Panes

Step into the foyer, and begin a journey to the past. Here the musty odor of old sofas and throw pillows that have outlived their years finds a path to your nostrils. Light sneaks in through the panes of aging wood-framed windows and softens the parlor. This is the Burlington County Home for Aged Women, the house that 18 women from 60 to 96 call home. And these are the windows - 54 of them - that gave rise to a 20-month dispute that pitted the women against the Historical Commission of Burlington City.

For Tom Batchelor, owner of Batchelor's Florist on curling Baptist Church Road here, there was no calm after Monday's storm. He spent yesterday surveying the thousands of dollars of damage caused by the lemon-size hailstones the sky spit onto his nine greenhouses in northern Chester County. In every greenhouse, the stones shattered the footlong panes of glass that protect his flowers and plants from the elements. Yesterday, his South American geraniums were peppered with glass.

The panes of glass, set at odd angles and towering 55 feet over the foyer of 3600 Science Center, scintillate, even on a gray day. Their colors change, depending on the angle they're viewed from. Now they are gold, now golden green. Now blue, now magenta. Now they reflect the sky, now the automobiles passing on Chestnut Street in West Philadelphia. Now they reflect the offices surrounding them on three sides, now the people entering the 12th and newest building of the University City Science Center.

When a dark drape was taken down, the six students gathered in the library were the first to glimpse what has been the talk of the grade school. Glorious stained-glass panels designed by students had replaced clear-pane windows. On this day, the sunlight sent points of red, blue, green and gold bouncing on the library carpet. "It's cool," fourth grader Ryan Carlin, 9, said Monday. "All the colors are shining in it. " The students at Glenside Elementary School in Cheltenham Township had wondered whether the stained-glass panels would be as striking as they imagined when they painted the individual panes - 365 of them.

Many views of winter - all reflected in the angled window panes at the Woodland Falls Corporate Center in Cherry Hill.

The U.S. Postal Service will issue its first ever "Happy New Year" stamp Wednesday with a design featuring a rooster and Chinese characters. It may, however, be the last stamp issued with a New Year's theme. There is not a similar stamp in the 1993 program. The design shows a yellow rooster against a red background, with "Happy New Year!" on the right and Chinese characters that translate to "Year of the Rooster" on the left. The Chinese represent each year with an animal from one of 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac; 1993 will be the year of the rooster.

Perhaps the handiest way to carry around stamps is in booklet form. Although overshadowed by the more glamorous commemoratives, definitives, plate blocks and covers, booklets offer a challenge to collectors. The first booklet was issued in 1895 by Luxembourg, with a pane of six 5- centime definitives depicting Grand Duke Adolphe. Other countries soon followed, and booklets became popular since they could be purchased from vending machines after the closing hours of post offices.

Question: I have a beautiful full leaded-glass front door, and I see "stuff" accumulating in one lower corner between the glass. What is causing this, and what can I do about it? Answer: I'm including for our readers the photo of the door you sent me, because I've never seen this before and my knowledge of leaded glass is limited. To me, the stuff at the bottom left of the door looks like vermiculite, which was used as insulation at one time but abandoned because it contains naturally occurring asbestos.

The stained-glass rose window at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is rarely noticed, although it dominates the North Broad Street facade of the historic building. Of course, most windows accomplish their task best by not being seen. But not stained glass. Stained glass usually announces itself, transforming an interior with ethereal light, drawing an eye to conspicuous arrays of color. But the academy's rose window and its supporting cast of colored, textured, and stenciled panes that fill the central arch on the Frank Furness and George Hewitt-designed front are retiring in their demeanor, camouflaged almost.

The stained-glass rose window at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is rarely noticed, although it dominates the North Broad Street facade of the historic building. Of course, most windows accomplish their task best by not being seen. But not stained glass. Stained glass usually announces itself, transforming an interior with ethereal light, drawing an eye to conspicuous arrays of color. But the academy's rose window and its supporting cast of colored, textured, and stenciled panes that fill the central arch on the Frank Furness and George Hewitt-designed front are retiring in their demeanor, camouflaged almost.

Apparently, maintenance crews working for the legislature don't do windows. Taxpayers just spent $10,750 for a company to clean the windows of the House of Representatives at the Capitol complex - an expense officials deemed necessary despite a gaping state-budget hole. "This is not what we had in mind when we asked for a housecleaning," said Eric Epstein, a Harrisburg activist and founder of RockTheCapital.org. "Cleaning bird crap off of windows is not openness and transparency.

Question: I have a beautiful full leaded-glass front door, and I see "stuff" accumulating in one lower corner between the glass. What is causing this, and what can I do about it? Answer: I'm including for our readers the photo of the door you sent me, because I've never seen this before and my knowledge of leaded glass is limited. To me, the stuff at the bottom left of the door looks like vermiculite, which was used as insulation at one time but abandoned because it contains naturally occurring asbestos.

Haven't cracked "The Da Vinci Code," but looking for a jump on Ron Howard's movie, which opens Friday? Here's a roundup of the major players and places from Dan Brown's mega-seller, as well as a look at whether the novel's assertions are accurate. (Warning: Contains spoilers.) The Priory of Sion: The first sentence in the "Code" reads: "FACT: The Priory of Sion - a European secret society founded in 1099 - is a real organization. " In the book, it is this society - whose members supposedly included Leonardo Da Vinci, Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli and Victor Hugo - that keeps the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene a secret.

It's depressing to drive west on Cecil B. Moore Avenue from North Broad Street, passing all those vacant lots and ramshackle houses in search of that healthy block at 29th Street. For such blocks, Philadelphia City Councilman Darrell Clarke has proposed requiring owners of vacant houses to replace boarded-up windows and doors with the real thing. The bill defines a healthy block as one where 80 percent of the homes are occupied. It also is aimed at commercial buildings where there are working stores or restaurants at ground level and boarded-up residences above.

When a dark drape was taken down, the six students gathered in the library were the first to glimpse what has been the talk of the grade school. Glorious stained-glass panels designed by students had replaced clear-pane windows. On this day, the sunlight sent points of red, blue, green and gold bouncing on the library carpet. "It's cool," fourth grader Ryan Carlin, 9, said Monday. "All the colors are shining in it. " The students at Glenside Elementary School in Cheltenham Township had wondered whether the stained-glass panels would be as striking as they imagined when they painted the individual panes - 365 of them.

The U.S. Postal Service issued a new pane of commemorative stamps yesterday, all 20 of them black-and- white images. The designs consist of gripping portraits, documentaries, landscapes and fine-art photography, captured by some of the nation's most creative photographers. The Masters of American Photography, as the 34-cent stamp series is called, delineates such memorable events as immigration, the Great Depression, and America's wars. Honored are: Albert Sands Southworth (1811-1894)

The U.S. Postal Service next Friday will issue a pane of 10 commemoratives promoting the appreciation of American longleaf pine forests and their animal inhabitants. The self-adhesive 34-cent stamps are the fourth in the Nature of America educational series. On the gum-side of each stamp, the commemoratives describe the 27 species of plants and wildlife depicted in the pane. The stamps are arranged as part of an imaginary landscape of the pine forests, which range from the coastal plains of Virginia to eastern Texas.

IN A CITY with plenty of stupid laws, the last thing we need is a smart one that's dying from lack of enforcement. Yet since a "broken windows" bill was passed in October, imposing heavy daily fines on building owners who let broken windows and doors go unfixed in their buildings, not one citation has been issued. Sponsored by Councilman Frank DiCicco, the bill gives owners 60 days from the time of citation to fix their buildings; after that, they get fined $300 a day until the windows are fixed.

Blane David Nordahl has spent much of the last 15 years in jail or in other people's houses. In that time, police say, he has slipped into hundreds of houses of the wealthy, from the coast of Florida to the Main Line, from Haddonfield to Chicago's North Shore. He has taken millions of dollars in silver: tea sets and trays, salt and pepper shakers, and heirlooms worth thousands - but priceless in sentiment. So good was he in his line of work that police up and down the East Coast came to admire his skills.