CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

Tear it Down, Philly

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT BUSINESS IT WAS? It was a chicken store. A CHICKEN STORE? Yes. HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN SITTING LIKE THIS? I got to be about 50 so I’d have to say twenty-four, twenty-five years. WHERE’S THE OWNER, HOW COME HE’S NOT DOING ANYTHING WITH IT? Where’s the City, Why don’t they [unintelligible] You ask me about something the City- WHAT DO YOU THINK THE CITY SHOULD DO WITH THIS BUILDING? There’s only one answer, one explanation for it. That’s tear it down. Gary Burgin, on the 5800 block of Germantown. Watch video here.

I put money in the meter and nothing happened!?!

"I put in 50 cents and the second quarter didn’t move it at all. I had 43 minutes. So when I went in the restaurant I told the waiter and asked him about it. Because I thought putting in the second quarter I’d at least get an hour. And he said I’ll go out and check on it for you if you tell me when. He said they’re very careful in Chestnut Hill but you know you can park free in the lot. We didn’t know that, haven’t been here in a year. So then I came out when the time was up and saw that he put the note on the front of my car with two quarters. I only gave him one quarter. So the meter man seeing me come to put the note on the meter came over to me and said you know you should always put the note on the meter and not on the car. And I said but that’s not my note, it was the waiter who thought to put the note there and added his own quarter. Now I’ll go back and give the waiter back his quarter. And I also reported to the waiter what the meter man had told me." DID YOU HAVE A GOOD LUNCH? "Yes, a delicious lunch and we’ll come here again because it’s the halfway point between [downtown] Philadelphia and Gwynedd." Polly Dunn of Foulkeways in Gwynedd,Pa. across the street from Cake. Click here to see video interview.