I’m at the @TheFranklin’s media event announcement for the Harry Potter exhibit and we all had to choose a house scarf when we registered and this may be the best media check in ever.
Benny F is already watching out for a little magic.
Also, there is tea and crumpets.
The Philly Pops are on hand and wearing house scarves and I may get weepy if/when they play the Harry Potter theme.
😭
😭😭🧙♀️
Franklin CEO Larry Dubinski announces the exhibit will open Feb. 18, 2022.
More than 21,000 pre-sale tickets have already been sold. Tickets go on sale to the public today.
It was just announced that this giant sculpture and giant snitch will travel around the region. People can interact with it through a QR code and have a chance to win the first 4 tickets into the exhibit when it opens. These Hogwarts students demonstrate.
Mayor Kenney is a Ravenclaw. Says he thinks Ben Franklin would have loved Harry Potter.
Going to write up info about how to get tickets and what to expect at Harry Potter: The Exhibit next year. One way is to chase the Golden snitch across the region (spoiler: I got him).
They also had golden snitched flying about the great hall over Benny F’s head.
I’m just going to say it was really hard not to climb on this broomstick during a press event. I’m jelly of the people who did.
I think Mayor Kenney even smiled a little today! #magical
Finally, I will leave you with this, my muggle friends. May you all always stay up to no good. 🧙♀️
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I’ve never been more proud than I am today to work for a newspaper that was bought not just by a billionaire, but a true philanthropist, who so valued journalism - the only profession expressly protected by the U.S. Constitution - that he created a nonprofit to entrust us to. 🧵
As H.F. Gerry Lenfest himself once said:
“What would the city be without the Inquirer and the Daily News? Of all the things I've done, this is the most important. Because of the journalism.”
On Friday, as news of Bezos pulling the WaPo’s presidential endorsement spread, our editorial board at @PhillyInquirer made its endorsement without fear.
This is the door to the Yamatorium and the man behind it, artist Steven Erdman, who created this absurdist experience in the basement of his West Philly home. These photos are in the “waiting room.”
Here, you see the Yam Boy I mention in my column and you see Steven pretend to take a call on his yamophone (it was a wrong number).
He was on from the minute we walked in the door and never turned off. He broke into song 5 times, had 3 costume changes and many personas.
Two weeks ago, I posted a thread on Twitter about a Philly community center that found a locked mystery safe and needed help (for free) getting it opened.
Today, because of the help of lots of awesome Philadelphians, the safe was cracked open and I was there (a thread)
The tip about the safe came to me from my colleague @ByChrisBrennan, who saw the Old Pine Community Center post about it on Nextdoor & sent the post my way.
"Saw this on the Nextdoor app and immediately wondered what a Farr report about this would read like," he wrote me.
I called the center's executive director, Mark Atwood, who told me they'd sought locksmiths to open the safe, but all estimates were out of their price range.
I offered to put the word out on Philly Twitter to see if they could find a volunteer. Atwood approved.
They were able to connect with people (keeping the who on the DL for the moment) to open the safe as a result of someone seeing my previous thread and DMing me a suggestion so yay for Philly Twitter!!!
Updates to come.
I feel like I should maybe bring a fake mustache with me in case I turn out to be Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's empty vault.