With the tragic collapse of 22nd and Market four months behind us and every civil lawyer in town pointing grieving families at the biggest pots of dough, nothing has gotten any simpler.
In the real world this would be complicated. But this is Philadelphia where complicated is the status quo.
City Hall has ruthlessly kept its own Licensing and Inspection department out of the equation despite the fact that the office was the sole governing body in charge of granting this permit and despite the fact that one of its own committed suicide in the days following the collapse.
In the wake of the chaos, those in the city scrambled to find a warm body to pin this on. They struck gold with crane operator, Sean Benschop, high on pot and prescription pills at the time of the collapse. Our own mayor's office went as far as to pronounce Benschop's guilt before a trial date had even been set, before any evidence had been presented.
It certainly paints a picture of a town when its top leader is the first to cast the stone of mob justice.
While the city's managed to keep its nose clean despite many in the media calling for L&I's head, the latest complications may be aimed at the city's mismanagement.
OSHA and the Federal Department Labor have subpoenaed documents from the site's architect, Plato Marinakos. Marinakos has officially pleaded the Fifth Amendment, which always sounds shady.
While everything that surrounds this project and investigation just reeks of shade, with the mayor's office and City Hall throwing everyone under the bus, can you really blame Marinakos for resisting the urge to incriminate himself on behalf of the city's mismanagement?
Think of it like this. Any documents Marinakos employed in the demolition site would have been approved by L&I before demolition began, L&I would have their own copies, copies that should have been reviewed both times a 311 call reported a violation.
Marinakos' has reason to be skeptical of any investigation in which the city plays a role, a city in bed with L&I. In this instance his Fifth Amendment right may have been executed to consult with lawyers before Nutter puts him on the chopping block in the middle of City Hall.
The city doesn't want to be involved. In fact, it can't afford to be involved.
If L&I finds itself as part of prosecutors' investigations, development in Philadelphia ceases. L&I grants every license and permit for demolition and construction in the city. If that department were to be investigated by any agency, all projects would come to a grinding halt until the investigation ends.
What's worse, if the investigation were to find any misdeeds on behalf of L&I at this or any other project - and if their reputation is any indicator, it likely would - it begs to question when every other project in the city would have the green light to resume.
Would every project approved by L&I need to be re-evaluated by an independent agency? Would previous projects need to be investigated? How long would that take?
It would be a nightmare for the city. Considering this potential scenario, City Hall's ruthless efforts to keep L&I out of the discussion at all costs starts to make sense, however unethical.
The request for Marinakos' documents wasn't made on behalf of the city, it was requested by Federal investigators. If the Feds are sniffing around, this could mean more trouble for the city than it means for Marinakos, Benschop, or any private defendant named in this whole tragedy.
OSHA and the Department of Labor know that the documents used in the demolition of 22nd and Market should be on file with L&I. In the wake of Marinakos' Fifth Amendment claim, couldn't they just pull the same files from the city?
Well, they likely already have, or have already discovered that L&I didn't file anything. If they're going straight to Marinakos for documents, they're not going after Marinakos. They're trying to find out who screwed up at L&I.
So I went hunting for some cute animals on our own SEPTA. But being Halloween, Philadelphia, and someone with no Microsoft Paint skills, all I found was a C.H.U.D.
You know what's scary about walking across the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden? Camden.
It's a bizarre place, to put it nicely.
What's more terrifying than the Camden your faced with when exiting the New Jersey side of the Ben Franklin bridge is the Camden just on the other side.
That could change, although I emphasize "could."
Remember Philadelphia's proposed World Trade Center on the Delaware River? It found its way into the dreams of hopeful skyscraper nerds far after its inception and lingered long after it was dead, despite the fact that it was a downright ugly complex that looked like the product of a 1995 K-hole.
Deeming Philadelphia's Delaware River "no longer appropriate" (for no apparent reason), the Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center established in 2002, is eyeing the former site of Camden's Riverfront State Prison.
It's not a horrible idea. Philadelphia's World Trade Center is currently on JFK Boulevard. Despite available land in the West Market vicinity, it's pricy and development costs in the city can be prohibitive, particularly for projects of this size.
What Philadelphia's northern Delaware River once offered in the early 2000s, Camden now holds: cheap land and an eager municipality.
Camden's location in its own right is iffy, but its home to Cooper Medical, Rutgers, and the NJ State Aquarium. Despite the World Trade Center's proposed height, it appears to be largely suburbanized, the only architectural model that seems to work in NJ.
It's highly speculative at this point, but given Camden's national reputation it's not likely a site to be hounded by neighborhood opposition.
As trade union members still protest at the site of Post Brothers' Goldtex Apartments, things are getting a bit, well, sad.
They've clearly switched from targeting the construction crew and general public to targeting potential renters. Their latest stunt has included a couple mannequins in white decontamination suits with signs suggesting that the site is infested with mold.
Of course without proof this might be considered slanderous, but why bother? The fact that the unions are trying to deter renters means they've ceded to the notion that the building will be rented.
At this point, what is their end game? What resolve will satisfy the few who continue to protest?
The media has dragged the Post Brothers' names through the mud, L&I has repeatedly halted development for investigations, City Council and the Mayor's Office have proven where their allegiance lies, and the project is still active.
If any misconduct is taking place at Goldtex it would have been revealed by a media or government at the unions' beck and call for the past year. Yet the Post Brothers are still succeeding.
What would make the cheerleaders happy? Do they want jobs at Goldtex? Do they want the project abandoned? Do they want to bankrupt Post Brothers? Do they think they can?
At the beginning their message was clear: Post Brothers didn't hire a union crew.
But what's left?
The unions lost this battle, but there are countless other projects throughout the city worthy of their inflatable rat.
They continue to peddle a lost message at Goldtex, one that has proven to be ineffectual, and a protest that no longer does the unions any favor. Without focus they look like grown toddlers throwing a temper tantrum, hurting whatever credibility they had left by focusing their attention on one lost cause.
What's even worse for the unions than their reluctance to cede this battle is that they've learned nothing from the loss. Their strategy is unchanged. They launched a 21st Century turf war with fifty year old rhetoric.
When inflatable rats and poorly worded banners don't work, you don't drag your rat and worn commentary to the next protest. You regroup and strategize.
As our city grows more and more tired from union fatigue, they've become the white noise of a dying movement.
Where's their PR manager?
Their message appeals to a working class mid-century America, not to the diverse crew of Post Brothers' workforce and certainly not to anyone with the means to rent a $1400 apartment.
In order to advertise their cause they need to sell it to yuppies shopping for a cushy loft or understand why "scabs" exist. People who buy $90 bottles of olive oil take one look at your typical union picket line and think, "geez, if they don't want me to live here it must be swank."
Urban Outfitters is expanding beyond overpriced irony, controversial and sometimes racist merchandise, and triggering the alarm every time I walk out the door.
Seriously, every time. Am I the only one that happens to? I am dark and bearded. Hmm...
But I digress.
URBN, as its parent company is known, is now dabbling in real estate. Perhaps inspired by their own wildly successful redevelopment at the Navy Yard, they're taking their architectural influence beyond the city.
Devon Yards
The corporation has leased the former site of Devon's Waterloo Gardens shopping center and transforming it into a "lifestyle experience" it's dubbed Devon Yards.
Of course I have to reference 30 Rock which aimed a number of digs at Urban Outfitters with its fictional Brooklyn Without Limits, the same show that referred to a nightclub called Canal Yards Project as "hipster nonsense."
Jokes aside it sounds like a pretty cool project. In addition to URBN's own Anthropologie, the shopping center will include a restaurant, garden center, and exercise studio.
Even more exciting, half of the site will be occupied by a three story hotel. Although it won't be an exact replica, URBN developers want to echo the historic Devon Inn of the 1920s.
However, URBN's foray into urban planning pales in comparison to Facebook's. The mind bogglingly successful social networking site is planning the 394 unit Anton Menlo, a mixed use complex with a bike trail straight to the company's headquarters.
Take note, URBN. Philadelphia's Navy Yard is far from complete. Perhaps a mixed use complex in South Philadelphia catering to URBN employees could be in order. Think of the productivity in a corporate tiny-town your staff never needs to leave.
It's Day 4 into the Halloween season and what better tale than one of a cursed Hollywood classic?
Poltergeist wasn't just one of the scariest movies of the 1980s. Stories surrounding its production and legacy are far more spine tingling than the chills we felt when we first heard Carol Anne utter "they're here."
While four actors from the franchise met early deaths, some more unexpected than others, many might not know just what horrifying props were used on the set of the first Poltergeist.
"You son of a bitch, you moved the cemetery but you left the bodies, didn't you?!"
That wasn't just a terrifying revelation from a script that haunted our souls. It was, in some ways, true.
Jo Beth Williams' late night dip in the Freelings unfinished swimming pool surrounded her with the corpse of the (un)dead that were poltergeisting the hell out of her brand new house. But Williams wasn't swimming with studio-grade bones, she was swimming with real corpses.
She was already scared to do a scene that put her in murky water surrounded by wires and electrical equipment, so scared that Stephen Spielberg got in the water with her. But she was mortified when she was told, after the fact, that real skeletons were used as a cost cutting alternative.
Be sure to check off your organ donor card, you could be a star.
As if that isn't bone chilling enough, the set dressing get even more bizarre.
Just before Robbie Freeling (Oliver Robins is alive despite urban legend) tears the stuffing out of a possessed clown, he's hiding in his bed staring at his reluctantly accepted birthday gift. Seriously, what kind of sadistic parent actually buys their kid this clown?
But that's not the scary part. Take a look at this still from the scene. See anything unusual?
That's a poster for the 1988 San Diego Super Bowl. Why? Poltergeist was filmed in 1982. Was it a mistake? Were producers wrestling with the NFL over free publicity? Or was it some unsuspecting set dresser's macabre premonition.
Premonition of what? The 1988 San Diego Super Bowl took place the day Heather O'Rourke, the actress that played Carol Anne, was rushed to the hospital, the day before she died...in San Diego.
Before Chester became synonymous with urban decay, gambling, and soccer, our southern sister was a bustling working class city, home to thriving factories and restaurants.
Much like Camden, Chester's shipping and manufacturing left in the mid 20th Century. The city's population dramatically declined leaving behind an unsustainable infrastructure, poverty, and crime.
Enrolled in Pennsylvania's Keystone Opportunity Zone program which trades tax incentives for investment, small strides have been made at improving the city's quality of life. With its most notable changes coming from Harrah's Casino and the Philadelphia Union soccer stadium, daily life in Chester remains largely unimproved.
Despite its deplorable reputation, Chester's unique history goes beyond the early 20th Century factories that helped dub Philadelphia The Workshop of the World. It has one significance that, while some may find it neither historic nor significant, is nevertheless interesting and likely unexpected.
Hollywood.
At the corner of 9th Street and Morton Avenue in downtown Chester once stood the Rialto Restaurant. Opened in the late 1800s by Antonios and Stella Anastasakis, later operated by George, Helen and Dimitrios Morakis, the Rialto remained open until the mid 1960s.
So why am I talking about some little diner amid the gritty streets of Chester? Because the Greek immigrants that opened the Rialto were the parents of John Anastasakis, who later changed his name to John Aniston when he portrayed Victor Kiriakis on Days of Our Lives.
The grandparents of America's Sweetheart, Jennifer Aniston, once toiled away on homemade filo dough and baklava at what is now the site of an unassuming, abandoned gas station in Chester, PA.
Now, Philadelphian's can be ruthlessly snobby when it comes to our history, so I understand if you won't join me in my quest for landing an historic marker at 9th and Morton.
Still, whether the Anastasakis family history is significant to Philadelphia, it's certainly notable. In fact, just six months ago entertainment sites were buzzing with the rumor that Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux might be tying the not at St. George Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Media, PA. Her grandmother Stella was a member of the congregation, and in the 1990s, Jennifer Aniston donated $25,000 to the church.
Although a far fetched idea, it's fun to imagine the Wedding of the Century, one likely to make the press coverage at the Royal Wedding look like a local weather report, actually taking place in Media, PA. I mean can you imagine?
Of course I'm not going to dump a bunch of Hollywood Hogwash on you without reminding you why you read PhillyBricks: tedious history.
Despite the city's namesake, Philadelphia's Greek presence is as unassuming, perhaps even as forgotten as the Rialto Restaurant. In a city still thriving with cultural enclaves like Chinatown, The Italian Market, even the Gayborhood, Philadelphia once had an equally influential Greektown.
Greektowns aren't as uncommon as you might think. Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore all host one and Queens' Astoria neighborhood is still largely comprised of Greek restaurants, grocery stores, and nightclubs.
Until the late 70s and early 80s, Washington Square's 8th, 9th, and 10th Streets were still commonly known as Philadelphia's Greektown.
At the time the city's Greek community was embroiled in a battle with the city's redevelopment office. In 1986, St. George's sued the Redevelopment Commission that had just granted Sen. Fumo redevelopment rights over an adjacent building, a building the church had intended to use as a residence.
The neighborhood was a far cry from the posh, Colonial recreation that it is today, and the redevelopment that had transformed Society Hill into what we now see was pushing its way into Greektown.
Similar to the civic developments that boxed in Chinatown, Greektown's long standing community was being surrounded by a growing Jefferson Hospital and a Society Hill gentrification strategy that dated all the way back to Mayor Richardson Dilworth.
A neighborhood that once thrived with ethnic grocery stores and markets, immigrants filled coffee houses, barber shops, and small pool rooms. The city's long gone Hellenic Center flew in newspapers from Athens while the Stephano Brothers would carry in other Greek language papers arriving at Broad Street Station from New York City.
Throughout the litigation and gentrification, most of the neighborhood's Greek residents either left or assimilated, leaving behind but a small legacy. Our ethnic neighborhoods continue to battle redevelopment efforts, one we unfortunately lost in Greektown.
The Athenagoras Manor at 9th and Locust and St. George Cathedral on 8th Street remain, but as an ethnic neighborhood, Greektown is unrecognizable. With much of Philadelphia's Greek community relocating to Upper Darby and Media throughout the neighborhood's transformation, St. George's is the only Greek Orthodox Church that remains in the city. A few Greek restaurants maintain a presence in the vicinity, though likely coincidental. Kanella's is at 10th and Spruce, Effie's on Pine Street, and South Street Souvlaki a short walk away.
St. George's still hosts a yearly Greek Festival which, Greek or not, I highly recommend. You'll eat well, you'll get drunk, and you'll dance like you never thought possible. And next time you're passing through Philadelphia's Greektown, look down its narrow streets, into its small markets and coffee shops, corner pubs, and picture sidewalks filled with lively political conversations you don't quite understand, late night shots of ouzo, and outlandish wedding parties pouring out of St. George's Cathedral, another time and place not so long ago. στην υγειά σας
With the tragic collapse of 22nd and Market four months behind us and every civil lawyer in town pointing grieving families at the biggest pots of dough, nothing has gotten any simpler.
