Labor Day

JAY-Z WILL join Mayor Nutter atop the Art Museum steps at 10:30 Monday morning to announce a multiday concert festival on Labor Day weekend called Made in America. The New York Times reported Sunday night that the Budweiser Made in America festival will feature 28 bands over two nights, Sept. 1 and 2, in Fairmount Park. The location of Monday morning's announcement could indicate the Parkway. A portion of proceeds are to benefit the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey.

Steve Reeder shoots some hoops while traffic hums along above him on Interstate 95 yesterday afternoon. it may be after Labor Day, but Mother Nature continues to give the city a sweltering dose of summer.

On this Labor Day holiday of family picnics and a few parades, Main Line residents will take the day off to mark the official end of summer. "So many people are in transition at this time of year that they don't need extra events to go to," said Bill Martin, borough manager in Narberth, where a total lack of planned activities stands in sharp contrast to busy Memorial Day and July 4 holidays. Two Main Line civic organizations, however, will take full advantage of the Labor Day weekend void, replacing expensive productions such as fireworks shows with neighborhood-scale activities.

If you're staying in town for Labor Day weekend, you'll be be able to send the summer out in traditional Philadelphia style. That's right, with brass bands and belly dancers. Two annual events celebrate the workers' day off. The first, the Old City Labor Day Fete, is a street festival featuring international food specialties from local restaurants, plus live music and belly dancers. A special event this year is a Christopher Columbus look-alike contest, with the top prize of $100 going to the best impersonation of the explorer.

They plant trees, pave roads, pack produce and sell real estate. And during the Labor Day holiday weekend, they did a little bit of everything, from the traditional barbecue and family outing to a kite-flying session. Most laborers didn't work during the weekend. Nor did many bother with the deeper meaning of the three-day holiday weekend. For the most part, the only task at hand was rest and relaxation. Unlike the first Labor Day in 1882, when 10,000 workers marched in New York City, many of today's laborers look at the day as the unofficial end of summer and a chance to enjoy some cold beer and hot dogs - not a celebration of working men and women such as themselves.

The exhibit "Labor Through the Eyes of New Jersey Artists" at Mercer County Community College marks Labor Day and the 75th anniversary of the U.S. Department of Labor. It focuses, appropriately, on the work of Lewis W. Hine and Ben Shahn. Hine's affecting, turn-of-the-century photographs of working families and underprivileged working children, in New Jersey settings, attempted to dispel misconceptions and ignorance about employment conditions and child-labor practices. There is no sense that this "reformer with a camera," as he was called, intruded in order to make these pictures.

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Standing on the steps of Carpenters Hall at Fourth and Chestnut Streets, the nation's oldest union hall, about 20 labor leaders yesterday announced plans for the city's first Labor Day labor march in many years. The Sept. 4 march in Center City from JFK Plaza to the Judge Lewis Quadrangle has been in the planning stages for months, co-chairman Jim Moran, director of the Philadelphia Project on Occupational Safety and Health, said at the news conference. The march will be followed by a rally.

At a crossroads as to what to do Labor Day weekend? Consider heading to the junction of Routes 100 and 401 in Ludwigs Corner in northern Chester County, site of the 49th annual Ludwigs Corner Horse Show and Country Fair. Four days of nonstop entertainment await visitors to the fair, which starts next Friday. This year's theme: "Fun at the Crossroads. " The main events are the horse shows and competitions all four days, with more than 100 equestrians coming in from more than six states.

With Mayor Nutter as his opening act, hip-hop mogul and rapper Jay-Z stood atop the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps. His theme: Made in America, the music festival - announced Monday morning - that will take over the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Labor Day weekend. Jay-Z, whose given name is Shawn Carter, was saying he embarks on a venture only if it has potential to be great. Just then, a fan shouted, "You're the best, Hov!", a shortening of "Jayhova," one of the MC's noms de rap. Without missing a beat, Jay-Z answered back: "I agree.

Concert promoters and the city are still a long way from working out logistics for the Labor Day weekend Made in America music festival unveiled Monday, the first Parkway event ever to require paid admission. But with audiences limited to 50,000 people each day, the festival will be just one-tenth of the estimated size of past Parkway mega-events, like the Live 8 concert to help African nations and Elton John's July Fourth appearance for AIDS relief, both in 2005. "If you compare this to Wawa Welcome America, we have hundreds of thousands there for that event, so we have a bit of a track record there to guide all of the agencies - the police, L&I, the managing director's office, Public Property, and others - that would be participating in something like this," said Mayor Nutter's press secretary, Mark McDonald.

JAY-Z WILL join Mayor Nutter atop the Art Museum steps at 10:30 Monday morning to announce a multiday concert festival on Labor Day weekend called Made in America. The New York Times reported Sunday night that the Budweiser Made in America festival will feature 28 bands over two nights, Sept. 1 and 2, in Fairmount Park. The location of Monday morning's announcement could indicate the Parkway. A portion of proceeds are to benefit the United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey.

DETROIT - President Obama used a boisterous Labor Day rally to try to put congressional Republicans on the spot, challenging them to place the country's interests above all else and vote to create jobs and put the economy back on a path toward growth. "Show us what you've got," he said. In a partial preview of the jobs speech he will deliver to Congress on Thursday night, Obama said that roads and bridges nationwide needed rebuilding and that more than one million unemployed construction workers were itching to "get dirty" making the repairs.

FAIRFIELD, N.J. - Labor Day turned out to be more work than fun for thousands of New Jersey residents still recovering from the devastation of Hurricane Irene. Instead of firing up barbecue grills and kicking back with a couple of cold ones, residents in many hard-hit towns spent their holiday sorting through ruined belongings and going through bottles of bleach to clean up the mess. "This is a great neighborhood for block parties, lots of kids running up and down the street," Nino Capra said as he took a break from lugging soggy sandbags out to the curb, where they took their place alongside what looked like an entire houseful of furniture, carpets, old record albums, and other items.

Airport screener Joe Shuker would have liked to have marched in Monday's Labor Day parade along the Delaware waterfront, but he was working, scanning baggage at the Philadelphia International Airport. "I feel good that we're protecting the skies," Shuker said. His line of work was created a decade ago, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "You feel like you're doing something of value every day. " Monday was Shuker's first Labor Day as an airport screener represented by a union.

What does it mean to have a job this Labor Day? Just ask one of the millions of Americans whose search for work extends back many months prior to last year's celebration of working people. With unemployment seemingly stuck at 9.1 percent, the jobless - from college grads, to displaced factory workers, to retail staffers waiting for consumer confidence to rebound - are unlikely to let today go by without reflecting on the worth of having a job. On this day of rest above all, the nation's jobless certainly would love to be hard at work.

Labor entrepreneur Fabricio Rodriguez, 37, didn't come up the traditional way through the rank-and-file of an official AFL-CIO labor union, yet he started two worker organizations. One now represents security guards at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. His latest venture is the Philadelphia Restaurant Opportunity Center, an advocacy group. Just in time for Labor Day, Rodriguez spoke with Inquirer staff writer Jane M. Von Bergen about fighting for workers.   Question: You were a high school dropout who drifted from job to job. But while working with your father in a mine in Alaska, you had an experience that led you to get an education and advocate for workers.

The Labor Day program at Parx features three of the track's major stakes: the $300,000 Smarty Jones Stakes, the $350,000 Grade 3 Turf Monster Handicap, and the $200,000 Turf Amazon Handicap. Pants on Fire is the 5-2, morning-line favorite for the Smarty Jones Stakes and will start from post No. 9. Rush Now, the 7-2 second favorite, will start from No. 10. Post time is 5:01 p.m. The Smarty Jones Stakes features some of the nation's top 3-year-olds and serves as a prep for the $1 million Pennsylvania Derby at Parx on Sept.

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