Center City

The wooden rabbit was custom-made. Upright, right paw thrust inside its vest, the classic Napoleon pose. "He's exactly Napoleon's height," said Daniel Charest, co-owner of Napoleon, the well-regarded restaurant that moved from Port Richmond to Center City three weeks ago. The wooden rabbit (go ahead and rap on his chest for luck, just don't invade Russia in the wintertime) symbolizes Charest's restaurant philosophy: Pay attention to details while providing a friendly atmosphere for your customers.

Charles Heffron had a problem while he was on vacation nine years ago - but the solution spawned an idea that grew into a profitable business. While in California, he promised a friend he would have some film developed, but he forgot. When the friend was expecting to see the prints, Heffron didn't have them. By chance Heffron stumbled upon a service he had not seen offered in Philadelphia - a one-hour photo-developing center. In 60 minutes, he had his pictures back and his friendship intact.

SUBURBAN SPRAWL, be damned! Lured by jobs, city amenities and the ability to get around without a car, more people are living in Center City, resulting in the rebound of a housing market severely damaged in the 2008-09 recession, according to a report released Tuesday by the Center City District and Central Philadelphia Development Corp. The population of "greater" Center City - 180,000 residents, living from river to river and from Tasker Street to Girard Avenue - soared 10.2 percent from 2000 to 2010, so that Philadelphia now has the third-largest downtown population among American cities (behind New York and Chicago)

Gambling foes filled the audience at Wednesday's hearing before the state Gaming Control Board, silently standing to strongly protest the building of another casino in Philadelphia. About 75 people, mostly from Chinatown, held anti-casino signs during back-to-back testimony from gaming opponents at the end of the fourth and last day of public input on a second license. The protesters represented a coalition of community groups called No Casino in Our City. While most of the earlier speakers were endorsing one project or another, the 11 people to testify at the end of the hearing denounced gambling as bad public policy that was promoting addiction.

JAZZ COMES in a lot of flavors, some more accessible than others. How can you tell which will please you? This weekend's bigger and better, 2nd annual Center City Jazz Festival offers a fine and friendly way to sample a potpourri of fresh, sharply honed talents, most Philly-grown or -based, in an unusually convenient and casual fashion. We're talking everyone from the intimate vocal chanteuse Laurin Talese (a former backup singer for Jaguar Wright and Vivian Green) to the camped-up drag triller Martha Graham Cracker.

Center City is dead. A journalist wrote recently, "It's not Philadelphia anymore. It's why I moved to Boston. " Gone are the mammoth movie houses on Market Street and other memorable theaters on Chestnut Street. No more American League baseball. Deceased also is the Coney-Island-type amusement parks at Woodside and Willow Grove. After business hours when darkness covers Center City's face, graffiti vandals attack its architecture, muggings, burglaries and other crimes rage.

THE LATEST report on the "State of Center City" shows that there is much to celebrate downtown. It has the nation's third-largest number of employees working in its core central-business district at 264,878. Only New York and Chicago have a higher concentration of workers, according to the report, released Thursday by the Center City District. And the population in both the core Center City area - from Vine to Pine streets - and what the district calls "Extended Center City" area - from Girard Avenue to Tasker - has grown rapidly in the last decade.

THE CONFLICT between Center City cyclists and automobile drivers can be substantially reduced if more drivers do as I have, which is to simply boycott Center City. Philly is great for throwing up parking meters, putting No Parking signs where they make no sense, painting all kinds of white lines in an effort to control all forms of travel and punishing citizens through ticketing with a level of efficiency unmatched by anything else we pay government to do. So I say, let them have Center City.

The Center City District has released the fifth in a series of comprehensive profiles of downtown Philadelphia and concluded things are looking pretty good. The annual State of Center City report found: A 97 percent office occupancy rate, up from 86.9 percent in 1998. A boom in renovated office buildings to apartments that has produced 960 new units so far, with another 1,619 planned or in construction. Completion of these units will result in a 6 percent increase in Center City population.

The YWCA is scheduled to close the doors of its flagship building in Center City tonight, and a group of stalwart supporters is hoping to return to court today for an eleventh-hour attempt to save it. At 8 p.m., the Y's Mid-City branch building at 2027 Chestnut St. is to shut down for good. The closing marks the end of an era for the Y in Philadelphia. The seven- story tower was opened in 1949 at the old Stephen Girard Hotel and for four decades has been a center of women's shelter, service and recreation programs in Center City.