Locations

The city and the Philadelphia School District announced an agreement Thursday to keep some schools available for weeknight and Saturday recreation programs that had been under threat of losing their seasons to budget cuts. The city agreed to consolidate Recreation Department programs at 83 schools into 48 locations, and chip in $175,000 from the general fund to help pay for the cost to the district. The district had proposed closing its buildings an hour earlier on weekdays, at 8 p.m., and entirely on the weekends to save $2.8 million in energy and staff costs.

Concord Township is a community in transition. Land prices are rising, its population is growing and it lies squarely in the path of the advancing Route 202 high-tech corridor. It is about as ripe for commercial development as any suburban or rural township can be. At least two people with great interest in the Delaware County community hope it will catch the eye of Eastman Kodak as the company considers permanent locations for its fledgling pharmaceuticals division. "It would be a plum, no question about that," John Cornell, Concord Township manager, said recently.

It's 10:39 a.m. outside the Fresh Donut at Seventh Street and Girard Avenue in North Philadelphia, time for water ice and malt liquor. Clients from the nearby methadone clinic hover in 90-degree heat. Some cool off with lemonade and return to work; others pop pills, sip Steel Reserve lager, and doze. A man with a Pepsi waves to a camera up on a lamppost, which silently records the scene. It has been a year since the first city-owned police surveillance cameras came online at 12 crime hot spots.

In the Region ViroPharma to expand HQ, add jobs ViroPharma Inc. will lease an additional 71,000 square feet of office space in Exton, nearly doubling its current space in Chester County. The biopharmaceutical firm, with 188 employees, will create 151 new jobs within three years, Gov. Corbett said Monday. ViroPharma received $583,000 from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development that included a $130,000 grant and $453,000 in job-creation tax credits. "We're committed to this area for the long-term and look forward to creating opportunities in this community," said president and CEO Vincent J. Milano.

_ Cantina Feliz (424 S. Bethlehem Pike, Fort Washington, 215-646-1320) has created a "Passover Feliz" menu with a contemporary Mexican twist - as in 3 Chile BBQ Glazed Brisket Tacos, and Matzo Ball & Red Chile Soup. The 4-course, $30 prix-fixe meal will be served Monday-April 24. _ Free cooking lessons with Mary Ann Esposito, of the PBS series "Ciao Italia"? We are so there, and you can be, too, from 2-4 p.m. Sunday during Food University™ Presented by Family Circle, at IKEA Conshohocken (400 Alan Wood Road, 610-834-1520)

In times of crisis, whether it is terrorism against us as a nation, or crimes against us individually, it is the hope for justice that enables us to carry on. The ideal is to maintain the administration of the law; to be just, fair and impartial; and to mete punishment when warranted. That's how the system is supposed to work. We should be able to count on that. When the system doesn't work, what are we supposed to do? In January and February last year, six bomb threats were telephoned to two locations in two counties.

  The Penn Medicine Washington Square tower nearing completion at the corner of Eighth and Walnut Streets in Center City is a sign of big changes at Pennsylvania Hospital. About 100 doctors are scheduled in August to move their outpatient practices into the 12-story building that sits on top of a parking garage, relocating from nine locations on Pennsylvania Hospital's campus, plus the Curtis Center. In February, the clinical lab moved from three floors of the hospital to the basement, freeing space for construction of single rooms for the busy Pennsylvania Hospital maternity unit, where by Christmas every new mother will be assured of having a room to herself, officials said.

At lunchtime on May 15, 2001, CSX Locomotive No. 8888 eased down tracks in a rail yard outside Toledo, Ohio. The engine known as "Crazy Eights" picked up speed as it pulled 47 freight cars, two of them loaded with toxic chemicals, south toward Columbus. Only no one was on board. Jon Hosfeld, a native of Mechanicsburg, Pa., was in the rail yard eating his lunch. He wasn't supposed to be there that day. Hosfeld, 52, ran a CSX yard 67 miles south in Kenton; he'd come north to deposit a carload of children and Ohio's lieutenant governor in Toledo for a program aimed at raising awareness about the dangers of rail crossings.

SEPTA riders will face sweeping changes starting July 1. First, fares will go up. Then, by the end of the year, new "smart" cards will replace tokens, passes, and transfers on subways, buses, and trolleys. After that, Regional Rail travel will be transformed by subway-style gates in Center City stations, electronic card-readers in the suburbs, and new fare zones everywhere. Gender designations on passes will be eliminated. The cashiers who now sit in subway booths will emerge from behind the glass, retrained as "customer attendants" to help riders use the new fare cards.

Perhaps you're one of the 5,000 people who volunteered to clean up Germantown Avenue on Sunday as part of the Presidents' Summit for America's Future - and you're wondering what else you might be able to squeeze in between collecting trash, scrubbing graffiti and sweeping dirt. (Then again, maybe you're not a volunteer and your intention is to stay as far away from Germantown Avenue as possible until the dust settles and everybody goes back home.) You should know, if you don't already, that the Avenue is lined with scores of stores, shops and eateries that are as varied as the neighborhoods it runs through.