Category: Transparency
Sixers’ Second Bad Call on East Market Street
This time last year, the billionaire owners of the Sixers were going hard for a new basketball arena on East Market Street. 76 Place was a public transit-oriented project hitched to a beleaguered public transit agency. Then as now, SEPTA is facing a fiscal cliff. U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is threatening to push the mismanaged agency over the cliff.
Market East has been in decline for decades. Empty storefronts line the once thriving shopping district. The Sixers and their new bestie, Comcast, plan to demolish buildings and build, well, nothing. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:
The companies that own the 76ers and Flyers earlier this year made a high-profile commitment to help transform the long-distressed East Market Street corridor.
The first development to come out of that promise? Perhaps a mini-soccer pitch. Or a pop-up beer garden.
The teams recently hired a contractor to demolish buildings they own on the 1000-block of the beleaguered thoroughfare with the goal of eventually erecting a major development that could help revitalize the area.
But, until then, City Councilmember Mark Squilla said Friday the teams and city leaders hope to “activate” the lots slated for demolition with “pop-up” opportunities related to the FIFA World Cup and the nation’s 250th birthday being hosted in Philadelphia next summer.
The Sixers and Comcast’s development plan to shoot first and aim later was shot down by the Design Advocacy Group:
In the meantime, the sports teams that now own many buildings on the 900 and 1000 blocks of Market Street are already planning to begin tearing them down with nothing more in mind than a “pop up” beer garden or miniature soccer field.
If popups are wanted by FIFA and the 250th, Market Street already has large demolition sites—the surface parking lot at 13th and Market and the gigantic “Disney Hole” at 8th and Market. Not far away is the gaping void on Jewelers Row, a cautionary tale about premature demolition. These places remind us of past failures where rushed demolition yielded no replacement.
Of course, Market Street needs dressing up in time for the flood of visitors we look forward to in 2026. And pop-ups on existing empty sites should be part of that. But it makes no sense to stage such impulsive demolition on Market Street to create spaces we don’t need now for the not yet planned projects that may come next.
UPDATE: The Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic Inga Saffron doesn’t trust the Sixers and Comcast’s process:
The long-awaited effort to reinvent Market East began in the same bombshell manner as the Sixers’ arena proposal did three years ago — with no transparency and no planning.
First, the two new BFFs of the Philadelphia sports world — the Sixers and Comcast — blindsided Mayor Cherelle L. Parker (and the rest of us) by announcing that they intended to raze several buildings on the 1000 block of Market Street, an area covering half the block. As for what they would put in their place, well, they’ll get back to us on that.
This has to be the worst idea for fixing Market Street’s woes since the last bad idea: the Sixers basketball arena.
Save Our Signs Launches the People’s Archive of National Park Signs
The federal government shutdown has paused the whitewashing of American history prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior’s order implementing President Trump’s Executive Order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” It is insane to believe that “truth” is on the side of Trump and his monochromatic and chaotic administration.
The Save Our Signs project is a crowdsourced archive dedicated to documenting and preserving signs, exhibits and plaques at National Park Service sites. SOS has launched an open-access, searchable digital archive of photographs of interpretive signs taken by visitors to National Park Service sites. As of October 13, 2025, the SOS Archive has over 10,000 photos.
In a statement, Jenny McBurney, Government Publications Librarian at the University of Minnesota and SOS co-founder, said:
I’m so excited to share this collaborative photo collection with the public. As librarians, our goal is to preserve the knowledge and stories told in these signs. We want to put the signs back in the people’s hands. We are so grateful for all the people who have contributed their time and energy to this project. The outpouring of support has been so heartening. We hope the launch of this archive is a way for people to see all their work come together.
[…]
The SOS Archive includes an online collection of the crowdsourced photos organized by NPS site, and a spreadsheet that houses volunteer-provided details for each individual photo submission. In addition to the name of the park, this includes the date that the photo was taken, and may include the title of the sign, if it was submitted by the volunteer.
SOS is still collecting photos. To add your photos, go here.
Party with a Purpose at the Johnson House
September is International Underground Railroad Month, a celebration of the history and legacy of the Underground Railroad. Events highlight stories of the self-emancipators who used a covert network of antislavery activists and safe havens to escape bondage.
Frederick Douglass embarked on his journey to freedom on September 3, 1838. Harriet Tubman began her escape on September 17, 1849.
Archival records show that William Still, Father of the Underground Railroad, held meetings at the Johnson House, an Underground Railroad station in Philadelphia. The Johnson House Historic Site is a National Historic Landmark, the highest designation for a historic property.
With the whitewashing of American history, the Johnson House stands as a powerful memorial to faith, resilience and resistance.
This International Underground Railroad Month, the Johnson House will host a party with a purpose, Jammin’ in the Garden 2025: A Celebration of Music and Community, on Saturday, September 20, 2025, from 4:00pm to 7:00pm. The fundraiser will support their preservation work and the Center for Social Advocacy.
To get tickets, go here.
SEPTA Officials Deleted 76 Place Records
Although SEPTA is in a transit death spiral, the agency is wasting money on outside counsel fighting release of records related to the Philadelphia 76ers’ proposal to build an arena atop Jefferson Station.
I submitted a Right-To-Know Law request on August 1, 2023 for records related to 76 Place for the timeframe of April 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023. After losing before the Office of Open Records and the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, SEPTA now claims more than seven gigabytes of data were deleted. Former CEO Leslie Richards and current CEO Scott Sauer deleted records related to the most controversial proposal in the transit agency’s history.
Richards left the cash-strapped agency in November 2024 but she’s still collecting a check from SEPTA.
It is said that those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. Fittingly, Richards is now teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. Penn recently announced that Richards received the 2025 Government Service Award from the Philadelphia chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
In deleting 76 Place records, Richards did a disservice to the public. We have the right to know how SEPTA could have been stuck paying tens of millions of dollars for the Sixers billionaire owners’ now-abandoned vanity project.
SEPTA is Exhibit 1 as to why the Pennsylvania House of Representatives should pass Senate Bill 686, sponsored by Pennsylvania Senate State Government Committee Chairman Sen. Cris Dush. The legislation makes the intentional destruction or alteration of Right-To-Know Law records a third-degree felony.
Following passage of SB686, Sen. Dush said:
I find it deeply troubling that Pennsylvania’s long-standing RTK law mentions no criminal offense for destroying or altering records subject to a RTK request. Not surprisingly, the rule of law is entirely thwarted whenever government officials or their staff intentionally dispose or suppress records that have been requested under RTK provisions, and which the public has every right to examine.
Those who cannot handle the truth should not get away with criminally suppressing the truth. In short, the punishment for violating our Commonwealth’s RTK law must fit the crime. It’s well past time in Pennsylvania to balance the scales of justice against this preposterous ‘get-out-of-jail-free-card’ for the flagrant destruction of RTK records with a maximum third-degree felony conviction.
It is deeply troubling officials destroyed records knowing that if SEPTA approved 76 Place, lawsuits would fly.
What Are SEPTA and City of Philadelphia Hiding?
The Philadelphia 76ers abandoned their plan to build an arena atop SEPTA’s Jefferson Station. But SEPTA is still playing games to block disclosure of communications with the Sixers’ billionaire owners and their representatives.
SEPTA lost their appeal of the Office of Open Records’ Final Determination to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania. The beleaguered transit agency was directed to conduct a good faith search for records responsive to my Right-To-Know Law request for, among other things, invoices, reports, feasibility studies, traffic impact studies, architectural designs and cost estimates.
In a sworn statement, Allison DeMatteo, SEPTA’s Manager of Records and Information, claimed her search using the keywords “76 Place” and “76 Devcorp” returned 7.60 gigabytes of data, including 5.71 gigabytes of email.
According to ChatGPT, one gigabyte of email data is roughly 100,000 pages. As of this writing, SEPTA has produced 30 records.
Meanwhile, the City of Philadelphia has petitioned the OOR to reconsider its final determination, dated May 30, 2025. The OOR should tell the City: We said what we said. “[T]he appeal is granted in part and denied in part, and the City is required to provide unredacted responsive records, as designated in this Final Determination, to the Requester within thirty days.”
UPDATE: Office of Open Records Deputy Chief Counsel Kathleen A. Higgins to the City of Philadelphia: The Petition is DENIED:
Therefore, after a review of the complete appeal file, including the Final Determination Upon Remand and the arguments set forth in the Petition, the record indicates that all evidence and submissions before the OOR were considered and given proper weight, and as a result, I cannot conclude that the Appeals Officer committed an error of law or an abuse of discretion. Accordingly, the Petition is DENIED.
In other words, the City of Philadelphia got to give it up.
SEPTA Ordered to Give Up 76 Place Documents — Again
On August 1, 2023, I filed a Right-To-Know Law request for records related to the Sixers’ now-abandoned proposal to build a basketball arena atop Jefferson Station. SEPTA denied the request, claiming the entirety of my Request was “insufficiently specific.”
I appealed the denial to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records. The OOR determined that several Items were sufficiently specific and ordered SEPTA to conduct a good faith search for the records on December 20, 2023.
Rather than comply with the OOR’s final determination, the cash-strapped public transit agency paid outside counsel to appeal the order to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania.
On May 1, 2025, the Commonwealth Court affirmed the OOR’s findings, stating that my Request was sufficiently specific, in part. SEPTA was, again, directed to conduct a good faith search for records responsive to my Request for, among other things, invoices, reports, feasibility studies, traffic impact studies, architectural designs and cost estimates.
The Commonwealth Court effectively said game over. Like the 76ers playing in the second round of the NBA playoffs, SEPTA blew its chance to assert any exemptions from disclosure. SEPTA must give up 76 Place records.
Black History Under Attack
While still a British colony, South Carolina passed the first law that denied enslaved Africans the right to learn. The Negro Act of 1740 outlawed teaching enslaved people to read. President Trump threatens to withhold federal funding from schools that teach uncomfortable truths about American history.
Across the country, churches, civil rights organizations, activists and concerned citizens are speaking up and resisting efforts to erase Black history. We have come too far to go back.
The Freedom to Learn Network, convened by the African American Policy Forum, has launched the National Week of Action to resist Trump’s attempt to erase Black history, and defend our freedom and right to learn.
The activations include a #HandsOffOurHistory gathering in DC on Saturday, May 3, 2025.
To register for the DC gathering, go here.
Black History Matters
With little fanfare, President Trump has tapped Hillsdale College to produce a video series, “The Story of America.” A member of the Project 2025 network, the conservative Christian college’s demographically monochromatic faculty and student body does not look like America.
The teaching of Black history is under attack from the White House to state houses. It is not in my DNA to bend the knee. I am speaking about Moses Williams at the upcoming public history teach-in co-hosted by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and 1838 Black Metropolis.
Moses Williams was enslaved by Charles Willson Peale whose portrait of George Washington is prominently displayed in Trump’s tricked out Oval Office. The title of my presentation is “Mapping Moses Williams’ Philadelphia.”
On Friday, April 25, historian and artist Nell Irvin Painter will give a keynote address, “Arrived, New Names.” Painter “will set the tone for exploring how creative projects can share complicated and compelling histories.”
On Saturday, April 25, public historians, educators, artists, preservationists and community members will share strategies on how they are breathing life into the archives to tell untold or undertold stories, and stories of belonging.
The event is open to the public. To register, go here.
Resisting DOGE at National Park Service
It’s Sunshine Week but there’s nothing but clouds in Washington, where President Trump and Elon Musk are spreading chaos and sowing fear. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has illegally fired tens of thousands of federal employees, including 1,000 National Park Service workers.
Judge William Alsup ordered the immediate reinstatement of unlawfully terminated employees:
It is a sad day when our government would fire some good employee and say it was based on performance when they know good and well that is a lie.
A group of NPS rangers is fighting back. The Resistance Rangers said in a statement:
Resistance Rangers will not see this ruling as a win until illegally terminated employees from all agencies outlined in the court’s rulings are reinstated in their roles, with back pay and their records cleared. As Judge Alsup noted, it is critical that these employees have the false accusation of “poor performance” removed from their records.
The unlawful terminations impact more than NPS rangers who work at national parks. Park rangers are stewards of national monuments and historic sites, including the African Burial Ground, Statute of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, the President’s House, Independence Hall and the Portrait Gallery in the Second Bank.
The Portrait Gallery has been closed due to a staff shortage since 2024. NPS terminations include two employees at Independence National Historic Park.
The Portrait Gallery is one of the few places where the story of Moses Williams is in public memory. I have nominated Williams for a Pennsylvania historical marker.
Enslaved by “Artist of the Revolution” Charles Willson Peale, Williams was a master silhouette artist who operated a physiognotrace (face tracing machine) at Peale’s Museum which was located in the building now known as Independence Hall.
A NPS ranger demonstrates the physiognotrace at the Portrait Gallery.
I will submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the Department of the Interior for records related to the unlawful termination of Independence National Historic Park workers, the President’s House, Independence Hall, and the Portrait Gallery in the Second Bank.
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