Fountain

Denise Williams shares a hug with boyfriend Eric Markle as they wade in the fountain at Logan Square yesterday. They said the water was cold. Weekend weather will not be conducive to fountain-splashing, with rain predicted.

Kids get a cooling spray from the fountain on Logan Square yesterday as a sudden gust blows the water over them. The heat's expected to hang around through the weekend, thanks to one of those "Bermuda highs" hanging off the coast. Chin up, it's too hot not to cool down eventually.

The two war-battered soldiers had gone dry for all but three weeks in the last two decades. One of the World War I soldiers is kneeling, holding his canteen upside down, seemingly waiting for the water to flow into a cup in the hand of another soldier who is lying in his arms. However, because of damaged plumbing and then concerns over wasted water, the soldier has been unable to fill the other's cup. That changed this week, just in time for Independence Day. County workers on Tuesday wired the last switches and drilled the last copper fittings of a new circulating pump inside the concrete base that holds the 1922 bronze statue at the corner of Main and Broad Streets in Doylestown, outside the Bucks County Courthouse.

The Swann Memorial Fountain in Logan Square is to return to life at 8:30 tonight in an elegant flourish, as water soars 50 feet into the air from its center and a brass ensemble heralds the landmark's new beginning. Just minutes after today's 8:23 p.m. sunset, the grand 66-year-old fountain will reopen looking better than it has in a quarter century, almost completely rebuilt during the last 18 months and basking under brilliant new lights. Water will cascade from the fountain's granite-faced tiers and arc from bronzed turtles and frogs as it sprays like a geyser from the center of the fountain and at smaller heights from three other places.

In the center of the maddening rush home is Logan Square, the calm in the eye of a hurricane. For those who brave the merging lanes of the traffic circle, Logan Square offers a fountain of spouting frogs and turtles. On warm afternoons and evenings till 8 p.m., when the water and streetlights are shut off, squealing children slide down the legs of the fountain's reclining nudes, or splash each other in games of water tag. Around the basin, bicyclists and skateboard artists zigzag across the pavement as families sunbathe on the wooden benches and teens picnic on the grassy patches.

Maybe Logan Circle should be renamed the Logan Circle Oasis during sweltering summer stretches such as this. The scene at the circle yesterday resembled a desert watering hole with dozens of sun-broiled people trying to deal with temperatures in the mid-90s by lying under shade trees and playing in the pool surrounding the circle's fountain. "It's just too hot to be sitting anywhere where there's no water around," said Laverne Frison, 22, splashing her feet in the water. Yasmin Jones, who was sitting in the pool with her young daughter, said, "The water's nice, and the children love it. Besides, it's free and it's not illegal.

NEW LONDON, Conn. - Officials turned off the water at the city's new waterfront fountain over the weekend, because people have been using it as a toilet. The fountain was activated last month and features a sculpture of a whale's tail with water spilling over it, which visitors are encouraged to run through. City Councilor Michael Buscetto III said that since the fountain opened, police have responded to calls of people urinating, defecating and showering in the fountain water.

Longtime residents of Mount Holly and environs will record some history on Saturday at a meeting to raise interest in and money for the recreation of the fountain to be installed in the center of the county seat. The recollections of seven present and former Mount Holly residents will be of the original fountain featuring the figure of Hebe, the goddess of youth, who will again pour water from her pitcher as a symbol of the revitalization of the Mount Holly downtown area. The fountain, a cast-iron recreation of the 17-foot-high fountain that stood in the center of Mount Holly's downtown from 1878 to 1920, was caught in a political battle between incoming and outgoing councils last year.

A Greek goddess is coming to downtown Mount Holly, but township leaders are not that enchanted. The goddess, Hebe, is a sculpture on a fountain that also has ornamental swans and a classically decorated basin. But it was Democrats of the prior township administration who invited this goddess of youth, and Republicans, now in control of the township governing body, aren't that happy about it. The fountain, which will be installed at the intersection of Mill and High Streets, is a replica of a fixture erected in Mount Holly around the turn of the century and destroyed in the 1920s when, legend has it, a hefty township worker fell into the basin while trying to put up Christmas lights.

NOBODY PLAYS perfect, lockdown defense every night. It is unlikely, against any combination of competition. It is impossible in the playoffs, against a team as talented, as professional and as well-coached as the Boston Celtics. Wednesday night, the Sixers delivered their defensive clunker. It had been a nice run. Remember, the Sixers needed to win a slew of road games at the season's end just to secure the final playoff slot. They ran off three in a row. They then held top-seeded Chicago and fourth-seeded Boston to 92 points or fewer in the last seven games, an average of 82.3 points per game.

UNION RAGS, the Kentucky Derby favorite with the Philly-area connections, was made the 6-5 morning-line favorite for Saturday's Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park. Union Rags, coming off a 4-length victory in the Fountain of Youth on Feb. 26 at Gulfstream, will start from Post 6. "I think he should take a step forward from [the Fountain of Youth]," trainer Michael Matz said. "I would hope that having a race under his belt would help him in the Florida Derby. " Union Rags is owned by Chadds Ford Stable's Phyllis Wyeth, of Chester County, and trained by Matz, who trained Barbaro.

HALLANDALE, Fla. - Phyllis Wyeth was seated in her scooter by the rail, not far from the finish line, her husband Jamie standing next to her, trainer Michael Matz and assistant trainer Peter Brette just a few rows back in Gulfstream Park's outdoor grandstand. Union Rags, the colt they had been waiting 4 months to see race again, was walking slowly to the starting gate for the $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes. The horse, massive as a 2-year-old, had grown dramatically over the winter and towered over the six opponents that had just shared the paddock and walking ring with him. What, they all had to wonder, were they about to see?

HALLANDALE, Fla. - Phyllis Wyeth was seated in her scooter by the rail, not far from the finish line, her husband Jamie standing next to her, trainer Michael Matz and assistant trainer Peter Brette just a few rows back in Gulfstream Park's outdoor grandstand. Union Rags, the colt they had been waiting four months to see race again, was walking slowly to the starting gate for the $400,000 Fountain of Youth Stakes. The horse, massive as a 2-year-old, had grown dramatically over the winter and towered over the six opponents that had just shared the paddock and walking ring with him. What, they all had to wonder, were they about to see?

Union Rags is in training for his 3-year-old debut in the Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park on Feb. 26. He will be ridden by Julien Leparoux, who replaces regular rider Javier Castellano. On Monday, Union Rags worked five furlongs in 1:03.08 at Palm Meadows Training Center in Boynton Beach, Fla. Castellano gave up the ride on Union Rags to stick with Algorithms , who is No. 2 on this week's Associated Press Top 10 list.There are three Derby preps this weekend - the El Camino Real Derby at Golden Gate Fields on Saturday, the San Vicente at Santa Anita on Sunday, and the Southwest at Oaklawn next Monday.

Derrick Yarborough can't forget the one that got away - the one he left alone on a Friday night, to be swept up by someone else by the time Yarborough realized he'd made a mistake. Now, Yarborough gazes forlornly at potential replacements, each stylish and lovely but none matching the one he lost earlier this month. After all, they'd been together for years: Yarborough and his Waterman pen. "It's tough. I'd had it a long time," he said as he lingered in front of a display case last week at the Fountain Pen Hospital, a Manhattan institution that is accustomed to visitors like Yarborough.

The $50 million transformation of City Hall's Dilworth Plaza and three levels of subway structures below will take 27 months, Center City District CEO Paul R. Levy said Thursday. Transportation disruptions will be minimal, with occasional overnight suspensions next year on one of the three SEPTA lines that stop there - the Broad Street and Market-Frankford subway lines, and the subway-surface trolley line to West Philadelphia. "No roads will be closed during the project," Levy said.

The $50 million transformation of City Hall's Dilworth Plaza and three levels of subway structures below will take 27 months, Center City District CEO Paul R. Levy said today. The Occupy Philly protesters, removed early Wednesday, did not delay the project, which needed to finish obtaining necessary approvals from local, state and federal government, he said. Transportation disruptions will be minimal, with occasional overnight suspensions next year of one of the three SEPTA lines that stop there - the Broad Street and Market-Frankford subway lines, and the subway-surface trolley line to West Philadelphia.

Susan Detscher Pizzano, 63, of Chestnut Hill, who raised money to build the Top of the Hill Fountain near the intersection of Germantown Avenue and Bethlehem Pike, died of breast cancer Sunday, Nov. 20, at home. Her husband, Joseph, said she was cochair of Friends of the Fountain Plaza. "She had a very complex, interesting life," he said. After working as a nurse, teacher, and pastry chef, Mrs. Pizzano was attracted to the writings of Michael Harrington, author of the 1962 work The Other America: Poverty in the United States . "I went to Holy Cross College, and he went to Holy Cross.

Adam Schlesinger doesn't try to impress you. He humbly claims he's "never been a front man. " But look at his work in the music industry over the last 15 years, and it's easy to see that Schlesinger has been busy, writing songs for a slew of projects - film, TV, Broadway - while producing a handful of bands and playing in three of his own. Now he's returning to perhaps his busiest endeavor - Fountains of Wayne, the power-pop band for...