Milton Street says it's 'going to be a crusade'

Philadelphia's most renowned hot-dog vendor isn't messing around.

Tuesday is the first day that this year's political candidates can circulate nomination petitions - and T. Milton Street Sr. says by sundown he'll have all the signatures he needs to challenge Mayor Nutter in the May primary.

Street, who announced last week that he wanted Nutter's job, said he'll be out all day Tuesday at 52d and Market Streets gathering the 1,000 signatures he needs from registered Democrats.

"There are 300,000 ex-offenders in the city of Philadelphia. My mission is going to be to mobilize them and their families and show them if they flex their political muscle . . . they can reclaim some semblance of quality of life," said Street, recently released from prison himself for failure to file his income taxes.

Street, the older brother of former Mayor John F. Street, knows the politics game as well as he knew how to hawk hot dogs at Temple University.

Four years ago, he survived a ballot challenge to run for City Council. But that challenge had to do with alleged omissions on his financial-disclosure form; nobody took aim then at many of the signatures he submitted that seemed to be scrawled by the same hand.

"I am not running a campaign," Street said last week. "I am going to run a political revival. It is going to be a crusade." - Marcia Gelbart

Off-Broadway, but never on Broad Street, right?

But it was a much lesser-known role that elicited loud laughs from Council.

In town performing in What My Husband Doesn't Know at the Merriam Theater, Davis went to City Hall to accept a Council resolution honoring him. During the Street administration, he served as the executive director of Welcome America!, the nonprofit that oversees the city's Fourth of July celebration.

Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown read Davis' accomplishments aloud in Council chambers. When she got to his performance in the Off-Broadway play How to Steal an Election, Council members guffawed.

"Heard in the Hall" hopes they were not laughing from experience. - Miriam Hill