Just Listed: Renovated Rowhouse in Grad Hospital

house for sale grad hospital renovated rowhouse front entrance

The 2100 block of Christian Street may have an eclectic mix of rowhouses, but this one at 2137 Christian St., Philadelphia, PA 19146 is a traditional classic. Until you step inside, that is. / Photos by Colin Burkhardt, CDB Photography, via Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty and *Bright MLS

Philadelphia has loads of rowhouses that date back a century or more. In many neighborhoods, the rows of uniform facades form pleasing streetscapes.

But what lies behind those facades might fool the random observer.

Take this Grad Hospital renovated rowhouse for sale, for instance. As you can see above, this vintage 1915 rowhouse fits right in with its neighbors on Christian Street.

But walk through its front door and suddenly you’ve entered the here and now.

This too is a fairly common occurrence. But the quality of the transformations varies. This is among the better ones.

house for sale grad hospital renovated rowhouse living room

Living room

For starters, its main floor offers the best feature of the open plan while avoiding its most objectionable one.

house for sale grad hospital renovated rowhouse dining room

Dining room

The living and dining rooms are joined together to form a single space …

house for sale grad hospital renovated rowhouse kitchen

Kitchen

… but you have to pass through a door to enter the separate kitchen, which boasts custom European cabinetry. Those who like to entertain their guests with a kitchen show will probably want to pass on this place, but if you’re the type who doesn’t want to smell food cooking while relaxing in the living room, this is the house you’ve been looking for.

rear patio

Rear patio

A super-spacious landscaped rear patio sits behind the main floor. It’s all set up for both entertaining and relaxation.

You may have also noted that the stairs don’t float or do any of those other modern tricks. In that sense, this renovation maintains ties to the past yet remains thoroughly modern.

bedroom

Bedroom

The second floor contains a front bedroom that gets plenty of natural light through south-facing windows.

bedroom/home office

*Bedroom/home office

It also has a smaller bedroom that could serve as a home office, as here, or as a nursery. You’ll also find a full bathroom on this floor.

primary bedroom

Primary bedroom

The top floor is given over to the primary bedroom suite. It contains a large south-facing bedroom with an equally large walk-in closet.

primary bathroom

Primary bathroom

Its spa-like bath contains dual vanities, a frameless glass shower stall and custom tilework.

roof deck

*Primary suite roof deck

Just off the bathroom, through sliding doors at the top of the stairs, sits this private outdoor roof deck. Imagine starting your mornings and ending your evenings here.

basement media room

*Basement media room

basement media room

*Basement media room

And under all this you’ll find a finished basement that makes a great media room. It also has a powder room and a wet bar with a beverage fridge.

This Grad Hospital renovated rowhouse for sale also comes with a convenient location. The South Street restaurant row, Julian Abele Park, Marian Anderson Recreation Center, and Washington Avenue all lie within easy walking distance, and you can stroll a little further to reach University City, Rittenhouse Square or the Avenue of the Arts — or you can take one of three nearby SEPTA bus routes.

They didn’t live like this in 1915, but I’ll wager that they would have if they could have.

THE FINE PRINT

BEDS: 3

BATHS: 2 full, 1 half

SQUARE FEET: 1,344

SALE PRICE: $750,000

2137 Christian St., Philadelphia, PA 19146 [Michael Kelczewski | Kurfiss Sotheby’s International Realty]

 

Our Guide to the Can’t-Miss Phillies Home Games This Season

phillies 2024 season citizens bank park

The Phillies play their 20th season at Citizens Bank Park in 2024. / Photograph by Laura Swartz

Editor’s note: The Phillies home opener has been postponed to Friday, March 29th at 3:05 p.m. due to rain. We have updated this article to reflect this.

It’s been a long, cold off-season, but the boys are back in town. The Phillies start their 2024 season at home this week, and it’s looking to be a special season, from a series across the pond to lots of nostalgia celebrating 20 years at Citizens Bank Park.

They’ve also got some new ballpark eats, which is almost enough to cushion the blow of them ending Dollar Dog Night. It’s always a good time to go to the ballpark, but it’s even better if you get a free hat or some pomp and circumstance out of it. So here are some key dates to put on your calendar for the season.

Opening Day

March 29th

The Phillies open their season at home versus Atlanta on March 29th — postponed from Thursday due to rain. Head to Citizens Bank Park for the excitement, vengeance against the Braves, and maybe a run-in with the Phanatic. Even if you can’t get tickets to the game, head to CBP earlier in the day because they’re throwing a block party outside the Third Base Gate — the Budweiser Clydesdales are coming!

Citizens Bank Park’s 20th Anniversary

April 12th

Throughout the season, the Phillies will be celebrating the 20th anniversary of their current ballpark (R.I.P. the Vet). There will be PhanaVision videos reliving big moments, alumni appearances, and special merch commemorating famous milestones. The first tribute will be exactly 20 years after the inaugural game at Citizens Bank Park, on April 12th. That game’s starting pitcher, Randy Wolf, will return to throw out the ceremonial first pitch.

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The Phillie Phanatic’s birthday cake at Citizens Bank Park / Photograph by Hunter Martin/Getty Images

The Phanatic’s Birthday

April 21st

The Phanatic has a pre-game birthday party every year, with mascot friends in attendance, an elaborate cake, and general whimsy. Also, kids age 14 and under will get cute Phanatic mittens and I am very jealous.

Kids’ Giveaway: London Bus

June 1st

To celebrate the Phillies playing overseas this year, kids 14 and under get a cute double-decker bus the week before the London series. Also, the Phillies play the Cardinals.

phillies london 2024

Kids get this cute Phillies double-decker bus to celebrate the London 2024 series. / Photograph by Laura Swartz

London Series!

June 8th & 9th

You know what? Just go to London. It’s a great excuse, it’s summer, and it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to boo the Mets on a different continent. This is the Phillies’ first international series — MLB started doing London games in 2019. For the rest of us staying home, the games will air at 1:10 p.m. and 10:10 a.m. Philly time.

Shohei Ohtani Comes to Town

July 9th-11th

The biggest superstar of baseball right now — and holder of the largest contract in sports history at $700 million — is coming to town for just one series this season. So, if you want to see Showtime himself, get tickets for their July 9th through 11th series. (They also play the Dodgers on the road later in the season, but this is a lot closer.)

phillies phanatic ohtani

The Phanatic and Shohei Ohtani / Photograph by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images

Cole Hamels Retirement Night

June 21st

Beloved pitcher and World Series champion Cole Hamels is hanging it up, retiring in the red pinstripes he wore for a decade. He’ll be on the field for a celebration of his illustrious career. Fans 15 and over will get replica 2009 NLCS championship rings — which is bizarre since Hamels didn’t have the best showing in that post-season and was the MVP for both the 2008 NLCS and World Series. Also, the Phillies play the Diamondbacks.

Fireworks Games

June 27th & 28th

These games start a little earlier — 6:20 p.m. — so that Citizens Bank Park can get the fireworks in before all the kids fall asleep. The Phillies play the Marlins.

Harry Potter Night

August 13th

The Phils take on the Marlins, and special ticketholders get a Phillies Harry Potter house scarf. If I had to guess, the Phanatic is Hufflepuff. Costumes are welcome, even though you will be watching baseball instead of quidditch.

phillies 2024 phanatic games star wars

Phillies Star Wars Night returns August 26, 2024. / Photograph courtesy of the Phillies

Star Wars Night

August 26th

Always a popular one, the Phillies bring back Star Wars Night for the 10th year running. The Phanatic will bring out costumed characters while the Phillies take on the Dark Side, a.k.a. the Astros. (We’re still not over the 2022 World Series.)  A special ticket gets you an exclusive Ranger Suárez Mandalorian bobblehead.

Pickleball Night

September 9th

The first 1,000 fans that purchase special $70 tickets to this game will get a Phanatic paddle and Phillies paddle cover. Imagine rolling up to the court with that! Oh, and the Phillies play the Rays. In baseball, not pickleball.

phillies pickleball paddle 2024

Snag this Phillies pickleball paddle and case! / Photograph courtesy of the Phillies

More Fun and Games

Concerts

Tickets for two games this season double as post-game concert tickets:

  • Riley Green, June 22nd
  • Kaskade, July 27th

Also, Jimmy Buffett tribute band Jimmy and the Parrots perform a pre-game concert in Ashburn Alley on July 9th for Margaritaville Night, but sadly the 2,000 special-edition Phillies Hawaiian shirts they were selling for the event are already spoken for.

Giveaways

I’m not gonna go into detail about all the remaining giveaways, but I just want to point out this insane Phillies Bullpen Cart that’s being handed to kids 14 and under who are too young to appreciate it on 1980s Retro Night (July 11th).

Retro bullpen car giveaway / Photograph by Laura Swartz

And if you’ve been spending all season jealously watching your kids get spoiled by Phillies giveaways, your time has come! For Mother’s Day (or rather, “Mother’s Appreciation Day presented by Pep Boys”), women ages 15 and over get a free pink Phillies bucket hat. Father’s Day (this one’s sponsored/appreciated by Chevy) earns men ages 15 and over a free hat on June 23rd.

phillies 2024

2024 Phillies giveaways on display for media before the season. / Photograph by Laura Swartz

Heritage Celebrations

  • April 11th: Asian Pacific Heritage Celebration
  • May 21st: Greek Heritage Celebration
  • May 31st: Irish Heritage Celebration
  • June 17th: Pride Night
  • June 18th: Jewish Heritage Celebration
  • June 19th: HBCU Day
  • August 14th: Italian Heritage Celebration
  • August 27th: Goya Latino Family Celebration
  • August 29th: German Heritage Celebration

Neighbors Sue to Halt Massive FDR Park Renovation

fdr park

Haason Reddick fans are having a blast in this detail from the FDR Park renovation plan. / Image via myphillypark.org

Check phillymag.com each morning Monday through Thursday for the latest edition of Philly Today. And if you have a news tip for our hardworking Philly Mag reporters, please direct it here. You can also use that form to send us reader mail. We love reader mail!

Neighbors Sue to Halt Massive FDR Park Renovation

Can 11 South Philadelphians halt FDR Park’s $250 million renovation project? Maybe. According to a report by Ximena Conde in the Inquirer, a group is suing to pull the brakes on the project, which is already underway, arguing that it needs the approval of both City Council and Orphans’ Court (which is not a powerful judicial body composed entirely of Dickensian waifs, sadly).

The suit, filed on Monday, further argues that the plan (which you can read about here) endangers the park’s wetlands and natural beauty. To quote:

“Defendants are preliminarily enjoined from using taxpayer monies or any other government resources to end or terminate or radically change the purpose of FDR Park and in destroying meadows, wetlands and watersheds and replacing with 30-40 acres of artificial turf, unless and until the Defendants have proven their case in Orphans’ Court and an Orphans’ Court Order is issued to the contrary.”

One reason the suit could be successful: The group’s lawyer has been through this before. Samuel Stretton — whose web site rivals Jukt Micronics in its elegant simplicity — has previously won cases defending the Northeast’s Burholme Park (in 2009) and Downington’s Kardon Park (in 2017) from development.

By the Numbers

20: How many seals have been rescued down the shore since “seal season” started in December.

2-3-3: The Flyers’ record through the seven-game “gauntlet” against really good teams. (This hockey fun fact is dedicated to Sandy, whose sports roundup you’ll find if you keep scrolling.)

62: How many local Family Dollar employees will be laid off soon due to company-wide restructuring that calls for the closing of six stores in the city.

100 to 200: Number of “unruly juveniles” the police say were throwing rocks and bricks at Temple University cops last night. Three arrests were made and no police officers were injured, which makes me think maybe the number of actual brick throwers has been overstated.

1980: The year the article below appeared in the Baltimore Sun. (We usually keep Philly Today local, but I found this while flipping through the newspapers.com archives and felt like sharing.)

“Direct hit would topple Md. spans, official says.” Baltimore Sun, May 10, 1980

$5,000: How much the Rhode Island Ethics Commission has fined former state property director David Patten following his now-infamous trip to Philadelphia in 2023, during which he allegedly demanded vegan delicacies, made sexist and racist remarks, and used his position for personal gain.

24,000: Number of meals the the American Atheists — who are in town for a convention — say they’ll be handing out to local people in need this Easter. Bless them.

$9.25 million: How much the city will have to pay to settle with the protestors who were tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed and shot with rubber bullets in 2020 during a peaceful demonstration following the murder of George Floyd.

Local Talent

Former and therefore forever Philadelphian Katie Crutchfield and her band Waxahatchee appeared on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert last night. With vocal/guitar support from MJ Lenderman, the band played “Right Back to It” from their sixth record Tigers Blood, released last Friday.

 

And From the Hi-Atus Sports Desk …

Nothin’. I got nothin’ for ya. What can I say? We’re in a lull. The Sixers play the Clippers at 7:30 tonight, though, back home from their not-so-hot road trip out West. L.A. was the only team we beat while we were out there.

Well, Did the Phillies Play?

Nope — but it’s Opening Day tomorrow, and they’ll face the Braves at CBP at 3:05, weather, uh, permitting. It looks kind of iffy, frankly. But hey, yesterday was the late, great Harry Kalas’s birthday.

The Flyers played, but only Patrick cares.

This South Philly Sports Apparel Brand Is a Home Run With Fans

Blessed in Distress philly sports clothes phillies

Blessed in Distress founder Jennifer Basile / Photography by Julia Lehman

I make: Custom Philly sports-inspired sweatshirts. All items are made to order — spray-dyed and solid, cropped and full-length, hoodies­ and quarter-zips. I design clothes for babies through adult 5XL.

It all began: When the pandemic hit. My job as a sixth-grade teacher transitioned to virtual learning, so I had extra time — even though my son was about four or five months old. I started out dyeing and distressing­ graphic t-shirts. Then a good friend was like, “You live in South Philly; you should start doing the Philly sports.” And that took off, so I’ve stuck with it.

Blessed in Distressed Phillies sports clothing

Jennifer Basile works on her Cricut machine to make a Blessed in Distressed Phillies-inspired shirt.

Every piece is hand-dyed: I scrunch up the sweatshirt, spray it with fabric dye, flip it over, and spray it again. Then I put it through my washing machine at home to fade the color. Once that’s done, I fray the bottom or do some distressing­ with scissors on the front. I work with graphic designers to bring my ideas to life. Graphics are heat-pressed, or I print them on my Cricut. My turnaround time for orders is typically two weeks.

My most popular style is: The “Dancing On My Own” design inspired by the Phillies’ playoff runs. I can see Citizens Bank Park from my classroom window.

Blessed in Distress philly sports clothes phillies

Phillies-inspired graphics by Blessed in Distress

I’m inspired by: Philly sports fans. They’re the most passionate that exist, I swear. I don’t realize how much of these products I’m making,­ and then to see them out — it’s mind-blowing. I once got messages from two different people at a bar in Kansas City, when the Eagles were playing, and they were like, “We recognized­ each other’s merchandise because we both knew it was from you.” They got a picture together and sent it to me. It’s the coolest thing.

Published as “Team Player” in the April 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

All the Details on Mulherin’s New Pizza Project in Midtown Village

A rendering of Mulherin’s Pizzeria / Image provided by Method Co.

Howdy, buckaroos! And welcome back to the Foobooz food news round-up. I know it’s sunny outside, and starting to feel more like spring, so let me just get you caught up on a few quick bits of news from the industry and then we can all get back to our weeks. This time around, let’s kick things off with an update on the new Mulherin’s project.

Pizza, Pasta and Soft-Serve At The New Mulherin’s in Midtown Village

Mulherin’s Pizzeria — that’s the official new name. And when I first told y’all about it a couple weeks back, I knew exactly three things about it. First, that it was going to be called just “Mulherin’s” (which turned out to be wrong). Second, that it was going into the ground floor of the Girard at 1175 Ludlow Street in Midtown Village (still true). And third, that it was looking to open in early April. So just a few short weeks away.

Chef Sean McPaul will be running the joint. He has a pretty solid resume, with turns through the kitchens at Parc, Talula’s Garden and elsewhere, and according to those who know, he’ll be “Tak[ing] cues from Wm. Mulherin’s Sons original concept while placing a greater focus on the pizza program.” Hence the name, I guess. Because it would be weird if they called the place Mulherin’s Pizzeria and served nothing but sushi and cotton candy.

Pizza, handmade pastas and “vegetable-forward small plates” are the new marching orders. There’ll be house-made soft-serve for dessert, a craft cocktail menu, and Italian wines. McPaul and his crew will be knocking out new pizza inventions like the “Scarlet O’Hara” with marinara, n’duja, bagna cauda and lemon, alongside OG Mulherin’s favorites like the “Spicy Jawn” — which, back in the day anyway, was a great pie with a shocking heat and excellent, blistered crust from a big, wood-fired oven.

McPaul will have his own wood oven to play with — visible from the open kitchen. There’ll be tile floors, saddle leather banquettes, and wood-beam ceilings inside, a covered, year-round courtyard for outdoor dining. And the kitchen will be doing an all-day menu once things get up and running — though I don’t know yet whether that means two meals, three, or three-plus-late-nights. It’s always hard to guess with a hotel restaurant (which this kinda is, with owner Method Co.’s Roost extended-stay concept sharing the same building), but I can tell you that they’ll be opening with an 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday schedule.

So mark it on your calendars, friends: Early April, Mulherin’s Pizzeria.

Now what else is in the news? Oh, right…

One Sure Sign of Spring

A lively evening at Bok Bar. / Photograph by Jennifer Strickland

In a list of iconic images of Philly, there are plenty that no one would argue with. The Love Park sculpture, the Art Museum steps, Boathouse Row, the Linc on game day. And while I would argue that in order to truly capture the soul of this city, you’d need a few less obvious inclusions (Friday evening in Chinatown, any Septa train on game day, Two Street after the Mummer’s Parade is over, there are others), one image that could absolutely be used to show the essence of Philly shaking off the cold and damp of winter would be a shot of a busy Saturday night on the rooftop patio at the Bok.

There’s just something about that view over South Philly, the energy of that space, everything. At certain moments, the line at John’s Roast Pork or the El rattling through Kensington might capture a side of Philly, good or bad, but to me, golden hour at the Bok has always felt like Philly at its best. Or anyway, its most wildly utopian.

All of which is a really long way of saying that, come April 11th, the rooftop bar will be re-opening for the season. And this year, they’ve got a BIG roster of seven different chefs and/or restaurants doing seven month-long Bok Bar residencies to feed all those people crowding the patio.

It’s a good list, kicking off with Darnel’s Cakes in April, then Jezabel’s in May, Puyero in June, pizza from Down North in July, Mexi-Korean fusion goodness from Korea Taqueria in August, Gabriella’s Vietnam in September, and finally, all the way from New Jersey, Sweet Amalia to wrap things up in October.

That, friends, is what is known as a winning lineup. All killer, no filler as my man Dave Herrera used to say. There is nothing on that list that isn’t exciting. And the Bok team are rounding all that out with a full schedule of dance classes, drag shows, rooftop yoga, a summer concert series, new art by local artists. Yeah, no one was sitting on their hands during the off-season. Kids and families are welcome any time before sunset on Friday and Saturday nights. Dogs are always welcome. Bok Bar will be open Wednesdays through Sundays, from April 11th all the way through to November 3rd. You can get specifics here (also good for booking a semi-private area if you’ve got a big party in tow), and make reservations for any of the upcoming events right here.

Speaking of Seasonal Openings…

Bok Bar isn’t the only spot in town taking advantage of the longer days and warmer temperatures. Last year, FCM Hospitality and Avram Hornik launched a brand-new pop-up concept called Walnut Garden — an “urban oasis and cocktail garden” built at 17th and Walnut over the wreck of a McDonald’s and a Vans shoe store that burned down during the George Floyd social justice protests.

Socio-political optics aside, FCM turned an 11,500-square-foot vacant spot into a green and beautiful place featuring benches, table seating, a playground for kids, soft-serve ice cream and, of course, a bar.

Two bars, actually, serving craft cocktails, beer and NA beverages to the crowds that flocked there. And this year, FCM is bringing it back again. Same spot, same concept, same beautiful landscaping, but with a few changes. Last year, they had an Asian street-food thing going in the kitchen. This year, it’s more party food — smoked potato salad, garlic soft pretzels with pimento cheese dip, burgers, fried cheese curds, smoked brisket cheesesteaks and a chorizo and kimchi beef hot dog. The bar has canned, draft and hand-made cocktails (including one featuring watermelon lollipop-flavored vodka, if you’re into that kind of thing), beer and wine. There’s a big tent for shade, TVs, an eclipse-watching party already planned for April 8th, and the big grand opening this year is April 4th — like literally just a week away.

Walnut Garden will be open 7 days a week, from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays, noon to 11 p.m. on the weekends, and noon to 10 p.m. on Sundays. And if you need additional information on any of this, you can check out the website right here for details on hours, menus, events and anything else you might need.

Now whose got room for some leftovers?

The Leftovers

Photo courtesy of The West Reading Craft Pretzel & Beer Fest

Last week, we spent a BUNCH of time talking about the new Chef Conference coming to Philly. It’s a large event — a magnet for some really big names in the industry, featuring a ton of panel discussions and collaboration dinners — and a super-big-deal for Philly. But it isn’t the only chef conference in town.

The original Philly Chef Conference was an event organized through the hospitality school at Drexel, and it was cool. It brought in some big guns from the national scene, but had a distinctly local flavor. And even though this shiny new conference is getting a lot of ink (largely because it’s happening in mid-April), the Drexel version is still happening as well.

It’s scheduled for October 13th and 14th at Drexel (as it always has been) and will feature a day of workshops, keynotes and a local producer reception, followed by a more hands-on day of demos, panel discussions, tastings and presentations. There’s a heavy educational component to Drexel’s conference — it acts as a way to introduce their students to a lot of big names in the industry — and also as an excuse for a lot of Philly’s chefs and producers to get together in the same place at the same time (something that just doesn’t happen that often).

With months yet before kickoff, the Philly Chef Conference doesn’t have a schedule or agenda — they’ll be announcing that this summer. But if you’re looking to stay up-to-date, keep an eye on the Philly Chef Conference website for updates. I know I will be.

And hey, here’s something else you’re going to have to wait for. It looks like the Southeast Asian Market at FDR Park needs to delay their opening. The original plan was to kick off the 2024 season on March 30th, but that’s not gonna happen. According to a statement, the Vendor’s Association of FDR Park said, “This year there are some requirements for the Market to proceed. That being said, the Vendors Association of FDR Park Board is diligently addressing these requirements in a timely manner so that the Market can open its doors as quickly as possible.”

There’s no hard opening date right now, but we’re likely talking weeks not days. The statement went on to say, “Everyone understands the necessity of these steps to lay a strong foundation for the Market’s future permanent home […]. We are confident that our SEA Market will be welcoming the community soon and we thank you for your patience as we navigate these challenges during this time.”

And finally this week, here’s something we do have a date for: The West Reading Craft Pretzel & Beer Fest. Normally, I wouldn’t be sharing news about something happening in Reading. That’s not really my beat. But this is pretzels and beer — two of the three sections of my own personal Food Pyramid, so I figured I’d pass along the information. The WRCP&B Fest is happening on Saturday, April 27th, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., on Penn Avenue in West Reading. You can get all the information you need right here.

Philadelphia Had More Exonerations Last Year Than 46 States

Larry Krasner

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose Conviction Integrity Unit is partly responsible for the city’s high exoneration rate. / Image courtesy of 6 ABC

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Philly Near Tops in The U.S. in Exonerations

Every year, the National Registry of Exonerations puts out an annual report, an eye-popping document dedicated to the methodical, statistical accounting of just how badly we’ve destroyed many, many people’s lives with wrongful convictions.

This year’s report (which chronicles the exonerations of 2023) was especially interesting to read, as it lays out in plain English just how many of the year’s 153 exonerations nationwide came from our fair burg of Philadelphia. Of the 16 exonerations in Pennsylvania this past year, 15 were from Philadelphia. That’s more exonerations than 46 states. Only one jurisdiction — Cook County, Illinois — had more than Philly, with 23. It’s worth pointing out that Cook County is the second-most populous county in the United States, home to 5.3 million residents and 134 different municipalities. Fifteen people were exonerated from New York City’s five boroughs, also.

Previous to 2023, the most people ever exonerated from Philly was 13, back in 2019. As District Attorney Larry Krasner’s director of research, Oren Gur, said on Twitter/X/whatever: “A jurisdiction that represents .45% of US population accounted for 10% of its exonerations last year.” Eight of last year’s exonerees were due to the work of the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit.

Two men spent 40-plus years incarcerated, longer than I’ve been alive. All told, the 15 Philadelphians released last year spent 301 total years behind bars.

Anthony Gargano Returns to the Airwaves, Errr, Ear Buds

Last fall, Victor brought you all the news about longtime sportsmouth Anthony Gargano’s dispute with 97.5 The Fanatic. Suspensions, lawsuits, you name it. At the center of the dispute was PHLY Sports, the nascent sports news platform, with which Gargano intended to host a podcast. In October, the two parties negotiated a settlement  that would keep Gargano off the air for six months. Well, time’s up: The Anthony Gargano Show launches on Thursday.

Following Years of Death and Escapes, Philly Prison Commissioner to Retire

The eight-year tenure of Philly prison commissioner Blanche Carney hasn’t been smooth. Eighteen people died in city jails in 2021 alone. The Philadelphia correctional officers union cast a unanimous no-confidence vote in Carney last year. And over six months, there have been four escapes. Sure, this doesn’t all fall at Carney’s feet — the system has a 40-percent job vacancy rate — but she’s had enough. According to the Inquirer, her last day is April 5th.

And From the Let’s-Go-Home Sports Desk …

Last night, in the finale of the Sixers’ road trip, they faced the Kings with starters Nico Batum, Tobias Harris, Mo Bamba, Tyrese Maxey and Kyle Lowry. (Kelly Oubre Jr. was out with a sore shoulder.) They did not get off to a great start. Bamba promptly (really promptly) picked up two fouls, and the shooting was cold. But Maxey heated up and hit some threes.

Still, three fouls on K.J. Martin already? End of the first: Kings led, 31-25. At least Tyrese had surpassed his record for single-quarter points, with 21. The game stayed tight through the second until the final minutes, when the Kings stretched their slim lead to 48-40. And K.J. picked up his fourth, after a review ruled he’d committed an offensive foul. And a mystery technical foul on Tyrese? It was all heading south.

In the third, it was more of the same, and a T on Bamba for mouthing off to the refs — his fourth. Sensitive tonight! “These aren’t even satisfying technicals!” Ala Abdelnaby faux-raged. Domantas Sabonis picked up his 54th (?!?) consecutive double-double.

Things did not look good. D.J. Wilson marked his Sixers debut by hitting two straight treys to pull us within 11 near the close of the third, but that was a high point. Kate Scott and Ala did their best to be upbeat, but man, this team is not playing well. Joel, where are you? Are you ever coming back? Final: 108-96.

How’d the Phillies Do?

Well, they got dinged by Tampa Bay again. J.T. Realmuto got things going for us in the first with a two-run homer, but starter David Buchanan gave up five hits in his four innings, with two earned runs — though he did strike out four Rays. Everybody gets a breather now before Opening Day at CBP on Thursday. When, um, it’s supposed to rain.

The Flyers play today.

On the Market: Bi-Level Condo in Fitler Square

condo for sale fitler square bi-level exterior front

This handsome residence, designed in 1904 by Theophilus Channdler, once housed the Episcopal Bishop of Pennsylvania. It now houses ten condos, and we think you’ll find the one at 251 S. 22nd St., Unit A, Philadelphia, PA 19103 divine. / Photography by Daniel Isayeff, DASI Photography, and *renderings via Societe Select | Serhant except where noted

Back in the day — the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to be specific — the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania must have been a really big deal.

It commissioned a grand home for itself in 1894, hiring the architectural firm of Baily & Truscott to build it.

condo for sale fitler square bi-level the beasley building

The Beasley Building, originally the Episcopal Diocese House, at 12th and Walnut streets in Washington Square West / Google Street View image, April 2023

That building looks like this today. After the Episcopal Diocese left in 1921, the building served over the years as a home for the Chamber of Commerce, a Jefferson Medical College building, a venerable uniform shop and two well-known dance clubs. In 1986, attorney James E. Beasley bought it and restored it to something close to its original appearance, winning a preservation award for the job. The law firm he founded calls it home now.

Then, in 1904, it commissioned noted local architect Theophilus Chandler, the man who founded Penn’s architecture school, to design the mansion you see at the top of this article as a home for its bishop, Alexander Mackay-Smith. You will find it listed in the Philadelphia Architects and Buildings database as the Mackay Residence, and it’s listed on both the city and national historic registers.

In 1980, architect Otto Spur converted the Bishop Mackay-Smith House, as it was also known, into 10 condominiums and renamed it Chandler Place after its original architect. This Fitler Square bi-level condo for sale is one of those 10, and it’s the most spectacular of them all.

condo for sale fitler square bi-level main living area

Main living area

That’s because its main living area consists of the original living room.

 condo for sale fitler square bi-level foyer

Foyer

You enter it via the original foyer, off of which sits one of its two bedrooms.

condo for sale fitler square bi-level bedroom

Bedroom

That bedroom has original woodwork, a 14-foot-high ceiliing, a fireplace and an en-suite bath. Either it or the bedroom on the lower level could be considered the primary one, as you will soon see. It depends on your preferences.

Note also the mahogany inlays in the walnut parquet floor. These are also original to this residence and have been beautifully restored throughout the main floor.

dining area

Dining area

The unit has also been updated since 1980 with new, more modern lighting that nonetheless enhances the classic Gilded Age detailing and coffered ceiling.

living room

Living room

A stone fireplace remains the living area’s focal point. A paneled seating nook nestles at one end of the space, while a kitchen got inserted into the other.

kitchen

Kitchen

That kitchen combines custom traditional cabinetry with a turn-of-the-century-style tile backsplash and up-to-date stainless-steel appliances.

lower-level stair landing

Lower-level stair landing

A curved staircase with a classic banister leads to the lower level, where you will find the laundry in the hall. A work desk currently sits here as well.

bedroom

Bedroom*

bedroom

Bedroom*

The second bedroom has a simpler appearance but also has a marble fireplace. It also has a bar with a wine fridge in its dressing room.

bathroom

Bathroom

bathroom

Bathroom*

Its bathroom is also more luxurious than the one upstairs. It has stone-tile walls, a freestanding soaking tub and a luxurious Hansgrohe steam shower.

coutyard entrance

Courtyard entrance

You also can relax in the building’s leafy courtyard when you feel like a little fresh air without having to walk. But there are also plenty of great outdoor — and indoor — spaces to walk to nearby. The outdoor ones include Fitler Square, Rittenhouse Square and the Schuylkill River Park and Trail. Plenty of fine dining options also abound in the area, and there’s neighborhood shopping at 22nd and South Street, a Giant supermarket and a Trader Joe’s within walking distance, and boutique shopping on Rittenhouse Row.

So not only is this Fitler Square bi-level condo for sale an ultra-luxurious residence in a historic building with a sanctified pedigree, but it’s also a very conveniently located abode where you can enjoy all the excitement of the city in a tranquil setting.

THE FINE PRINT

BEDS: 2

BATHS: 2 full, 1 half

SQUARE FEET: 2,154

SALE PRICE: $2,000,000

OTHER STUFF: A $600 per month condo fee covers building and grounds maintenance and insurance.

251 S. 22nd St., Unit A, Philadelphia, PA 19103 [Maureen Reynolds and Justina A. Goldman | Societe Select | Serhant]

An A.I. Expert Came to Town and Said We’re All Going to Die

artificial intelligence

Made this image by typing “wide image of Philadelphia being stomped on by a laptop robot” into Microsoft’s artificial-intelligence-powered Designer. Look at those knock-off Chuck Taylors.

After speaking with many top artificial intelligence (AI) experts from all over the world, John Sherman believes humankind could be completely wiped out in two to 10 years.

Last week, the Peabody-winning journalist, video editor and podcaster drove up from Baltimore to Microsoft’s Malvern campus to give a presentation on the subject, titled Thrill Us, Then Kill Us? AI Existential Risk: The Hardest Conversation. And it was indeed a hard conversation, partly due to the subject matter and partly because the audience — made up mostly of programmers, as the event was hosted by a long-running computer science group called Philly.Net — frequently if politely hijacked the meeting to weigh in on the subject.

“I think it will happen this entirely different way.” “Did you read this article?” “I for one welcome our AI overlords.” Sigh.

Sherman’s role was somewhere between Paul Revere, Cassandra and Jordan Klepper — trying to convince us that while right now Chat GPT et al. are merely good for creating silly images and bad writing at our command, its successors could one day act on their own free will: unprompted, in secret, and for reasons we cannot yet imagine.

Sherman took the runaway conversation in stride even as he lopped off the middle bits of his presentation to keep things contained within the allotted two-hour time slot.

artificial intelligence

John Sherman (right) is the host of For Humanity: An AI Safety Podcast. / Let’s see AI make a better image than this photo by Patrick Rapa.

 

He cited several articles, groups and terms that bear sharing:

  • Pause AI: An org that “aims to mitigate the risks of AI. (including the risk of human extinction).”
  • Pausing AI Developments Isn’t Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down” (Time Magazine, March 29th, 2023)
  • Unaligned AI: Basically, this is artificial intelligence that has different goals and values from humanity.
  • Probability of Doom (a.k.a. PDoom): How likely it is that AI will cause “catastrophic harm” to humanity, according to your personal approximation. Many experts say their PDoom is 20-30 percent. For some, as time passes and the advancements pile up, doom appears inevitable.
  • Artificial General Intelligence: While our current “narrow AI” only does specific tasks, the right-now theoretical AGI will be better than people at lots of stuff, maybe all stuff. (This is what some call the singularity, at least in movies.) If AGI is better and smarter than us, how can we hope to control it? How can we even relate to it?
  • Effective Accelerationism, a.k.a. (e/acc): Some Silicon Valley people don’t care and think tech should march into the future unfettered. Are they capitalists or trolls? Naive or clear-eyed? Fearless or thoughtless?

Like all of us, Sherman is just guessing about what’s coming, although he’s clearly done more homework on the subject than most. So consider taking it with a grain of salt, but not outright cynicism, when he looks into the future and sees something vague but very, very bad. Artificial intelligence, he said, will overtake humans quickly and without warning. It doesn’t need to be evil or even sentient, just smart enough to use its available powers to achieve its goals. He fears for the lives of his children.

Sherman described one chilling scenario: If AI decides humans are a problem, it could hire people off the internet to mix chemicals and gas us. Death by Task Rabbit. Later, he dropped another bombshell: “AI-caused extinction is not the worst outcome.” AI may decide to “make digital copies of humans and torture us for trillions of years.” Why? Why would it do that? Seems like a strange move for a futuristic, ultra-efficient superintelligence.

But it’s all about the paradigm shift. Sherman encouraged the audience to imagine a future in which we look at AI the way ants look at humans. Meaning we’ll be somewhere between oblivious, baffled and powerless. The presentation was certainly compelling and alarming, but since the subject demands wild speculation, Sherman could never be 100 percent convincing.

Perhaps the most sobering fact he presented was this: Fewer than 300 people are working on AI safety right now. Seems bad! Maybe we should fix that, and pass some laws regulating the industry while we’re at it.

Which is why he’s so adamant about raising concerns about the unknown unknowns. Will humanity be reduced to a paleolithic existence? Wiped out entirely? Enslaved by computers? Locked in a Skynet/Cylon battle for control? Will we merely be unemployed and impoverished? Or subjugated? An AI-based future seems like it will suck no matter what.

(If you’re interested in the whole discussion, a video of the event exists and will hopefully be uploaded soon to Philly.Net’s Youtube page.)

Local Talent

Singer-songwriter Eliza Hardy Jones has a new song out, and a new record called Pickpocket due April 19th. “This is the Year” is a dreamy acoustic rock number laced with sneaky sadness. Jones has been a fixture on the Philly music scene for years, playing with the War on Drugs, Japanese Breakfast, Strand of Oaks, Buried Beds and more. She also does this really cool quilting project.

By the Numbers

#1: Barbie was the best-selling movie in 30 years for local independent movie theater group Renew.

6.74: Inches of rain this city has gotten so far this year.

31: Goals scored by Travis Konecny so far this season. Sandy doesn’t care much for hockey, so I thought I’d slip this in before her sports roundup, which starts… now.

From the This-and-That Sports Desk …

Here’s your weekend wrap-up! On Friday night, the Sixers played a late game against the Lakers and LeBron. Starters: Tobias Harris (back from his injury), Kelly Oubre Jr., Tyrese Maxey, Mo Bamba and Kyle Lowry. The guys acquitted themselves well on the second leg of their Western journey, staying even with LeBron and Co. through most of the first half and ahead 52-50 at the break. We were up by six halfway through the third; the lead bounced back and forth after that until Paul Reed picked up his fourth foul with seconds left in the third. Even so, we closed out the quarter up 76-75. Maxey was keeping us in it, barely.

https://twitter.com/NBATV/status/1771394444224242117

Where would we be without him? Well, worse off than we wound up after a lopsided final quarter in which the Lakers outscored us 26 to 18. Final: 101-94 Lakers. And the killer: a too-late Maxey trey that didn’t count.

On Sunday, we were in Los Angeles to play the Clippers, and wonder of wonders, we came out strong and got stronger — right up until the Clippers had a 10-0 run at the end of the first half. We were still up 63-56, though, and Tobias had 19 points. L.A. kept it close through the third, finishing only down 88-85, but the Sixers were dominant in the final frame, embarking on a 13-0 run, and wound up on top, 121-107. Oh, this was enjoyable:

Tonight, we face the Kings in the final game of the West Coast road trip, with tip-off at 10 p.m.

How’d the Phillies Do?

They had an afternoon game with the Rays on Thursday, and it was an interesting one. They were down 3-1 after the third, took the lead with a four-run sixth, and then lost, 6-5, when Tampa Bay put up two in the eighth and one in the ninth. At least it wasn’t another tie. Kody Clemens had a solo homer. And they found a whole new way to lose Friday’s game, headed into the ninth with a 3-0 lead on, among other things, a solo homer from Edmundo Sosa. But Gregory Soto then served up two homers and a 4-3 loss. Oy.

On Saturday, Cristian Pache and Whit Merrifield were the hitting stars of a 6-6 tie with the Yankees. Starter Spencer Turnbull went three scoreless innings and struck out five, which more than makes up for the three hits he relinquished. Bryce Harper played and had an RBI.

In Sunday’s game, Aaron Nola went 5.2 scoreless innings, and the relief staff was peerless as well in a game against the Blue Jays. Trea Turner and Alec Bohm had two hits each in the 2-0 victory. This afternoon, they play an early one against the Rays, starting at 12:05 p.m. And after that — Thursday is Opening Day! At Citizens Bank Park, no less. You gotta believe!

Any Soccer News?

In Thursday night’s U.S. Men’s National Team CONCACAF Nations League semifinal — that’s a mouthful — Jamaica scored in the first seconds of the game, and the U.S.’s Cory Burke, a former Union player, got one past current Union goalie Andre Blake in the final seconds of overage for an unlikely 1-1 tie. Haji Wright scored for us again in the extra frame, then again in the second extra. That was the final: 3-1 us. I mean, U.S.!

The final, against always-tough opponent Mexico, was on Sunday night, and the play was even through the first half, right up until 44:44, when Tyler Adams put a long one through for the U.S. Gio Reyna added another in the 62nd, after which Mexico was awarded a penalty kick in the 71st for a trip on Antonee Robinson, but the call was overturned following a video review. Then, in the 87th minute, pejorative chants of some sort began, and the referees stopped the match, after which a lot of Mexico fans headed for the exits. Play started up again, stopped again in stoppage for the same reason, and then ended with the score 2-0. A sad coda, but a U.S. win.

But What About Doop News?

The Union were all the way out in Portland for a late game against the Timberwolves on Saturday night, and the post saved the first serious threat from Portland, at 21 minutes in. We scored first, at 28 minutes on a shot by Julián Carranza, and after the half, Mikail Uhre almost scored in the 51st minute, which makes the game sound much more one-sided than it was; sub goalie Oliver Semmle was having a very good night. Or maybe it was one-sided — Quinn Sullivan made it 2-0 us with a chip-in on a goalie deflection at 57 minutes.

And Carranza tacked on yet another in the 67th. Damn, when did we get this good? Well, Portland did notch one in the 79th, but hey, way too little too late. Yet another Carranza goal was waved off for offsides, so the final was 3-1 — despite eight minutes of overage. Doop!

Um. It’s Ice-Skating Season Now?

It is! And Mount Holly’s own Isabeau Levito, age 17, took the silver medal in the ISU’s World Figure Skating Championships on Friday!

The Flyers also played.

Weekending in Hot Springs, Arkansas

Hot Springs, Arkansas

Hot Springs, Arkansas / Photograph by Jeremy Janus/Getty Images

Got solar-eclipse fever? After a quick connecting flight from PHL to Little Rock, spend a few days in this gorgeous area of the South, which is in the so-cool-sounding “path of totality” on April 8th, when day will turn into night for a few fleeting moments. When you’re not taking in the eclipse, enjoy the Hot Springs down-home cooking and have yourself a soak in thermally heated waters.

Where to Stay

If you want to be in downtown Hot Springs, which sits in the Ouachita Mountains in Hot Springs National Park, your best bet is the more-than-century-old but modernly appointed 62-room Waters Hotel (rooms from $208). For maximum kitsch, check into Dame Fortune’s Cottage Court (rooms from $81). But to get away from it all and maybe do some kayaking, try Lookout Point Lakeside Inn (rooms from $199). You’ll have to book a car if you stay there — it’s several miles outside town — but you’ll likely need one anyway, since the airport is an hour away from Hot Springs.

hot springs arkansas

Kayaking on Lake Ouachita / Photograph courtesy of Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas

Where to Eat

Here, it’s all about mom-and-pop eatin’. Folks (including Bill Clinton) have been seeking out the ribs and chopped pork at McClard’s Bar-B-Q Fine Foods since before the Great Depression. Also serving the good people of Hot Springs for longer than most can remember is the Pancake Shop, which offers breakfast and only breakfast. Beer fans should visit Superior Bathhouse Brewery, home to the world’s only beer brewed using thermal spring water.

hot springs arkansas

Downtown Hot Springs / Photograph courtesy of Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas

What to Do

Explore the great outdoors. Take in the mountain views from the 26 miles of hiking trails in the national park. For a one-of-a-kind experience, head to Avant Mining so you can dig for quartz crystals. And what’s a trip to Hot Springs without soaking in, well, thermal hot springs? There used to be many spots where you could do so; hence the name of the place. Now, there are only two, including Buckstaff Bathhouse, where you’ll want to follow your dip with a quick massage.

hot springs arkansas

The chapel at Garvan Woodland Gardens / Photograph courtesy of Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas

The Can’t Miss List

1. The 10th annual Valley of the Vapors Independent Music Festival at Cedar Glades Park, from April 5th through 8th, combines all that eclipse energy with music from DJs, Philly’s own Sun Ra Arkestra, and other “out-there” acts.

2. Garvan Woodland Gardens, a sprawling botanical enclave in town, opens its gates all day for festivities and eclipse-viewing. While there, seek out the waterfall and the one-of-a-kind chapel, which is one of the region’s most popular wedding sites.

3. Want to watch the eclipse from a rooftop? The Waters Hotel has what you’re looking for. Totality starts at 1:49 p.m. Central Time and ends at 1:53 p.m., so that’s three minutes and 39 seconds of total darkness. And the show is over at 3:10 p.m., so you can catch a Monday-night flight home.

Published as “Jaunt: Weekending in … Hot Springs, Arkansas” in the April 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.

Who Killed the Philly POPS?

The mystery behind what actually happened to the Philly POPS / Photo-illustration by Leticia R. Albano

It was a cold night in November 2022, and a brass quintet from the Philly POPS was performing a gig. The musicians, in heavy coats and Santa hats, sat in a circle at Franklin Square, playing the opening ceremony for the park’s annual light show. The music-making conditions weren’t pleasant: The frigid air turned their metal instruments to ice as they played “The First Noël” before a procession of city officials and sponsors took the stage. A costumed Ben Franklin interpreter said a few words. The Phillie Phanatic was there, too, gyrating and passing out high fives. It was, in a sense, a classic Philly POPS gig. Just as you could count on the Phanatic to bring unhinged pep-rally spirit to random events around town, you could expect to find the POPS performing for any number of civic traditions: Independence Hall and the Parkway on the Fourth of July, the Mann Center on Memorial Day, the Kimmel Center for the ensemble’s popular Christmas shows. The POPS might not have been the polished, renowned Philadelphia Orchestra, but in a meaningful way, it was Philadelphia’s orchestra.

As the speakers gave their remarks, Matt Gallagher, the POPS principal trumpeter, checked his email and saw a strange subject line: “The Future of the Philly POPS.” He opened the email, from POPS president Frank Giordano: “After much careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to cease operations following the conclusion of the current 2022–23 season.” Gallagher turned to the four musicians next to him. “I was like, ‘Guys, check your email, make sure I’m not insane here, but we’re done. The Philly POPS is over.’”

Gallagher had just lost his job — in the bitter cold, during the holidays, in the middle of a gig. “It was a total slap in the face,” he says. The quintet had been scheduled to play more tunes after the speeches ended, but they weren’t feeling festive any longer. They got up and left.

Philly POPS

A Philly POPS brass quintet plays at Rittenhouse Square in December 2022. / Photograph by HughE Dillon

That same evening, the Inquirer broke the news of the POPS announcement. In the story, Giordano said that sagging audience numbers coming out of the pandemic had simply made the business of the POPS, which has been performing since 1979 and employs some 65 freelance musicians for around 30 concerts a year, untenable. The POPS, Giordano claimed, was $450,000 in debt to the Kimmel Center, where it performed most of its concerts, and $500,000 in debt to other groups. Bankruptcy had been considered, but ultimately, Giordano said, the POPS board concluded that shutting down was the only option. There was a silver lining, though: Giordano mentioned the POPS had entered an “alliance” with the Philadelphia Orchestra Kimmel Center, the new joint entity formed in 2021 when the Orchestra and its longtime venue merged, in which POKC, as it’s known, would take over the presentation of POPS concerts until the end of the season in June. Matias Tarnopolsky, CEO of POKC, said in the article it was his “hope and plan” that his organization would be able to “present pops programming in the future.”

Inside the POPS office, apparently no one had had any inkling the organization was about to shut down. Karen Corbin, the chief operating officer and the person actually running the day-to-day functions of the POPS, says she learned the news from Giordano one day before the announcement was made. “There was no plan,” Corbin says. The shutdown was just … announced. Though Giordano had held the title of president at the POPS since 2011, he’d spent much of the prior two years stepping back from the organization, busy with other commitments. Giordano has a family trucking business in addition to his gig at the POPS, and in 2018, he was also tapped to serve as full-time executive director of America250, the nonprofit planning the national celebration for the 2026 Semiquincentennial. According to the POPS’s annual filings with the IRS, Giordano went from working 40 hours a week at the POPS to just 10 hours a week in 2020. Yet he seemed to be the only one who knew in advance that the POPS was shutting down. (Giordano declined to be interviewed for this article but through attorneys disputes­ that Corbin was unaware of the shutdown announcement.)

The task of informing POPS staff that the organization would soon cease to exist fell to Corbin. She told her senior staff first — one of whom confirms this was the first she ever mentioned a shutdown. “It seemed to me like it was her first time learning about it,” the former staffer says. Then Corbin told the rest of the POPS employees; people were crying in the conference room as she made the announcement. No one understood what was happening. Giordano had given Corbin a document the day before showing a step-by-step timeline of how the announcement would be handled. Corbin noticed two peculiarities about the document: First, it seemed to have been compiled not by the POPS, but by the Philadelphia Orchestra’s public relations firm. And second, in the chronology, Inquirer reporter Peter Dobrin had been informed of the shutdown before she was.

Corbin wasn’t alone in the dark. While Giordano had claimed in his interview with Dobrin that the POPS board supported the decision, some members actually learned of the shutdown from Dobrin’s article or via email. There was never any vote taken to shut down the POPS. “I would never approve shutting down,” says Sal DeBunda, a retired attorney who served on the board for a decade. “Frank did.”

The POPS was divided, devastated and confused — which goes a long way toward explaining the convoluted sequence of events that soon followed. In December, the POPS performed its annual run of Christmas concerts at the Kimmel Center. The shows were sold-out; at one performance, during a pause in a piece, audience members spontaneously broke into a chant of “Save Our POPS!” This led to more bewilderment: How could the finances be so dire if the POPS was performing to full houses night after night? Then, in early January, the POPS management, seemingly riding the wave from Christmas success, announced that it was in fact not shutting down and was instead launching a “Save the POPS” campaign, aimed at raising money to keep the institution afloat. Two weeks later, the Kimmel Center, which the POPS had initially hailed as a supportive partner in its time of distress, decided to evict the organization from its longtime home in Verizon Hall over unpaid rent, hindering the ensemble’s ability to perform future concerts.

In April of last year, the POPS embarked on a new strategy for survival: It filed a lawsuit. In the suit, a different potential narrative began to emerge. In this telling, the POPS wasn’t nearly as indebted to the Kimmel Center as POKC claimed. And it had never willingly chosen to wind down its operations; instead, POKC had sought to force the POPS out of business in a bid to monopolize orchestral performances in the city. If the POPS suit is to be believed, this wasn’t the story of a frail, aging, debt-crippled institution passing away. It was murder.

That the Orchestra might want to absorb the POPS isn’t far-fetched; it had already sort of happened once before. In 2005, the POPS and the Orchestra decided to merge. Intended primarily as an administrative cost-saving measure, the arrangement kept the POPS independent: Its members weren’t replaced with Orchestra musicians, and Peter Nero, the legendary POPS conductor who’d made his name as a jazz pianist and performed with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Dizzy Gillespie, retained his baton.

But Joe Kluger, the head of the Orchestra at the time, recalls that he might eventually have sought a different setup. He hoped to put the classical and pops orchestras together under one roof, just as the Boston Symphony, one of the country’s most successful orchestras, had since its inception. “There’s some efficiency,” Kluger explains, “because you can guarantee musicians a 52-week salary, and if demand for a classical product is less than it used to be, then you can deploy them i n the pops repertoire.” (The plan would have been controversial, not least because it would have meant putting the freelance POPS musicians out of work.)

As part of the merger, the Orchestra had the option after five years to dissolve the POPS board and absorb the organization. But then the 2008 financial crisis hit, and three years later, the Philadelphia Orchestra declared bankruptcy. It became clear then that the merger hadn’t been particularly happy. In the course of the bankruptcy, the Orchestra claimed the POPS was a drag on its bottom line, running a deficit of $800,000 in its most recent season. Nero insisted his ensemble had turned a $300,000 profit. At any rate, the Orchestra opted not to absorb the POPS, and it was spun back out, sent on its way with a negotiated $1.25 million check from the Orchestra to help fund its independent future.

One of the running subplots during this period was the cost of the Orchestra’s home at the Kimmel Center. The venue, with its elegant glass ceiling, was fabulous to look at. It was also fabulously expensive. And when the hall opened in 2001, the sound was embarrassingly mediocre — a Washington Post critic called it “an acoustical Sahara.” Nor was the rent cheap: $2.5 million annually for the Orchestra. During its bankruptcy proceedings, the Orchestra said it owed the Kimmel Center $230,000 in unpaid rent; then-Kimmel Center CEO Anne Ewers claimed the actual figure was a much higher $1.2 million. (In the end, the Orchestra got $1 million knocked off the annual rent in a new long-term lease.)

Philly POPS

The Philly POPS at Verizon Hall / Photograph courtesy of the Philly POPS

Though the Kimmel Center was built to serve the Orchestra and other resident companies, like the Opera, the Chamber Music Society, and the POPS, it wasn’t just a landlord. It also staged its own programming, including jazz shows and touring Broadway acts. Suddenly, there was a new competitor in the ecosystem — not just for patrons, but also for concert-hall dates and philanthropy. And the Kimmel Center, which opened with $30 million in debt due in part to construction overruns, needed philanthropy. Donors were now being asked to give not just to a financially struggling performing-arts group, but to the financially struggling venue itself, without which there could be no financially struggling performing-arts group.

These days, the Kimmel Center remains extremely expensive. Yes, it’s in a class of its own as a venue. But performing there can create a financial challenge. Philip Maneval, executive director of the Chamber Music Society, says it costs about four times more to perform there than at other venues. According to IRS filings, his group spent $245,000 on rent at the Kimmel in 2022 — more than half of its yearly ticket-sales revenue. In the civilian world, that’s called being rent-burdened.

But then, the economics of the performing-arts world are rather unique. The model here is to lose staggering amounts of money on performances. In 2022, Opera Philadelphia had $785,000 in ticket sales on $5.8 million in performance expenses, according to its public filings. Even the books of the mighty Philadelphia Orchestra would be splotched with red ink — $12.6 million in performance revenue in 2022 on $38 million in production expenses — were it not for the funding source that fills the gap: philanthropy. The Opera raises about $10 million a year, and in 2019, the Orchestra snagged a $55 million gift from an anonymous donor that pushed its endowment north of $200 million. (In February, the Orchestra received another large donation: $25 million to rename Verizon Hall Marian Anderson Hall.)

For the POPS, though, large-scale philanthropy has never been forthcoming. Most donors want to support the capital-A arts, not Beatles tribute concerts or Broadway show tunes. When the POPS was spun out of the Orchestra in 2011, it had $1.7 million in ticket sales, $260,000 in donations, $3.5 million in expenses, and no endowment. In 2022, it earned $3 million in ticket revenue on $5.1 million in performance expenses, of which $880,000 went to the Kimmel Center. It was a better tickets-to-expense ratio than those of many other groups, but it still wasn’t enough to break even.

It didn’t take long for more financial drama to find Peter Nero and his POPS. In the wake of the Orchestra bankruptcy proceedings, Giordano, who’d previously been a member of a POPS advisory committee, was elevated to president. This move made a certain amount of sense. Giordano was a business guy — something Nero was not. And as a former president of the Union League, Giordano was well-connected. “He had this great reputation of being a donor, so that’s why Peter thought he would be someone good to have around,” says longtime POPS librarian Vince Leonard, who was close to Nero before the latter’s death last year.

The relationship quickly turned sour. Giordano sought to reduce Nero’s salary — an admittedly hefty $500,000 — by 40 percent, and after a bitter dispute that involved yet more litigation, Nero, the face of the POPS for more than 30 years, agreed to eventually leave the ensemble, in 2013.

Even with Nero’s salary out of the expense column, the POPS continued to limp from concert to concert. The organization was frequently behind on its bills, including when it came to Kimmel Center rent. When Corbin was hired full-time at the POPS as a vice president in 2015, one of her goals was to help stabilize its finances. She had come from a career in television programming in Los Angeles and had also done a stint at the Franklin Institute, and her strategy for the POPS revolved around increasing what’s known as “contributed revenue”: donations and grants. In Corbin’s telling, this was a success: Contributed revenue grew from $650,000 in 2013 to $1.7 million in 2019. She even landed a prestigious $300,000 Pew grant in 2022.

Regardless of growing contributions and an increase in ticket sales to $4 million, the cash didn’t change the fundamental calculation. Since 2011, POPS expenses have exceeded revenues in all but three years; the organization has routinely carried more than $1.5 million of debt — a combination of loans, bills due to vendors, and tickets sold for yet-to-be-performed concerts that amounts to a quarter of its annual budget. “That’s a big structural deficit to carry,” says Thaddeus Squire, a nonprofit consultant who works with arts organizations throughout Philadelphia and reviewed the past six years of POPS filings with the IRS.

Because the POPS was cash-poor, it developed, according to multiple former employees, a habit of putting its season-long subscriptions on sale as early as February for a season that didn’t begin until the fall. The POPS did this, one former employee says, “in order to get an influx of cash so we could pay for the current season.”

This dynamic was captured at a court hearing last July in the current POPS lawsuit against the Kimmel Center. John Meko, a POPS board member who served as treasurer, testified about tickets for concerts the POPS had been unable to perform after its eviction. A Kimmel Center lawyer began the questioning: “You said that the POPS received about $1.1 million in ticket money for concerts that have not yet been performed, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Where is that money?”

“Spent on other things.”

“Who spent it?”

“Philly POPS.”

“The POPS received that money?”

“Yes.”

“And spent it?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t put it into escrow?”

“No.”

This business model of covering current expenses with future ticket revenue is “not terribly unusual,” Squire says, though it’s far from advisable. “It’s very easy for this to get out of control,” he says. With so little cash and so much debt, any disruption — like, say, a pandemic — can prove fatal. “I would be hard-pressed to say the Kimmel Center killed the POPS,” Squire says. “This is kind of a classic case of an organization that was hanging on by its fingernails and just got blown off the ledge by the pandemic and was not at all prepared.”

According to the rental agreement between the POPS and the Kimmel Center, payment was due at the conclusion of a given run of shows. But the Kimmel Center routinely allowed the POPS to pay late, and the POPS relied on this goodwill to remain solvent. “Every year back to 2011, we had a payment plan after Christmas,” Corbin says.

In its legal filings, the Philadelphia Orchestra Kimmel Center, which has countersued the POPS for defamation, walks through just how lenient it had been over the years. In January 2018, the POPS requested a $230,000 deferral for rent owed after its run of Christmas shows. In October of that year, the POPS requested another deferral, this time covering $63,000 of rent after a series of shows featuring Leslie Odom Jr. The POPS seemed to treat these plans like a foregone conclusion. When arranging the payment plan for the Odom concerts, then-COO Louis Scaglione didn’t exactly request it. “Assuming this is agreeable,” he wrote, adding that he’d be sending over the first check that same day. More payment plans followed. In February 2019, the POPS reached an agreement with the Kimmel Center to pay $560,000, a combination of past and future obligations accrued that season. And in December 2019, the POPS came to the Kimmel yet again seeking a Christmas-show deferral, this time for $368,000.

Each time, the Kimmel Center accepted the payment plans. And each time, the POPS would incrementally pay off the debts by the end of the fiscal year in June, though the Kimmel Center filing claims these payments were frequently late. The one plan the POPS apparently failed to satisfy was the December 2019 deferral for $368,000. According to the Kimmel Center, the POPS couldn’t even make the first payment, due in January 2020. (The POPS disputes this.) By the following month, the POPS had performed more shows at Verizon Hall, racking up more invoices, so Giordano asked to renegotiate the debt, which now totaled $545,000. The Kimmel Center agreed to this, too, and the first POPS payment was scheduled for March 15th — the day before the pandemic shut down the City of Philadelphia. The POPS missed the payment.

Corbin describes the POPS-Kimmel relationship, despite all these accommodations, as a “10-year history that was often filled with complication, miscommunication, and difficulty.” The POPS began to feel it was afforded second-class-citizen status in the building: Advertising signage was set up incorrectly, ushers ran out of programs, and green-room facilities weren’t available on time, according to a 2018 memo Corbin wrote outlining the various problems in the relationship. She claimed a Kimmel Center employee once told her to stop programming jazz shows with the POPS because “the Kimmel owns jazz in Philly.” Corbin also said the Kimmel Center had tried to book the same talent as the POPS on three separate occasions. “Not a coincidence,” she wrote.

There were signs the Kimmel Center was growing exasperated with the POPS as well. “I, too, am most hopeful that you will not need to request future deferred payment schedules,” Anne Ewers, the former Kimmel Center CEO, wrote to POPS leadership in October 2018. “Yet, if you do, we are agreed that you will provide at least 2 weeks’ notice in writing to me.”

Still, the POPS never received an eviction notice. It had routinely owed the Kimmel vast sums of money and had been so late on payments for its $545,000 pandemic-era balance that it received two separate notices of default. Each time, the parties managed to strike a deal to make up the debts.

What was strange about the January 2023 eviction was that it came at a time when the POPS no longer seemed to be in chronic debt to the Kimmel Center. In its eviction letter, POKC demanded immediate payment of $523,000 for the POPS to stay in Verizon Hall. But according to POKC’s own invoice attached to the letter, this total was accrued entirely from the Christmas concerts that had been performed just one month earlier. This wasn’t like the months-old debt the POPS had been trying to pay down in prior years. It was brand-new.

“We didn’t always pay our bills on time,” a former POPS employee admits. “Do they have a right to be upset about it? Sure. But was it new? No.” Corbin likewise struggled to understand the eviction. What had changed? Why now?

Working at the POPS came with its quirks. The office was a small operation — never more than 16 full-time employees at its peak — and it had a particular parochial flavor. Board meetings took place at the Union League, and during the holiday season, Giordano would invite the men of the office to a Christmas party for a Union League subgroup he was involved with, the Cricket Groundhog club. This was a pretty strange event to be invited to by your boss. One year, for instance, Giordano, who always made a grand entrance, was wheeled into the room wearing a racially stereotyped Kim Jong Un mask as he stood next to a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile, flanked on either side by a model in a red bikini. (A lawyer for Giordano said this event had “absolutely nothing to do with the Philly POPS.”) “I was shocked, appalled, angry,” says one POPS employee who attended the event.

The POPS wasn’t much more functional in the workplace. When Matt Koveal applied in 2021 for a job in POPS in Schools, a program through which orchestra members would teach music to kids in the Philadelphia School District, he was asked instead to interview for a totally different position, in the concert-production department. Koveal interviewed over the course of a single day and walked out with a job. “I was admittedly a bit confused how quickly things happened,” he says. He later realized the head of the production department, his direct boss, hadn’t even interviewed him; he’d been on vacation that day.

The second odd experience for Koveal came during one of his first POPS gigs. He was chatting up a musician who said, “You’re not gonna last very long.” Koveal, confused, asked what the musician meant. The musician told him, “You’re one of many to have come through this department. Philadelphia musicians will chew you up and spit you right out.” That was Koveal’s introduction to the relationship between the musicians and management.

Philly POPS

David Charles Abell conducts the Philly POPS at a pre-Fourth of July concert at the Mann Center in 2021. / Photograph by ZUMA Press Inc./Alamy Stock Photo

Tensions had been rising for years. According to six POPS musicians, late payments were commonplace. “You could count on five fingers, before the pandemic — 2018, 2019 — the times we got paid on time,” says Marjorie Goldberg, a violist who later became a union officer. The freelance musicians of the POPS typically earn no more than $10,000 a year from the orchestra, and the late payments were disruptive. “The excuses were as ridiculous as, ‘Well, Frank’s in Italy and he can’t sign the check,’” says Matt Gallagher, the principal trumpeter.

As the relationship with management grew more toxic, the musicians union began to take a more aggressive approach. Corbin was the most frequent object of their ire. Corbin had been moving the POPS more into education and had sought new kinds of performances, like rock shows. But many of the musicians didn’t see the POPS as an educational vehicle or a rock cover group. “We felt management was steering the orchestra, without allowing us to give any input, in a direction that we didn’t think honored the legacy of Peter Nero,” says Sarah Sutton, a violist who’s played in the ensemble for 17 years.

Eventually, in July 2022, the musicians signed a letter of no confidence in Corbin, who by that point had risen to chief operating officer. The musicians cited a range of complaints, including repeated violations of the union’s contract. Corbin’s actions, the letter stated, “have contributed to extremely low morale and a lack of trust that has fostered a climate of anxiety, fear and uncertainty.” (Corbin says the POPS policy was to settle all contract grievances and that in no case did the management ever admit guilt.)

When POPS management announced it was shutting down in November, the relationship broke down completely. At the Christmas concerts, musicians handed out leaflets to concertgoers that lambasted management. The musicians then voted to authorize a strike, with 95 percent approval.

In January 2023, when the POPS announced its “Save the POPS” fund-raiser, the musicians wanted little part of it. Their leaflets had used the “Save the POPS” phrase first — as in, “Save the POPS” from the management. The musicians seemed to be coming around to the idea that if the POPS was going to continue, it would have to be as a new entity.

That may be why so few of the musicians seem to blame the Kimmel Center for what transpired. “No landlord wants people in there for free,” says Goldberg. Gallagher points out that the union’s journey with POPS management seemed to mirror that of the Kimmel Center: repeated accommodations until one day, patience wore out. “Eventually, enough was enough,” he says. “If you’re going to continually break the contract, then we’re gonna grieve you. Period.”

What the musicians didn’t know, what Corbin didn’t know, what practically no one at the POPS knew, was that Matias Tarnopolsky, CEO of the Philadelphia Orchestra Kimmel Center, had been meeting with Giordano about the possibility of the Orchestra taking over the POPS as early as August 2022.

Their meeting took place at the Union League, according to an email Tarnopolsky sent to Giordano that was later submitted by the POPS as part of its court case. “Thank you for your openness to look at a new model for the Philly POPS’s business relationship with the Kimmel Center,” wrote Tarnopolsky, who before taking over the merged POKC had been the chief executive of the Orchestra. He went on to summarize the exchange: “We discussed today that you would meet with your Board Chair and General Counsel to discuss a plan whereby The Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center Inc. would take over the programming and production of this season, and future seasons, of Philly POPS programming.”

From POKC’s perspective, it was easy to understand the appeal of taking over the POPS. The POPS always had good ticket sales, and there was clearly demand for popular-music performances. The Orchestra knew this, too: Why else had it scheduled a live performance of the soundtrack to Elf while the movie played? The problem for the POPS, as with most performing-arts groups, was that even strong ticket sales couldn’t match the expenses. But POKC was in a unique position since its merger in December 2021: Now it was vertically integrated, owning both Orchestra and concert venue. If it could take over pops programming, it could potentially capture the $4 million in Philly POPS annual ticket revenue at a relatively low additional cost — especially if already-employed Philadelphia Orchestra musicians were the ones doing the performances. (Orchestra musicians apparently sensed this, because their latest contract, ratified last October, contains a new clause that prevents them being required to practice or perform with “Opera Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Ballet, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, or any independent pops orchestra.”)

Philly POPS

Jennifer Hudson performs with the Philly POPS Big Band on the Ben Franklin Parkway on July 4, 2019. / Photograph by Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images

Corbin didn’t learn of the August 2022 meeting between Tarnopolsky and Giordano until about a year later, when Giordano told her about it while preparing for the lawsuit. (Through his lawyers, Giordano disputed that Corbin was unaware of the meeting.) According to Corbin, Giordano told her he participated in the meeting only under extreme duress, because the Kimmel Center hadn’t yet sent tickets to POPS patrons even though the season’s first performance was just weeks away. Tarnopolsky’s email appears to confirm this. He informed Giordano that the Kimmel Center and Ticket Philadelphia, POKC’s ticketing company, “will continue to withhold all services (ticketing and venue) until POPS is either paid-up or other agreeable terms regarding a transition are settled.” Tarnopolsky claimed the POPS owed the Kimmel Center more than $500,000, which was why his organization could not “allow the current season to proceed.”

When approached for this story, Tarnopolsky initially agreed to provide written on-the-record answers to questions about the meeting with Giordano and the POPS’s allegations. But after receiving detailed questions, POKC instead sent a one-paragraph written statement. “It has never been our intent to shut down the POPS, and any suggestion that POKC or The Philadelphia Orchestra attempted to do so is simply false,” the statement reads. Instead, POKC claims the entire idea was Giordano’s: “In the summer of 2022, POPS’s then-president and CEO informed POKC that the POPS could not pay its growing debts and expressed a desire to have POKC assume responsibility for producing future POPS performances, but we never reached an agreement to do so.” (Through the attorneys, Giordano described the merger as a “collaborative idea” between him and Tarnopolsky.)

That was the story POPS conductor David Charles Abell heard when he spoke to Giordano in October 2022. “He had this idea that a merger might be a good thing for both organizations at this point in time,” Abell says. But that explanation is difficult to square with Tarnopolsky’s email to Giordano, where Tarnopolsky certainly appears to be the one instigating things: He had just threatened to cancel the entire upcoming POPS season — a scenario in which Giordano looks more like a hostage than an equal collaborator.

Whoever came up with the plan for POKC to take over the POPS, the biggest revelation from the August 2022 email is arguably something else entirely: The threat of eviction was raised for the first time, not in January 2023, but as early as the summer of 2022. In January, Tarnopolsky claimed in the Inquirer that POPS debt had surpassed $1 million, at which point POKC “could no longer allow them to keep performing.” In reality, he had made the same threat six months earlier, and over half as much money. He’d offered Giordano two options: Either get “paid up” on the $500,000 of debt — unlikely to happen anytime soon, considering the way the POPS had always paid its bills — or come to “agreeable terms regarding a transition.”

“Unless we can arrive at terms quickly,” Tarnopolsky wrote, “this means cancelling the September 16, 2022, run of the Moody Blues in the absence of further payments.” The Moody Blues show, however, was allowed to proceed, and while the POPS did make a $160,000 payment to the Kimmel Center in September, it came on the day of the performance and was for far less than the amount the Kimmel Center claimed it was owed. So why was the show allowed to take place? Presumably because conversations about a merger were progressing.

How much money does the POPS owe the Kimmel Center? A seemingly simple question doesn’t yield simple answers.

The major accounting discrepancies appear to have begun in March 2021, when the POPS signed an agreement with POKC stipulating that it owed $548,000. This was for shows that had all been performed prior to the start of the pandemic. According to the terms of the agreement, the POPS would make one up-front payment of $120,000, then follow with monthly $10,000 payments until the debt was paid off. In court filings, the Kimmel Center claims the POPS made the up-front payment, along with the first two $10,000 installments, at which point it “failed to make any additional payments.”

The POPS, however, has submitted bank statements to the court showing it made 13 different $10,000 payments to the Kimmel Center, all after May 2021 — the month the Kimmel Center alleges the payments stopped. According to the bank records, the POPS has made just shy of $1.4 million in payments to the Kimmel Center since the two sides signed the March 2021 payment plan. These payments, it seems, went toward both the prior POPS debt and toward new performances, which returned to the Kimmel Center in the fall of 2021. According to Corbin, this $1.4 million meant that by September 2022, the POPS was completely current with the Kimmel Center. (The Kimmel Center declined to address the discrepancy between its legal filing and the POPS bank records.)

Making matters more confusing, when Tarnopolsky met with Giordano in August 2022 to discuss the POPS-Kimmel merger, he claimed the POPS owed $500,000. Corbin, as the person who oversaw finances at the POPS, would have disputed that. “I truly don’t know where that figure came from,” she says. But she hadn’t been in a position to dispute it, because she says she didn’t learn of the meeting until a year after it took place. Two former higher-ups at the POPS also say they believed the POPS was even with POKC in September. But for some reason, Giordano wasn’t relying on the POPS interpretation of the finances. Through his lawyers, Giordano says he got his understanding of the debts from POKC.

The only detail both POKC and the POPS agree on is that the POPS has made just one payment since the Tarnopolsky-Giordano meeting: a $160,000 wire transfer in September 2022. According to Corbin and the two former higher-ups, this was the payment that extinguished the prior POPS debts. When the Kimmel Center sent its eviction notice to the POPS in January 2023, the letter seemed to support Corbin’s understanding of the finances: It demanded payment of $523,643 — fees that were entirely from the recent run of Christmas performances. If the POPS had other debts, wouldn’t they have been incorporated in the eviction notice? According to the Kimmel Center, no. Its filing claims the $523,643 cited in the eviction letter wasn’t inclusive of all past debts, though the letter itself makes no mention of this supposed fact.

Negotiations regarding the future of the POPS continued apace. On September 27, 2022, Giordano and Joe Del Raso, the chair of the POPS board, had another meeting with representatives­ from POKC. According­ to this meeting’s agenda, which was also submitted­ to the court, the discussion­ covered­ how to “plan for orderly wind down” of POPS business and achieve “seamless­ transition to POPS programming at [the Philadelphia Orchestra] next season.”

In October, the POPS board voted to allow a special committee to discuss a potential merger with POKC — never mind that Giordano and Del Raso had already been doing this. By the time the POPS announced its plans to shut down on November 16th, the board had not yet taken a definitive vote. “It was never brought to a vote, in my mind, because I’m not certain it ever had the board’s support,” Corbin says. One board member, Meryl Levitz, the former head of Visit Philadelphia, says that she, like Corbin, assumed specifics were forthcoming. “We expected a proposal — that POKC and representatives from the POPS executive committee would meet and put together a merger or a resolution, something that was like, ‘Here’s how we go on from here,’” she says. “But we didn’t ever see that.”

Corbin says she was “devastated” by the shutdown announcement. “I didn’t fully understand what process we had been in to reach this,” she says. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Donors began rescinding grants just as the POPS was about to incur giant expenses from its Christmas series.

Corbin insists she kept trying to come to a deal with POKC that would keep the POPS in the Kimmel’s Verizon Hall through the end of the season in June. (The five-year POPS lease at the Kimmel expired then, and according to Corbin, there had been no conversations about a new extension.)­ On the day the POPS was evicted,­ Corbin had a meeting with Tarnopolsky­ and other Kimmel Center officials. She claims she had with her a proposal that, in keeping with the model of prior payment plans, would have fully paid the Kimmel Center by June, including $150,000 up front. When she tried to bring up the proposal to Tarnopolsky, she claims, he told her, “You do not have the right to speak.” There was going to be no deal. “Money wasn’t their issue,” Sal DeBunda, the POPS board member, says. “They just wanted us to disappear.”

The story the Kimmel Center is telling is one of an accommodating landlord who got sick of being paid late. “The POPS’s debt continued to grow to an unacceptable level with no viable plan for it to reverse the cycle and pay what it owed,” a POKC spokesperson writes in a statement. “As anyone who has ever leased an apartment will understand, if you consistently fail to pay your rent and utility bills over an extended period, at some point the landlord will have no choice but to ask you to leave.”

But that story ignores the fact that POKC was in negotiations about taking over the POPS — whoever’s idea it was — and that it explicitly linked those negotiations, as early as August 2022, to whether the POPS could continue to perform at Verizon Hall. To say POKC’s only motivation was getting paid is completely belied by its own documents discussing its desire to absorb the POPS. When the Kimmel Center was an independent organization,­ it was willing to accept deferred payment after deferred payment to keep the POPS performing. But after the Kimmel Center merged with the Orchestra — ­which had begun presenting more popular-­music shows of its own — it’s possible the incentives changed.

The conversations about the future of the POPS appear to have continued all the way through the shutdown announcement in November, when Tarnopolsky and Giordano both suggested the future of POPS programming in Philadelphia was with POKC. In December, POPS conductor David Charles Abell says, he ran into Tarnopolsky at a Philadelphia Orchestra concert, and Tarnopolsky told him that the merger had hit a dead end because POPS finances were worse than the Kimmel Center had expected. Through his lawyers, Giordano offers a slightly different reason: “When POKC wasn’t paid for the Christmas shows, negotiation talks ended.”

In either scenario, POKC would have been the one backing out. And if POKC was backing out, maybe Giordano then had a change of heart about the fate of the POPS. He’d just seen firsthand, from the Christmas shows, how much the audience loved the orchestra. It was probably fairly obvious that being the guy who shut down the POPS wasn’t a PR win. Better to be the guy trying to save the POPS, which perhaps explains why Giordano went along with the campaign.

POKC had seemingly allowed the POPS to continue performing at Verizon Hall because it was in the midst of negotiating the potential merger. But if the merger was dead, what was the point in allowing the POPS to continue performing? And if the POPS was now saying it wasn’t going to fold after all, where would that leave the two sides — back to square one? That wasn’t an option. POKC was under no obligation to keep allowing the POPS to pay for its performances late. So it evicted the organization.

At least, that’s one possible explanation for what happened. There could be others. Through the fog of all the competing narratives, it’s difficult to say for certain.

What we do know is this: After the eviction, the POPS began to spiral. In February of last year, Giordano stepped down as POPS president, and Corbin took over. But what exactly was she taking over? More than $1 million of pledged revenue had already been rescinded after the shutdown announcement. The Save the POPS fund-raiser had yielded only $100,000.

Corbin tried to reschedule the Kimmel Center shows at the Met on North Broad, but ticketholders had no interest in going there, and additional tickets sales were nonexistent, so those shows ended up canceled, too. All told, the POPS had wiped out $1.1 million in concerts for which it had already sold tickets. It couldn’t refund the ticketholders, though, because as treasurer John Meko testified in court, the money had already been spent. The only way to pay back the ticketholders, if it ever was going to be possible, would be to perform more concerts, selling enough tickets to cover the expenses.

But who was going to perform? Certainly not the old musicians. In March, they sued the POPS, alleging they hadn’t been paid broadcast royalties they were owed from the Christmas concerts. The musicians union placed the POPS on its Unfair List, which meant none of its members would be allowed to play shows for the POPS.

Corbin, meanwhile, has remained on an increasingly quixotic quest to find a way to put on the concerts people bought tickets for. “Last week, I worked 40 hours,” she said, from a conference room in what used to be the POPS offices, one afternoon in January. “I laughed at myself. I don’t know what to say. Why did I do it?”

There is, as unlikely as it may seem, a pops orchestra still performing in Philadelphia. They’re called the No Name Pops, and they’re made up of the ex-musicians of the Philly POPS. (Slogan: “No excuses. No nonsense. No Name Pops.”) The group was formed in May 2023 and has spent much of the past year performing free concerts across the city, trying to build brand recognition, which is to say letting people know that the failure of the POPS was the bosses’ fault, not that of the players. Koveal, the former POPS programming staffer, is the executive director. He says fund-raising has yielded a total in the six figures. But since No Name Pops is a new nonprofit, and with the old POPS still mired in its lawsuit and not quite dead yet, it’s having trouble getting major philanthropic support.

Despite those challenges, there was still pops music at the Kimmel Center last Christmas. The Kimmel Center hired the No Name Pops, which perhaps hints at a future arrangement. A merger might not be necessary if POKC can simply hire the old musicians as freelancers during the lucrative Christmas season.

In early February, the No Name Pops played a “Broadway in the Burbs” concert at Immaculata University in Malvern. The show was pay-what-you-wish, and the musicians, in support of the fund-raising effort, weren’t paid for the performance. Acoustically, the hall was even more of a Sahara than the early Kimmel Center, and there wasn’t much in the way of pomp and circumstance. The average attendee’s age was somewhere in the vicinity of 65, and in an audience of about 700, there was almost no one under 30. It might not have been a modern orchestra executive’s dream demographic. But the crowd was more effusive than any you’d find at a classical music performance. They hooted and hollered and shouted “Bravo!” after each piece. They loved the music, and they were glad it was back.

 

Published as “Who Killed the POPS?” in the April 2024 issue of Philadelphia magazine.