City Streets

Sharde Wood, 11, seeks relief with a mini-fan while waiting with her brother Benton, 5, on Germantown Avenue. Their partents were doing some banking. Yesterday, humidity and a high of 86 made for a steamy day. More of the same is in this weekend's forecast, along with a thunderstorm.

The roadway gridlock around Philadelphia Friday evening was on the mind of Twitter user Savannah Witkus. "Philly traffic tonight makes me want to stab my eyes with a spork," she wrote at 6 p.m. from her @savannahwitkus account. Police said the highways were crowded with high seasonal volume - people leaving work and going holiday shopping. There were residual delays from the departure of President Obama from Philadelphia during the afternoon; police temporarily shut roads his motorcade traveled.

THINKING ABOUT parking your car in that bike lane? Don't do it. It'll cost you. City Council approved the "Complete Streets" bill Thursday that makes a series of changes to the traffic code for bicyclists and motorists, stressing consideration for all who share the road. For drivers, violations include parking a vehicle in a bike lane and opening a car door against oncoming traffic, a potential hazard to cyclists. For bikers, violations include running a redlight, riding on the sidewalk, or parking a bike in the street (unless it's against the curb or in a designated parking space.)

Riding the Schuylkill River Trail is like taking a trip by rail. Just add the sweat. Over its 23 miles (and growing), the paved bike path travels from woods to suburbia, town to city, meandering in and out of eyesight of the river that at one time symbolized great industrial power. The trail largely follows old rail lines, which themselves followed old canals dug to haul coal to port. Even when the river is hidden from view, that loading-dock feeling comes from cycling past a steel mill and sewage treatment plant, big construction projects and crumbling warehouses.

THE DIRT-BIKERS and ATV four-wheelers gathered under a tree in Hunting Park one recent Sunday, the roar of their engines as much a part of the sunny scene as the ballplayers and picnickers and the guy selling barbecued chicken on skewers. As more and more riders arrived, they greeted each other with hugs and handshakes, admiring the modifications they made to their bikes and swapping stories about getaways, crashes and infamous rides, like Pupo's legendary 12-mile wheelie up I-95 that helped Philly "defeat" Baltimore in a friendly contest of skills.

The crackdown on illegal ATV and dirt bike usage continues in Philly, with more than two dozen vehicles taken off the streets this weekend. Philadelphia police said a weekend operation involving three police districts in areas of Kensington, Hunting Park, Juniata Park, and Port Richmond resulted in 15 ATVs and 10 dirt bikes being confiscated. According to public affairs, 11 of those were a result of live stops. The 25th Police District, which includes Juniata Park, Feltonville, and Hunting Park, saw 15 vehicles taken off the street as a result of the department's recent initiative.

JERMAINE Alexander learned to ride a dirt bike before he could write or tie his shoes. "Maine" was 5, and he would ride his bicycle only if he smashed tin cans in the wheels to mimic the dirt-bike growl. So his uncle took him to the park to teach him to ride the real thing. When he was a teenager and would hear one roar by on the streets outside, he'd stampede to the window to see who was riding what. He became so adept at fixing them that he could transform scraps of junkers into bikes that, though not beautiful, still flew fast as fireworks.

ROOSEVELT Darby Jr. made it clear to Darren Daulton what it took to deal with the city's frustrating homeless problem. "It's an inside job," he said, tapping his chest. What it took, he was trying to say, was heart. And Darby had heart to spare. In 1994, Daulton, the Phillies' catcher, was touring the facilities of the Philadelphia Committee for the Homeless — to which he was a major contributor — at Broad and Brown streets. Daulton contributed $100 to PCH every time he knocked in a run. Darby, a peer counselor at the time and later deputy director of the committee, and other staff members took Daulton on a tour.

Phila­del­phians are fa­mil­iar with the pic­tur­esque Schuylkill River Trail, and, farther south, the grit­ty stor­age tanks at Su­no­co's Phila­del­phia re­fin­ery. But there's a vast stretch of the Schuylkill that many peo­ple drive past, but few ac­tu­al­ly see. The city says that six miles along the riv­er's banks, from University City to Phila­del­phia International Airport, is prime for com­mer­cial de­vel­op­ment and accounts for 68 per­cent of Phila­del­phia's un­der­u­til­ized and va­cant in­dus­tri­al land.

Turn up your radios, everybody, and stand back, 'cause - like the Breeze says - Philly is steppin' in. If you don't know the Breeze, you've been in the suburbs too long. Hang out on the corners in West Oak Lane or Logan and you'd know what's going on: rap music, the talking, pulsing music of the streets. This is Philly rap: the rhythm and beat of Diamond Street and North Broad Street and Belmont Avenue. Rap music is kid music, it's dance music, and it's gritty city music with a black sound to it. But New York City has dominated rap since the beginning, ever since a group called the Sugar Hill Gang put rap on the map in the summer of 1979.

HONOLULU - The president of a helicopter company whose small copter crash-landed on a downtown Honolulu street praised the pilot Thursday, while the National Transportation Safety Board leads an investigation. No one was badly hurt when the two-seater helicopter lost power, forcing the crash landing Wednesday afternoon. The NTSB is not sending anyone to the crash site but will investigate remotely, with help from local authorities and the Federal Aviation Administration, board spokesman Keith Holloway said.

Down the red-brick, ruby-throated passage of Delancey Place's 2000 block, nestled between other stately townhouses, the Rosenbach Museum and Library quietly sits, waiting to welcome all those drawn to its bibliophilic nectars. This is where A.S.W. Rosenbach, legendary bookseller and collector, and his brother Philip once lived, an 1865 townhouse at number 2010, now on the National Register of Historic Places. Inside, on any day but Monday, a curious visitor or a driven literary tourist can explore a quintessential Philadelphia gem. The Rosenbach houses a significant part of the brothers' collection and much that has been added since 1954, when the museum was established after the brothers' deaths, in accordance with their wishes.

A CAMDEN MAN accused of firing a gun during a street brawl early Sunday in Old City is an alleged gun trafficker facing indictment in New Jersey. Christopher McRae, 28, was charged with resisting arrest, reckless endangerment and gun offenses for his alleged role in a melee at 2nd and Chestnut streets Sunday morning. On May 23, he was arrested after allegedly selling a military-style rifle and other firearms on a Camden street. In that case, New Jersey State Police accused him of illegally selling an AK-47 assault rifle, a Glock 9mm pistol, a Hi Point .40-caliber pistol and a Ruger .357-caliber revolver.

A cable beneath 16th and Market Streets in Center City began smoking early this morning, causing officials worried about a separate gas leak to evacuate an apartment building. The 10-story Oakwood Apartments building at 16th and Sansom was cleared of its residents, and 16th street was closed between Chestnut and Walnut Streets for much of the morning. Karen Muldoon-Geus, a Peco spokeswoman, said the incident occurred about 3:30 a.m. when smoke was spotted coming from a manhole.

THINKING ABOUT parking your car in that bike lane? Don't do it. It'll cost you. City Council approved the "Complete Streets" bill Thursday that makes a series of changes to the traffic code for bicyclists and motorists, stressing consideration for all who share the road. For drivers, violations include parking a vehicle in a bike lane and opening a car door against oncoming traffic, a potential hazard to cyclists. For bikers, violations include running a redlight, riding on the sidewalk, or parking a bike in the street (unless it's against the curb or in a designated parking space.)

The roadway gridlock around Philadelphia Friday evening was on the mind of Twitter user Savannah Witkus. "Philly traffic tonight makes me want to stab my eyes with a spork," she wrote at 6 p.m. from her @savannahwitkus account. Police said the highways were crowded with high seasonal volume - people leaving work and going holiday shopping. There were residual delays from the departure of President Obama from Philadelphia during the afternoon; police temporarily shut roads his motorcade traveled.

The crackdown on illegal ATV and dirt bike usage continues in Philly, with more than two dozen vehicles taken off the streets this weekend. Philadelphia police said a weekend operation involving three police districts in areas of Kensington, Hunting Park, Juniata Park, and Port Richmond resulted in 15 ATVs and 10 dirt bikes being confiscated. According to public affairs, 11 of those were a result of live stops. The 25th Police District, which includes Juniata Park, Feltonville, and Hunting Park, saw 15 vehicles taken off the street as a result of the department's recent initiative.

ONE DAY AFTER police confiscated 37 ATVs and dirt bikes in Kensington, North Philly, Fairhill, Hunting Park and Cobbs Creek, police bigwigs said illegal riders should expect a continued crackdown as authorities target the hundreds of riders who turn city streets and parks into a racetrack every summer.   "The Police Department is going to take a more proactive approach in confiscating these vehicles," Deputy Commissioner Thomas Wright said. "We won't get into the details of our strategy, but we will be doing more frequent operations in the future, where the element of surprise is key. " Wright said a task force of about 10 officers launched the crackdown about 11 a.m. Sunday, seizing 26 four-wheelers and 11 dirt bikes from garages and streets, more than police originally reported.

A water main break, the third in the city in 11 days, is causing havoc in North Philadelphia this morning, flooding streets around Front and Tioga Streets. Officials have closed the streets in the area to traffic. Reports of the main erupting started coming in about 7:45 a.m. as water gushed south along Front Street, flooding nearby basements and leaving a gaping hole in the street. John DiGiulio, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Water Department, said it appears a 48-inch main broke under the street.

Two separate water main breaks in the last week have sent millions of gallons of water gushing into city streets - and the Philadelphia Water Department into overdrive to clean it all up. At Willits and Ashton Streets in Northeast Philadelphia, where an eight-inch main burst Sunday night, the debris was mostly gone by Monday morning. Department spokesman John Digiulio said the leak was shut off in about two hours. Streets were reopened and all utility services were restored by Monday morning, officials said.