Granite

In a bold new strategy to avoid a congressional subpoena, Vice President Cheney today declared himself a national monument. Cheney took the unorthodox step only after failing in his attempt to invoke a little-known legal principle called the separation of Cheney and state. Aides to Cheney confirmed that being a national monument gives the vice president not only immunity from subpoenas, but also a draft deferment in perpetuity. President Bush presided over a solemn White House ceremony this morning in which a plaque documenting Cheney's status as a national monument was affixed to the vice president's midsection.

If those who are plugging for the Rocky statue to remain at the Art Museum lose out, they needn't go to the Spectrum to see a pugilistic sculpture. In fact, they needn't look any farther than the museum. Just a few dozen paces from where Rocky now stands, they can find "The Boxers," a Rocky-sized granite sculpture of two athletes locked in what the old cliche calls "the manly art of self-defense. " It was lent to the museum in 1957 by its creator, American sculptor Ahron Ben-Schmuel, and brought into the museum's permanent collection in 1975.

Attorney General LeRoy S. Zimmerman has asked a special House committee to turn over any evidence of wrongdoing it may have gathered in connection with a $117 million addition to the state Capitol building. Zimmerman made the request yesterday in a letter to Rep. Nicholas Colafella, D-Beaver, the chairman of the House panel that heard testimony alleging kickbacks, unethical conduct and other improprieties stemming from the purchase and fabrication of $30 million worth of granite for the Capitol project.

A special House committee has decided to press its investigation of possible wrongdoing in the construction of a $117 million addition to the state Capitol despite investigations by two federal grand juries and the attorney general. Rep. Nicholas Colafella, the committee's chairman, said yesterday that the committee had decided to subpoena personal financial records of two former high-ranking state General Services officials. They also agreed to the re- interview of several businessmen involved in purchase and fabrication of $30 million worth of granite for the massive project.

A 5-by-5-foot granite horse trough that has stood forgotten and unused beneath a sign in Jenkintown for the last 50 years is getting a face lift. On March 8, work began that will restore the 76-year-old trough to its former condition. The trough once served as a gathering place for townsfolk and travelers in the horse-and-carriage age. It also provided a source of water for horses on hot summer days. The project has the approval of the Jenkintown Borough Council. Most of the first work day, workers blasted the trough with millions of particles of sand, peeling away decades of accumulated dirt and tar. "It's a relic of Jenkintown's history that should be maintained," said Jenkintown Lions Club president Robert J. Furlong, whose organization is sponsoring the project.

Philadelphia's landmark of modernist architecture, the PSFS building, underwent an extensive interior renovation a few years ago when it was converted to a Loews hotel. Now the skyscraper is undergoing a second overhaul to clean up its exterior. The famous tower is once again imprisoned in scaffolding, but this time its owner is repairing the polished granite panels that curve sensuously around the building's corner at 12th and Market Streets. The panels are being trucked in groups of 14 up to Conshohocken for repairs at Dan Lepore & Sons' masonry yard.

House Democratic leaders will go to court to try to block a subpoena ordering a House committee chairman to testify before a federal grand jury about its continuing probe of alleged profiteering and payoffs in a Capitol construction project, officials said yesterday. Ironically, Rep. Nicholas Colafella (D., Beaver), the committee chairman, wanted to testify and has said that his committee eventually will turn over its documents to federal authorities. But hours after Colafella's announcement that he would testify Tuesday before a federal grand jury sitting in Harrisburg, the House Democratic leadership announced that it intended to go to U.S. District Court today in an attempt to keep him out, arguing separation of powers.

Having a sense of history makes it more comfortable to coach at a university like Fordham. Fordham has not been a football power for a generation. But 50 years ago, Fordham's "Seven Blocks of Granite" gained the same legendary college fame as the "Four Horsemen" and "the Galloping Ghost. " In those days, college football was the game and sports writers such as Grantland Rice were dreaming up nicknames such as "the Four Horsemen" that would stick forever. The "Seven Blocks" included Vince Lombardi and Alex Wojciechowicz, who later played for the Eagles.

For the last week or two, there has been a granite skateboarding ramp in the middle of Philadelphia's JFK Plaza, known more commonly as LOVE Park. At some point, two large granite plates that are part of the flooring of the plaza were broken, and the pieces were used to prop up another plate. During the day, it was a pedestrian hazard. At night, skateboarders - who are banned from the plaza - were flying off it. The makeshift ramp was a glaring reminder of the deteriorating condition of the plaza that is across an intersection from City Hall and a popular destination for tourists who want to be photographed next to the iconic LOVE sculpture.

To the wail of a jazz quartet and the whine of a jackhammer, Mayor Rendell and Gov. Casey yesterday broke ground on the avenue of the Avenue of the Arts. South Broad Street is about to get a $15 million makeover from Washington Avenue to City Hall, replete with patterned granite sidewalk slabs, old- fashioned street lamps, landscaping and granite curbs, the mayor announced. Rendell called the new streetscape "the project that will tie the South Broad Street Avenue of the Arts together" and promised it would make for "a great feeling of fun and excitement.

MANCHESTER, N.H. - The students in Mr. Walsh's government and politics class at Franklin High School south of Boston were up well before the crack of dawn on Monday. By 7:30, after two hours on a bus, they were eating breakfast at Moe Joe's Family Retreat, waiting to meet GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul. By 8 a.m., they'd been sucked into a political vortex and spit out the other side. It was exactly what they'd hoped for. "All of a sudden, there were all the lights," said John Weich, 18. The 76-year-old Texas congressman materialized at his table in a crush of cameras, a delicious crumb surrounded by ravenous ants.

DOVER, N.H. - When it comes to the politics of 2012, New Hampshire is a state of uncertainty. From Keene to Dover, voters are largely unenthusiastic about President Obama, but they're not crazy about the Republican challengers either. Folks here routinely say they're fed up with everyone and don't know what to do when they vote next year. "The candidates all say what people want to hear, and then nothing gets done," said Debbie Babineau, a Lebanon property manager.

"LEGENDARY" IS A wrestling movie that features John Cena, but the World Wrestling Entertainment star does almost no wrestling. The most ardent hold is the one he puts on Patricia Clarkson, who plays his mother, a woman battling a lifetime of jagged regret, emanating from an auto accident that claimed her husband but spared her oldest boy Mike (Cena), a star high school wrestler coached by his father. They never sorted through the issues of guilt, blame and shame the tragedy created, sending Mike into a spiral of alcoholism and violence, and leaving the family asunder.

AUSTIN, Texas - My eyebrows did handstands when I beheld the cheerful room with its orange wall, wood-effect laminate floor, pedestal beds, 32-inch flat-screen TV and granite-topped bathroom vanity. This is Motel 6? This is $39.99? Oh, yes. Make no mistake: This is Motel 6. The rooms are small, the towels are thin, and the bed linens will never be mistaken for those at the Four Seasons. But Motel 6, still proudly the cheapest motel chain in the country, has discovered that cheap doesn't have to mean ugly and that a small room can feel a little bigger when space is well-used.

Alvin E. Granite, 82, a longtime South Jersey lawyer who served as Gloucester County prosecutor and a municipal judge, died of cancer Wednesday, July 14, at his home in Woodbury. Mr. Granite made headlines in 1960 when, at age 32, he became one of the youngest county prosecutors in New Jersey. In the part-time position, to which he was appointed by Gov. Robert B. Meyner, he immediately met with police and court officials to discuss ways to curb drunken-driving fatalities, which had doubled in the county that year, according to a 1960 Inquirer article.

Country music hero and sausage master Jimmy Dean will be laid to rest - in a grand piano - in a private burial Monday in Richmond, Va. Dean, 81, who died Sunday at his home in Henrico County, Va., will be entombed in a $350,000, 91/2-foot-long granite piano mausoleum overlooking the James River. The piano will bear the inscription, "Here lies one hell of a man. " Dean's widow, Donna Meade Dean , says the epitaph was inspired by "Big Bad John," the singer's massive 1961 hit. "He was the most special human being I've ever known," Donna tells the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

When he wants to visit a memorial to the son he lost to a 2004 Baghdad roadside bomb, John H. Todd Jr. has no fewer than five destinations to choose from, mostly additions to public remembrances of other wars. In a downtown park in their home borough of Bridgeport, a plaque with Marine Cpl. John H. Todd III's name is affixed to the side of a monument to Korea and Vietnam war dead. In Philadelphia, Todd's name is engraved with other new casualties in a corner of the Korean War Veterans' Memorial.

The grand train depot at Broad and Filbert bustled with travelers. When these commuters and visitors exited the station, they found themselves overwhelmed by the smells and sounds of the city. The air in 1879 was thick with a mix of horse manure, cooking food, and coal and steel smoke. It rang with the calls of a dozen newsboys hawking their wares, the bangs of hammers, and the shouts of construction workers at nearby Penn Square. Steps from the busy rail terminal, the world's tallest building was rising.

If the new Please Touch Museum at Memorial Hall were a movie, it would be Fantasia. Classically highbrow and totally trippy. When the idea of moving Philadelphia's cozy children's museum to the neglected 19th-century art palace was proposed four years ago, it seemed counterintuitive, to say the least. Was the sprawling Beaux-Arts hall, dripping with putti and pilasters, really the sort of place you wanted to unleash a thousand or so sticky-fingered, screaming kids? Children's museums aren't exactly known for their subdued decor.