Elevator

An upgraded air-conditioning system and a glass-paneled elevator to replace the center court spiraling ramp are the latest improvements being made or planned at Oxford Valley Mall. They are part of multifaceted renovations as the 23-year-old Middletown Township facility prepares to meet competition from its future neighbors, which will include the Court at Oxford Valley, a 700,000-square-foot center of mega-stores, and several smaller centers. The giant crane looming over the mall last week was dismantling the old cooling tower on the roof and installing a new one, said Bob Hart, Oxford Valley's general manager.

SEPTA General Manager Jack Leary now knows what it's like to be at the mercy of his agency's perilous machinery. One of the Market-Frankford line's infamous elevators, at the York-Dauphin station in Kensington, snared SEPTA's top guy and a chief aide Monday morning. For 30 minutes, Leary and SEPTA assistant general manager Fran Egan chatted about how riders must feel when confronted with elevators that don't work. "We certainly appreciated the irony of it," Egan said yesterday.

The Tredyffrin Zoning Hearing Board has unanimously approved a special exception for the Cathcart Health Center that would allow construction of an elevator at the facility on Valley Forge Road in Devon. Cathcart is a private health care center for 63 adults ages 65 years and older. At a Zoning Hearing Board meeting last Thursday, Dana Aberle, head administrator of Cathcart, said the two-story elevator would be built in the east wing of the health center. "The addition will not change the drainage or the roof line of the building," Aberle said.

The Delaware River Port Authority agreed yesterday to the construction of elevators in two PATCO High-Speed Line terminals, apparently curtailing a dispute between the authority and New Jersey officials over the rights of handicapped riders to trouble-free access to public transportation. Anthony M. Villane Jr., acting commissioner of the state Department of Community Affairs, said the authority agreed to the installation of elevators in the not-yet-opened Camden Transportation Center and in the Woodcrest Station about five miles away.

Willingboro's Board of Education failed to muster enough support last week to approve payment for a partially constructed elevator in John F. Kennedy Junior High School. The board's refusal to pay the bill for the elevator, which would allow a handicapped seventh grader to get to the building's upper two levels, came only a week after the New Jersey Department of Education warned Willingboro that it was violating federal regulations by not providing the student with equal access to educational programs in the district.

A security guard at the Philadelphia National Bank Building in Center City was killed yesterday in a freak accident in one of the building's elevator shafts, police said. Thomas F. Himmelreich, 64, a retired Philadelphia firefighter, died instantly when he was crushed between the elevator car and shaft wall at 1345 Chestnut St., just below street level of the 24-story high-rise, police said. Police and firefighters rushed to the scene about 1:35 p.m. after receiving a report of a man trapped in the shaft.

Sharon Hill Borough engineers got the go-ahead last week to draw up plans for an elevator that would make the second floor of the firehouse more accessible for a senior citizens' group. The council voted, 6-1, Thursday night to allow engineers H. Gilroy Damon Associates Inc. to prepare specifications for the plan. Council member Dominic F. Corvaia voted against it. "I think it's a waste of money," Corvaia said after the meeting. "We have better uses for that money. " Corvaia said he would rather see the money spent on a new word processor and computer system.

Sharon Hill officials have told residents that they do not intend to spend local tax money to put an elevator in the borough's fire hall. Plans for the elevator, aimed at providing handicapped and elderly people access to meetings and community functions, are being drawn up by the borough's engineer, Gilroy Damon. At Thursday's regular meeting, Borough Council President Charles J. Hollenden said that if the price tag for the elevator was greater than the amount of state grants the borough had received, alternate accommodations for the handicapped would be considered.

At the King Plaza project one day last week, residents of the high-rise struggled, one after the other, with an elevator door that would not open all the way. The other elevator was not working at all. A Philadephia Housing Authority maintenance man got no special consideration. He had to push and shove to get himself through the jammed doorway into the cramped cab. Meanwhile at Southwark Plaza, another PHA high-rise, a longtime resident warned that the problem-plagued elevators were "terrible.

Michael Shuler appears to be the kind of guy who would probably kill for a cigarette. Last Oct. 1, he almost did, said Assistant District Attorney Brian Grady. Shuler, 25, stabbed and wounded a probation officer and a security guard on an elevator in a building on Broad Street near Cherry after he was escorted from a fourth-floor probation office for smoking. Yesterday, Shuler, of Reese Street near Hunting Park Avenue, pleaded guilty to 16 charges, including two aggravated assaults, resisting arrest and weapons offenses.

On a long enough timeline, every theater in the country will stage Ken Ludwig's Lend Me a Tenor . Like Michael Frayn's Noises Off , Ludwig's farce fills the stalls with patrons wanting a laugh and willing to pay for it. But the perfect casting at Ambler's Act II Playhouse elevates its current production far above the level of late-season filler aimed at middle America. Ludwig's comedy, about the mishaps surrounding a big-name Italian tenor guest-starring in a performance of Otello in Cleveland, doesn't require stellar voices for the evening's sole musical number.

The pair of flares taped to two pipes in the resealable storage bag sitting in the elevator in Lawnside's borough hall looked threatening enough. There was what looked like a timer; the mayor's name was on a white label. Mayor Mary Ann Wardlow, who has served on the council for more than two decades, had left the building at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday. The device wasn't in the elevator then, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office and Lawnside police said. On Thursday, the municipal court clerk discovered the device shortly before 8:30 a.m. as she headed to the elevator to the second-floor courtroom.

Elevators for two PATCO train stations have been delayed by construction problems and the discovery of the remnants of an abandoned, century-old subway station during excavation work. The elevators were supposed to be ready for use by the end of 2012 at PATCO's Ninth-10th and Locust Street subway station in Center City and the elevated Ferry Avenue station in Camden. But the $5 million project has been slowed by permitting delays, supplier problems, utility conflicts, and, most important, the discovery of the old station under the Ninth and Locust site.

Just in time for Valentine's Day, Hedgerow Theatre serves up the world premiere of Larry McKenna's Strictly Platonic , a cute, chocolate-covered cherry of a romantic comedy. McKenna's 11-scene, 90-minute script wastes no time setting up its well-worn premise: It poses the life-altering question, "Do you ever look for meaningful relationships?" The recipient of that question invariably is a self-centered, shallow playboy, in this case, real estate agent Tim (Brendan Cataldo). We meet him in the first scene as he rides home on the train from a night of bar hopping - and phone-number scoring - with his best friend, Josh (Jamie Goldman)

Drexel University's entrepreneurial president has set his sights on the possibility of building over and developing part of the Schuylkill Rail Yards, long ogled by visionaries for its expansive prospects yet largely untouched because of the potential infrastructure problems it poses. President John A. Fry is embarking on a university-funded million-dollar-plus feasibility study with Amtrak and SEPTA to determine options. Could 30th Street Station and its West Philadelphia community be connected to the Art Museum and Center City via an elevated platform built atop the rail yards?

Joseph Patrick Purcell, 64, a retired elevator mechanic in Philadelphia and Phoenix, Ariz., and a longtime Mason, died Wednesday, Oct., 10, of complications of cancer at his home in Phoenix. Mr. Purcell was born June 18, 1948, in Philadelphia, the son of John and Catherine Purcell. He attended Philadelphia public schools, graduating from George Washington High School in 1967. Mr. Purcell worked as a mechanic as a member of International Union of Elevator Constructors Local 5 in Philadelphia from 1968 to 2000.

IF YOU KNOW THE NAME Melanie Lynskey, you're already planning to see her in "Hello I Must Be Going. " If you don't, this film will have you making up for lost time. That's how good an actress she is. Lynskey's career began unforgettably in 1994 when she and fellow teen Kate Winslet co-starred in Peter Jackson's unsettling "Heavenly Creatures. " But while Winslet's profile went sky-high three years later when she intoxicated Leonardo DiCaprio in "Titanic," Lynskey's career has been more under the radar.

Police are looking for a man who they say violently assaulted and robbed an 86-year-old SEPTA passenger in an elevator at the Church Street stop on the Market-Frankford Line last month. The attack was captured on video by a surveillance camera. Around 9 p.m. July 2, according to police, the victim got onto an elevator on the westbound platform at Church Street in Frankford and was followed on by a man who pushed him into the corner of the lift, grabbed him by the throat and went through his pockets, stealing his wallet and $500 cash.

After 87 years at 400 N. Broad, The Inquirer newsroom is moving to rented space this month in the grand old Strawbridge & Clothier store at Eighth and Market. I don't remember when I started calling the Inquirer Building the Tower of Truth. I don't even recall if it started as a joke, as in the Tower of "Truth. " When I began communications classes at Temple University in 1970, the newspaper was still living down its reputation for vendetta journalism and the blacklisting of liberal politicians, civil rights leaders, and suspect entertainers.

Whoa! Someone got quite a scare this morning at the Convention Center Parking garage on North Broad Street, between Race and Cherry Streets, in Center City. A black Infiniti, with a driver inside, partially fell down a ground-level car lift before 10 a.m. Andrew Afandor, an employee with the 1st Choice Response Unit tow-truck company, who was there afterward waiting to tow the car away, said he heard this account from garage employees: A garage worker had gotten into the Infiniti G375, which was in front of a closed elevator door.