New Lease

Presidential City Apartments, Philadelphia Until a year ago, Cornelia and Simon Gregory lived in a single home in the Philadelphia area . . . but family members, including their two daughters and four grandchildren, live in Virginia, Maryland, Ohio and California. "That's why we moved to an apartment," said Cornelia Gregory, a retired teacher. "We can walk out, close the door and leave without a worry. " It's also one of the reasons they chose Presidential City Apartments.

A mostly vacant shopping plaza, where for years truck drivers have pulled in for a snooze, has been given permission to wake up. When the strip of stores on Street and Knights Roads does stir again, developers promise, it will be more beautiful and energetic than before. On Monday, the Bensalem Township Council unanimously approved plans by Vornado Realty Trust of Saddlebrook, N.J., to tear down a boarded Bradlee's department store, a closed Shop Rite market and other vacant shops to make way for a Kohl's department store, a yet-to-be-secured supermarket-chain tenant, and possibly two other businesses.

Last summer, Pathmark Stores Inc. closed one of its branches in Cherry Hill and another in Voorhees, two of South Jersey's most affluent communities. It did so while investing $7 million in enlarging and modernizing its lone store in economically depressed Camden. The store, on Mount Ephraim Avenue, is slated for a "grand reopening" event on Sunday, to show off such additional features as a full-service Summit Bank branch. The company said it had hired 70 more people, bringing the store's workforce to 170. Pathmark spokesman Richard Savner offered a simple explanation of the company's decision to go against the trend of businesses curtailing their operations in inner cities and expanding in the suburbs: "Customers in Camden have been loyal to Pathmark and have made that a viable operation for us. " In contrast, the Cherry Hill store off the former Ellisburg Circle and the Voorhees store on Route 73 were under-performers, he said.

It's a warm yellow now, but until recently historic Ridgeland in West Fairmount Park was just another white elephant. Long vacant except for a few park offices, not architecturally notable enough to be a museum restoration candidate, Ridgeland - dating in part to 1719 - seemed destined to languish and decay as have many other Fairmount Park homes. But in a turnaround that park and preservation officials say could be a model for other park houses, Ridgeland found a new purpose and an agency willing to restore it. The park got a functioning landmark instead of an eyesore, and hundreds of people are drawn into West Fairmount who otherwise might never have come.

Fans of Fox's Living Single, several thousand of whom complained when network officials said this spring that it would not be returning for a fifth season, have their show back. Officials have announced that the sitcom, the top-rated show among African American households, will return to its slot Thursdays at 8 p.m. It will be followed by two new programs: Between Brothers, a show about four upwardly mobile African American men, at 8:30 p.m., and an hour-long drama called 413 Hope St. at 9 p.m. (The drama displaces New York Undercover, which Fox honchos say will return as a midseason replacement.

Like millions of Americans, artists were hard-hit by the Great Depression. One observer told how they traded "a canvas for a wedding ring, a watercolor for a new shirt, an etching for a carton of cigarettes. " Their plight was perfectly expressed in a letter young Ruth Zakheim mailed to Washington after her father had painted a fresco in San Francisco's Coit Tower. "I was wondering if there was another fresco he might do," the little girl wrote. "He needs the money so badly.

As a full house of 9,493 fans screamed his name, Tyrone Weeks gripped the hands of family members tightly and walked toward midcourt to receive the traditional plaque in his honor and embrace from his coach, James "Bruiser" Flint. It was Seniors Day at the University of Massachusetts, possibly Weeks' last home game as a member of the Minutemen basketball team, and it was proper for the coach to thank him for his years of service. Except that Flint held on to Weeks just a tad longer than is usual in an embrace between coach and player.

Must See! Three-story, unfurnished walk-up. Good ventilation. Heat, hot water not included. Very affordable. No deposit! Sorry; despite its broken windows, peeling paint and lifeless furnance, the Selma mansion is taken. The Norristown Preservation Society has exercised its option on a 99-year lease for the 220-year-old Federal-style residence at the corner of West Airy and Selma Streets. If accepted, the lease would allow the society to secure more renovation funds from public and private sources, said Bill Ward, who is spearheading the group's effort to preserve the mansion.

If you're brave enough to leave the paved portion of Saginaw Road just off Route 896 south, you'll embark on a sinuous dirt path known as Kings Row Road. Slow to 15 miles an hour, and focus on avoiding sharp turns that could plunge a car into Big Elk Creek. The road ends. You stop and venture out to ask where the path has gone, and why construction trucks are parked here, in a forest. Behind the trucks stands the wooden frame of the Linton Stevens Covered Bridge, which straddles the boundary between New London and Elk Townships.

The rent shot up from $1 to $57,600 a year. The district residents started asking questions. "Who's accountable for representing [the interests of] the taxpayers of Bristol Township?" Larry Raffle, school board treasurer, asked at a board meeting Monday as he questioned the lease expense. He and other residents asked why the district has been shelling out five figures a year since 1990 for 18,000 square feet of storage space in the basement of the old Delhaas High School. The Bristol Township School District closed the high school in 1981, shortly after district enrollment started to plummet.