Factory

THE PEELING paint and uneven floors of an old industrial building are not for everyone. But Globe Dye Works, an old textile-dye factory in Frankford, is the perfect backdrop for 17 sculptors in the new show "Catagenesis. " Leslie Kaufman, president of Philadelphia Sculptors, pegged Globe for her group's 2012 show. Currently being converted to a mixed-use building for artist studios and small businesses, Globe is full of history and just funky enough to hold a great art show. Philadelphia Sculptors, a nonprofit with 250 members, was founded in 1996.

At most concerts, you can tell when a band's set is about to end: Songs grow longer and more dynamic, tempos slow as if seizing on the last chance to stretch the evening out. But if you'd shown up a few minutes late to M83's show at the Electric Factory on Wednesday, you might have cast a worried glance at the time on your ticket. Nearly every song in their hour-plus set sounded like a set-closer, reflecting leader Anthony Gonzales' penchant for playing every song as if it might be his last.

NEW YORK - On Monday, sometime around noon, Australian women's basketball player Belinda Snell sank a three-point half-court shot at the buzzer, sending the Aussie team's Olympic game against France into overtime. That was in London. Three thousand miles away, in a studio at NBC head- quarters, an "aaahhhhh " punctuated the hushed quiet and play-by-play caller Dave Strader, in a soundproof black booth that looked like a high-tech Porta-Potty, shouted to American viewers, "Are you kidding me?"

Elizabeth Warren said it better than Barack Obama. And the president's presentation wasn't helped when supporters of Mitt Romney edited his words. Sadly, lost in a squabble over "you didn't build that" was the opportunity for a more serious conversation about social contracts.   Last August, while contemplating a run for the U.S. Senate against Scott Brown, Warren offered a fiery defense of liberal economic theory at an event in Andover, Mass. Two minutes worth of what she said became a YouTube sensation that has now been viewed nearly a million times.

WASHINGTON - Burlington Coat Factory will pay $1.5 million to settle government allegations stemming from the sale of children's clothing with drawstrings. The Consumer Product Safety Commission said the civil penalty resolves allegations that the Burlington-based company failed to report immediately that it had sold children's sweatshirts and jackets with drawstrings at the neck. It also settles charges that Burlington knowingly sold or had in store inventories of many of those clothes after they had been recalled.

SAN FELICE SUL PANARO, Italy - Workers at the small machinery company had just returned for their first shift after Italy's powerful and deadly quake earlier this month when another one struck Tuesday morning, collapsing the roof. At least three employees at the factory - two immigrants and an Italian engineer checking the building's stability - were among those killed in the second deadly quake in nine days to strike a region of Italy that hadn't considered itself particularly quake prone.

THE H STREET FACTORY was a weaving mill and made slipcovers and handbags, among other items, from its opening in 1914 until 1973. 1973: Ayres-Philadelphia manufactures horse clothing there. Ayres acquires a loan, and the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development (PAID) becomes the conduit to get tax-exempt financing. Ayres goes out of business in the early 1980s. May 2006: Warehouse is scheduled for sheriff sale, but sale is postponed six times over the next two years.

You read the H Street saga, and you wonder: How can the city better prevent debacles like this — the kind that destroy neighborhoods and put people's lives at risk — from happening in the future? It's a loaded question, sure, but let's start by looking at one glaring problem with the Kensington warehouse that was consumed by a seven-alarm fire on June 20, 2007: The Department of Licenses & Inspections issued several meaningless fire-code violation notices to the owner of the lot, the Philadelphia Authority for Industrial Development, in the months and years leading up to the blaze.

It was just after 3 in the morning on June 20, 2007, when a mammoth orange glow lit up several blocks of rickety Kensington rowhouses. The first residents to realize that the abandoned factory at H Street and Westmoreland was ablaze scurried in nightclothes down their steps, thumping their fists against plaster walls, bellowing, "Fire! Fire!" to stir their neighbors. The flames in the city-owned building leaped so high and wide that Ivette Olivera woke up from the sweltering heat that turned her bedroom into an oven.

After the owner of Gryphin Coatings closed his Port Richmond plant, an army of scrappers and vandals broke out the windows, kicked in the doors, and carted off just about every piece of salable metal. Residents lived in constant fear of environmental catastrophe or a disastrous fire, especially after a scavenger caused a chemical leak that forced the evacuation of several homes. "Literally, every day it just got worse and worse," said Patty-Pat Kozlowski, president of the local civic association.