South Philadelphia : In The News

Rock music idol maker Bob Marcucci, who created the careers of Frankie Avalon and Fabian, has died at age 81, according to the New York Times.

Bob Marcucci, who discovered Frankie Avalon and Fabian and helped make them two of the biggest rock 'n' roll stars of the late 1950s and early 1960s and whose career inspired the 1980 film "The Idolmaker," died on March 9 in Ontario, Calif. He was 81 and lived in Los Angeles.

Mr. Marcucci was a lyricist and co-owner of Chancellor Records, a Philadelphia label hungry for a hit, when he first laid eyes on Frankie Avalon in 1957.

Source: The New York Times
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Aker Philadelphia Shipyard improves work safety and saves millions through data tracking practices, according to Industry Week.

When it takes 10,000 labor tasks and 1.2 million labor hours to build one product, tracking costs is quite a task. Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, a leading U.S. commercial shipyard constructing vessels for customers including the U.S. Navy, employs 700 full-time and 500 contractors to build 2.8 ships per year. Managing such a large workforce requires complex tracking system.

Michel Boeckx, Chief Technology Officer at Aker Philadelphia Shipyard, deftly used safety data he collected, via software company Kronos, in order to improve work practices. The company saw 41% fewer eye incidents over a year. These collective improvements enabled the company to reduce medical insurance by two million dollars.

Source: Industry Week
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The Washington Post goes hunting for the best of Philly's abundant crop of vegan treats.

So one Saturday last month, my vegan friends and I hit the streets of Philadelphia - where the Phillies claim the country's top-ranked vegetarian ballpark - intending to do no harm to animals, the environment and presumably our health. (At our first stop, Cafe Mocha, we did, however, sample vegan donuts and cookies, and a quick sugar high reminded me that "vegan" doesn't always equal "nutritious.")

We headed to the South Street district for lunch at Blackbird, a vegan pizzeria with a chalkboard menu, a drab interior and space heaters. Blackbird's owner, Mark Mebus, is a Philly native and former chef at Horizons, the upscale restaurant that put vegan dining on the map here. He opened the pizzeria last fall.

Source: Washington Post
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Rick Ross Signs Philly rapper Meek Mill to Maybach Music Group, reports HipHopWired.

"The Bawse" Rick Ross has announced Philadelphia's own Meek Mill as his latest signee.

The young spitter states, "coming from the bottom, 2 years ago I was in my [expletive] cell hoping I wouldn't get 20 years... now I get out and take it to the next level"

Meek became one of Philadelphia's hottest underground rap artists on an independent label in 2007.

Repping North and South Philly, he released his Flamerz mixtape series and the single, "In My Bag," broke through to radio in his hometown.

Original source: HipHopWired
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While developers don't appear willing to put all their chips on a plan that would save the historic S.S. United States by making it a casino along the Delaware River, the ship's rehabilitation continues to garner attention, reports The New York Times.

A group that has been raising money to restore the 58-year-old ship had considered moving it from Philadelphia to Manhattan and converting it into a hotel and tourist attraction. But on Monday, the group proposed making the ship part of a plan to open a casino complex along the Delaware River.

The first casino in Philadelphia opened in September, but no progress has been made on a waterfront site where another casino was supposed to be developed. The ship, affectionately known as the "Big U," has been tied to a pier near that site for years, while the members of the S.S. United States Conservancy sought a way to pay for its rehabilitation.

The ship, which at 990 feet is longer than the Titanic was, made 400 ocean crossings before it was retired. It was saved from the scrapyard this year when a Philadelphia philanthropist, Gerry Lenfest, donated $5.8 million. The conservancy used that money to buy the ship from Norwegian Cruise Lines, which had decided to sell it for scrap, and to keep it afloat long enough to devise a big idea for reviving the Big U.

Original source: The New York Times
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It's a little bit cool, a little bit weird, but the varied polling places of Greater Philadelphia inspired photographer Ryan Donnell to create Behind the Curtain: The Philadelphia Polling Project, reports Wired.

The idea to record these unusual polling stations cropped up in 2006 in conversations between Donnell and his wife, who is the City Hall Reporter for the Philadelphia Daily News. They put the idea on ice for a couple of years while Donnell was getting out of the freelance game and building a commercial editorial photography business. When 2008 came around with its momentous sense of history, Donnell knew it was the right time.

"The Philadelphia Elections Board actually posts a list of all the polling stations and every place has a small description next to the address, such as 'Residence' or 'Storefront' or 'Water Department Laboratory,' says Donnell. "So I made a list of the weirdest sounding places, packed-up my Hassy, tripod and film in my car and basically just drove all over the city of Philadelphia for about 10 hours on Election Day. I've done that every election since November 2008."

Original source: Wired
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South Philly bred Noah Beresin and Chidera Anamege, who met as Drexel University freshmen last year, get solid grades on their latest EP The Preview from HipHopDX.

Like many cross-genre duos, pinpointing your sound can be a daunting task, one that DXnext alumni Chiddy Bang seemed quite capable of pinning. When producer Noah "Xaphoon Jones" Beresin and rapper Chidera "Chiddy" Anemage joined forces at Drexel University and recorded their first mixtape The Swelly Express at school, it was a mishmash of sounds that somehow collectively fit. Rarely can anyone take MGMT and Tom Waits samples and still call it "Hip Hop" and mean it, but they did. After the mixtape sparked 100,000 in downloads and the group inked a world record deal with EMI, their recording budget clearly went up, but sadly their uniqueness went down. The Preview, an eight-track EP reflects the transition from using pots and pans to drum samples, pulling the raw talent that these two offered just a year ago.

That isn't to say this short EP is bad. It's actually quite good, with the introductory "The Good Life" serving as an excellent entrance into the project. Pharrell co-produced it with signature Neptunes swooshes and synths that fit the band so well that they could join the ranks of Star Trak (then again if they did that their album would never drop).

Original source: HipHopDX
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Philly theater guru Thaddeus Phillips brings Nikola Tesla to life in one-man show called Capsule 33, meant to spark ideas about sustainability, reports The (Colorado Springs) Gazette.

Few performers on the international theater circuit light up with the kind of alternative current that Phillips does. The '94 Colorado College graduate approaches each theatrical challenge like an off-center inventor.

Take "Capsule 33," a one-man show (created with his wife, Tatiana Mallarino) about a Serbian astrophysicist who becomes the last holdout in an odd Tokyo tower targeted for demolition. The play is about sustainability and the things, people and ideas we throw away.

"The whole show's sustainable," Phillips, 38, says with a mad glint in his eye, stalking around his set wearing a towel, a pipe wedged in his mouth. "We don't plug into the power grid at all. Everything is powered on those two little generators."

Original source: The (Colorado Springs) Gazette
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Philadelphia-based rapper/producer Dice Raw, a member of The Roots, has launched a new music company called R&S Music Group, reports All Hip Hop.

"We are all about the preservation of good music and culture while also trying to be innovative with technology and the web," Dice Raw told AllHipHop.com. "We want to open the doors to up and coming artists and provide a credible platform of digital distribution without them having to sell their life to a record company."

R&S is currently working with local producers Khari Mateen and Rick Friedrich, who have produced tracks for a variety of local artists, including The Roots and Jill Scott.

Dice Raw will be performing new material next weekend near the campus of the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, when he hits the Mojo On Main for an exclusive performance on Thursday (October 28th).

Original source: All Hip Hop
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Nurses at Thomas Jefferson University hospitals in Philadelphia will be able to solve practice problems, promote quality improvement and conduct research projects through a new evidence-based practice model, reports Nurse.com.

Jefferson's Evidence-Based Practice and Research Staff Nurse Leadership Committee is overseeing the model's implementation.

"By using evidence-based practice, staff nurses can develop important skills to design and implement clinical projects that improve nurse-sensitive and patient outcome indicators," Meg Bourbonniere, RN, PhD, Jefferson's vice president for nursing research, said in a news release.

Original source: Nurse.com
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The travel section at Ireland's Herald.ie is high on Philadelphia for a variety of reasons, imploring the Irish to visit for our safe downtown, good eats and arts and culture.

It's puzzling why Philly isn't on most Irish people's radar. It's more historic than Boston, as Irish as Chicago, 30pc cheaper to live in than New York and has a food culture to match San Francisco.

The city centre proper, (known as Center City) is thriving, unlike many US urban areas. Sections of 15th Street are hubs of restaurants and nightlife, while the area's aptly titled Avenue of the Arts is the local equivalent of London's West End or New York's Broadway theatre districts. The best bit? It feels perfectly safe to walk around, by day or night (don't try this at home, kids).

Original source: Herald.ie
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A new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts indicates an encouraging trend of more people moving into Philadelphia since 1993, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer.

According to the Pew report, the number of people moving into the city has increased steadily, up from 31,837 in 1993 to 42,250 in 2008.

Overall, the number of people moving out of the city is growing less rapidly, increasing slightly from 47,291 in 1993 to 52,096 in 2008.

"I would say the trend is looking as if we may be seeing a reversal of long-term decline in city population," said David Elesh, sociologist and demography expert with the Metropolitan Philadelphia Indicators Project at Temple University.

Original source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch travel section mentions booing Santa Claus but quickly moves on, digging deeper than most national media last week to reveal the insider's view of Philadelphia.

Once you get beyond the fighting fa�ade, Philadelphia is a city of tiny secret gardens, a diverse art and theater scene, a crazy diverse food/pub scene and a thousand walkable historical monuments and museums. Also, it's cheap as can be. You've got to work to spend $15 on a martini.

I moved here six years ago from St. Louis. The things I loved about St. Louis are the same things I love about Philadelphia--people are friendly, the streets have the same names (you copycats!) and there's no need to go to any chain restaurant ever.

Original source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Wildly successful entrepreneur Jassi Chadha has brought his expertise to TiE-NJ/Philadelphia, a newer chapter of the global entrepreneurship organization, reports SiliconIndia.

TiE NJ-Philly is an offshoot of TiE Tristate. New Jersey and Philadephia had quite a lot of entrepreneurs who would often find it difficult to make it to New York for various events of the Tristate. Hence the need for a chapter in this geographic area became a necessity. Today under the leadership of Chadha, the TiE-NJ-Philly Chapter is helping the budding entrepreneurs in this geography to realize their goals and dreams by conducting various events, providing mentoring, and networking opportunities.

"There are aspects of entrepreneurship like optimism, excitement, energy, and a sense of adventure that is inspiring to read and get excited. It also drives people to do more and pursue big dreams. However, the path of entrepreneurship is often lonely, hard, and the journey hectic with challenges of different sorts. That's why entrepreneurs need to be supported and find the right support in programs that TiE offers," says Chadha.

Original source: SiliconIndia.
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Members of the Norfolk Arts Commission visited Philadelphia last week to get a close-up look at some of the thousands of works of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Programs, reports The Hour.

"I was blown away by how these community murals in Philadelphia brightened the neighborhoods. It's inspiring to hear the stories of how these murals got made, and how it brought the community together," Becker said. "This is how to revitalize neighborhoods and instill a sense of pride, something I see Norwalk needs help with."

Launched in 1984 to combat graffiti, the city of Philadelphia Mural Arts Programs now bills itself as the largest public art program in the United States.

Original source: The Hour
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