Liberty Bell

The Nativity scene across from the Liberty Bell is perfectly legal. So is the giant Hanukkah menorah that will join it on Judge Lewis Quadrangle. And as a Ku Klux Klan cross erected on Cincinnati's public square a few years ago was legal, so are any other symbols - whether benign or offensive - with the proper permits. As Daily News religion writer Ron Goldwyn noted in a report on the creche yesterday, the Supreme Court has held that any symbols are permitted where demonstrations or other free speech expressions are allowed.

Dave Rosen won the Class A championship of the Liberty Bell Softball Squash Racquets tournament by defeating Russ Ball, 10-8, 9-1, 9-1, yesterday at the Berwyn Squash and Fitness Club. Rosen, the Agnes Irwin School coach and an employee of the U.S. Squash Racquets Association in Cynwyd, was extended to an extra game in the semifinals by Tripp Davis and won, 9-1, 9-7, 5-9, 9-2. Ball, a former Harvard player and former Philadelphia junior champion, also prevailed in four games, beating Bruce Hopper, 9-10, 9-6, 9-7, 9-6.

Growing up in this city, I visited Independence Mall and touched the Liberty Bell a half dozen times or more. I visited the bell on gradeschool trips, and my father would take the family to Independence Hall on the Fourth of July to hear speeches and listen to the patriotic band music. In those days, the Liberty Bell was located at Independence Mall. Now it's at Fifth and Market Streets in its own building, across the street from a $9 million pavilion now under construction for the bell.

Attendance at the Liberty Bell, Philadelphia's most-visited attraction, continued its summerlong slump in August, the National Park Service said yesterday. Park and local tourism officials have been puzzled by the drop in visitors to the Bell and most of the rest of Independence National Historical Park that first became noticeable in June. Restaurant and hotel operators have said that their businesses have not reflected similar drops. Park personnel counted 187,379 visitors in the Liberty Bell pavilion in August, a drop of nearly 11 percent from the 210,163 in August 1997.

After it was all over, Esther R. Sylvester celebrated her acquittal in U.S. District Court by walking one block south from the courthouse to the Liberty Bell. And then she went to church. Sylvester said last night that she figured both visits were in order after her eight-day extortion trial ended with the jury deciding that she was not guilty of illegally accepting $300 from Roofers Union leader Stephen J. Traitz Jr. "We went in there and just touched it," said Sylvester, explaining how she and former Eagles general manager and longtime friend Jim Murray had visited the Liberty Bell.

Sarah Palin will make a stop on Independence Mall this Memorial Day weekend as she launches her One Nation bus tour. According to her website, SarahPAC, Palin will be dropping in on spots fraught with patriotic and historic symbolism. Tour details were sketchy Thursday afternoon. "Starting this weekend, Sarah Palin will embark on a One Nation Tour of historical sites that were key to the formation, survival, and growth of the United States of America," a statement on SarahPAC.com reads.

Somebody stole the Liberty Bell yesterday, unhooked it from its case, and carted it off when no one was looking. We won't see the Liberty Bell ever again, and a part of us all, of what makes our city special, is lost. They sawed William Penn from the peak of City Hall yesterday, too, right about midday, right about the same time. The planter's hat and the flowing coat, the beneficent smile bestowed upon his little green town. We won't look up and see Billy again, and the skyline will never look right.

At a ceremony yesterday in front of the Art Museum, the arrival of the New Freedom Bell was marked after its 10,000-mile nationwide tour. The bell is to be a feature of Philadelphia's Freedom Festival Parade tonight and a highlight of festivities later in Wilmington, Valley Forge and Camden. It was commissioned by Nichiren Shoshu Soka Gakkai of America, a Buddhist lay organization, and donated to the city by the group in celebration of the Constitution bicentennial. A certified replica of the Liberty Bell, the bell was cast in London by Whitechapel Foundry Ltd. in the same pit in which the original Liberty Bell was made.

Ben DeRoy, who majored in history in college but made his living in engineering, has had a lifelong affair with the Liberty Bell. The Liberty Bell, you might say, is Ben DeRoy's mistress. He's loved and admired the bell and what it represents all the days of his life. He's studied and researched it for as long as he can remember, yet his thirst for knowledge of the bell and its lore is insatiable. He's forever pounding history books in search of some little-known or long-forgotten fact about the Liberty Bell that might enhance its mystique.

A Buddhist sect wants to present an oversize replica of the Liberty Bell to the City of Philadelphia as the sect's gift to the Constitution celebration here. The city, however, not only has the real thing smack in the middle of Independence Mall, it also already has an oversize replica, which hangs in a tower at the National Park Service Visitor Center at Third and Chestnut Streets and was presented by Queen Elizabeth in 1976. So what does the city want with another copy? "No decision has been made on accepting it permanently," Charles Houston, a spokesman for the City Representative's Office, said Friday.

SAINT JOSEPH'S Greg Kumpel launched a third-inning fastball high into the air at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday night. Mired in a slump, Kumpel saw the Penn outfielder head toward the wall, and naturally thought the worst. "When it went up I thought it was a little high and I was booking out of the batter's box," Kumpel said. "When I saw the leftfielder jumping up, I was just hoping. " Much to his delight, the shot sailed over the leftfielder, over the wall, and into the seats.

NOW THAT HE is the Opening Day second baseman, it is appropriate to know how to pronounce Freddy Galvis' last name. Is it Gal-Vis or Gal-Vees? "No," he said. "It's not Gal-Vees. It is Gal-vis. (slowly) Gal-Vis . . . V-I-S. " It is somewhat of a mystery how Gal-vis became Gal-vees, he said. But there's no secret why Galvis became the darling of spring: He batted .280, tied for the team lead with 23 hits and the Phillies desperately, desperately need him. No matter how you say it, the youngster who was the shortstop of the future last season is, for now, the starting second baseman of this one. Remember.

Community organizations, activists, students, churches, and others in the Philadelphia area are preparing to lead the nation Monday with an array of service initiatives and other projects for the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The Philadelphia area, the first site of the day of service, will again have the nation's largest number of activities, officials said. A record 85,000 volunteers are set for more than 1,300 service projects in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. The key site for projects during the 17th annual event will be Girard College in North Philadelphia.

Philly Occupiers had a message Saturday for those who've written them off: "We're still here!" The anticorporate protesters announced their staying power at a small gathering across from City Hall, followed by a boisterous march of several hundred down Market Street to the Liberty Bell. Watched over by a heavy police presence along the route, with many officers atop mountain bikes, the marchers filled Market Street, their singsong cadences bouncing off the tall buildings on either side: "End the war, tax the rich!"

Philly Occupiers had a message Saturday for those who've written them off: "We're still here!" The anti-corporate protesters announced their staying power at a small gathering across from City Hall, followed by a boisterous march of several hundred down Market Street to the Liberty Bell. Watched over by a heavy police presence along the route, with many officers atop mountain bikes, the marchers filled Market Street, their sing-song cadences bouncing off the tall buildings on either side: "End the war, tax the rich!"

As planned, Occupy Philadelphia protesters stepped off at 2 p.m. today on a 10-block march to the Liberty Bell in a massive movement of young and old that numbered close to 1,000 by some estimates. The group ranged from babies to grandparents and moved via a variety of modes, including rollerskates, bicycles and strollers. But most were on foot, walking to the beat of drums and chanting such things as, "This is what democracy looks like. " The march started near City Hall, where protesters are in Day 3 of their action against corporate greed, bank bailouts, joblessness and the economy's general misery.

Constantino Diaz-Duran's love for the United States is taking him from New York to Los Angeles, to find out what it means to be an American. He's walking to celebrate his eligibility to become a U.S. citizen. Diaz-Duran always knew he wanted to commemorate the occasion in a big way - and taking a zigzag, 4,300-mile trek seemed just grand enough. Diaz-Duran, 31, came to the United States 10 years ago under political asylum, because he had received death threats while covering politics as a journalist in Guatemala.

A BELL THAT has remained silent for generations let freedom ring yesterday in celebration of America's 235th birthday. Though the Liberty Bell hasn't been rung since 1846, nearly 80 people dressed in red, white and blue gathered to watch a group of participants tap the cracked bell with white-gloved hands. Children who are descendants of signers of the Declaration of Independence; Mayor Nutter; his daughter, Olivia; and two new U.S. citizens circled the cracked bell and lightly tapped it 13 times, symbolically remembering the country's 13 original Colonies.

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia held the Sesquicentennial International Exposition from June 1 to Dec. 1, 1926. During those six months, millions of visitors from around the world flocked to the South Philadelphia exposition grounds on what was then known as League Island Park (now Franklin D. Roosevelt Park, Marconi Plaza, and the sports stadiums). On July 5, President Calvin Coolidge addressed an estimated 200,000 visitors to officially open the exposition.

LED ZEPPELIN blared from tinny car stereos. Richard Nixon, jowls shaking, proclaimed: "I am not a crook. " Archie Bunker's rants on "All in the Family" made Americans laugh through an oil crisis. It was the mid-1970s, when many teenagers thought only of tuning in, turning on and dropping out. Not Richard Cohen. He dreamed of greatness. Cohen, son of a motel owner, was a bright and quiet Northeast High student with long, wavy brown hair and a peach-fuzz mustache. He didn't join a single sports or school activity.