Navy Yard

In an election year, everything's political. And nothing's more political than the fate of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. In June 1991, a base closure commission voted to begin shutting down the yard in 1996. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Reps. Tom Foglietta, D-Pa., Curt Weldon, R-Pa., and Rob Andrews, D-N.J., filed a lawsuit against the Navy and the commission soon after. Since then, a U.S. District Court judge threw out the case and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to the district court.

The next 90 days, says U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon, will be "intense. " Weldon led a bipartisan delegation of five local congressmen to Russia last week. They returned with an agreement to explore what could be a great deal for the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. If the idea proves environmentally and economically sound, as many as 150 old Soviet warships would be dismantled at the shipyard over the next several years. The plan is to buy the warships for cash - giving the Russians hard currency they desperately need.

The 195-year-old Philadelphia Naval Shipyard was officially closed yesterday, a sobering reminder that the city's reign as a powerhouse of heavy industry is probably over forever. In a somber ceremony under gray skies outside the shipyard's historic Building 4, the American flag was lowered and the log, the daily diary of the yard's activities since 1801, was signed for the final time by the facility's 21st and last commander, Capt. John C. Bergner. About 2,500 people, some of them retired yard workers with tears in their eyes, listened as Bergner and other dignitaries reprised the glorious history of the yard, long the city's largest industrial employer.

For the past 194 years, the city of Philadelphia and the Navy have had a contract. Under this contract, the workers at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard dedicated themselves to safeguarding American security by maintaining the best fleet in the world. In return, the Navy provided good jobs at good wages to generations of workers and their families. While this contract will formally end when the USS John F. Kennedy departs the Navy Yard in September, it does not relieve the Navy of certain responsibilities.

A House Armed Services subcommittee agreed yesterday to spend $10 million in fiscal 1989 to overhaul the firefighting system at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Rep. Thomas M. Foglietta (D., Pa.) said. The money would go toward the second phase of the project to repair and upgrade nearly 18,000 feet of water mains at the Navy Yard. The authorization yesterday, which must be approved by the full committee next week, would complete spending on what last year was estimated at $14 million in necessary water-system reconstruction.

Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware legislators huddled on Capitol Hill yesterday to begin mapping strategy for the battle to keep the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Naval Base open. The brief meeting ended with the lawmakers, four of the six U.S. senators from the tri-state region and a half-dozen House members, insisting the installation could be spared on merit, while boasting they also had the political muscle to prevail. "The chances are much better than ever of saving the Navy Yard," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.

Gov. Rendell today canceled plans to move the Philadelphia Regional Produce Market to the Navy Yard, saying it would cost too much and block expansion of seaport operations. He said the market, run by an association of 35 small businesses, and its 1,100 jobs are important to the city. He pledged to help the market get the new facilities it needs. The news caught produce-market officials off-guard. "I feel like I've been hit by a sledgehammer," said James P. Storey Jr., president of the association that runs the bustling terminal in South Philadelphia.

Imagine suburbanites coming into Philadelphia to beat the wage tax. Bizzaroland? No, Fumoland. State Sen. Vincent Fumo, D-Phila., and City Councilman James Kenney are researching a plan to convert the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard into an enterprise zone where workers would pay a lower wage tax than either city dwellers or commuters now pay. "I've always said the two biggest problems in Philadelphia are a lack of leadership and the wage...

The Hoboken Shipyards of Hoboken, N.J., has asked the General Accounting Office to review a contract awarded to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for the overhaul of the Clifton Sprague, a Navy reserve frigate. On Friday, the North Jersey shipyard requested that the GAO determine whether the $4.45 million contract won by the Philadelphia yard included the same costs that the Hoboken yard was required by the Navy to include in its $5.4 million bid. Among them were the cost of lodging and feeding the 220 seamen now on the vessel and the amount of overhead allocated by the Navy to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

Computer technology has trumped all the mental pictures I have of what a "control room" should look like. On Monday, I visited the Navy Yard's new Network Operations Center (NOC) to see what's expected to be a showcase for how "smart grid" technologies will perform at the growing urban office and industrial park. But instead of a wall-size map of the Navy Yard or a long control board with switches and blinking lights, the room on the first floor of Building 101 looked like the classroom it was, albeit with some funky strings of LED lighting.

What: 33d annual Blue Cross Broad Street Run When: Sunday, 8:30 a.m. Where: The 10-mile race begins at Broad and Somerville, near Central High's athletic fields, and ends at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. Participants: A record field of 30,000 is expected for the race that is sold out. Course records: Patrick Cheriuyot, 45 minutes, 14 seconds (2007); women: Catherine Ndereba, 53:07 (1999). For more information: www.broadstreetrun.com

The Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster for Energy-Efficient Buildings (GPIC), the federally funded Navy Yard organization whose mission is to transform the building-retrofit industry, has rebranded itself less than two years after its founding. GPIC is now the Energy Efficient Buildings Hub. EEB Hub, which is funded with $130 million over five years, also launched a new website: www.eebhub.org . "We are very excited about our new name and market-facing website and feel that we will now be able to more efficiently communicate our strategic vision and the ways in which a variety of stakeholders can engage in our work," Christine Knapp, the organization's spokesperson, said in a news release.

THE NAVAL Yard a/k/a Urban Outfitter campus is where the young cosmopolitan designers, graphic artists and marketers come to work in the world of style. Here at the creative edge of the city, gals dress for show even if they are just meeting at the company cafeteria for lunch. You'll see an eclectic mix of patterns, heel heights, and outerwear. And the guys aren't slacking, either, going from American heritage style to vintage Levis and Allen Edmonds shoes. Who knew such style could be found on the banks of the Delaware River?

Harris M. Steinberg is executive director of PennPraxis of the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia is a city of hidden treasures. From the vast acreage of parkland that stretches deep into the Wissahickon Valley to the wooden paving blocks of her tiniest alleys, Philadelphia reveals herself in layers. When the first Dutch settlers piloted their boats up the Schuylkill, they called it the "Hidden River. " Unlike the broad and swiftly flowing Delaware, the tidal Schuylkill meanders gently, bending back and forth as it snakes its way from the Delaware to what is now the falls at the Art Museum.

Demolition has begun to remove debris and 94 vacant naval housing buildings at the eastern end of the Navy Yard to make way for Southport, the city's first new marine terminal in 50 years. Philadelphia port officials this week received state and federal approval to continue the demolition but must keep outside a 1,000-foot radius of an unoccupied bald eagles' nest at the Navy Yard in South Philadelphia. Eagles have not visited the nest in three years. A bird monitor is on site, and if no eagles touch down soon, the tree that holds the nest will be cut down.

Among the many changes in the works for drug giant GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., most of its Center City workers will move by next year to a new building at the Navy Yard, and they won't have office cubicles to retreat to when they get there. Sales representatives no longer get bonuses based solely on commission. Scientists have been shifted so they can share knowledge. Starting 2012 on a profitable note after several years of struggle, Glaxo leaders are pushing forward with changes they hope will drive efficiency, collaboration and, eventually, greater and more consistent profits.

Imagine you're in charge of an old postindustrial city with little open land and a perennially anemic economy. Then a vast district you never knew existed is discovered. It's like a scene from an experimental Czech novel: Pass through a secret door and there's a ghost street grid, handsome buildings from a grand era just out of reach, empty warehouses as big as tankers, and ships as grand as castles. Most of all, a broad waterfront, as close to the sea as your city is likely to get. If your city is Philadelphia, and quite a bit more real than surreal, you've merely walked down South Broad Street, under I-95, and into the Navy Yard.

Edwin A. Schultz, 86, of Plymouth Meeting, a retired naval engineer, died of lung disease Tuesday, Jan. 3, at Mercy Suburban Hospital. From the early 1960s until retiring in 1990, Mr. Schultz was with the Naval Ship Systems Engineering Station at the Philadelphia Navy Base. His last position there was as senior project engineer, responsible for the oxygen- and nitrogen-generating plants that support life aboard aircraft carriers and submarines. Mr. Schultz graduated at age 17 from Olney High School in 1942.