Market Street

An umbrella and a pterodactyl are about ready for the great parade tomorrow up Market Street. It will begin at 9 a.m. at Fifth Street and end about 6 p.m. at the judging area on the northeast corner of City Hall.

Pigeons can escape the icy walks by taking to the air, as these birds did early yesterday morning near 15th Street between JFK Boulevard and Market Street. Although today will be sunny, it may be an unlucky day for those who didn't get the ice scraped away. The high today will only reach 28, and an Arctic air mass will cause temperatures to remain below freezing for at least the next five or six days.

Millbourne Borough officials are considering the use of a VASCAR speed- detection device to crack down on motorists on Market Street between Upper Darby and West Philadelphia. The eight-block stretch of Market Street through Millbourne has always had a speeding problem, but it has worsened since summer, Mayor Oscar C. Martenet said at a Borough Council meeting Monday. During the summer, PennDOT synchronized the five Market Street traffic lights in the borough, enabling vehicles to move at a steadier and, according to Martenet, a faster clip.

If you anticipate thirst or hunger while watching the Mummers Parade on New Year's Day, it might be a good idea to pack a lunch and fill a flask. Unlike the former parade route along Broad Street, Market Street offers few restaurants and even fewer watering holes for participants and spectators of this Philadelphia tradition. Three of the biggest food plazas on or near the parade route, the Bourse (5th and Market), Reading Terminal Market (12th and Juniper) and Liberty Place (17th and Market)

For decades, the Reading Terminal served as Philadelphia's front door, an ornate gateway for commuters to the city. The last train pulled out on Nov. 6, 1984. But on Sunday, the terminal will reclaim its welcoming role, this time for tourists and conventioneers. The Reading Terminal Headhouse at 12th and Market street had been boarded up since 1986, its terra-cotta facade veiled by scaffolding. A $7.6 million facelift began in 1993, when the city Redevelopment Authority bought the nine-story building and the huge train shed behind it from the Reading Co. The authority oversaw the renovation of public spaces on the ground floor and concourse level of the headhouse.

A 12-inch water main broke in University City this morning, forcing the Philadelphia Water Department to shut off nearby service, and causing traffic to slow. John DiGiulio, a spokesman for the department, said crews were at the scene of the break around Market street between 42nd and 43 Streets. DiGiulio said he did not have an estimate on when repairs would be complete and water service turned on for the block. The break is not on the scale of Saturday's 36-inch transmission pipe break in Old City that rushed five million to six million gallons of water through that area.

The XXX-rated films are gone, along with the customers who trolled the Forum Theater on Market Street seeking public arousal. As videos and the Internet killed porn theaters, the Forum was among the last to die, but it finally closed Nov. 30, giving Philadelphia the opportunity - for the first time in decades - to develop this key link between the city's east and west sides. Richard Basciano, the man behind the proposal to revive the area with new apartments and street-level commercial space, is best known as the king of Times Square porn.

When food lovers and tourists crowd onto Market Street in West Chester next Sunday for the annual Chester County Restaurant Festival, Demetrios Stavropoulos, owner of DeStarr's Restaurant on Gay Street, will welcome them with hearty samples of Greek spinach pie and baklava. But he is the only restaurateur from the borough's touted "restaurant row" expected to participate in this year's festival, as Gay Street restaurant owners protest the decision to move the event from Gay Street to neighboring Market Street.

For the Mummers, one march on Market Street was enough. After a one-time experiment this year, they say they want to return the New Year's Day parade to its traditional route up Broad Street. Leaders of the four Mummers divisions are scheduled to meet Feb. 13 with Mayor Rendell at City Hall to decide where the 1996 parade will be held. And those leaders say they've already decided what they'll tell him. "The mayor has united the Mummers," said Ron Drais, outgoing Fancy Division president.