Pier

Philadelphia's bustling waterfront, where throngs of revelers dance, drink and dine nightly on piers older than their ancestors: Are the piers safe? The question got a tragic answer last night when the end of Pier 34 collapsed into the Delaware River, killing at least three people and injuring scores of others. The age of the pier could not be determined last night, but the stretch of the Delaware where it is situated was a bustling seaport through the time of World War II. James Cuorato, executive vice president of the Penn's Landing Corp.

Mix 750 tons of trucked-in sand, the world's best professional beach volleyball players and $65,000 in prize money on a hot Philadelphia Saturday and Sunday, and you get the Miller Lite Open on Pier 42 North by the Delaware River - those of you who didn't go to the shore and play some version of the game yourselves. Twenty-six two-person teams, including two local ones chosen in a qualifying tournament last weekend at the Jersey shore, and top 1990 pro money-winners Sinjin Smith and Randy Stoklos, spiked, dinked and konged before a gallery of appropriately attired fans.

If real estate developers have their way, Philadelphia's Delaware River waterfront and some unused piers in the Penn's Landing area will become a thriving community of homes, offices, stores, restaurants and entertainment facilities. For the moment, however, one formerly broken-down pier stands out as a pace-setter. Pier 3, on Delaware Avenue between Market and Arch Streets, is no longer a plan or a dream - it sparkles with new paint, freshly cleaned bricks and tiers of upscale apartments.

Details on last week's deadly collapse of Pier 34 and the nightclub Heat will remain an official secret for now. The mayor's office agreed yesterday to withhold investigators' findings until a special grand jury decides the fate of pier owner Michael Asbell and club owner Eli Karetny. Three women died and more than 30 people were injured May 18 when the pier plunged into the Delaware River, taking part of the new, open-air club with it. The collapse came just two days after divers, hired by the Columbus Avenue club to check a newly sprouted, widening crack near its entrance, inspected the pier and declared it unstable.

A one-acre pier-park opening on the Delaware last week might not sound like a big deal, but it packs a wallop for changing our Central Delaware Riverfront from an overlooked backwater into the front door to our city and region. The pier, formerly a commercial shipping berth that recently served as a parking lot, is an early project in our effort to develop the Central Delaware into a welcoming urban place with continuous connections to the city's renowned, dense, walkable downtown.

RE THE PIER 34/Karetny and Asbell sentencing matter: Imagine an average person trying to feed three or four children on a just-get-by job. At tax time, he adds a fictitious dependent, doesn't report a capital gain, takes a phony deduction. (And don't let this person be a female single parent: Here comes welfare fraud.) Crime is like a child. Starts off small, then grows. White-collar crimes, lots of times considered lesser crimes, are committed out of greed, yet they take premeditation.

An oil-laden barge hit a pier Wednesday at the Port of Wilmington, causing the pier to collapse about 20 hours later and spill about 10,000 gallons of oil into the Christina and Delaware Rivers, authorities said yesterday. Coast Guard officers said that about 300 gallons of toxic gasoline additives also leaked into the rivers about 10 p.m. Wednesday as the pier on the Christina River sank, rupturing pipes used to convey petroleum products from barges to land-based storage tanks.

A Delanco warehousing firm, Distributec Inc., faces strong local opposition to its plans to build what would become Burlington County's only deepwater pier. More than 100 township residents jammed the township hall for a public hearing on the proposal held by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) on April 25. Residents filled all the seats and aisles; others were left standing outside, prompting officials to interrupt the meeting and relocate it to the Walnut Avenue School.

Before even one boatload of city incinerator ash could be shipped to Panama as planned, a temporary restraining order has halted the stream of some 35 trucks per day that has been bringing the controversial black residue to a shipping pier at Delaware Avenue and Reed Street. Yesterday's order by Common Pleas Judge Nelson Diaz means the city will go back to piling up the ash at the Northwest Incinerator in Roxborough, a practice it stopped recently after years of protests by neighbors.

Before even one boatload of city incinerator ash could be shipped to Panama as planned, a temporary restraining order has halted the stream of some 35 trucks per day that has been bringing the controversial black residue to a shipping pier at Delaware Avenue and Reed Street. Yesterday's order by Common Pleas Judge Nelson Diaz means the city will go back to piling up the ash at the Northwest Incinerator in Roxborough, a practice it stopped recently after years of protests by neighbors.

The Roots spend more time in the 212 than the 215 these days, but the Late Night With Jimmy Fallon house band still belongs to Philadelphia in the summertime. On Friday, the hip-hop-plus collective led by rapper Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and drummer Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson was at Broad and South Streets for the dedication of a Philadelphia Mural Arts Program mural depicting their progress over two decades. Next month, the band will host its annual Philly 4th of July Jam on the Parkway.

Six of Gus and Katherine Rice's sons left South Philly for the service during World War II. Army Pvt. Francis "Frank" Rice was the youngest of this real-life band of brothers, and the only one who was wounded. Now he's the only one left. "That's me," he says, pointing to a framed studio portrait of his handsome, 19-year-old self in uniform, taken after he was drafted in 1943. Quiet, wry, and still spry despite a heart attack a decade ago, Frank shows me some mementos at the immaculate Burlington Township home he shares with his wife, Gloria.

SEASIDE HEIGHTS, N.J. - It built an early reputation as a boardwalk thrill ride, but will be remembered as a symbol: the roller coaster that dropped into the Atlantic Ocean. On Tuesday, as people watched from the decks of a pizza joint and a shuttered tattoo parlor, a soaring crane on a barge began unceremoniously taking apart the mangled Jet Star, still partially submerged where it has sat since Hurricane Sandy. And in what seemed like no time at all, not long after Prince Harry left, the image that has defined the impact of Sandy at the Jersey Shore began to disappear, twisted track by twisted track, like a beach eroding before your eyes.

Leo A. Holt Jr., 85, who with his brother Tom Sr. took over their father's regional trucking business and expanded into warehousing and stevedoring in Gloucester City, died Wednesday, May 8, at Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Mr. Holt, who grew up in Philadelphia's Juniata Park section and graduated from North Catholic High School, retired from the family business in 1982 and moved to Pompano Beach, Fla. In 1926, Mr. Holt's father, Leo...

In another turn toward normalcy, amusement rides will start spinning this weekend at some parks and piers along the Sandy-battered Jersey Shore even as work continues to repair damage to buildings, boardwalks, and other attractions. The Keansburg Amusement Park, which the storm left under up to six feet of water, was to open Saturday, though not all rides will be ready to operate and its Wildcat roller coaster is gone. Co-owner Hank Gehlhaus said the park suffered millions of dollars in damage, very little of it covered by insurance, but he told the Asbury Park Press, "We're not going anywhere.

George A. Hamid Jr., 94, a former owner of the Steel Pier in Atlantic City who with his family brought stars such as Frank Sinatra and the Beatles to the Jersey Shore, died of pulmonary failure Saturday, Feb. 23, at Shore Memorial Hospital in Somers Point. Mr. Hamid and his father, George Sr., operated the Steel Pier for 30 years, building a family-entertainment venue that blended circus acts, amusement-park rides, and concerts. Singers including Diana Ross, and unusual acts like the high-diving horse helped turn the pier into a main attraction for Atlantic City vacationers.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - The $400 million Ninth Street Bridge opened to much acclaim in May but has since taken a deadly toll on a familiar Shore citizen: The seagull. The birds are dying by the dozen on the bridge after perching on a railing near a new fishing pier, likely because of winds that draw them crashing down into traffic after they take off for the pier, according to the Ocean City Humane Society. Since July 1, 38 herring gulls have been removed from the shoulder of the northbound lanes headed out of Ocean City on the Route 52 Causeway, said Bill Hollingsworth, executive director of the society.

OCEAN CITY, N.J. - The $400 million Ninth Street Bridge opened to much acclaim in May but has since taken a deadly toll on a familiar Shore citizen: The seagull. The birds are dying by the dozen on the bridge after perching on a railing near a new fishing pier, likely because of winds that draw them crashing down into traffic after they take off for the pier, according to the Ocean City Humane Society. Since July 1, 38 herring gulls have been removed from the shoulder of the northbound lanes headed out of Ocean City on the Route 52 Causeway, said Bill Hollingsworth, executive director of the society.

MARGATE, N.J. - It's a bit surprising - even for New Jersey - that a Shore town would grace its beach tag with the image of a victim of a police shooting. But then, Bucky the Deer was no ordinary martyr. And so, as the summer season rolls forward, unsuspecting day-trippers such as Frank Pucci of Medford are left to sit at the ocean's edge and ponder the 2012 Ventnor-Margate beach tag dutifully pinned to their swim trunks. "It's a freaking moose," Pucci said. "What's a moose got to do with the beach?"

A plan to create a trail and public space along the Delaware took a big step forward Thursday with the transfer of four piers and five vacant acres to the Delaware River Waterfront Corp., a nonprofit organization that acts as a steward of development on the river. The transaction includes a strip of riverfront land next to a Wal-Mart store on South Columbus Boulevard in South Philadelphia; Piers 64, 67, 68 and 70; and 11 acres of submerged land between the piers. The DRWC was able to acquire the property through a deal involving the Natural Lands Trust, a nonprofit group committed to land conservation.