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Bill McKinneyMay 2, 2021
Kensington residents protested the closure of SEPTA’s Somerset Station by marching down Kensington Avenue on March 23, 2021. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
I began writing about the Kensington neighborhood where I live and work a few weeks ago in response to the sudden closing of the SEPTA station at Somerset. The abrupt service disruption brought to the surface many issues my community has dealt with for years and in the weeks since, I have watched the news tick on.
This week yielded an announcement of grant funds designed to help the community build “resilience” and improve quality of life amid a crushing opioid epidemic. Before that: news of a remade Opioid Response Unit out of City Hall, an update to a 2019 city “roadmap to safer communities” and from the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania: All Hands On Deck a new strategy for Philadelphia to reduce violence with a goal of putting the most violent criminals beh
Truck in high-femme drag brings performances to Philly neighborhoods
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Performer Virgil Gadson rehearsed with the Bearded Ladies Cabaret on April 28, 2021. Gadson is one of the featured performers for the first show performed with the Beardmobile, a mobile stage. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
John Jarboe tends toward the prurient when talking about trucks. The founder and artistic director of the Bearded Ladies Cabaret, a drag-oriented performance company, recently bought a 2006 Isuzu NPR box truck. At 15 years old, it’s a bit worse for wear. Now its grill is painted with thick red lips, the fenders are marked with red beard stubble, and pink eyelashes are fastened to the headlights.
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The Rothman Orthopaedics Roller Rink at Dilworth Park welcomed its first skaters on April 30, 2021. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
Philly’s got a new roller skating spot.
Center City District, Friday, opened Rothman Orthopaedics Roller Rink at Dilworth Park on the west side of City Hall.
The rink sports a retro-inspired design with a checkerboard floor and market lights, a colorful installation of overhead hula-hoops designed and fabricated by Philadelphia’s Lucky Dog Studio. It will stay open through June 27.
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The rink offers hour-long sessions to the public Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. and on Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 11:15 p.m. There will be 15-minute buffers between each session.
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The 1500 block of Sansom Street in Center City Philadelphia is closed for outdoor dining. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
During the day, the 1500 block of Sansom looks like an outdoor festival frozen midway through setup popup tents and police-style barricades are mixed in with wooden sheds custom built for outdoor dining.
By night, it’s one of Philadelphia’s biggest successes in an experiment with converting conventional city blocks into “streeteries,” or outdoor dining areas burnished by the closure of parking or traffic lanes. The experiment has attracted throngs of diners and bargoers and sustained restaurants and bars hit by the pandemic.
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Pam Africa described police abuse her family experienced at a protest outside the Penn Museum on April 28, 2021, over the museum’s mistreatment of the remains of children Tree and Delisha Africa who were killed when Philadelphia police dropped explosives on MOVE s headquarters in 1985. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
More than 100 people rallied Wednesday evening in front of Penn Museum to call on the University of Pennsylvania to immediately return remains belonging to children who died in the 1985 MOVE bombing.
“They’ve been doing this to our Black bodies for hundreds of years, in the name of science, in the name of study,” said YahNé Ndgo, striking a chord with the crowd. “We are not subjects of study, we are human beings!”