Moshulu

When you spend $1.1 million on a boat, the last thing you worry about is bureaucratic clutter. Especially when you spend another $6 million transforming it into a restaurant, as Eli Karetny has. So when the city rejected the developer's zoning permit application for his long-awaited Moshulu restaurant, he didn't panic. He appealed. With support from a Queen Village neighborhood group, Karetny said he expected his restaurant to get its variance next Wednesday, when it's scheduled for a zoning hearing.

The Moshulu, a longtime fixture on Penn's Landing, left port on Tuesday escorted by tug boats to a temporary resting spot in Camden near the Walt Whitman Bridge. The ship, which has been docked in Philadelphia for 14 years and has served as a restaurant, is scheduled to be moved later to an undetermined permanent location on the Delaware, where it is to undergo restoration as a sailing ship. The project is expected to take about two years. The restoration is to be financed by Specialty Restaurants Inc. of Anaheim, Calif.

First the Flyers and the 76ers. Now the Moshulu may be moving to New Jersey. A once-proud sailing vessel in the grain trade and winner of the last great "Grain Race"from Australia to Europe in 1939, the Moshulu has been docked on the Delaware at Penn's Landing as a restaurant ship since 1976. It has been closed and boarded since a four-alarm fire last July 11 that fire officials said started when a bare light bulb ignited paper products in a storage area of the hold. Some 200 patrons fled the blaze and six people, including three firefighters, were slightly injured.

Broken, charred and weather-beaten, she was not the gleaming beauty who first anchored at the foot of Chestnut Street 14 years ago, but this grand old lady of Penn's Landing left Philadelphia yesterday with her manila-colored masts straight and proud and glided gracefully down the Delaware River. It was farewell for the Moshulu. A small crowd of well-wishers, many of whom had waited hours to bid goodbye, looked on quietly from a balcony as the ship's blue-carpeted gangplank was finally pulled in at 3:30 p.m. and two red-decked tugboats nudged up close to lead the 394-foot barkentine away.

A smoky four-alarm fire erupted late last night aboard the Moshulu, the grand old restaurant ship on the Philadelphia riverfront, plunging its dining room into darkness and sending 200 patrons scrambling for the gangplanks. The restaurant manager and at least two guests were injured fleeing the huge square-rigger, afloat in 35 feet of water in the Delaware River near the foot of Chestnut Street at Penn's Landing. A firefighter also was injured. Fire officials initially feared that the steel-hulled vessel, perhaps the best-known landmark on the city's downtown waterfront, might sink, but they later said it appeared in no danger of going down.

Even when it floundered, I never stopped liking the original Moshulu. Admittedly, there were moments during the floating restaurant's 14-year stand at Penn's Landing when I shuddered at gritty or threadbare upholstery or sniffed at less than appetizing aromas wafting from the galley. But whatever it was that I didn't love about that Moshulu was always outweighed by the way I felt just stepping on deck. The place oozed romance. For the hour or two that it took to eat a meal or sip a tall drink, I could pretend that I was sailing toward some exotic port, the wind in my hair and the sea spray on my face.

In the frozen cold of winter, when the Delaware is a river of jagged ice and melted snow, when bitter winds whip the waterfront and most other geese have long since flown South, these two - a sedentary couple - still make their home at the Moshulu. And with the help of friends like Willie Edney, they remain geese of ample girth - even now, after the grand old restaurant ship has been closed for six months and its daily kitchen handouts have dried up. "Usually I bring a loaf of wheat bread.

Those who enjoyed sitting aboard the 1980s pre-fire Moshulu restaurant with its rough-hewn deck boards, mediocre food and spectacular view will love the luxurious $10 million, turn-of-the-century rehab version christened by the mayor this week. Anchored on South Columbus Boulevard, the newly restored Moshulu is a potential tourism bonanza - not as a restaurant per se (we haven't sampled the food yet) but on the promise that the restored ship will give the bustling, club-dominated waterfront a more historic feel.

The Moshulu, the grand old four-masted square-rigger that was extensively damaged by a fire on Philadelphia's riverfront last summer, may be sailing for new waters, according to a spokesman for the restaurant chain that owns it. Specialty Restaurants Inc. of Anaheim, Calif., plans to refit the Moshulu, a Penn's Landing landmark since 1976, and sail it to a new home. Possible moorings being considered include Jersey City, Wilmington, San Francisco and San Diego, the spokesman said yesterday.

Entertainer Christopher Manos was on the deck of the Moshulu in 1989, singing a song called "Bad Night in Philly," when he stopped in mid-note to announce the ship was on fire. About 200 patrons of the restaurant ship anchored at Penn's Landing scrambled to safety. The four-alarm blaze, started by a naked light bulb that ignited paper products in the hold, wrecked the historic iron barkentine. But the Moshulu, which had survived occupation by the Nazis and many owners and occupations over its 96-year history, would survive the fire.

Chef Mark Berenato's first solo restaurant - a rustic, balconied BYOB in Haddonfield's Shoppes at 116 - carries the name da Soli , Italian for "on my own. " There seems to be a sly undercurrent there. Until last year, Berenato was chef at Tre Famiglia , a half-mile away up Haddon Avenue, and the breakup was not pretty. (Tre Famiglia actually hung a banner on its facade to disavow any connection between the restaurants.) At da Soli (116 Kings Highway East, Haddonfield, 856-429-2399)

FROM FLYERS fans who held their own Boston Tea Party on the Moshulu to aging veterans who held tight to their beers at a South Philly pub, Philadelphians celebrated yesterday what they celebrate best - victory - not over a team or a city, but over a single man. No parade will be held to honor this moment and no trophies or rings awarded, but the residents of the birthplace of freedom took great comfort in knowing that freedom's enemy - Osama bin...

When Marty Grims was looking to open a suburban branch of his renowned White Dog Cafe in University City, he found what appeared to be a perfect location at the western edge of downtown Wayne. Not only was the affluent Delaware County suburb the epicenter of a mini restaurant renaissance - where diners didn't blink at forking over $40 for a prime cut of steak - but compared with his original location on narrow Sansom Street, Grims said, Wayne offered "a plethora of parking. " That depends on your definition of plethora . Plagued by two years of delays, the White Dog Cafe was one of the most eagerly awaited restaurants on the Main Line.

We share the gratitude of maritime enthusiasts, preservationists, and design buffs for philanthropist H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest's gift enabling the SS United States Conservancy to purchase and rescue the fastest ocean liner ever built. Now it's up to Philadelphians to figure out how to keep this extraordinary combination of beauty and technological prowess on the Delaware, where it has berthed since 1996. The conservancy is looking for a public-private partnership to develop the ship as a museum with other functions; hotel, restaurant, and conference center come to mind.

The beach is a family place. It's true when you plant that umbrella in the sand and send the little ones off on a tear, all lathered up to plunge into the surf. And it's also true when it comes to restaurants - both for those seeking the perfect seaside meal, and for those doing the cooking. So I'm glad to report that restaurants owned and inspired by families are alive and well at the Jersey Shore. Yes, the big money these last few years has been pouring into the new casino restaurants in Atlantic City, as well as Moshulu owner Marty Grims' growing stable of snazzy grown-up eateries.

Longtime visitors remember Wida's, a mainstay built in the 1920s that in more recent years billed itself as "an old-fashioned seashore hotel like grandmother used to frequent. " Well, grandma, Wida's is gone. But unlike the island's cedar-shingled bungalows that were torn down and replaced with vinyl-sided seamonsters, Wida's has undergone a face-lift, an update, and a name change. Say hello to Daddy O. Martin Grims, the restaurateur who owns the Moshulu and several Main Line bistros, has turned the old Brant Beach structure into a 22-room boutique hotel and dining room aimed at the hip, urbane patron.

It is about 9 a.m. on a sunny weekday in November and the Fernandez family is sitting down to their biggest meal of the day: a hearty breakfast of French toast, eggs, bacon, yogurt and fruit smoothies, prepared, as on most days, by dad Ralph Fernandez, who is also executive chef at the Moshulu. Whatever the menu, the morning meal and the remaining hours until Fernandez leaves for work around 11 are family time and his chance to be more than a breadwinner, to be a real part of his four children's lives.

As did his codefendant, Pier 34 operator Eli Karetny yesterday testified that he was not warned of the Philadelphia pier's imminent collapse hours before its deadly failure. If he had been warned, Karetny told the Common Pleas Court jury, "I would have closed it immediately. " Under questioning by his attorney, Frank DeSimone, Karetny painted himself as a busy restaurateur who trusted marine construction experts, such as Jesse Tyson of J.E. Brenneman Co. and later Commerce Construction Corp.

A son of Pier 34 operator Eli Karetny testified yesterday that he was working on the Moshulu restaurant ship, which was docked off the pier the night it collapsed, and was not aware of any problems. Abraham Karetny, 31, told the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury hearing the case against his father and pier owner Michael Asbell that he walked into Heat nightclub for a few minutes shortly before part of the pier and the club fell into the Delaware River on May 18, 2000, killing three women.