Ghost Town

Back before there was a skyline on either side of the Delaware River, far back, before the American colonists declared their independence from the cultivated, parliamentary monarchy that is England, someone planted catalpa trees in Martha. Catalpa trees have large heart-shaped leaves and trumpet-shaped flowers. They are settlers' trees. They grow rapidly, bringing quick shade and domesticity to homesteads hacked out of dense and foreign forests. Someone brought those trees to Martha, and planted them in the clearing behind the sawmill that was operating by 1758, and the iron-bog furnace that roared there in 1793, deep, deep in the woods of the New Jersey Pinelands.

LORCA, Spain - Thousands fled this small Spanish agricultural city Thursday, fearing aftershocks might level it after the country's deadliest earthquakes in 55 years killed nine people and caused extensive damage. Lorca was transformed into a ghost town, with a steady stream of cars carrying many of its 90,000 residents to nearby cities and towns to stay with relatives. Stores, restaurants, and schools were closed; the sirens of police vehicles and ambulances filled the air, and helicopters hovered overhead.

Ghost movies, it seems, are nearly as old as ghosts themselves. But Ghost Town , despite being set in modern-day New York, feels downright ancient. Ostensibly a comedy, but one in which the (normally) brilliantly funny Ricky Gervais is more dull than he is droll, Ghost Town takes a familiar formula and goes nowhere with it. Gervais, affectless and aloof, is Bertram Pincus, a socially challenged Fifth Avenue dentist with a selfish, cynical view of the world. But when he awakens in a hospital room - having been anesthetized for a colonoscopy - Pincus suddenly finds that he can see, and communicate with, the dead.

Below are readers' responses to a "Community Voices" invitation to discuss the impact of illegal immigration on them, and their reactions to articles on a Riverside ordinance that holds businesses and landlords liable for dealing with illegal immigrants. A second installment of letters on this topic will be published tomorrow. As a resident of Riverside I applaud Mayor Charles Hilton's stand on illegal immigration. The town is becoming overcrowded. Ronaldo Empke (Commentary, Aug. 2)

Maybe it's best to see Allensworth as I saw it - on a cold, gray foggy morning. Only the howling wind and the banging of metal siding against a deserted shack disrupted the silence. My companions were a few jack rabbits, who sped away at the sound of my footsteps. This was a day when a visitor's mind could easily wander to a time long ago, when settlers came here to build a town on a foundation of dreams. Allensworth is a ghost town, but it is not like other ghost towns of the West where the promise was gold.

Caren Cunningham liked the idea that she could walk from her apartment to the train station to get to her Center City job. Cunningham, who moved into her apartment two years ago, wasn't happy with the way things were going at the complex, however. Then in September, Altman Management Co. II purchased the 266-unit complex in the Secane section of Upper Darby Township, changed its name to Laurel Manor, and began a major renovation that has made Cunningham happy that she stuck around.

After sharing with Edmonton a vision of hockey's future by playing a game in Dallas on Wednesday, last night the Flyers visited a ghost of the sport's past. They engaged the Quebec Nordiques at the Richfield Coliseum, the home of the late and largely unlamented Cleveland Barons. It was a trip not only into a timewarp, but one halfway to Akron, and it was remembered well by Bernie Parent - not for any great feats he performed on the ice, but for the saxophone solo he performed in a hotel hallway here on New Year's Eve in the 1976-77 season.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - New Mexico, home to several of the nation's premier scientific, nuclear, and military institutions, is planning to take part in an unprecedented science project - a petri dish, of sorts, the size of a small U.S. city. A Washington, D.C.-based technology company announced plans Tuesday to build the state's newest ghost town, a 20-square-mile model metropolis that will be used to test everything from renewable-energy innovations to intelligent traffic systems, next-generation wireless networks, and smart-grid cyber-security systems.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Deserted streets, scorched buildings, the stench of death - that was the now-familiar state of affairs that U.N. observers found Thursday in Syria's battered town of Haffa, which the state-run media said was "cleansed" of "terrorists" this week. U.N. personnel were finally able to enter the desolate town after more than a week of heavy combat as government troops sought to oust rebels ensconced there. Insurgent forces, commonly referred to by the government and its media as terrorists, say they pulled back, and on Wednesday officials declared that "security and calm" had been restored.

The lockout definitely is thawing, if that isn't too much of a mixed metaphor. Longtime Eagles safety Quintin Mikell, currently a free agent, visited Nova-Care yesterday, Mikell said (and tweeted). He said he spoke briefly with general manager Howie Roseman, at more length with new defensive coordinator Juan Castillo, and even bumped into Andy Reid in the parking lot as Mikell was leaving. "It was cool. It was a little weird, like a ghost town. I don't remember it ever being that quiet," said Mikell, who explained he wanted to fetch some items from his locker.

Joseph Miele sat in a living-room chair by the front window of his Lower Merion home and waved his hand toward St. Charles Borromeo Seminary across the street. "We've been here since 1954," Miele, 86, said. "All my four boys growing up, we used the grounds for playing ball. " That was years ago. He might have been upset then if there were no open space, "but not now," he said. Miele's serenity is just as well, considering the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's announcement last week that it would sell or lease the 45 acres of the 75-acre campus closest to City Avenue.

MANTOLOKING, N.J. - The bridge into town looked as if it led to nowhere, arching over a slim waterway before disappearing into darkness. There was no traffic Sunday night, no sign of life except for a few police cars that gave the mist an eerie glow. You couldn't tell, from atop the bridge, where the town ended and the Atlantic Ocean began. But after the bridge curved down into town, past the piles of debris and the house slumped in the shallow water, a large crowd appeared, anxiously staring at a pile of dirt.

BEACH HAVEN, N.J. - Nancy and Mike Davis were more afraid to leave than to stay. Nancy's grandfather had built this home in 1929, and it had prevailed against hurricanes in 1944 and 1962. She felt confident - foolishly or not - that it would survive Hurricane Sandy. She loved her home, and her town. At 68, and a member of the town council, "I just felt I should stay. " As the hurricane hit, the dunes in front of her block eroded badly, but they held. Instead, the rising ocean gushed through openings between the dunes, turning her street into a rushing river.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - Deserted streets, scorched buildings, the stench of death - that was the now-familiar state of affairs that U.N. observers found Thursday in Syria's battered town of Haffa, which the state-run media said was "cleansed" of "terrorists" this week. U.N. personnel were finally able to enter the desolate town after more than a week of heavy combat as government troops sought to oust rebels ensconced there. Insurgent forces, commonly referred to by the government and its media as terrorists, say they pulled back, and on Wednesday officials declared that "security and calm" had been restored.

3 Ohio teens die, 2 hurt in crash CINCINNATI - A car carrying five teenagers went airborne as it sped over railroad tracks in Ohio early Sunday and crashed, killing two passengers and the driver, the Ohio State Highway Patrol said. Two others were hospitalized. The driver was a senior football player whose Brunswick High School graduation was scheduled Sunday afternoon. The 2001 Chevrolet Cavalier was traveling at a high speed just after midnight when the driver lost control, troopers said.

As Mexico's first lady and the U.S. ambassador to the country were speaking there early last month, David Suro felt and heard the rumbling of the nearby Popocatépetl Volcano. Suro, owner of Tequilas restaurant in Center City, was on his foundation's third annual trip to the town of San Mateo Ozolco in the Mexican state of Puebla, from where many Mexican immigrants who live in South Philly hail. He asked a student who attended about the noise, and she replied: "Don't worry.

ROME - An earthquake struck the northern Italian region of Emilia Romagna on Sunday, killing at least five people, injuring dozens, leaving thousands homeless and damaging historic buildings as well as warehouses and factories, officials said. The earthquake, which the U.S. Geological Survey said had a magnitude of 6.0, crumbled church roofs and Renaissance-era towers, according to Italian television reports. Large cracks riddled apartment blocks in dozens of small towns. And Italy's national Civil Protection Department said that at least 3,000 had been left homeless.

RE: Stu Bykofsky's column about his health: I have taken it upon myself as a mission to inform my friends for the last couple of years about going to the ER. If you feel something abnormal, go. It's best to get a battery of tests and get a follow-up referral than not address the feeling at all. Thank you for encouraging the men of our age (I'm 55)! This will save lives! Michael Black Philadelphia In the minority Re: James Lynch's letter about the article on minority contracting: You accuse the article of not offering an explanation for the lack of minority contractors.

MARCUS HOOK has long been a quintessential company town, joined at the hip with the iconic Philadelphia company Sunoco for more than a century. With imminent closure of Sunoco's refinery there, most of the 590 workers get their last paychecks today. Now, fear is seeping into this quaint, tight-knit, working-class burg in Delaware County - fear that it could turn into a modern-day ghost town. When Sunoco said in September that it would dump the last of its remaining refining operations and focus on oil pipelines and fuel retailing, local workers and residents hoped that a buyer would emerge for the 110-year-old, 175,000-barrel-per-day refinery.