Roxborough

Wednesday's preliminary hearing for Geraldine Cherry - the Upper Roxborough woman charged with killing her elderly blind roommate by stuffing rope down her throat - was postponed after she suffered seizures in prison and was hospitalized. Municipal Court Judge David C. Shuter scheduled a July 31 status hearing after defense lawyer Fred Goodman said he did not know when Cherry might be released from the hospital. A spokeswoman for the city prisons said Cherry was taken to an area hospital about one week ago and remains hospitalized.

NASCAR fans will be able to check out the No. 14 Chevrolet Impala driven by three-time Cup Series champion Tony Stewart from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the opening of the All Seasons Car Wash and Lube at 6722 Ridge Ave. in Roxborough. Customers will be able to take photos with the car, check under the Impala's hood, hear the engine roar, and test their skills with an arcade-style NASCAR driving simulator. Mayor Nutter and Roxborough politicians, including Fourth District City Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. and State Rep. Pamela DeLissio, are expected to attend.

Morris B. Weiner, 86, former co-owner of Flash Auto Supply stores in Darby and Roxborough, died of respiratory failure on Tuesday, June 5 at Spring Hill Health & Rehabilitation in Brooksville, Fla. He had lived in Rosemont from 1990 before moving to Spring Hill, Fla. in 2010. Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Weiner graduated from what is now Murrell Dobbins Career and Technical Education High School in 1942. In 1947, his daughter Gail Milano said in a phone interview, a brother-in-law sold an auto supply store on Ridge Avenue in Roxborough to Mr. Weiner and his brother Meyer.

Dougie Williams expected the avalanche and, man, did he get it. We're not talking runs for the opposition. We're talking the variety that features bodies of teammates, who have just exploded off the bench, or run in from their positions, to pummel you to the ground because you've just pitched your baseball squad to a surprising victory. On second thought, surprising doesn't quite cut it. Let's go with shocking. The Public League groups its baseball divisions by teams' supposed ability, and Engineering and Science finished tied for fifth in C at 6-5. Friday, for a Class AAA quarterfinal, that meant the Engineers had to travel to the upper reaches of Roxborough, the area, to meet Roxborough, the school, which had earned a tie for second in B at 8-2. E&S triumphed, 7-5, which was why Williams, a 5-10, 155-pound senior lefthander, was rushed by ecstatic Engineers moments after recording a game-ending strikeout.

Kay Sykora had lived in Manayunk and Roxborough since 1973, raising her children there and renovating several houses. Over 39 years, she helped found the Manayunk Development Corp., where she spent 16 years as executive director. She loved the area's history and charm. Frank Meis spent four decades in a classic Colonial in Lafayette Hill, raising a family there with his then-wife. When he and Sykora decided to marry in 2008, they looked for a place that was "theirs. " She was smitten with the hill towns, and he warmed to the idea of city living, but with one caveat: He wanted a driveway.

Wood-fired oven by wood-fired oven, the city's pizza scene is heating up. When American-raised Antimo DiMeo, 20, expressed interest in following his Neapolitan-born father, Pino, 43, in the pizza business, the son insisted he wanted to cook in the old-country way, with a wood-fired oven. (Pino's parlors use conventional gas ovens.) Then the father and son said they performed a taste test at their parlor in downtown Wilmington: They made batches of dough with Wilmington tap water and with bottled water from Naples.

JOHN MANTON offers me a bowl of potato soup as I take a seat in his tight Roxborough home. He's made a pot that will last for a week. It must. Manton's learned to stretch his food, a frugality demanded by the $37.25 worth of food stamps he receives weekly. He supplements that small amount with $20 from his meager savings. Through no fault of his own, Manton's been unemployed for a year, and Gov. Corbett wants to snoop into his bank account before approving the food stamps that keep Manton from starving.

Pennsylvania State Sen. Shirley M. Kitchen (D., Philadelphia) lashed out at the new owner of Roxborough Memorial Hospital in a letter to the director of the Pennsylvania Department of Health, urging Eli Avila to help stop Prime Healthcare Services from taking over the 140-bed facility. Based in Ontario, Calif., Prime Healthcare is reportedly under investigation by federal authorities over aggressive Medicare reimbursement requests, though a company spokesman denies such reports.

The president and chief executive of Prime Healthcare Services, the California company that bought Roxborough Memorial Hospital this week for an undisclosed price, has resigned, the company announced Thursday. Prime Healthcare, which had already owned or managed 14 hospitals in California and one in Texas, has been operating under a cloud of allegations - brought by a labor union it has feuded with for at least five years - that it was improperly billing Medicare for certain infections and other conditions.