What some of the people that spend so much time criticizing me don’t realize is I love to cook. I also love to garden, which is of course why I have a separate gardening blog.
A while back a friend sent me a link to a website. It was for something called Recipe Philly.
So on a complete whim, I submitted the pasta sauce recipe taught to me by my great aunts and my paternal grandmother. It’s mostly their recipe, but I tweaked it and wrote it down.
I know that this sauce recipe is good enough to compete with. I’ve actually had people who are professional chefs, and in the restaurant industry tell me so over the years. I also just love the idea of the sauce I learned to make as well as gnocchi in a kitchen at 11th and Ritner when I was a little girl, could be shared with a broader audience.
I still have very distinct memories of the big ceramic top kitchen table that used to hold 8 or 10 of us at one time being cleared for first chopping up vegetables and what not going into the sauce, and then as a workstation to make the gnocchi.
The gnocchi is also another recipe that I finally wrote down because I was taught how to make it by feel. You could just feel when the dough was right.
When my father’s mother would sometimes babysit us when we were in high school and my parents were traveling for my father’s job at the time, I would have these memories of Saturday mornings, and even Sunday mornings, waking up to the mingled smell of fresh coffee and garlic and onion Starting to cook in the bottom of a Dutch oven for sauce.
It was these memories that I was all excited to bring to this competition. And I’m hardly a reality show person. But it was because this was really kind of a cooking thing I was interested. Finally, I’m at a place in my life where I have the time to do something like that.
But life throws you curveballs. I was interviewed on a zoom submitted my application and invited to compete tomorrow in Philadelphia but at the same time this was happening, I have a dog who developed cancer. And the reality of life and the responsibility to my pet means I can’t leave her for 8 or 10 hours right now.
So this morning, I had to decline. I had my recipe ready. I had my photos. I had my recipe card. They want it filled out done and a copy of my application. I sent the producers who gave up their valuable time for me an email apologizing. I didn’t want to just not show up that would be rude and disrespectful of their time and energy into this project which I think is a fun as well as cool idea.
If my recipe had been chosen, it would’ve been featured in this brand new restaurant opening in Philadelphia. If my recipe had been chosen, I think it would’ve amused the ghosts of my ancestors. This recipe was obviously taught to my great aunts and my grandmother by their mother, who immigrated to this country with her husband their father has a very young woman for a better life. This recipe is part of the DNA of my American story because we are a country of immigrants.
Those people, who would’ve been my late father’s maternal grandparents came here for a better life. If they hadn’t existed, the future generations of which I am part of the current present generation never would have existed.
So for the time being, I don’t get my home cook moment, but for the love of my dog, I just can’t do it. And I really wanted to. But sometimes the timing in life and being a grown-up and being a responsible pet owner have to come first.
If these people at Recipe Philly would ever want to talk to me after today about my recipe and competing when they actually film, I would welcome that opportunity. But sadly, I know that’s not how the process works, so it’s just not my time.
Screenshot of Ellen Greenberg’s mother holding her photo in the Hulu documentary series.
I will admit I didn’t really follow this case at all until recently. The case started during a time when I was starting my breast cancer journey and learning what life after breast cancer was like. So I remember the initial news reports, but given my life back then and what I didn’t track this and plenty of other news stories I am sure.
Let’s go back to the beginning:
Her name was Ellen Rae Greenberg (June 23, 1983 – January 26, 2011) and she died after sustaining 20 stab wounds in her Manayunk apartment in Venice Lofts.
Her fiancé at the time was a guy named Sam Goldberg. Apparently he called police after he broke the front door down and subsequently found her with a knife sticking out of her chest, but didn’t recognize a knife being in her chest at first, according to the new Hulu documentary which I just found freaking strange. These apartments aren’t that big and if you’re standing there at the entrance of an apartment kitchen and you’re looking at your fiancée literally slumped on the floor or whatever you’re not going to notice a knife sticking out of her chest at first?
And they called it a suicide? How does one stab one’s self multiple times in the back and end up back down with a knife in the chest? And then there was this thing in the documentary where they said that some uncle of the fiancé Sam coming in and getting Ellen‘s electronic devices? So like her computer or tablet and phone? What was the condition of the items when police got them? How could they properly be examined after they took a detour and what is that term? Chain of custody? How was that observed exactly?
Ellen and her parents were from the Harrisburg area. It seems that her parents now live in Florida. Her former fiancé whose full name seems to be Samuel Hankin Goldberg apparently hails from the Main Line. His parents seem to still live in the area. Ellen’s parents are Joshua and Sandra Greenberg.
I have been reading and digging into this since I watched the Hulu series. Suffice it to say when you think you have heard the last worst story about anything having to do with Philadelphia, never say never and watch the documentary series.
R. Seth Greenberg was District Attorney in Philadelphia at the time of Ellen’s death. Charles H. Ramsey was Police Chief.
It’s just insane. Why is Philadelphia stonewalling the Greenberg family?
This is a crazy rabbit hole to go down. And I never really went down it before. There are so many articles, but what I still don’t understand is how the ex-fiancé and his family for that matter just seemed to move on like Ellen Greenberg never existed? He reportedly is married and has a family, and his parents seem to still live in the greater Philadelphia area?
It sounds like Ellen Greenberg wanted to have a family too doesn’t it? Only she never did, did she? Her parents never saw her get married, did they? Her parents never held any of her grandchildren because they were never born because their daughter is dead, right?
People started sending Ellen links for me to post when I was posting about Anna Maciejewska. Every time I looked at anything I kept coming back to one thing: how did Philadelphia think this young woman stabbed herself so many times in the back and chest?
So reports at that time talking about Ellen leading up to her death, included people saying she was anxious and seeing a psychiatrist, right? Does that mean she killed herself? No, it doesn’t does it?
Screenshot off of Hulu series, episode 2
And another thing is supposedly she’d been home a while before she died? Why did she have like boots on? I mean I get that they look like UGG boots or something but they weren’t slippers, they were boots. It’s snowing like crazy, but when you are in your house do you wear boots? Maybe but maybe not?
And how is it that the police and everyone started treating this as a suicide immediately because if you watch the documentary and you read the articles it’s like as soon as they appeared on the scene, they decided what it was and how could they? And then lickity split within a few days it seems of her death the apartment/crime scene was scrubbed within an inch of its life? I realize everything is not like an episode of Law and Order or whatever but doesn’t that seem strange?
Now that I’ve gone down this rabbit hole I get why people have been sending me links all these years.
There’s nothing normal about this, including the fact, the way her fiancé‘s family as well as himself just seemed to move on, right? and he’s married with at least one child right if not more? Perhaps their relationship wasn’t headed down the aisle, but we will never know because Ellen can’t tell us.
So they always tell us that if something like this is a murder one of the suspects they always look at are people closest to the victim. In this case it would be like a domestic incident right? So it would be partner, fiancé husband, etc.
Yeah, it seems like before anyone knew what this was this was just categorized as a suicide and how do you kill yourself by stabbing yourself in the back like how do you reach? Was she like really flexible or something? And I still don’t understand how they let her devices be taken out of the apartment like that? Even if it was a suicide, shouldn’t they have been collected on the initial scene that evening and at least looked at by the police?
Other things I find interesting? The media reports Nancy Schwartzman who directed this documentary, went to Shipley. They also said Sam Goldberg the fiancée also went to Shipley. I guess life really is a small world isn’t it? I know neither of these individuals, we just have a school in common, many years apart. “Courage for the Deed, Grace for the Doing” is Shipley’s motto. It has nothing to do with anything or maybe it has something to do with everything? What do you think?
I just don’t understand any of this. Most of all I don’t understand why the City of Philadelphia never seems to really cooperative so what is being hidden and who is connected to whom? Is this about money, as in whomever has all the expensive toys wins, and no one ever really looks into this case again?
There is a Facebook page that has been up for years about this:
In February 2025, the Greenbergs celebrated a major legal victory when the city settled both suits and the Medical Examiner’s Office agreed to reopen its investigation into Greenberg’s cause of death.
This ruling came shortly after Dr. Osbourne signed an affidavit stating that her death should be classified as “something other than suicide,” according to NBC Philadelphia. He reportedly made the decision after reviewing new information in the case and consulting with a pediatric neuropathologist.
The settlement also included an undisclosed amount of money.
“I hope today we made Ellen proud of us, and we were certainly very proud of her as her parents,” Sandee told reporters. “It’s monumental; for 14 years we’ve been dealing with this suicidal label.”
I don’t know if we’re ever going to know the truth. I hope we will, but it just seems every twist and every turn with this case now that I finally have sat down and read enough articles to make my eyes bleed, you go like a step forward and then two steps back. People really don’t seem to want to have this case to be solved in Philadelphia, do they? In my opinion, that is profoundly disturbing and sad.
Ellen’s family deserves answers. Her ex fiancé’s family should want this issue put to bed once and for all shouldn’t they?
Well, I’m going to leave this here with all the miscellaneous I dug up.
Ellen deserves to have her spirit at rest and justice done. Her parents deserve peace and the respect of the City of Philadelphia and various departments to actually do their freaking jobs.
OK this all started with someone contacting my blog’s Facebook page. This woman’s friend’s daughter, whom I assume is of adult age has a cat and was fostering a cat. Long story short apparently, ACCT Philly was told to pick up the daughter’s foster cat when she was out of town on a family emergency and ACCT picked up the WRONG cat. They were supposed to take a cat that the woman was fostering named Garfield, but instead they took the woman’s few year-old cat Simba, who she has had for a few years.
It seems like there was a cat sitter involved as well ?
However, not to be judgmental but WHY would you leave responsibility for the right cat getting picked up with someone else? That is something that this young woman probably should’ve handled herself or waited until she got back home.
Nevertheless, the unthinkable seems to have happened, and we’ve heard of it happening before because cases like this have made the local news. ACCT Philly which I personally feel is a train wreck of an organization, took the woman’s cat by mistake and adopted it out and isn’t that horrible? And I have to ask they are a rescue and they know how to scan for microchips so why didn’t they, because this woman’s cat is chipped and the foster cat as well?
Now what is making this worse is I have found reference to this cat on social media posts and where the mother seems to be posting on Reddit, and there are no names so it seems like a scam/spam post.
I said to the woman who contacted me if we don’t know who the person is who lost their cat it’s not particularly helpful. And then the mother is posting from out of state and apparently lives in New England or something, and one of the posts I found is from a friend of hers on Facebook? I don’t get what they don’t get that they need to humanize this and put a face to the young woman suffering because of this, and why can’t this young woman step forward and say hey this rescue took my cat by accident instead of picking up the foster cat?
I am sharing all the screenshots I have found. I think ACCT Philly if they have to, needs to go to the house of the people who have the wrong cat with an animal control officer and get it back. And if these people who adopted the wrong cat purely because of the shelter, making a huge mistake, supposedly now know they were given someone’s pet in error, why haven’t they returned the cat yet?
Anyway, this is what I found and I think it really honestly is something that deserves a little media attention because if rescues tell people to get pets microchipped so they can easily be returned if lost, etc., etc. , why didn’t this work? Why didn’t they scan the cat they picked up when they got to the shelter to at least make sure they had checked back into the system, and the right cat prior to adoption?
ACCT Philly needs to get its act together or get out of the rescue business.
That young woman deserves her cat back. And if the people who adopted her cat won’t return it, should they really be allowed to adopt the foster cat when all is said and done?
Anyway, I’m throwing this out there. These are the screenshots I found I have maintained the message I received. I’m not making this up, I don’t think these people are making it up but again as I said at the opening of this post, the cat owner who was wronged needs to step forward. And I’m saying that because I think it will help.
And my last thought is the past few months there has been horror story after horror story of dumped animals, abandoned animals, problems with shelters, and so on. It’s heartbreaking.
Yeah….soooo…as a blogger I am usually the one who is told I am a Fibber McGee (being polite) if I write about something that others don’t care to believe, even if true.
And then you have those who don’t like it if certain information has been obtained. They will do anything to deflect or CYA. I think this is exactly what happened at Victor Fiorillo’s expense and I don’t think that is right.
Victor wrote that the dive bar McGlinchey’s was closing last Sunday.
Now when I read his article, I kind of smiled and said to myself “I didn’t even know they were still open.”
I’m not a city dweller, I’m not even a particularly adjacent dweller at this point living in Chester County. And if I’m honest, I probably put it and several bars like it out of my head because I am someone who appreciated a good joint, but was not necessarily a lover of dive bars.
And they were also the places of my single girl days before I started commuting to NYC for work (yes I was one of those people along with the garmentos and big deal financial types who commuted. I was just more ordinary.)
A “joint” in my mind can be used colloquially for a bar but to me isn’t necessarily a dive bar. Take for example, The Rusty Nail in Havertown. To me that’s a joint. To some might be mostly dive bar, but to me it’s always been more than that because way back when I had friends who used to play music there so that’s what I associate it with. And my feet never quite stuck to the sticky floor the same way they did at McGlinchey’s back in the day.
I didn’t hate or particularly dislike McGlinchey’s, I was more ambivalent. And yes, what I didn’t like about most of these bars was sticking to the floor, and sometimes to the bar itself. But then again, maybe that was the trade-off for the quirky ambience of these places? The thing I liked best of all about these places was the people watching.
As far as dive bars go, the one a friend liked the best was Dirty Frank’s. We also checked out the Cherry Street Tavern once in a while. And if we wanted to go further down around Old City, it was always Kyber Pass. And then there was always The Shove, AKA The Irish Pub. There were two locations on Walnut Street back then, but I only liked the one at 20th St.
And then there were the pulsing annoying Delaware Avenue clubs a couple of my friends liked. I will admit I did not like those places at all. You couldn’t hear yourself think, most of the time. I didn’t like the music or the people. I will never be a disco biscuit.
I had a couple of friends back then who loved McGlinchey’s. So when I saw the name of that dive bar after so many years, I read the article with interest, remembering all the gritty places that existed late 80s and through the 90s.
But I didn’t really think about the article or McGlinchey’s closing after that. After all, the world changes, tastes change, and it seems that perhaps more people than not want more shall we say social media friendly places? Maybe McGlinchey’s doesn’t give the right optics? Can you imagine the Dîner en Blanc crowd taking over McGlinchey’s? Now the thing about that is funny to me, is the grittiness of these places is to me what makes them photo worthy… and why the people watching was always amusing.
Honestly I can’t imagine myself planting it on a barstool of one of those places now. Just not my jam.
Following Victor’s article, other articles came out. At first, one in the Inquirer and one in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
A source inside McGlinchey’s, who asked to remain anonymous, gave us the bad news late Sunday afternoon. And the bartender on duty on Sunday confirmed the closure, saying, “Our last day is this Friday, so tell everybody to come in when they still can.” The reason for the closing of McGlinchey’s is reportedly simple enough: There’s just not enough business to sustain it.
In 2013, Philly Mag named McGlinchey’s “the best dive bar of them all.” Back then, drinks were cheap, service sometimes leaned into the surly, the bathrooms were covered in graffiti and more than a little scary to newcomers both for their perceived filth and their claustrophobic nature….
The owner just sounded sketch in the articles where he was interviewed on this whole tempest in a beer mug and I can have that opinion. That opinion is no reflection on the writers, it was the feeling I got reading what the bar owner is quoted as saying. If that makes sense.
And while I found something on Loop Net, I didn’t actually find a listing for the property for sale. But maybe I’m just looking in the wrong place?
So anyway the other two articles were a bit different as if the owner was playing Captain Semantic with those publications. I read both of those articles, and I kind of thought that maybe the owner got caught with his proverbial pants down and was playing CYA?
Victor Fiorello has written about McGlinchey’s before. Always fondly. So I don’t quite understand why in those other two articles the owner couldn’t just own what was happening? I don’t see any shame in that so was it a matter of pride for this owner who is getting older? I mean who’s going to begrudge a bar owner closing a bar as they reach senior citizen category anyway? It’s hard work. Talk to anybody that’s ever owned a bar or a restaurant or a club and they will tell you.
My biggest thing with both of those articles was like the owner was saying that Victor wasn’t really telling the truth. So OK, maybe Victor got the news before the owner wanted the news out, but once the horse is out of the barn, why not just own it straight up?
I guess it’s simply more fun to be a dancing douche than to admit Victor got the scoop first just not from the owner directly?
Victor got it right this past Sunday and took a social media flogging for days over being right, and how is that right?
It’s not right and it’s that gaslighting mob mentality effect of social media that is just so endearing. What? Am I being sarcastic now? Yup.
Back to those two other articles, where we learned the bar owner wanted to sell the building. But he didn’t really allude to an immediate closing as in shuttering of the business, it was more like a dot dot dot…
So one other thing Victor did was he pointed out a Hidden City Philadelphia article from years ago about McGlinchey’s. I like that website and was a fun to read. I had never read it before.
In the first Inquirer article on McGlinchey’s, the owner of McGlinchey’s tried a soft shoe dance around what Victor said. (There were two articles and the second article is honestly fascinating and about people who spent time within the walls intertwined with the history.) In the first article the owner said he was interested in finding a buyer or hoping some unnamed broker would and was taking a vacation at the end of August, but he would reopen. It seemed like he then wanted to sell this reporter and writer a cash register and some glassware?
So then we go to the Philadelphia Business Journal article. Once again, the owner did the whole “nothing to see here” soft shoe routine and the Philadelphia Business Journal described it as him refuting what Victor Fiorillo had written in the Philadelphia Magazine article. The owner said he was “finalizing a broker.”
Oh, and the owner also said again that he was going away on vacation at the end of August and would be back in September.
Then Victor wrote a follow-up article about who is interested in buying the place. All these people say they wouldn’t change a thing…ummm okay but I would hazard a guess Philadelphia codes department might have thoughts, but then again L & I in Philadelphia is shall we say, different ?
Meanwhile, the comments are flying around all over social media basically likening Victor to a Breitbart Barbie. So not fair. And he digs in to his pieces. He’s not fluffy and superficial and his writing is so good (and fun to read.) Maybe that’s the problem?
Then there were comments that interested me about other people talking about the bar.
Philly Voice also put out an article. They spoke with regulars and a former bartender.
Then things like Victor’s post with the text showing he was right and the posts of others started to pop up.
Oh and then I found a last night of the bar thing on TikTok.
Mmmm so I guess last night was the last night? How about folks apologizing to Victor Fiorello? He did get it right. This whole tempest in a beer mug in my opinion was all generated by the owner of McGlinchey’s. That’s just pure jerky boy.
See that above? Philadelphia is truly a city in chaos. Flash mobs have evolved, and this is like flash mob 2.0. No longer is it crowds doing meet ups and showing up and raising hell and being destructive in department stores or in shopping areas they are doing this with cars and people on the streets. It’s insanity.
There are a lot of things circulating on social media in the form of little videos, either taken by people higher up in high-rises in Philadelphia or drones. I was accused of spreading fake news today by a former state elected official. Literally they said they Googled it, didn’t see anything therefore I must be wrong. Didn’t matter that there was a Philadelphia Police Department Press Conference or articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Or pick a TV station.
This is what I had shared and sorry downloads from Facebook didn’t come with volume:
However, the volume isn’t important it’s the visual of what you’re seeing happening on the streets of Philadelphia. Not random remote neighborhoods, but center city Philadelphia. As in 15th and Market in front of City Hall. Cops and civilians were injured. They literally tried to run cops over. They also had flamethrowers, which is why you saw the street on fire.
But hey, it was just me being mean. It’s just me being mean about Philadelphia then I had another currently elected state official tell me how they didn’t believe this to be true. That this was isolated. Well, honey, when the police are reporting 11 of the same incidents in one night, it’s not isolated.
I did save my screenshots. I like to be factually accurate. These politicians are fortunate I am not posting the screenshots. Well I am posting one. THIS ONE:
I asked this politician why it was my job to do something? I asked why I wasn’t allowed to have my opinion? I asked wasn’t this the job of elected officials and former elected officials to help take care of? And I like the way they peppered this comment with gun control too. Do they really want to have that conversation because this conversation has nothing to do with that conversation.
And then my favorite if I’m not going to do anything personally then why am I complaining? I wasn’t complaining I was stating my opinion, but if somebody doesn’t like your opinion, and they are or were an elected official, then you’re complaining, right? But hey, I’m glad I was able to have this conversation where my opinions don’t matter because when I have seen this person out, they have pretty much tried to avoid even saying hello, and when all you are doing is being polite and saying hello at a function, well that is silly and rude. Actually they are not the only current or former elected official who has done that when they see the evil blogger in the room. I don’t really care, but I do like to point it out, because I find it amusing.
I was born in the city of Philadelphia and I lived there during other tumultuous times. I was born in the mid-1960s and we lived there to the mid-1970s, and trust me there were all sorts of things that people and suburbia thought never happened and it all happened.
Crazy Vietnam era protests, getting jumped by gangs as a kid in Bingham Court of all places in Society Hill, and that really did happen because my best friend at the time got her little glasses smashed in her face because they were trying to steal our bikes. We were little kids. Maybe 5th grade.
Getting mugged with our parents when we were carrying UNICEF boxes going trick-or-treating. That happened too.
Flash forward to today when people I know have been attacked on their own doorsteps on well lit streets in good (and fairly expensive neighborhoods) over the past few years.
And I guess the whole riots and looting of recent past in Philadelphia are just fake news too?
These things are actually happening and this is the reality of Philadelphia and people can do what they want. I choose to stay out of the city as much as possible now. I don’t find it enjoyable any longer, and there’s so many things I used to love about the City of Philadelphia.
The streets are a mess, they have a mayor who wants to destroy Chinatown with the sports arena, there’s crime, there’s all sorts of stuff all over the streets, every single day. There are professional beggars, mentally ill and drug addicted homeless etc.
And remember when the Temple cop that got carjacked and shot outside a newer apartment building at Temple? Was that the building that your kid lived in? It was the building ours lived in.
Have you ever been surrounded by a mob of illegal ATVs on the streets? I was once years ago and trust me, it’s something you will never ever forget. It’s scary.
Did you have an elderly relative harassed by a deranged homeless person sitting on a bench outside her doorman building? I did. I also had a friend riding his bike beaten to a pulp by a gypsy cab driver kind of cab driver because he couldn’t get out of the way fast enough when the cabbie was barreling down the wrong way on a one way street. That didn’t make the news, so does that mean that it didn’t happen? (And it took the police over 2 hours to respond.) And what most don’t realize and wouldn’t realize unless you knew people that live in the city, a lot of times crime is not reported because the police don’t come or can’t come in a timely manner because they are dealing with such a volume of bad things.
Close to this time a year ago when I was having postcancer, reconstruction surgery, when we were driving home from a hospital in Philadelphia, the streets were lit up like it was noon on a bright sunny day. And these were streets that had street lights, but as we’re driving down the street directly above us is a police helicopter with big giant lights on looking for some criminal.  that is definitely another give you pause moment.
So don’t tell me I’m making things up or posting things that didn’t happen, they have happened and they are happening.
A friend of mine, who is also a Democrat said, just ignore the critics on this, they are wearing liberal blinders. I found that a wonderful turn of phrase. And I am floored that with all that we have at stake in this country that you are expected to be exactly the same as everyone else and you can’t point anything out that’s different or point anything out that might be wrong even if it is wrong.
Philadelphia is a hot mess. You don’t have to like my opinions when I share something it doesn’t make me a bad person or wrong.
I wanted to know what Andrée Goldberg had to say. I really did. You may not know the name Andrée Goldberg off the top of your head. But you’ve probably seen the video from Memorial Day at the Jersey Shore.
You know the one: a woman confronts Kylie Kelce — wife of Eagles champ Jason Kelce — in Margate. Said woman tells Kylie Kelce “you’ll never be allowed in this town again.” All this was reportedly because Kylie Kelce didn’t want to take a photo with the woman. And by now, you’ve probably guessed that the woman in the unfortunate moment was Andrée Goldberg….Lots of people have been watching and sharing this video, especially Philly Mag contributor HughE Dillon. It’s been covered by the New York Post, the Daily Mail, and a bevy of media outlets in the Philadelphia area and in New Jersey. But even after reading all of those accounts and watching lots of influencers and other online types weighing in on the scandal, I had no idea what was going on in Goldberg’s head at the time of the incident.
I sent her an email. I sent a message via Instagram to Teuscher Chocolates, the luxury Swiss chocolate shop she just opened in Wayne with her husband, Bryan Goldberg. But to no avail. So I drove out to Teuscher Chocolates to see if she was there….
I introduced myself to the Goldbergs and explained why I was at the store. I told them that I was trying to understand exactly what led up to the encounter with Kylie Kelce. Was there more to the story? I wanted to give her a fair shake, let the world hear her side of the story. “There’s no story here,” Andrée Goldberg insisted. Her husband said the same. They both repeated the line a couple of times. I told them I disagreed, that everybody has been talking about this mess. And so I just wanted to get the full picture.
But Andrée Goldberg didn’t want to speak to me.
Bryan Goldberg told me to leave and that he was calling the police. I immediately walked out of the store and to my car. He followed me, taking video along the way.
A couple of hours after I left the store, a publicist representing the Goldbergs reached out to me and sent me the following statement…[GO TO PHILLYMAG.COM to read the rest]
So I have to ask what was the husband going to do with his video? Post it on his or his wife’s Instagram account? Didn’t they delete those? Are they going to tell Victor he’s never going to work in Philadelphia again or something?
I wonder will the Main Line tell them to leave Wayne? After all, Kylie Kelce is Main Line born. She’s a Narb.
Also who was the publicist? That’s one lame “apology” isn’t it? And she apologized in person on Saturday? Damn, was that when she was banning Jason Kelce’s pretty wife from towns all over the area or maybe just Margate?
Oy enough already, lady. Send apology chocolates already.
The City of Filthadelphia is destroying a gem: the meadows at FDR Park in South Philadelphia are being destroyed for turf fields. The irony is, of course, the City of Philadelphia can’t even take care of the parks they have, but they’re going to add very expensive turf fields. Turf fields contain forever chemicals. Nature is being destroyed for that? Animals and birds are losing their refuge and what about the natural water sources?
This needs to be STOPPED.
You know, everybody thought Mayor Cherelle Parker was going to be like the second coming of Christ. Except I thought was she’s a Wiley Coyote of a politician who’s going to play everyone. How am I doing so far?
I had not been to FDR Park before the Philadelphia Flower Show self-located there a couple of years ago now. And I have to be honest, that park made it a better flower show. After all, it was outdoors the way flower shows are supposed to be. I found the park to be amazing and interesting and home to quite the array of flora and fauna.
But of course, the City of Philadelphia seems to not be able to get out of their own way and want to create a turf field paradise there….which obviously would destroy the nature of it all. Turf fields are toxic in my humble opinion. Apparently some neighbors and Philadelphia residents also have that opinion because they have retained West Chester Attorney Sam Stretton and filed suit yesterday.
by David Gambacorta and Barbara Laker Updated Feb. 23, 2024, 11:52 a.m. ET Published Feb. 23, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET
Here’s a novel idea for Filthadelphia: clean up the streets. That means trash, potholes, broken sidewalks, the smell of human urine. Clean up crime. Clean up Fairmount Park and other parks and let them be parks. It’s not a greenspace Madam Mayor if it’s artificial turf. It’s just colored green and smells like plastic. I have to be honest that I am shocked that even from a fiscal aspect that the City of Philadelphia would even think of spending crazy money to in effect, destroy a park, can’t you agree?
Our history and our identity as a country, and as a region, is tied directly to William Penn. He came here with people to settle in Pennsylvania the state that was named for him to escape religious and other persecution.
So here we are a few centuries later and it’s like we’re right back where we started.
To remove him from anything is egregious. And YES I get that the Daily Mail and other sources are perhaps being alarmist, but this is my opinion on the matter because I truly believe that this could indeed happen.
Why can’t different parts of history co-exist? Why does some history have to be suppressed in favor of other pieces of history?
And before some of you jump all over me for daring to have an opinion on this, my thought process is simple: if we deny or repress history (which is not always pretty), we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
And to remove William Penn when he had historically good relationships with Native Americans makes no sense. To me it runs contrary to the history of William Penn completely. If he could co-exist peacefully with Native Americans hundreds of years ago why does he have to not as a part of history not be able to co-exist with Native American history on this historic site?
History is good, history is bad, history is history. We can’t just keep replacing history. It all needs to be there for us. It’s how we grow as human beings and Americans. Oh and I am saying this as a woman, a Democrat, a Pennsylvanian, a Philadelphian.
By Stephen M. Lepore For Dailymail.Com00:11 08 Jan 2024, updated 00:44 08 Jan 2024
The Biden administration’s National Park Service is starting a ‘rehabilitation’ process for a Pennsylvania park that incudes the removal of a statue of founder William Penn and inclusion of representation of Native American tribes.
The Deb Haaland-led parks service sent out the request for input on the changes to Welcome Park Friday on their website and in a post on X.
Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania in 1681, was notorious for his amicable relations with the Native tribes of the region. The park was established 300 years later.
The park itself is named after the ship Penn sailed to America and includes a museum dedicated to celebrating the life and contributions of William Penn.
However, the parks service says it wants to ‘provide a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience for visitors.’
The National Park Service (NPS) has announced it will be rehabilitating (via reduction) Pennsylvania founder William Penn’s Welcome Park to “provide a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience.” Named after the ship that bore Penn to that city of fraternal affection, the park is the site of his former Philadelphia home and the Slate Roof House. As part of this reimagining of Welcome Park, the park service has confirmed that “the Penn statue and Slate Roof house model will be removed and not installed.”
Needless to say, this is all very stupid.
Two things:
One, it’s true that Welcome Park is monumentally ugly — if no one said it, I will. It’s a slab of stonework (composing a street plan for Philadelphia) with the approximate footprint of a Division III high-school gymnasium in the middle of a city block. The spot could use a rethink to maximize the importance of a location that held the Slate Roof House, an abode in which the Quaker William Penn wrote his charter, a document that would see many of its tenets replicated in the U.S. Constitution. The location also hosted members of the Continental Congress, including John Hancock and John Adams.
Two, just because something might be in need of reinterpretation does not mean that progressive revisionists get carte blanche to “inclusify” benches and fire hydrants with Howard Zinnian signage while deleting the only two items of note — the Penn statue and the model house. Why not rebuild the Slate Roof House and keep the statue in its front entry? Or make a model ship and house, something interactive for kids to mess while maybe even learning something?
Things that drive me crazy includes when incorrect dates are attributed to old houses. The City of Philadelphia in particular is the WORST. THE WORST.
Take for example, the house that counts as my birthplace in Philadelphia. The City of Philadelphia has it listed as being built in 1860. It is a historic property that their own redevelopment authority dated to 1811! I have the sign when it was built in 1811 and for whom that hung on the house before my parents purchased it ! And a former Mayor of Philadelphia and Congressman J. Hampton Moore lived there. Documentable history.
Or my grandparents old house in North Philadelphia where my father was born. They give the rowhouse a date of being built in 1940. My father was born in 1935. There. Was daddy living in the wild, Philadelphia?
What started me on this today? One of my friends and I realized that one of her grandmother was born a few blocks from the house my great aunts and great uncle lived in at 1128 Ritner Street in South Philadelphia. The City of Philadelphia lists the house as being built in 1940. Again, one issue: photos of my father as an infant out front with my grandfather, grandmother, great aunts, and great grandmother…..in 1935.
So then I went digging around. Found instances of when this house was for rent, for sale, needed domestic help in the early 20th century. 1897, 1908, 1912, 1919. So there goes that idea of 1940 Philadelphia.
This of course led me to all sorts of other notices. For my family. When my Great Aunt Rose and Uncle Carl got their marriage license. Death notices, executor and executrix notices. And one freaking amazing find I had never seen before: when my father’s maternal grandfather, Francesco Antonio Luca, my great grandfather became a naturalized U.S. Citizen. That gave me chills.
Of course this led me to sad records, including when my Aunt Josie’s house, now sold a few times since it was sold when she had to go into a nursing home with Alzheimer’s, went into a foreclosure in 2021. I feel sorry for whomever that was and I am guessing they may have been in part responsible for the bastardization of the inside of the house.
It also led me to photos of a more recent Realtor type vintage. I have so few photos of the inside of that house, and none are scanned. And I couldn’t find them when I was starting to write this post. Inside when I was little was an old fireplace with Mercer tiles around it and a white mantle. There was a vestibule, which meant you came inside the front door and there was a little area with tiles that you could drop wet shoes, an umbrella, etc. There was also a door that then led you inside the house. My great aunts had an ancient player piano. That was left when the house was sold while Aunt Josie was alive. I actually found a photo of it but it had been moved to near the front window when it was always in between the living room and dining room when I was growing up. At some point the living room and dining room were bastardized in the 2000s and no more fireplace or vestibule or curved arch kind of entry to dining room. Oh and there is a “roof terrace” (not finished) which trust me never excisted.
I have a lot of very specific memories of the house on Ritner Street because we spent a lot of time there. I have written about that before. When you walked inside the front doors, there was a vestibule with an additional door and transom window. The vestibule had tile as flooring. Not sure it was marble, but might have been. The fireplace was closed off and completely decorative by the time I was a child and I think hid pipes or something. But when it was for sale a few years ago, the beautiful mantle and Mercer tile surround and hearth was just gone and those floors were not the original hardwoods. And I am not sure where the front window came from because it was different from when I was little and even different from when my father was growing up.
And I am not sure when the house got so unattractive with the façade because originally it was brick and other stone. I remember the steps were blue-grey marble or granite originally and then at some point before I was born a home “improvement” contractor working the neighborhood convinced the residents of 1128 Ritner that the steps HAD to change. I imagine he probably re-sold the original slabs of stone and the way the steps were situated also changed.
Being so annoyed that the City of Philadelphia didn’t even have the right year the house was built also sent me to the census records for the Lucas. Why that was cool is I saw all the places they lived after emigrating. They came in through Alabama and PJ, my Uncle Pat (Pasquale) and Aunt Millie were born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. The others were born in Philadelphia. I found the houses prior to moving to Ritner Street – 966 Kimball and 1614 Iseminger.
I will remember Ritner street the way it was when I was growing up. I am sorry the interior details that were so pretty have been lost over time. Especially those Mercer tiles in the hearth and fireplace surround.
Except for their earliest residences, these immigrants I descend from owned their homes. And if you read the census data, there was only a limited education until my father’s generation. These people worked hard. These people are my people. When so many run from what they are from, I celebrate it.
I miss my old people of my growing up years. I miss that house. No one besides me probably cares that the year it was built is wrong, or the house I was born into is listed with the wrong building year. But details matter. Or they should. But it’s the City of Philadelphia which has seemingly stopped caring about pretty much everything.
