Restoring the ‘magic’ of South Street | Morning Newsletter

It’s now technically spring, and today is set to be a breezy, sunny day with a high near 58. But don’t get too comfortable with the warm temps: We’re due for a hard freeze on Thursday and Friday mornings.

South Street is one of Philadelphia’s best-known commercial corridors. But following a mass shooting, a fire that ravaged the beloved Jim’s Steaks, and dwindling visitors, the former hotspot has had a tough couple of years. New leaders intent on curbing quality-of-life issues are working alongside steadfast shop owners to restore its promise.

And buried in the new city budget is funding for software to help drivers figure out where the heck the police moved their car. Could the program make so-called courtesy towing more … courteous?

Read on for these stories and many more.

— Julie Zeglen (@juliezeglen, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

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Just in time for spring, South Street is ready to bloom again.

Vacant storefronts and high-profile crimes, including the 2022 mass shooting that killed three and wounded 11, have contributed to a perception that the once-popular commercial corridor east of Broad Street is unsafe. Absentee landlords — some based in New York — don’t help.

Advocates say plans to lure back patrons are underway.

If crowds do return, it will be thanks to a swath of new storefronts opening in the coming months, coordinated promotional efforts from existing shop owners, and a focus on “vibrancy” at the South Street Headhouse District. The local police unit will also crack down on nuisance behaviors while changing how it works with the area’s business owners.

Mike Newall has the full story, filled with a slew of delightful pictures of South Street in all its eccentric glory.

You checked the signs. You paid the meterUP app. You were 95% sure you parked legally, but you double-checked the signs to be sure. So why did you car still get towed — and where is it now?

If that scenario sounds familiar, you may have been the victim of courtesy towing. That’s when the Philadelphia Parking Authority, the police, or a private tow company moves cars from legal parking spaces that have become temporary no-parking zones. Except sometimes, as Inquirer investigations have found, the tower moves the car to an illegal or unknown spot, leaving the owner to fight sky-high fees to get their vehicle back — if they can find it at all.

🚗 A line item in Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s proposed budget is a clue that change may be coming.

🚗 If approved by City Council, the police department would get $225,000 to create a searchable database for tracking the cars moved by its Tow Squad.

🚗 “You’d be able to find it just by going to the website,” the head of that squad told reporter Bill Bender, who’s been on the courtesy towing beat for years. “My thought was it needed to be one-stop shopping.”

Here’s how the program would work, and where it might run out of gas.

This Philadelphia university hosts Saturday College, where local middle school students can engage in project-based learning on campus for free.

A) Drexel University

B) University of Pennsylvania

C) St. Joseph’s University

D) Temple University

Think you know? Check your answer.

🐢 Touring (virtually): John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, via this illustrated story.

🎵 Jamming to: The Flyers’ 105-song pump-up playlist (well, we wish).

🦎 Tearing: Through basement storage for old Pokémon cards, after this Bucks County resident sold hers for $10,000.

Don’t forget your Lactaid pills: March 24 is the national “day” of this iconic Philly food item.

CAKE SEETHES

Email us if you know the answer. We’ll select a reader at random to shout out here. Cheers to John Piernikowski, who correctly solved Tuesday’s anagram: Five Below, the store selling an inaccurate and bizarre Philadelphia map puzzle that repurposes a years-old stock graphic made by a Ukraine-based illustrator.

Happy to be back at it after a few days of vacation. See you again tomorrow morning!

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