Block Party

Friday wasn't just a day to celebrate the start of the Labor Day weekend. It was also Grandparents Day, as the Senior Citizens Association in Bensalem held a block party and open house. There were prizes, food and entertainment, as well as clowns and face painting to provide amusement.

A playoff block party is scheduled for 4 p.m. today outside the AT&T Pavilion on the 11th Street side of the Wachovia Center in advance of the Stanley Cup finals. Doors to the arena will open at 6 p.m. Game time is 8 p.m. Fans are encouraged to arrive early. The Phillies host the San Diego Padres at Citizens Bank Park at 7:05 p.m. On the air An hourlong edition of "Flyers Pregame Live" will air on the Comcast Network, beginning at 7 p.m. The Phillies game will air on Comcast SportsNet.

For the last 12 years, the residents of the dead-end section of Dickinson Avenue in Swarthmore have held an annual block party in the turnaround at the end of the street. This year's event is scheduled for Sunday at 4:30 in the afternoon. If things run true to form, the weather will be hot and sticky, and the party will start slow. The big plastic garbage cans often show up first. They're followed by a grill of coals for the hot dogs and hamburgers, a cooler of ice and soda, another of ice and beer.

You don't have to be Latino to enjoy two high-energy Puerto Rican Festival Week events this weekend. But it will help if you like to dance. Three full orchestras and six supporting acts - all local talent - will gather tomorrow at an all-day block party (from noon to 9 p.m.) to help dedicate the new home of the Latin American Musicians Association (called AMLA after its Spanish initials), at Fifth and Somerset Streets. The bands at tomorrow's party include the brassy salsa orchestras Salseate (Salsa You)

Here is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat: Craig LaBan: We had an awesome block party Saturday with a long table of great pot-luck eats. My contribution was aglio-olio with zucchini laces, toasted garlic chips, and ricotta salata. And because the produce was so darn irresistible at the Rittenhouse farm market, I followed a day later with my favorite quick tomato sauce: cook a pint (or two) of halved yellow and red cherry tomatoes down fast and hard in EVOO and golden garlic, for about as long as it takes to boil the pasta.

Temple blocked 13 Florida State shots at the Leon County Civic Center, tying an 11-year-old school record. Sophomore center Kevin Lyde had eight of them, which was four more than his previous career high. It was only two off the school record set twice (both times against Penn State) by Duane Causwell a decade ago. Senior Lamont Barnes had four, which gives him 13 in three games. These are good things, no? Well, not to the only guy whose opinion really counts. The way John Chaney reacted last night, you might have thought his team had just tied a school best for airballs, behind-the-back passes or bargain-basement neckties.

The Houston Rockets reached down for something extra Tuesday night as Akeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson reached up and swatted 11 of the Los Angeles Lakers' shots between them. All told, the Rockets returned 12 L.A. shots to sender. A dirty dozen. And with Houston's 112-102 victory in Los Angeles, the NBA's Western Conference finals are deadlocked at 1-1, with Game 3 scheduled for tomorrow night here at the Summit. "I would beat one of their big men, and the other one would come over and block my shot," the Lakers' Kareem Abdul-Jabbar said.

"Daily News Live" on Comcast SportsNet will be broadcast at 5 p.m. today from the AT&T Pavilion at the Wachovia Center in advance of Game 3 of the Eastern Conference final. Host Michael Barkann will be joined by Daily News columnist Rich Hofmann and Flyers beat writer Ed Moran as well as a Flyers player and broadcasters Bill Clement and Steve Coates. The show is part of the block party that begins at 4 p.m. inside and on the 11th Street side of the arena. The block party features live music, food, interactive games and celebrity appearances.

A great Philadelphia institution - the block party - is having a resurgence this summer. There are signs of a block party revival all over the city, from the traditional bingo and cotton candy fests in South Philadelphia and Overbrook, to upscale restaurant shindigs in Center City. They are also becoming more common in quasi-suburban Northeast Philadelphia. The city has issued 642 block party permits so far this year, up about 25 percent from 1985, according to Barbara Kirgan, the Streets Department official who handles the permits.

RITTENHOUSE ROW FESTIVAL, Noon-5 p.m. tomorrow, Walnut Street from Broad to Rittenhouse Square Park. When restaurant owner Neil Stein says there's going to be a block party on Walnut Street, it's important to be specific. "You're certainly going to see hot dogs with mustard," notes the Rittenhouse Square restaurateur. "But you're also going to see tuna tartare and steak tartare and, maybe, some scallop carpaccio. " No, this weekend's Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival is no ordinary block party.

Here is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat: Craig LaBan: For our annual block party, we got on the food truck bandwagon and gathered around a visit from Don Memo's (usually parked in West Philly), which served all the chicken and pork tacos we could eat for $10 a person. I've had better tacos, but I've had worse, too . . . and it was a fun, different way to get the neighbors out and munching. It's the second week of Restaurant Week, a frequent topic here, and a subject on which I'm usually not overenthusiastic.

ARIZONA PLAYS and wins a lot of close games, going back to the second half of last season. Special teams play a pretty big role. A blocked punt in New England last week led to the go-ahead touchdown in the Cards' 20-18 victory. The week before, Arizona blocked a field goal in its 20-16 win over visiting Seattle. In fact, Arizona leads the NFL with 15 blocks - 13 field goals, two punts - since 2008. "I think their success at blocking is the main thing they have going for 'em," Eagles special-teams coordinator Bobby April said Thursday.

The Daniel B. Allanoff Foundation will hold a "Be the Match" block party Sunday to benefit the National Marrow Donor Program. The event will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Scarlet Oak and Copper Beech Drives in Lafayette Hill. People will be able to sign up for the national bone marrow registry, and donations will be accepted. Allanoff, who contracted leukemia in 2011 as a result of chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma 12 years earlier, found a match through the National Bone Marrow Registry and underwent a marrow transplant in January, he said in a release.

4:08 p.m. UPDATE: The reward for information leading to Officer Moses Walker Jr.'s killer has been increased to $88,000, officials announced. Police also released surveillance video that they say shows two suspects in Walker's death.  Here's the original story as published Monday, Aug. 20, 2012 OFFICER Moses Walker Jr. was the kind of cop you'd recall fondly - even if he's the one who snapped your mug shot and closed the holding-cell door...

A 20-YEAR-OLD man shot to death in a drive-by double-shooting in Logan on Tuesday night lived on the same block where four people - including a 2-year-old girl - were wounded in a shooting during a block party in June, police said. It was unclear whether Tuesday's shooting, which also wounded a 16-year-old boy, was connected to the unsolved June 16 incident, which the Daily News featured on its cover. Cops said the victims were standing with another man on Rockland Street near 12th when a car of four men pulled up and opened fire, putting a bullet in the older man's stomach and wounding the teen in the arm. The third man standing - who police said could have been the target - took off. Cops arrived at the scene to find the victims inside a house on the block and the street littered with .22-caliber casings, Chief Inspector Scott Small said.

Police are investigating the early-morning killing Saturday in Nicetown of a 46-year-old woman, a mother of nine who neighbors said was appreciated for her friendly demeanor and ready laugh. Neighbors identified the victim as Rhonda Williams, a longtime resident of the neighborhood who often swept the street in front of her home and helped other residents look after their children. "She was the greatest, she was the best," said Noonie Stevenson, a friend of Williams' who was visiting from Delaware.

Police are investigating the early-morning killing Saturday in Nicetown of a 46-year-old woman, a mother of nine who neighbors said was appreciated for her friendly demeanor and ready laugh. Neighbors identified the victim as Rhonda Williams, a longtime resident of the neighborhood who often swept the street in front of her home and helped other residents look after their children. "She was the greatest, she was the best," said Noonie Stevenson, a friend of Williams' who was visiting from Delaware.

BULLETS TORE through the warm summer night, slicing into the crowd of about 200 people jamming a Logan street for an impromptu block party. A 2-year-old girl took a bullet to her tiny stomach as she stood between parked cars. Three other people were struck. Dozens of witnesses scattered. Everyone clammed up. For nearly a month, whispers about the violence have traveled porch to porch. But infuriated police and city officials say not a single person has come forward with a tip, not even the girl's mother.

Baseball enthusiasts are expected to flood Camden on Wednesday for the Atlantic League All-Star Game and related festivities. A block party, featuring food vendors, a moonbounce and a DJ, will start off the events at 2 p.m. in front of the Campbell's Field entrance on Penn Street. Traffic is expected to be affected only in the immediate Penn Street area near Rutgers-Camden, said Riversharks spokesman Jake Levy. Once the gates open at 4 p.m., former Eagles quarterback and ESPN NFL analyst Ron Jaworski and former Phillies manager and MLB Network analyst Larry Bowa will co-captain the "Legends v. Champions" celebrity softball game, featuring players from the 1980 and 2008 Phillies World Series Championship teams and other Philadelphia-area athletes.

A 2-year-old girl was in stable condition Monday after being shot in the stomach when gunfire interrupted a weekend block party. Police responded to a call that an unknown male was firing a gun on the 4600 block of North 12th Street at 9:17 p.m. Saturday, Officer Christine O'Brien said. The gunman was firing from behind parked cars on the street, which was blocked off for the party, a witness told police. As of Monday, nobody had been arrested in the shooting, O'Brien said. The child entered Einstein Medical Center in critical condition on Saturday and was transferred to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children after her condition stabilized, O'Brien said.