Ardmore

AT 10 P.M. Sunday, the 10-year-old boy and his father should have been sharing a bedtime story or late-night snack. Instead, they shared a horrific experience neither is soon to forget.   According to township officials, the boy stabbed his 32-year-old father in the neck at the Ardmore apartment they share. The man was rushed by ambulance to Paoli Memorial Hospital, where he was recovering Monday. Meanwhile, his son was in the custody of family members, according to Thomas Walsh, spokesman for Lower Merion Township.

Nine African American students from Ardmore are petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for a review of lower-court findings in their bias case against the Lower Merion School District. The students' attorney, David G.C. Arnold, filed notice of appeal Tuesday, in effect asking the nation's high court to reexamine a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in the redistricting case. The Third Circuit found on Dec. 15 that a 2009 plan to assign the students to Harriton High School against their will did not violate their constitutional rights.

Nine African American students from Ardmore are petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for a review of lower court findings in their bias case against the Lower Merion School District. The student's attorney, David G.C. Arnold, filed notice of appeal this morning, in effect asking the nation's high court to reexamine a ruling by the Third Circuit of Appeals in the controversial redistricting case. The Third Circuit Court found on Dec. 15, that a 2009 plan to assign the students to Harriton High School against their will did not violate their constitutional rights.

Franny and Jerry Weinstein were struggling to make a living selling auto parts during the great gas crisis of 1979 when the Nike swoosh changed everything. The couple had tried peddling a few close-out-brand athletic shoes to help shore up their bottom line, and before long, the Weinsteins' Automotive City gave way to a sneaker nation. "Nike and Adidas were exploding the whole industry," Franny Weinstein, 65, said. "Our sneakers starting doing better than the auto parts. " Now, the Weinsteins have made another momentous business decision, not driven by an international oil embargo, but by local competition and the Internet.

T OMMY JOYNER, 42, of Ardmore, is the founder of MilkBoy the Studio, in Callowhill, and two MilkBoy coffee-and-music venues, in Center City and Ardmore. Now, Joyner and longtime business partner Jamie Lokoff, 47, of Society Hill, are branching out. A third partner, Bill Hanson, 38, of Southwest Center City, is involved in the food-and-beverage part of the biz. I spoke with Joyner. Q: How did the business start? A: It began as a recording studio in North Philly in 1994. I didn't have a business plan and needed a place to record my band's record.

  Heidi Tirjan's schedule was packed. There were visits to a new bakery and a soon-to-open bookshop in Bryn Mawr, then off to Philadelphia to drop in on a couple of chic Northern Liberties retailers she thought should launch outlets in Lower Merion. She also found time to revel in a luscious victory: persuading the owners of the highly regarded Philadelphia restaurant Melograno to open another eatery on the Main Line. After years of wooing, Rosemarie Tran and Gianluca Demontis had succumbed to Tirjan's blandishments and their own desire, and are putting the finishing touches on Fraschetta, a restaurant they are opening near the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

  When a memorial service was held for Walter Annenberg at the Academy of Music in December 2002, Joseph E. Centofanti was there, seated next to the former ambassador's pilot and butler. Mr. Centofanti, an internationally recognized master tailor who worked from a shop in Ardmore, had made Annenberg's suits for years. "My look" in each suit, Mr. Centofanti said in a 2008 Inquirer interview, "is for the chairman of the board. " On Monday, Oct. 31, Mr. Centofanti, 93, whose early life took him from Philadelphia to Italy to Ethiopia and back to the States before he began fashioning suits costing thousands of dollars, died of congestive heart failure at his home in Ardmore.

After a tumultuous 2011 in which they opened a new Center City coffee-and-music venue amid a nasty labor dispute, no one would have faulted rising entertainment entrepreneurs Jamie Lokoff and Tommy Joyner for taking it easy in the new year. But that's not how they roll at MilkBoy, a blend of java- and music-brewed business ventures that seeks to reinvent itself in 2012. Joyner and Lokoff are focusing on Center City after a decade running a recording studio and their now well-known coffee house in Ardmore (and a smaller one in Bryn Mawr)

George D'Alessandro, 76, of Ardmore, a retired barber, died Dec. 14 in Haverford Hospital. Mr. D'Alessandro was born Aug. 31, 1911, in the Abruzzi section of Italy. In 1929, he immigrated to Ardmore to join his father. His mother emigrated from Abruzzi to Ardmore in 1932. Mr. D'Alessandro attended the Oakmont School. He later worked in his father's Cricket Avenue barber shop. In 1931, Mr. D'Alessandro married Clarissa Zinni of Ardmore. During World War II, he worked for the U.S. Department of Defense at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

  Heidi Tirjan's schedule was packed. There were visits to a new bakery and a soon-to-open bookshop in Bryn Mawr, then off to Philadelphia to drop in on a couple of chic Northern Liberties retailers she thought should launch outlets in Lower Merion. She also found time to revel in a luscious victory: persuading the owners of the highly regarded Philadelphia restaurant Melograno to open another eatery on the Main Line. After years of wooing, Rosemarie Tran and Gianluca Demontis had succumbed to Tirjan's blandishments and their own desire, and are putting the finishing touches on Fraschetta, a restaurant they are opening near the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

T OMMY JOYNER, 42, of Ardmore, is the founder of MilkBoy the Studio, in Callowhill, and two MilkBoy coffee-and-music venues, in Center City and Ardmore. Now, Joyner and longtime business partner Jamie Lokoff, 47, of Society Hill, are branching out. A third partner, Bill Hanson, 38, of Southwest Center City, is involved in the food-and-beverage part of the biz. I spoke with Joyner. Q: How did the business start? A: It began as a recording studio in North Philly in 1994. I didn't have a business plan and needed a place to record my band's record.

   The United States Golf Association announced Friday that all championship-round tickets for Thursday through Sunday, June 13-16, for the 2013 U.S. Open Championship at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, have sold out.    Limited practice-round tickets for Monday through Wednesday, June 10-12, are still available. Prices of available daily practice-round tickets start at $50 for grounds tickets and range up to $250 for 1895 Club practice-round tickets.    For information about pricing, ticket options or to purchase tickets online, go to www.usopen.com or www.usga.org/tickets .

Everybody knows video stores are dead. Dead as an idea and dead as a business. Except, somehow, Miguel Gomez didn't get the memo. "I am," said the 32-year-old film fanatic, "quite the optimist. " And, in downtown Ardmore, he's making a stand, opening Viva Video: The Last Picture Store in the glassy, three-room expanse of what used to be a toy shop. He's sure he can attract not just a niche of customers but a big, healthy slice, luring people who love browsing for surprises, who dislike the thumbnail-size posters that pass for description on Netflix, and who see a local video store the same way they see a neighborhood coffee shop: A place for sustenance and conversation.

Franny and Jerry Weinstein were struggling to make a living selling auto parts during the great gas crisis of 1979 when the Nike swoosh changed everything. The couple had tried peddling a few close-out-brand athletic shoes to help shore up their bottom line, and before long, the Weinsteins' Automotive City gave way to a sneaker nation. "Nike and Adidas were exploding the whole industry," Franny Weinstein, 65, said. "Our sneakers starting doing better than the auto parts. " Now, the Weinsteins have made another momentous business decision, not driven by an international oil embargo, but by local competition and the Internet.

A Lower Merion Township man was the victim of an assault and robbery Sunday as he walked on Montgomery Avenue in Ardmore, near Llanfair Rd., at about 5 p.m. Police said today that three men followed the unidentified 30-year-old victim on foot, knocked him to the ground, and beat him. He was treated at Lankenau Medical Center for minor injuries and released. The assailants fled with the victim's wallet and cell phone. Lower Merion Township Police have assigned extra patrols to the area, which is near the Suburban Square outdoor shopping mall in Ardmore.

It doesn't have the thrilling punch of a soap opera, but the drama over rejuvenating Ardmore around the train station certainly has the drawn-out pace of one. In the hope of speeding up at least part of the nearly decadelong project, the Lower Merion Township Economic Revitalization Committee on Wednesday renewed an agreement with Dranoff Properties to build - eventually - housing, stores, and parking space on what is now the municipal parking lot...

It doesn't have the thrilling punch of a soap opera, but the drama over rejuvenating Ardmore around the train station certainly has the drawn-out pace of one. In the hope of speeding up at least part of the nearly decadelong project, the Lower Merion Township Economic Revitalization Committee on Wednesday renewed an agreement with Dranoff Properties to build - eventually - housing, stores, and parking space on what is now the municipal parking lot...