Conshohocken

A 14-year-old girl was seriously injured when she was hit by a car while riding a bicycle Tuesday evening in Conshohocken, police said. The accident occurred at 7:05 p.m. in the 300 block of West Sixth Avenue, said police Sgt. Michael Conner. The girl rode across the street in the middle of the block when she was struck by a Chevrolet Cobalt. She was flown by helicopter to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Conner said. The driver did not leave the scene and was cooperative with police.

A Montgomery County man trying to fight a house fire with a garden hose Thursday morning was flown to Temple University Hospital with burns on his back and arm, police said. Jason Freas, 27, was dragged out of his corner twin house on Front Street in West Conshohocken after the blaze was reported at 7:15 a.m., said Michael J. Sinclair, the borough's police chief. About that time, retired Conshohocken Fire Chief Robert Phipps happened to be driving by when he saw flames in the rear of the second floor.

As the region stumbles around in a recession hangover, Dean Jerrehian is an odd assemblage of calm, cheerfulness, and optimism for a guy making a living in one of the economy's hardest-hit sectors - manufacturing. He credits yoga. No, not his practice of it, though he does an impressive downward dog. Jerrehian's happy place is the result of an estimated 500,000 to a million people around the world trying to get to that place stretching, meditating, and deep breathing while perched on the natural-rubber yoga mats produced by Jerrehian's JadeYoga in Conshohocken.

A Conshohocken woman has been charged with stealing $193,243 from two municipal authorities she administered, but the solicitor for one said its losses could be as high as $500,000. Linda Ann Marie Palermo, 41, of West 11th Avenue, was arraigned Thursday on charges of theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking, and related offenses. Authorities said she spent the money on her mortgage, personal bills, a cruise, two vacations to Mexico, and the purchase of a 1994 Corvette. Palermo was released by District Justice William Maruszczak on $50,000 unsecured bail for a hearing Aug. 18 in Montgomery County Court.

A Conshohocken woman has been arrested for allegedly stealing a total of $193,242 from two municipal authorities for which she was administrator, law enforcement officials announced today. Linda Ann Marie Palermo, 41, of the 300 block of W. 11th Avenue, Conshohocken, is accused of committing theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking and related offenses. She'll be arraigned this afternoon at a district court in King of Prussia. Officials said Palermo has admitted to detectives she stole $27,855.

When Marcy and Charlie Rogovin bought their undeniably vertical home in West Conshohocken more than a decade ago, they had the option of equipping it with an elevator. But the Rogovins were monitoring their budget, and they passed. The first-floor master bedroom in the upscale community known as Merion Hill cut down on open main-floor space, but it seemed to suit their needs. As the years passed, though, things changed. After Charlie, 79, a retired associate dean and professor at Temple University Law School and a former member of the President's Commission on Organized Crime, had some health problems that compromised his mobility, the couple began considering a move to a house with fewer steps.

For more than two decades, the view from developer Donald Pulver's office window has been of his own failing. Several stories below, along the banks of the Schuylkill and at the base of the glass-and-granite office towers Pulver built on a once-forsaken stretch of Montgomery County waterfront, an ugly, low-rise factory has sat in defiance. Despite Pulver's persistent offers to buy, owners Robert and Jack Florig would not sell their three Conshohocken acres, site of the brothers' steel-processing business.

For more than two decades, the view from developer Donald Pulver's office window has been of his own failing. Several stories below, along the banks of the Schuylkill and at the base of the glass-and-granite office towers Pulver built on a once-forsaken stretch of Montgomery County waterfront, an ugly, low-rise factory has sat in defiance. Despite Pulver's persistent offers to buy, owners Robert and Jack Florig would not sell their three Conshohocken acres, site of the brothers' steel-processing business.

Less than 14 months after a devastating apartment blaze along the Conshohocken riverfront set back one of the nation's most successful revivals of an aging town, a $36.3 million settlement has been reached to end all fire-related litigation. Of that, $27 million will go toward rebuilding the two destroyed Riverwalk apartment buildings, which housed 189 units. The remainder will be shared among the displaced tenants, with amounts depending on individual losses. The complicated agreement among developers, construction companies and insurers is subject to court approval, expected this month.

It may lack Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, and New York City elan, but Conshohocken is about to get a Manhattan staple: a doorman. Next to the scene of the devastating fire that destroyed 189 apartment units on the Schuylkill waterfront in August, work is progressing on what developer J. Brian O'Neill says will be the region's "most luxurious" apartment complex. Although luxurious and Conshohocken have rarely appeared in the same sentence in the town's 159-year history, O'Neill promises that when the building opens by the end of the year, it will have all the candy - from a $5,000-a-month furnished unit to granite countertops to that front-door attendant.