in 2008, to develop it as a performance venue and community space. The Little Berlin website describes the agreement with Hirsh as a “partnership.”

The artists took the idea seriously and have been relentless in bringing life to the parcel. A few weeks ago, a Dodge Caravan that had been driven from Ohio was set up with two film projectors replacing the headlights, shining a film on an adjoining wall...

The neighborhood’s vintage housing and soaring former factories have lately become an asset, attractive to developers and young, prospective tenants. The artists are in part responsible.

“There are a lot of houses being built and houses being refurbished too that have been empty for a long time,” says Erickson. While he has only belonged to Little Berlin for two years, the change to the gentrifying neighborhood in just that time became obvious.

“It’s hard to wrap my head around it,” he says, “that in one way we’re making it nicer for people already living there and in other way making it easier for real estate developers to come in and buy property.”

Original source: Hidden City
Read the complete story here.
 

Mary E. Myers, a landscape architect and associate professor at Temple University, created a lush rain garden in suburban Philadelphia. Folks in the neighborhood have taken notice. 

"I wanted to increase biodiversity, but I wanted it to be aesthetically appealing, so that people would accept it and want to do it," said Ms. Myers, 62, standing by the sweep of blue mistflowers rolling down to the sidewalk. "People walk by and say, 'What’s that? It’s beautiful.'"

She often gives them some seeds or self-seeded native plants. And when someone from down the street longs for those blue mistflowers, she says, "Don’t worry, the wind will bring them to you."

With the shapes, colors and textures of more than 50 native species here — the elegant branching of the young black gum tree, the dogwood and shadbush turning deep red, the handsome seed heads of hibiscus, the fig-like fruits of the bottlebrush buckeye — this dynamic landscape is nothing like the scruffy patches of weeds too often referred to as rain gardens.

As Ms. Myers said, "It looks intentional and maintained..."

She counted 23 species when they moved in, 16 of them nonnative. Now the count is up to 127, most of them native.

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

Times of London restaurant critic Giles Coren came to Philadelphia to film his TV show, Million Dollar Critic, for Canada's WNetwork. The winner of his five-restaurant showdown was one of this editor's personal favorites, Kanella. (Best brunch in the city.)

"Kanella is the sort of place I wish I could review every week: a buzzing local taverna on a lively city corner, people of all ages and ethnicities sitting at outside tables, simply decorated inside, full of laughter, friends and family, and charming staff serving a cuisine rooted deeply in a foreign culture rather than just ripping it off, with a deadly serious chef at the helm."

Original source: Foobooz
Read the complete story (and check out a clip) here.

The New York Times' T Magazine publishes a "photo diary" about beloved Philly band War on Drugs.

"Lost in the Dream," the third album from the Philadelphia band the War on Drugs, has been one of the year’s most celebrated indie-rock releases, drawing near-universal acclaim for its sophisticated synthesis of classic American folk and rock influences as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Sonic Youth. The band’s frontman, Adam Granduciel, is also a longtime photography enthusiast. "In high school, I was head of the lab," he says. "I dumped a whole five-gallon bucket of D-76 on my head once. It ruined all my clothes."

Granduciel is rarely without one of his three cameras: a Polaroid, loaded with 600 film purchased from the Impossible Project; a Holga he’s had for nearly a decade; and a Rollei 35 he found at a camera shop in Brighton, England. Over the past year, in the run-up to and the wake of the March release of “Lost in the Dream,” the band has traveled the world, and Granduciel has documented the sights its members have seen — from giraffes on a Dutch safari to Portuguese palm trees to his own 82-year-old father on his first trip to Europe.

Original source: T Magazine
Check it out here.

PA resident Stentor Danielson creates super-cool maps of major American cities -- including Philadelphia -- in the style of fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien.

In addition to his de riguer Etsy store, a seeming must for endeavors of this nature, Danielson also maintains a densely-illustrated Tumblr called Mapsburgh, where he showcases his own work as well as that of other fantasy-minded artists and creators of odd, impractical things. There, brave travelers will get some brief, telling glimpses into the mapmaker’s creative process, which seems to exist at the nexus of fandom and fetishism. A specifically-cited source of inspiration for Danielson, for instance, is this map of Middle Earth from the Ballatine paperback edition of Tolkien’s Lord Of The Rings.

A faculty member at Pennsylvania’s Slippery Rock University, Danielson works with pen and ink and, on occasion, cut paper to create his otherworldly "cartographic art" of quite-worldly places like Boston and Washington, D.C. The artist, who describes his work as "delicate" (read: alarmingly fragile), also takes requests.

Original source: The A.V. Club
Read the complete story here; and click here for Danielson's Etsy store.

Baron Ambrosia swam the Cooper River through Camden in an act of civic good will. (Be sure to check out the slideshow.)

So began one man’s quest to paddle through Camden, known more for its high crime rate than its verdant waterways. With his five-mile swim along the Cooper, a tributary of the Delaware River, Baron Ambrosia aimed to change that.

“I’m trying to do something good for the city,” he said, highlighting urban exploration and environmental renewal. Born Justin Fornal, he has made a career of celebrating the gritty, most prominently as his alter-ego Baron, a fancifully attired Bronx foodhound with his own eccentric cable series (recently spotlighted by Anthony Bourdain on his CNN show). Last year, Mr. Fornal, 36, swam the Bronx River to promote his home borough, the first person recorded to do so. This year, asked by friends where he might take another dip, he settled on Camden as a similarly unsung landscape.

He completed his swim despite resistance from the city.

Undeterred, and without fanfare, Mr. Fornal decided to do the swim anyway, earlier than expected last week. “I just want to get in the water as quickly as possible,” he said, as he prepared to enter the river with three support canoes on Wednesday. They pushed off from a park in Collingswood, N.J., heading northwest through Camden toward Philadelphia. Even before the sun rose, they were spotted by some fishermen. “I was surprised to see them,” Mr. Fornal said, his head bobbing out of the water in a red Y.M.C.A. swim cap, “but I’m guessing they were more surprised to see us.”

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

Soon-to-be-opened Fishtown restaurant Girard Brasserie & Bruncherie and its no-tipping policy earned a decidedly un-P.C. joke on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update." Check it out here.

It's been a big month for tipping in Philadelphia.

Original source: Saturday Night Live (NBC)
 

A New York Times writer looks at the different travel-and-review sites, and emphasizes the importance of "finding your tribe." Yelp helped her find a hidden Philly gem.

When searching for a hotel or restaurant, you don’t want everybody’s opinion. You want opinions from people who share your taste and travel goals. But how to cherry-pick those travelers from the multitudes of citizen-critics on sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp and Hotels.com?

...More often than not I agree with Yelp reviews. Take a recent afternoon in Philadelphia. Craving a Mexican snack yet deterred by unenthusiastic restaurant reviews, I ended up in the Italian market area in Bella Vista where inside the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Tortilleria San Roman, Yelpers advised picking up “dirt-cheap” hot tortillas, fried chips and, as one reviewer put it, “mean fresh green salsa.” Delicious — and I got to stroll through the market.

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