Planner

One doesn't sell one's soul lightly. Unless one is truly committed to a cause that will improve the lives of needy people. Speaking metaphorically, of course, Joanne Barnes Jackson, contemplating the incomplete work her organization was doing to rehab a chunk of North Philadelphia in 2001 and bring in commercial development, told Daily News columnist Elmer Smith: "I'd sell my soul for a Wawa. But I've sold it so many times now. " That kind of commitment and dedication marked the life of Joanne Jackson as she worked for years to restore the many blocks of crumbling homes in her native city that may have seemed lost to decay and indifference.

There's nothing wrong with marrying a girl half your age. Unless you're 27-year-old Robert Nickson Jr., whose wedding plans were ruined this week after Delaware County authorities had a chat with his 14-year-old fiancée. Police say Nickson recently took the girl to the mall and bought her an engagement ring. They met about a month ago through a mutual friend. The juvenile told investigators that she had sex with Nickson on at least four occasions at the Lower Chichester apartment where he lives with his father, according to the criminal complaint filed Wednesday.

Edwin H. Folk III, 82, a former city planner in Philadelphia, died of emphysema on Saturday, July 3, in the hospice at Chandler Hall, the retirement community in Newtown Township, Bucks County. A memorial has been set for 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 26, at his former residence, Friends Village, 331 Lower Dolington Rd., Newtown. Mr. Folk was executive director of the Citizens Council on City Planning in Philadelphia from 1962 until it closed in 1971. A history of the council states that it acted as a private watchdog over the City Planning Commission.

A year before the National Council of Teachers of English was to host its convention here, Jacqui Joseph-Biddle met with officials at the Convention Center to discuss details. Her group, 8,000 strong, had particular needs. Would it be possible, Joseph-Biddle asked, for her staff to erect a 10-foot-by-10-foot display inside a larger exhibit booth? "No problem," she was told. But on the eve of the convention in November, no problem turned into no way. She was told she had to hire three carpenters, plus a supervisor, to erect the display.

ATLANTIC CITY - The event 100 years ago was called a "glittering, glorious, and gratifying success. " As many as 30,000 Civil War veterans and their families converged here for the 44th annual encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic. Where the land ends and the sea begins, they constituted the largest gathering of the organization, which Civil War veterans from all over the United States formed to "keep green the memories" of the soldiers who fought in the deadliest war in American history.

This is how you build a neighborhood park in an age when Philadelphia no longer bothers funding such urban niceties: First enter a famous cola-maker's online contest to win micro-financing for good ideas. Next, start a Facebook page. Go to Twitter and blast all your friends. Provide the link to the website of said beverage company (Hint: Starts with P). And, since this is Philly, encourage everyone to vote early and vote often. If this shamelessly promotional social-networking scheme works, then maybe, just maybe, East Passyunk will find itself with $50,000 to turn the chaotic intersection at 12th and Watkins Streets into a "pop-up park" by the end of May. But only if you go to the website and start clicking right away on "Reclaim Concrete," says Clint Randall, a freshly minted urban planner who dreamed up the project - www.refresheverything.

The final steel beam of the SugarHouse Casino, Philadelphia's first gaming hall, was installed Friday at the 22-acre site in Fishtown and Northern Liberties on Delaware Avenue. The topping-out ceremony, which brought the casino one step closer to its projected opening in mid-September, was part of a time-honored ritual to bestow good luck on the 60,000-square-foot building, which will eventually employ hundreds. But it took more than luck to bring the casino into existence, said Wendy Hamilton, the project's general manager.

Financial planner David L. Garfield enjoyed life as a "pillar" of the community, serving as president of the Katz Jewish Community Center and the synagogue M'Kor Shalom in Camden County. At the same time, say criminal investigators, Garfield scammed family and friends out of millions of dollars, pillaging trusts for widows and the disabled and investments set aside for inheritances and retirements. Since Garfield's death Jan. 26 at 67, authorities have discovered that the Cherry Hill resident ran an elaborate Ponzi scheme they believe dated to at least 1993.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. citizen who tried to set off a car bomb in New York's Times Square on May 1 was trained and funded by a Pakistani militant group that works closely with al Qaeda to plot attacks against the U.S., top Obama administration officials said yesterday. "We've now developed evidence that shows that the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack," Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on ABC's "This Week. " "We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it. And that he was working at their direction.

At a raucous and sometimes profane public meeting Friday night, critics denounced plans for the President's House memorial under construction on Independence Mall. City and project officials, who had not conducted a session to update the public on the oft-delayed project for almost three years, sought to present a newly revised interpretive plan for the site where George Washington and John Adams conducted their presidencies and Washington held at least nine enslaved Africans. But before Emanuel Kelly, principal of Kelly/Maiello Architects & Planners, designers of the memorial at Sixth and Market Streets, could discuss the status of construction, he was interrupted by a chorus of loud complaints over the use of a white-owned general contractor at the site, and a torrent of criticism over the site's overall presentation of the black experience.