Gay-Assault Suspect Is Suspended From Hospital Job

KATHRYN KNOTT thinks “jazz flute is for little fairy boys,” #gay is #ew and whiskey is awesome.

Those Twitter musings are part of what may cost her a job at Lansdale Hospital, according to a statement from Abington Health System.

Knott, 24, of Southampton, Bucks County, was suspended yesterday from her position as an emergency-room technician at the hospital, where she has worked since May 2011.

Hours before she was suspended, Knott and two other suspects in an attack on two gay men near Rittenhouse Square allegedly fueled by homophobia turned themselves in to police to face charges of aggravated and simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and criminal conspiracy.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140925_Gay-assault_suspect_is_suspended_from_hospital_job.html#FvU6rALU3RJFAb2i.99

D.A.: Three To Be Charged In Center City Attack

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The District Attorney’s Office today approved arrest warrants for three suspects in the Sept. 11 attack on a gay couple near Rittenhouse Square.

Philip Williams, 24, Kevin Harrigan, 26, and Katherine Knott, 24, will be charged with two counts of aggravated assault and related offenses in the incident, District Attorney Seth Williams said.

All three reside in Bucks County.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/dncrime/DA-Three-to-be-charged-in-Center-City-attack.html#fE36qMxkaKpdqW1x.99

Attack On Gay Couple Prompts Outraged Citizens To Use Twitter To Try To Solve The Crime

English: Map of Philadelphia County highlighting Center City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The video Philadelphia police posted online represented a major break in a horrific case – capturing images of a group suspected in a vicious Center City attack on a gay couple.

The suspects in the video – a group of young men and women, laughing, smiling and dressed for a night out – had allegedly mocked two men walking near Rittenhouse Square before beating them badly, sending both to the hospital. One of the men was also robbed, police said.

Word spread, and within hours, people took to Twitter and the Internet, trawling through social media in an attempt to identify the men and women in the video and forwarding their findings to police.

As detectives in the case zeroed in on the suspects and fielded tips, the online effort to identify them became something of a crowdsourced investigation.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20140918_Attack_on_gay_couple_prompts_outraged_citizens_to_use_Twitter_to_try_to_solve_the_crime.html#oEwr1taBqrS46zLg.99

Changing Skyline: Is ‘Over-Success’ In Development Hurting Philadelphia?

English: 1616 Walnut Street Building in Philadelphia. On NRHP since October 17, 1983 1616 Walnut Street in Rittenhouse Square East neighborhood of Center City. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It wasn’t long ago that Philadelphia’s movers and shakers were lamenting that the city was being ignored by international retailers. Those chains finally discovered the city, and now they’re colonizing the shopping districts around Rittenhouse Square and the West Philadelphia universities at a stunning pace. Sometimes, the only way to be sure you’re not at the King of Prussia Mall is to look up at the sky.

Having gotten what it wished for, the city is starting to feel the first side effects of what New York urbanist Kent Barwick, former head of the Municipal Arts Society, identified as “the over-successful city.”

This may sound like an odd worry in a town that looks over its shoulder and still sees Detroit. It’s certainly great that the chains help draw throngs to Walnut and Chestnut Streets again. They’ve brought their stylish displays and uncovered the dormant charms of many old commercial buildings. Yet, there is a numbing sameness to much of the retail. You’ve seen identical mannequins in identical outfits perched in windows on New York’s Fifth Avenue, Boston’s Newbury Street, and Chicago’s Michigan Avenue.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/inga_saffron/20140711_Is__over-success__in_development_hurting_Phila__.html#OwFqlzCPsHwibjmA.99

Short Film Showcasing Philadelphia

To counter the stereotype of Philadelphia as Negadelphia, filmmaker Nathaniel Dodson set about to make a stunning time-lapse video to show his great city in a different light.  He called it “Philly is Ugly.”

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/Philly_is_Ugly.html?c=r

Changing Skyline: Apartment Towers Growing Toward Philadelphia’s West

Map of Pennsylvania highlighting Philadelphia County (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

High-rise construction in Philadelphia comes in waves. The last big crest a decade ago brought in a handful of pricey condo towers, mainly clustered in established neighborhoods around Rittenhouse and Washington Squares.  This time, the tide is rolling westward, from Center City out toward the universities, and it’s looking like a tsunami.

Five apartment towers are or will be going up along Market and Chestnut Streets, between 20th and 38th, one glassy slab after another.  The total grows to seven if you count two clever retrofits where developers have piled extra floors on top of existing buildings, turning height-challenged mid-rises into full-fledged high-rises.

This stretch – from the tattered western edge of Center City to the University City Science Center – has long been an ill-defined territory, not uniformly academic, commercial, or residential.  The arrival of a couple thousand residents can’t help but make these blocks feel more lived-in, and the bustle should advance the goal of knitting together the two sides of the Schuylkill.

Read more:  http://www.philly.com/philly/home/20130621_Changing_Skyline__Apartment_towers_growing_toward_Phila__s_west.html

Grand Jury To Probe Bathtub Death

A grand jury will investigate the death of Julia Papazian Law, the 26-year-old paralegal found dead in a bathtub in her boss’ Center City apartment last month.

Word of the inquiry came as toxicology tests revealed that at the time of her death, Law had a blood-alcohol level higher than 0.40 percent – five times the threshold for legal intoxication, according to court sources. Medical experts say a blood-alcohol content of 0.35 percent or greater may be fatal.

The District Attorney’s Office confirmed Friday that it had asked for the grand jury probe, but declined to elaborate.

Law, who worked for high-profile defense lawyer A. Charles Peruto Jr., was found facedown in his tub on May 25.

Peruto, 58, who described Law as his girlfriend, told police he was in Avalon, N.J., on the night she died. He said he learned of her death from a maintenance worker who found her body in Peruto’s Rittenhouse Square apartment.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20130608_Grand_jury_to_probe_bathtub_death.html#fu7x6vMTOwwOYFpw.99

Changing Skyline: Philly Steering Toward Bike Sharing

Philadelphia didn’t need Bicycling magazine to confirm that it is one of America’s best biking cities (No. 17 on its 2012 list).  You can see it every day on the streets:

Near northeast corner, May 2005. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The steady stream of commuters sluicing down Center City‘s bike lanes.  The tangle of bikes hitched to U-shaped racks and bike corrals.  (More, please.)  The proliferation of neighborhood bike shops.

Philadelphia probably could have ranked higher in the magazine’s esteem if it had a bike-sharing program, like most of the list’s top 20 cities.  You can now find cheap, on-street bike rentals in more than 135 places around the world, many of them with worse weather and hillier streets than Philadelphia.  Yet the city has remained strangely ambivalent toward the concept, even as private bikes have become a popular transit option within the city.

But the sight of Mayor Nutter tooling around Rittenhouse Square last week on a canary-yellow cruiser suggests Philadelphia is finally ready to commit.  To show the city’s seriousness, his Transportation Department organized a daylong bike-sharing demonstration with three top vendors, supplying a docking-station’s worth of bikes in paint-box colors.

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/20130510_Changing_Skyline__City_steering_toward_bike_sharing.html#oeXi4rzPYwBAAXdv.99