A pope-pourri of parkway tales

SO A SUPER-top-secret source in the city's tourism industry tells me that communication from the city regarding the pope's visit vastly improved once the media started hating on the cavalier attitude from the mayor's office, city agencies and the Secret Service.

The tone had been: "Chill, people. We'll let you know when we've figured this out. Until then, bug off."

"It's gotten so much better," says the source. "I think the stories made them realize that the impact on locals can't be under-estimated. Businesses have to staff. People have to figure out how to get to work. In the last week or so, we're finally getting more cooperation."

You're welcome, Philly. It's just what we media people do.

You know what else we do? We correct mistakes when we make them. And the mistake I've been making for a while now, when I've written about the pope's September arrival, is to say that city hotel rooms are sold out and have been for months. I've shared this information because that was the case months ago, and I presumed it was still true.

It's not, Ed Grose tells me. He's executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Association, and he says a considerable number of rooms are still up for grabs - some of them right downtown.

"But I'd book them fast," he says.

Sure enough, rooms at the Ritz Carlton on South Broad Street were available from Sept. 25 to the 27, when I called to inquire. The rates are laughable - starting at $649 per night for a standard room to $5,000 for the presidential suite (hey, it has a lighted shaving and makeup mirror). But a room at the inn is a room at the inn, am I right?

Rates at Windsor on the Parkway were comparable - starting at $599 per night - but lodging was sold out at the Sheraton behind the Cathedral Basilica of Ss. Peter and Paul. A chipper clerk was able to find me a room at an affiliated hotel, Le Meridian, near Broad and Arch, where I could book digs for $615 per night.

"Is that the normal rate?" I asked, recalling the days when now-tony Le Meridian was a flea-baggy YMCA whose swimming-pool chlorine could be smelled on the sidewalk

"Well, it's higher than usual," he said, clicking around the reservation site. "There must be something big going on that weekend!"

That's right: I found the only Center City employee unaware of the pope's impending visit. No wonder he was so sweet. He didn't yet know he might have to sleep at work that weekend.

The way lots of my colleagues will. Because our new union contract won't let us bed down in that presidential suite at the Ritz.

Lest you think this column is a snark-fest, allow me say that I'm stoked about the pope's visit. I'll be working that weekend but even if I weren't, I wouldn't miss this rodeo. The spectacle of 1.5 million visitors trodding our streets, the honor of hosting a spiritual rock star like Pope Francis, the chance to rub shoulders with pilgrims from around the globe - this is once-in-a-lifetime stuff.

And it'll be wild to partake in a Ben Franklin Parkway extravaganza without the boozy vibe that runs through every Made in America weekend, July Fourth concert, cultural parade and food festival. I don't begrudge the fun, but the World Meeting of Families will attract a really different crowd - including more nuns, I bet, than have ever been in one American city at the same time.

Nuns improve any vibe.

Still, chuckles John Lin, manager of 150-seat Asia on the Parkway, which usually breaks the bank during parkway events, "I think our bar sales will be lower."

He's a cheery guy, so he laughs when he wonders how his staff will get to work that day. Many come from a distance; others will no doubt wait hours to get screened at the security gates before making their way to the restaurant, which anchors the intersection at 17th and the Parkway. He's holding out hope that Homeland Security will come through with its promise to set up a fast-track entrance for Parkway employees like his.

Up the block, Mike Tower, general manager of TGI Fridays, says he doesn't know how his 85 workers will even make it into the city that day.

"Transportation is our biggest obstacle," he says.

Why not just close the place, I ask Tower, the way that the city is shutting down all but essential services from Sept. 24 through Sept. 28?

As Mayor Nutter magnanimously said at a press conference last week: "Many city offices will not open. We're doing this because we recognize how difficult it may be for many of our own city employees to get to work depending on their work location."

Maybe TGI Fridays could shut down, too, I suggest.

"My home office wouldn't go for that," he says dryly. "Potentially, this will be a very busy weekend for us - unprecedented, actually."

Across town, photographer Jim Graham is jazzed about the pope's visit, even though it has already cost him $5,000.

Graham and his wife, Chris Meck, rent out their big and airy photography studio, PowerPlant on North 2nd Street, for special events. An engaged couple had booked it for their wedding on Sept. 26 but backed out when they heard the pope would be on Independence Mall that day, just a few blocks away. Fat chance their guests would make it through the lockdown to toast the couple's nuptials.

"September is a really popular wedding month for us, so we're losing money that weekend," says Graham.

Still, says Graham, a lifelong Catholic: "I am loving everything about the pope's visit. I want to buy whatever T-shirt they're selling. I'd even pay $500 to shake the Pope's hand. C'mon, he's the most important Catholic in the world!"

Graham is thinking about renting out tents to visitors that weekend. He and his family live in a converted 1899 convent in South Philly. It has a huge walled lawn where he envisions weary pilgrims snoring and sleep-talking in many tongues, their babble rising like a hymn above the stained-glass windows of the old convent's second-floor chapel.

"I think this whole thing is gonna be a blast," Graham says. "But it pisses me off that security is gonna be so heavy. They're shutting down bridges and I-95 and even parts of Jersey. It's like they want to scare people into staying away. What is it they're not telling us?"

He quotes the mayor's statement at last week's press conference: "We can be happy about this or we can be scared out of our minds, but we can't be both."

Yet, that's exactly what we are being asked to do: Be happy, but lock down the city as if we're scared.

God, I can't wait until the nuns get here.

Phone: 215-854-2217

On Twitter: @RonniePhilly

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