Mayfair

An attempted bank robbery in Mayfair yesterday morning erupted into a gun battle when police exchanged fire with two of the suspects, authorities said. Three men attempted to hold up the M&T Bank in the 7100 block of Frankford Avenue, near Princeton Avenue, when police in plainclothes who had been working an unrelated detail noticed suspicious activity in the area, said Capt. Benjamin Naish, a police spokesman. One officer, in plainclothes, entered the bank about 10:25 a.m., saw part of the robbery, and was ordered to the floor by the robbers, Naish said.

About 9 every night, Mary Tolan starts to worry. That's the witching hour for the groups of teenagers who have made the alley behind her Mayfair home their personal playground, she said. They break bottles, cover walls with graffiti, and smoke unknown substances just feet from Tolan's back door. She tries to fight back. She sweeps the alley, only to find it filled with litter again. She has asked the teens to keep it down, only to wake up and discover her garage door covered with paint.

For the first time under Pennsylvania's Megan's Law, police yesterday notified a group of Philadelphia residents that a convicted sexual offender was living on their block. On a Mayfair street where children's toys littered many yards in front of two-story brick rowhouses, officers walked from door to door, handing out fliers and answering questions. The fliers identified a 39-year-old man who had lived on the street for two years, and simply stated that he had been convicted of "aggravated indecent assault.

Before July 19, Michael and Carol Hilferty's rowhouse at 3321 Cottman Ave. was the third from the corner at Crabtree Street in Mayfair. Today, rife with cracks, it is the first house still standing on the western end of the block in the well-kept working-class neighborhood. Since July, the two adjoining houses have tumbled down, and nobody knows exactly why. "We're in limbo right now," said Carol Hilferty. And other neighbors are frightened that their homes - a city official said they also have "structural defects" - could fall too. The Hilfertys' insurance company is paying their rent for a Bustleton home about half the size of their Mayfair house.

A robbery suspect who killed a Huntingdon Valley couple when a stolen car he was driving smashed into their van while he was fleeing police in Mayfair was sentenced yesterday to 20 to 40 years in prison. William Franklin, 40, who was convicted by a jury in April on two counts of third-degree murder, was sentenced by Common Pleas Court Judge Joseph D. O'Keefe for the deaths of Fred Schmidt, 68, and his wife, Trudy, 60. Franklin, of Bristol Township, was driving 75 to 100 m.p.h.

For James Daggett and family, it has been a Thanksgiving season with much to fear. First there was an anonymous letter from someone who wrongly suspected he lived in his Northeast rowhouse courtesy of a controversial housing program known as "Section 8. " The writer threatened to firebomb his house on a tree-shaded street off Cottman Avenue. Last week, things took a scarier turn when one of Daggett's three young daughters got an angry letter warning that she might be harmed.

Several hundred people in the city's Mayfair section were rousted from their homes and one man died of a heart attack yesterday after a street gave way beneath a 40-ton crane, which sunk 10 feet and settled atop a gas line, officials said. More than three hours after the crane fell through Magee Avenue at Frankford Avenue, firefighters and construction workers were still circling the red hulk, stopping every now and then to peer into the hole. Harvey's Towing Service arrived at the scene with a couple of trucks, took one look and went back for a 100-ton crane, police said.

Police have charged a 29-year-old man with the hit-and-run death of a 12-year-old boy killed Thanksgiving night while crossing Harbison Avenue in the Wissinoming section of Northeast Philadelphia. Police said the suspect, William Halloran, 29, surrendered to 15th District officers about 11:45 p.m. Thursday, more than five hours after the fatal accident. Halloran was charged with homicide by vehicle, homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, involuntary manslaughter, and leaving the scene of an accident involving death.

Not many 12-year-olds are looking forward to the week shaping up for Bianca Ryan of Mayfair: Getting the key to the city from Mayor Street. Appearing on Today, Ellen DeGeneres and The Oprah Winfrey Show. Releasing her major-label CD. In the next weeks, she'll be on Megan Mullally and Martha Stewart and appear in Philadelphia's Thanksgiving parade, a Patti LaBelle Christmas special on BET, and the Disney Christmas parade. Less than three months after the little red-haired girl with the big, big voice won the NBC show America's Got Talent, it's showtime.

Bianca Ryan, an 11-year-old belter from Mayfair with a set of pipes from the heavens, won $1 million last night on the NBC talent-slash-freak show America's Got Talent, besting nine other contenders, including cloggers, jugglers, a magic act, and a 75-year-old hip-hopper billed as Rappin' Granny. "How do you feel?" host Regis Philbin asked Bianca as he handed her a mock check. "I don't even know," said the little girl with the auburn ringlets, tears streaming down her face.