For nearly a dozen years, Vito Maglio’s family has agonized over who could have shot him in the head and neck, torched his SUV, then dumped his body into the Schuylkill.
“I said to myself, maybe I’ll die before I know,” his wife of 40 years, Maria, 75, said from her Bustleton home.
Then, this week, Philadelphia police arrested a 30-year-old woman in connection with Maglio’s death, saying she and others robbed him of his gold ring, phone, and a small amount of cash, then killed him and tossed his body into the river in December 2014.
Melanie Morat was taken into custody at her East Frankford home Tuesday afternoon and is expected to be charged with murder, robbery, arson, and related crimes, police said. Detectives are investigating whether at least two other people were involved in the crime, law enforcement sources said.
The arrest comes as Philadelphia homicide detectives, with more time and resources amid a striking decline in violence, continue to work through a backlog of unsolved cases — a combination of the hundreds of killings from the pandemic-era spike in shootings and higher-profile cases from years past that ran cold.
The killing of Maglio, 69, was among the latter, a disappearance and death that shocked his family and community, and left police struggling to amass enough evidence to make an arrest.
Maglio, a father of six, was a mechanic who owned several gas stations and ran a social club, the Napoli Association in Rhawnhurst, for many years before selling the businesses and retiring in November 2014.
Maria and Vito Maglio had been married for 40 years.
But on Dec. 14, 2014, he did not return to his Bustleton home, and his family reported him missing. Several days later, police found his GMC Yukon in East Germantown, charred and windowless, with a bullet casing inside and a pool of blood beneath the driver’s seat, police said.
His remains were not recovered from the Schuylkill until late March. He was identified by his pacemaker.
The investigation was challenging from the start, officials said, in part because homicide detectives did not take over the case until his body was recovered months after his disappearance. The assigned detective, Gregory Santamala, said in a 2016 interview that police did not know where Maglio was killed because his phone records showed that he was in various neighborhoods on the night he disappeared, and there were no surveillance cameras in the area where his car was burned.
Detectives suspected he had been set up in a robbery that went awry, he said. An early tip led investigators to interview two women in the Northeast, and both failed polygraph tests. But the women immediately hired lawyers and stopped talking, officials said.
Santamala retired in 2022, and the case went cold.
Then, this summer, the case was reassigned to Detectives Joseph Cremen and Robert Daly, who began reviewing phone records and the more than a dozen interviews their colleagues held with suspects and witnesses over the years.
Investigators told Maglio’s family it was not necessarily new evidence that allowed them to make an arrest this week — but a new style of building cases. Years ago, they said, prosecutors had less experience making cases from cell phone location data and circumstantial evidence. Now, they said, law enforcement has greater expertise in understanding those records, which, alongside the witness statements, allowed prosecutors to conclude there was sufficient evidence to charge Morat with murder.
Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore said using today’s technology to solve older cases is the crux of cold case review.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
Maglio’s family said the developments came as a welcome surprise after a decade of fleeting hope. Sitting in the green-walled living room of their parents’ home Tuesday night, Maglio’s children said they were grateful for an arrest and eager for the court process to begin.
“I’m just glad it didn’t fall through the cracks,” said daughter-in-law Sandra Maglio, 50. “It was our biggest fear. We live in a city where people die every day, sadly. … So I’m just glad that, you know, someone took the initiative to say, ‘Hey, let’s look at this again.’”
They were also struck by the timing. Maglio’s brother-in-law died Monday. And his son, Donato, died three years ago this month at the age of 47.
They imagine them all together now.
“It gives us some kind of closure,” said daughter Lucia Thrasher, 37. “But we already got the outcome we didn’t want to 12 years ago.”
Thrasher’s eyes welled with tears as she looked at her 6-year-old twins, Charles and Thomas, who never got to meet their grandfather. Charles, bouncing in the doorway, asked why everyone was in the living room.
“Nonno,” she told him.
“You know, Nonno,” she said, as he looked away bashfully. “Where’s Nonno?”
He pointed toward a gold-flecked picture frame in the corner of the room.
Vito Maglio, 69, was a father of six.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
The debate over a proposed 2 million-square-foot AI data center in Plymouth Township near Conshohocken has become acrimonious, with local officials and the developer trading accusations of mistreatment.
Plymouth Township Council Chair Lynne Viscio said Monday that the project’s developer, Brian O’Neill, had “bullied” and “intimidated” township officials in an attempt to gain approval to build the facility on the site of the shuttered Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill.
O’Neill’s recent efforts have included a legal challenge to the township’s zoning ordinance. Viscio said it was filed after O’Neill “rejected” the township’s concerns and its proposed data-center “safeguards.”
“This is a blatant attempt by the applicant to demand approval by throwing a tantrum,” Viscio said in a statement, which she delivered during a live streamed appearance by council members, later posted to the township’s website. “The township is not interested in entertaining such theatrics.”
Reached by phone, O’Neill called the accusations “a bold-faced lie” that were part of a “misinformation campaign” against his planned data center. He said he had been “negotiating in good faith” with township attorneys for months and had agreed to “the majority” of the township’s conditions.
“We are sympathetic to the fact that they are under tremendous political scrutiny from people outside the township, as well as residents inside the township, and that makes giving a landowner their property rights … challenging,” said O’Neill, a longtime developer in Conshohocken and on the Main Line.
“However, I am a landowner, and I do have rights,” he added, “and it is their job to be impartial and fair in their analysis and response.”
The closed Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill is seen last month outside Conshohocken.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
Hyperscale data centers, such as the one O’Neill is proposing, house the energy-hungry technology that powers ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence tools.
The Plymouth Township site is less than a mile from downtown Conshohocken, near the Proving Grounds sports complex, Tee’s Golf Center, and dozens of homes in the township’s Connaughtown section.
The closed Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill where Brian O’Neill wants to build a data center is shown in June.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
O’Neill has not said who would operate the center but has indicated it would be a tenant related to the life sciences.
An initial zoning hearing board meeting on the resurrected Plymouth Township project was held last month. As of Monday, a more substantive hearing was scheduled for Aug. 6 and was set to include the presentation of evidence and testimony.
The Plymouth Township project is one of six data centers that O’Neill is proposing in the area. Across the river in Upper Merion Township, where O’Neill’s MLP Ventures already has offices and labs, the developer has proposed a 4.6 million-square-foot data center campus spanning five properties.
The proposed data centers in Upper Merion and Plymouth TownshipsJohn Duchneskie
After a tense Upper Merion Township Planning Commission meeting last week, officials there voted not to recommend approval of three of O’Neill’s five plans. A hearing on the other two Upper Merion plans is set for Aug. 12.
After the planning commission reviews all the applications, the Upper Merion Township Board of Supervisors will ultimately decide whether to approve the projects.
In both Upper Merion and Plymouth Townships, some residents have rallied against the plans, packing township meetings, signing online petitions, putting anti-data-center signs on their lawns, and organizing on social media. They have cited concerns about light, noise, and air pollution; water usage; and electricity costs.
A yard sign protests the proposed Plymouth Township data center.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
On Monday, O’Neill reiterated that his Plymouth Township data center would make little noise, emit no light pollution, and operate on a closed-loop system that does not require outside water. He said it would generate its own power, not taxing the grid, and generate “billions of dollars in employment and economic development.”
“I am shocked that [the township council] can in good conscience not promote my plan, let alone publicly oppose it,” given office vacancies in the area, O’Neill said. In the past, “our developments have helped to create the vibrant community that Conshohocken and Plymouth are today.”
Viscio, the Plymouth Township Council chair, said that local officials wanted to ensure that O’Neill’s proposed data center improved residents’ quality of life — and that O’Neill’s efforts could prevent them from doing so.
“We will not allow ourselves to be bullied or intimidated by any developer,” Viscio said. “We will not dismiss legitimate concerns raised by our residents.”
She said the council would continue to oppose O’Neill’s application and his challenge to the zoning ordinance.
On Monday afternoon, O’Neill called back a reporter with an additional message for Plymouth Township officials: “We’re always willing to make a deal if they want to sit down and talk.”
After three days of dealing with smoky, particulate-filled air, many Philadelphians went outside Sunday to enjoy the sunshine, gentle winds, and relatively clear horizons.
But hundreds of miles northwest in Ontario, wildfires continued to burn, posing a life-threatening emergency to some Canadians and leaving much of the United States susceptible to more rounds of smoke.
Experts say the ongoing wildfires will threaten air quality in the region, while the longer dry seasons, droughts, and high winds associated with climate change mean that such fires — and the smoke they send downwind — may become more common.
“I think we are headed into an era where we are likely to see more periods of air pollution from wildfire smoke reaching the East,” said Erica Smithwick, a Penn State geography professor. “We are not immune to these dangers anymore, and we’re going to have to learn to live with them.”
Outdoor enthusiasts are on the Schuylkill River Trail Sunday, July 19, 2026, taking advantage of sunny, clear skies and moderate air quality after three days of bad air from the Canadian and Great Lakes wildfire smoke.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Walking along the Schuylkill on Sunday morning, Dion Carmichael was coming to terms with this.
“You can tell everyone feels excited to be here today,” said Carmichael. The 29-year-old said her Fairmount neighborhood felt a bit “like a ghost town” the past few days as people stayed inside.
She and her partner had to cancel a camping trip in New York, Carmichael said. She said it’s had her thinking about “the future of our planet.”
“Global warming is a big factor in this. We should take care of our planet,” Carmichael said.
Her partner, Canice Okereke, noted that he could still smell faint wood smoke in the air. That didn’t worry him personally. But it remains a threat for some of the people with health issues he helps in his job managing in-home care services for seniors. The past few days, simple tasks like walking to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription became a challenge for those with respiratory issues.
A biker is on the Schuylkill River Trail Sunday, July 19, 2026, taking advantage of sunny, clear skies and moderate air quality after three days of bad air from the Canadian and Great Lakes wildfire smoke.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Sean Conway just finished leading a three-mile group run. The 26-year-old personal trainer said he never thought about wildfire smoke or air quality until Thursday, when one of his running partners told him he was better off staying indoors. He begrudgingly took to the treadmill, and then admitted his friend was right.
“If you’re running for your health, why would you run in smoke? It’s like smoking a cigarette,” Conway said.
In the short term, the worst of the wildfire smoke has passed, said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Bill Deger. But sensitive groups such as children and those with respiratory issues could still be affected, he said.
Sunday’s moderately clean air is the result of a cold front from eastern Canada, he said. “Now we will have shifting wind directions over the next couple days. If the wind comes out of the west, we can have more of an uptick in that smoke, though I don’t expect it to be as bad as it was,” Deger said.
As for weather, temperatures will drop into the 60s in Philly and into the 50s in the suburbs Monday night, giving air conditioners a break, he said. Higher humidity and “heavy, gusty thunderstorms” are forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Hazy skies certainly look like a possibility, but as far as that ground-level pollution is concerned, it should not be as bad,” Deger said, adding that it is difficult to predict air quality beyond two or three days out.
Boaters are on the Schuylkill Sunday, July 19, 2026, taking advantage of sunny, clear skies and moderate air quality after three days of bad air from the Canadian and Great Lakes wildfire smoke.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Smithwick said broader trends make more fires likely. High winds, droughts, and long dry seasons are all on the rise due to climate change. She noted, in addition to Ontario, wildfires are burning in Minnesota.
“In the East, you don’t need large periods of drying to have wildfire conditions — two weeks or less. And when it happens upon an extended period of drought, those create the conditions for the wildfires,” Smithwick said.
Canada and the Midwest have seen extensive fires before, Smithwick said, “but not at the frequency and scale that we’re seeing now.”
This increase brings both ecological peril and human health risks, she said. These risks are often worse for disadvantaged communities where people may lack things like air conditioners and indoor air purifiers.
In addition, some of the needed changes must occur on a larger scale, Smithwick said. One example: She said schools should be fitted with air monitors and purifiers.
Smithwick encouraged people to monitor air quality indoors and outdoors, follow guidelines, stay indoors when needed, and stay cool.
“Adjusting your behaviors to meet the moment can be difficult, but finding alternative activities can work.”
Mikin Patel, 25, hangs in his hammock joining other outdoor enthusiasts on the Schuylkill River Trail Sunday, July 19, 2026, taking advantage of sunny, clear skies and moderate air quality after three days of bad air from the Canadian and Great Lakes wildfire smoke. Patel, who often bikes from his home in Fairmount to the river “just to chill,” said he hadn’t done so in the past few days. He was just on the phone telling his brother in California how great the weather was. “It finally got nice again,” he told him.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Kurt Vile’s love of Philly — and Philadelphia’s affection for Kurt Vile — has never been in question.
For the cover of Constant Hitmaker, the 2008 album that announced his arrival, Vile posed in front of a blown out wall “that looks like a Rauschenberg painting” at the corner of Frankford and Norris, he recalls. “That stuff’s beautiful, you know?”
Since 2012, a Steve “ESPO” Powers mural that doubles as the cover for Vile’s 2013 album Wakin On A Pretty Daze has adorned a wall at Front and Master Streets in Northern Liberties, visible to travelers headed north on the Market-Frankford El.
With his signature mane and quizzical expression, Vile, who grew up in Lansdowne in Delaware County, has been the face of Philly’s reign as the capital city of 21st century indie rock.
Kurt Vile stands in front of a mural by Steve “ESPO” Powers on March 27, 2013. Michael S. Wirtz / Staff Photographer
The city is embedded in Vile’s music at every turn, from the “I park for free!” boast on the 2018 song “Loading Zones” to the cover of 2022’s Watch My Moves, which pictures the Dad rock king wearing a crocodile mask in Wissahickon Valley Park, flanked by daughters Awilda and Delphine.
But Vile has never repped his hometown so hard as on his new album, Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me, released in May. It includes shout-outs to Lincoln Drive, the Schuylkill, and Sun Ra, and an infectious single “Chance to Bleed” that features Philadelphia gangsta rap pioneer Schoolly D in a video shot at Kung Fu Necktie.
Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me even includes a playful taunt at two of Vile’s classic rock favorites who dared to record songs with the word Philadelphia in the title.
“A couple of my heroes wrote a song,” Vile talk-sings in “You Don’t Know Cuz It’s My Life.” “But that ain’t where they’re from, so hey you don’t know / But I still love you, Neil and the Boss.”
Working in the wee hours in his basement OKV studio — which stands for “Overnight Kurt Vile” — in his fieldstone house in Mount Airy, Vile recalls, “I was singing along to this keyboard track I had laid down, and that thought came to me.”
Kurt Vile in his basement studio at his home in Mount Airy June 13, 2022, with his daughter Delphine.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Vile, who had (legally) parked his Prius in a nearby loading zone, was talking at the Silk City Diner on the Sunday night of Memorial Day weekend where he would realize a long-held ambition: sitting in with centenarian saxophonist Marshall Allen and members of the Sun Ra Arkestra.
Vile — who was wearing a Tammy Wynette T-shirt and MF Doom trucker’s hat, with his 1965 Fender Jazzmaster Sunburst in the booth beside him (without a case) — explainedhis unique position in Philadelphia music history while dining on an Impossible Burger and Korean fried cauliflower.
“Springsteen wrote the song ‘Streets of Philadelphia’ and Neil wrote ‘Philadelphia,’ and they’re both on the soundtrack to Philadelphia, right?” he says, referring to Jonathan Demme’s 1993 AIDS drama.
“I get where they’re coming from, but it’s still an assignment. They’re singing about a city they don’t know that well. I’m proud of the city that I’m from, and I’m also lucky that I’m from here.
“It’s like my friend Mary Lattimore, who plays the harp.” (And has given lessons to Vile’s daughters, who also both play guitar.) “She’s not from Philly, but she lived here forever, so it feels like home to her, even though she’s in LA now.”
The album cover of Kurt Vile’s ‘Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me,’ which features a photo by Memphis photographer William Eggleston.Verve
Adam Granduciel of the War on Drugs, with whom Vile frequently teamed up when both were aspiring artists in the 2000s, also grew up elsewhere and now lives in Los Angeles.
“They’re two of my oldest friends that were in the Philly scene forever, but they don’t have the extended history that I do.”
Kurt Vile with his father, Charlie, and his daughters Delphine (left) and Awilda, who posed with him on the cover of his latest album, at his home in Mount Airy on June 13, 2022.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
The Philly fixture
Vile — who is the oldest boy among the 10 children of his SEPTA train operator father Charlie and stay-at-home mother Donna — is Philly-area born and bred.
“I’m the OG,” he says. “That’s what I’m proud about. It’s like Questlove, or something,” though for all the Philly repping the Roots drummer does, he doesn’t live here either.
Vile, by contrast, is a Philadelphia fixture. When artists like country rebel Margo Price, Australian rocker Courtney Barnett, and North African desert blues band Tinariwen have come to town, there was one way to know for sure they were in Philadelphia: Kurt Vile was standing next to them onstage.
Vile plays the Dell Music Center with his band the Violators on July 25 as part of Connor Barwin’s Make The World Better Concert Weekend. He played Barwin’s first MTWB Foundation benefit in 2014, which raised money to build playgrounds and rec centers throughout the city.
“I don’t follow football and I didn’t know who he was,” Vile says, recalling meeting Barwin at a show. “He walked in and he looked amazing. He was so tall, like a [expletive] Eagle. He was just a genuine fan. I love reconnecting with Connor and watching him do his thing.”
Vile’s July 25 show is the second of two MTWB nights at the Dell. The first-night headliners are 1990s alt-rock heroes Pavement.
“Pavement was my gateway drug to indie rock,” Vile says. “Stephen Malkmus was my hero. I got my first job as a busboy at the Blue Comet on Baltimore Pike and I would spend all my money on Pavement CDs.”
Now, Vile is friends with Malkmus, and was stoked when he found out they were both playing the MTWB weekend — until he realized that he has a gig in Boston the night Pavement is playing. “I’m missing Pavement by a day,” he says. “Which I’m not happy about.”
Vile, 46, has spent his entire life living in the Philly area, save for 2002-03 when he followed his wife Suzanne Lang to Boston while she got a master’s degree at Emerson College.
Philly alt-rock star Kurt Vile outside the Silk City Diner on Sunday, May 24, 2026 in Philadelphia.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
He worked as a forklift operator for an air freight company. “The most ball bustin’ blue-collar job there is,” he says. Before he mastered the machinery, “I got made fun of a lot my first year. But then I got really good at it.”
Returning to Philly and moving to Northern Liberties, he went to work for Philadelphia Brewing Company, where he was hired by future pizza sensei Joe Beddia who was roommates with Granduciel. “They were all blown away by my forklift skills,” recalls Vile. “And that’s how I met Adam.”
At PBC, Vile met Jack Rose, the late Philadelphia guitarist who, like Vile, was a fan of influential American Primitive guitarist John Fahey.
Asked to name his top five Philadelphia artists, Vile starts with Rose. He then adds Purling Hiss guitarist Mike Polizze, and psychedelic folk singer Meg Baird, Petty Bunco label head and singer Richie Charles, along with Schoolly D.
“Is that five?” It is, but Vile has a couple more: Marshall Allen-slash-Sun Ra, and rockin’ country band Florry. “They’re so fun and excitable and young,” Vile says.
Kurt Vile in the music room in his home in Mt. Airy June 13, 2022 (this is not the basement studio)TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
“I love Mount Airy and Germantown,” he says. “There’s still so much old-school Philly in Germantown. And Mount Airy really saved my life. I love that there’s forest, and I have room to think.
Kurt Vile at his home in Mount Airy June 13, 2022, with his daughters Awilda (left) and Delphine, who posed with him on the cover of his latest album.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
“But I can still go to the city any time, and it’s so quick,” driving his Prius down Lincoln and Kelly Drives. “You go in through the Art Museum, and it’s a classy way to go in, you know?”
Over 10 albums, Vile has continued to develop a raw, unhurried signature sound. He often seems to be talking to himself in a bemused drawl over patient jams that turn out to be transfixing.
What country star Keith Urban once said of Vile’s 2015 hit “Pretty Pimpin’” in naming it as one of five songs he wished he’d written applies to Vile’s songwriting in general: “I don’t know how he wrote it, but it sounds like pure stream of consciousness.”
Philly alt-rock star Kurt Vile walking outside the Silk City Diner on Sunday, May 24, 2026 in Philadelphia.Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
‘Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me’
On Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me — whose cover features a photo by Memphis photographer William Eggleston — that deft, uncanny approach is evident on tracks like “99th Song,” an ode to a loop pedal that turns out to be a paean to domestic bliss.
“Stoned on music, well, the best kind of high,” he sings. “Got love in my life, and three girls by my side.” Later, the album includes a more straightforward love song: “Every Time I Look At You,” which begins: “Every time I look at you, sparks fly from my eyes.”
At Allen’s birthday party, Vile took a seat next to guitarist DM Hotep at the rear of the stage. “I was playing spacey, bendy Sonic Youth-hybrid leads,” he said afterward. “I felt really calm up there.”
A few days after that party, Vile celebrated the release of Philadelphia’s Been Good To Me at the Triangle Tavern in South Philly, where 200-plus fans lined up to purchase the album and receive a free vegan cheesesteak as a bonus.
Vile headed out with the Violators in June, and checked inbefore a sold-out show at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre this month.
“I’m a little discombobulated today,” he says, ordering a late afternoon large coffee and glazed doughnut. “It was a late night.”
The night before, Vile enjoyed a day off at Festa, a beloved San Fran karaoke bar closing this year he wanted to visit one last time. “I’m shy at first, but then everybody sings and I get up, too.” His go-to is “Stand Back” by Stevie Nicks.
The tour, Vile says, “is going good, man.” This trek has made him rethink the streaming era. He’s a fan of physical media, and feels “the past was more simple and honest.”
Philly alt-rock star Kurt Vile at the Silk City Diner on Sunday, May 24, 2026 in Philadelphia. Yong Kim / Staff Photographer
“But now the way people can consume your catalog from streaming, the younger people can binge my catalog like Netflix, and I can tell that they know all of my music. I just feel that people are connected.
“This is my 10th record, and I’ve accumulated all these songs that have emotional qualities combined with a dreamy, pretty, hypnotic thing, and then it rocks live with my electric guitar. It just keeps evolving. The songs are simple enough, but the possibilities are endless.”
On the bus, Vile has been keeping Philly — and Delco — close to his heart.
Kurt Vile in concert at the Union Transfer, Friday, June 3, 2022Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer
“I’m watching Mare of Easttown,” he says. “I never saw it, and now I’m obsessed, just watching all the Delaware County locations and hearing Kate Winslet say a sentence half-Delco, half-British.” He slips into a Winslet impression: “I’m hoping for an an-swer,” and chuckles to himself.
“But it’s my favorite show in a long time,” says Vile, who has Task cued up next. “And it’s got Mannequin Pussy in it. Does the director not know who I am?” he wonders. “I guess I’ve got to get in touch.”
“The timing is interesting, ‘cause I’ve been spending a lot of time in Delco lately,” says Vile, who’s been hanging with his parents and recently dropped in at his old haunt Paul Revere Pizza in Lansdowne. “Now I’m traveling, and I’m touring my Philly record, and I’m loving it. I’m loving being somewhere else and not in Philly every night. But I’m watching Mare of Easttown. And I know I’m gonna love it when I come home.”
Kurt Vile & the Violators with They Are Gutting A Body of Water and Twisted Teens at the Dell Music Center, 2400 Strawberry Mansion Dr. at 7:30 p.m. July 25th, dellmusiccenter.com.
Amtrak and the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority agreed Wednesday to work together to revive passenger train service between Philadelphia and Reading after an absence of 45 years.
Federal Railroad Administration officials designated the route as one of 60 intercity rail corridors to be developed in part with start-up funds from the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.
Intermediate stops are planned for Pottstown and Phoenixville.
The agreement is a step forward, committing Amtrak to complete formal ridership forecasts and revenue estimates and to determine likely costs to operate and maintain the route.
“We’ll rocket through Step 2,” said Thomas Frawley, executive director of the Schuylkill River Passenger Rail Authority, because of Amtrak’s commitment to the project. “We’re excited and optimistic.”
Amtrak will handle the next stage of work, estimated at $4.8 million. Federal officials have approved the budget, but the money needs to be obligated before the bipartisan infrastructure bill expires Sept. 30, Frawley said.
Congress is discussing reauthorization of a new surface transportation law, and future funding of the rail corridor program is uncertain despite bipartisan support.
After the business plan in Step 2, the Philadelphia-Reading line would require preliminary engineering, final design and engineering, and some construction.
Ever since rail service along the route ended in 1981, people have been trying to figure out a way to bring back the trains.
Other proposals fell by the wayside, including the state’s 1990s Schuylkill Valley Metro plan to build an electric-powered commuter service on the route. It was estimated at $2 billion. In 2003, Gov. Ed Rendell canceled the effort amid funding concerns.
By contrast, the SRPRA plan is projected to cost about $100 million.
Backers say the SRPRA plan has advantages that could pay off. For one, the partnership with Amtrak and the national passenger railroad’s interest in running the line.
“We look forward to the opportunity to reconnect communities like Reading to the Northeast Corridor and beyond, to support their economic and community development,” Nicole Bucich, Amtrak’s vice president of planning and state partnerships, said in a statement.
Another: Norfolk Southern owns and hauls freight on existing rails with diesel locomotives — no need for a massive project to build tracks or a system of overhead wires to power passenger trains.
“They’re running trains today on the railroad, and it’s in very good condition,” Frawley said. “We’re not talking about a greenfield project.”
The Northeast Corridor itself is an advantage, too, Frawley said, giving more people access to Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station to Boston, New York, Washington, and points between.
“It can have a powerful synergistic effect” on the regional economy, he said.
The Upper Merion Planning Commission is scheduled to discuss three of Brian O’Neill’s five proposed data centers at its next meeting on Wednesday, July 22, according to Township Manager Anthony Hamaday and a meeting agenda posted online.
After receiving an overview of the project at an initial planning commission meeting in May, the township has “done an official review, and we have forwarded our comments to the applicant,” Hamaday said. The plans “have been revised and sent back.”
Next, Hamaday said, the planning commission will dive into the nitty-gritty, scrutinizing whether the project complies with township code.
Next Wednesday, they will review the proposed 2-million-square-foot data center at the Renaissance Boulevard office park; the proposed 370,000-square-foot data center at the current site of a daycare at 3200 Horizon Dr.; and the proposed 188,000-square-foot data center at an office and lab building on a remediated Superfund site at 2100 Renaissance Blvd.
The other two proposed data centers are set to be reviewed at a meeting on Aug. 12, Hamaday said Tuesday.
At the May meeting, O’Neill, whose MLP Ventures is behind the proposal, called it “an opportunity to change the world for the better” through AI-powered biotech that would complement his existing life-sciences complex, Discovery Labs. He said most of the centers would be leased to tenants, but has not specified which ones.
Anti-data center lawn signs seen in King of Prussia in late May.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Many area residents have rallied against the centers, with some displaying bright orange lawn signs that read: “Five data centers, 100 feet from here. Absolutely not!” Opponents have cited concerns about the potential for noise, light, and other pollution, as well as the general disruption to their daily lives.
Hundreds of people packed the May meeting. Hamaday said the forthcoming meetings would be moved to the Upper Merion Area Middle School to accommodate expected crowds. They will also be broadcast live, potentially on the local TV channel, he said, and streamed on Zoom.
Upper Merion Township isn’t the only place where O’Neill has set his sights.
Across the Schuylkill, on the outskirts of Conshohocken, the developer wants to build another 2 million-square-foot AI data center at the site of the former Cleveland-Cliffs steel mill. He has said the center would be operated by a tenant related to the life sciences.
The closed Cleveland-Cliffs steel Mill, pictured in June, where Brian O’Neill wants to build a 2-million-square-foot AI data center.Monica Herndon / Staff Photographer
He recently resubmitted a plan to Plymouth Township, and a procedural zoning hearing board meeting was held last month.
The next meeting about the Conshohocken-area project is scheduled for Aug. 6 at Colonial Middle School and via livestream on the township’s YouTube channel.
Both the Conshohocken-area and King of Prussia plans would require multiple recommendations and approvals before construction could begin.
Philadelphia historian, author, and educator Michelle Craig McDonald knows her coffee. Especially the revolutionary kind.
McDonald, who serves as an academic adviser for PBS’s series Drive By History, is the author of the new book, Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States.
Philly historian and educator Michelle Craig McDonald enjoys reading in Rittenhouse Square Park. She is the author of “Coffee Nation: How One Commodity Transformed the Early United States.” Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Telling the story of America and coffee, McDonald traces the bean’s beginnings from slavery-based plantations of the Caribbean and South America in the early 1700s through its prominence in Colonial life to the rebranding of the exotic good as an American staple. McDonald details the emergence of coffee shops, like the Old London Coffee House at Front and Market Streets, as critical Revolutionary-era hubs for politics and business.
“Within 50 years of our independence, the United States becomes one of the largest suppliers of coffee to the world — but we can never grow it,” said McDonald. So in this moment, when we think about independence, coffee really reminds us that the United States remains deeply tied and deeply embedded with the economies of the region. It was not just a self-sustaining nation that looked inward.”
Given the nature of her research, it’s no surprise that McDonald’s Perfect Philly Day revolves around food and drink. McDonald, a Southern California native who lives in Rittenhouse Square with her husband and fellow historian, Roderick A. McDonald, said her perfect day includes lots of coffee and cooking, a great Philly workout, and reading crime novels in Rittenhouse Square.
6:30 a.m.
My coffee pot is my first spot. I’m going to need fortification if I’m going to tackle the day’s news. I just go with the tried and true Colombian roast from Trader Joe’s.
When we are down the Shore, my favorite comes from Remedee Coffee, started by two sisters who source their beans from Colombia. It’s a great small business.
On a perfect day, this is when we do our New York Times games — like Connections or Wordle — which we do together. My sister says it’s cheating. I like to say it’s “collaborating.”
8:30 a.m.
I love cooking of all kinds, but baking is my first love. My go-to on a perfect day is a batch of scones. I have a recipe that I got online from a website called Love and Lemons. It’s a base recipe. You can make anything you want. Cranberry, orange walnut, apricot, ginger almond, or my brother-in-law’s favorite, which I know because he buys the ingredients every time I visit, blueberry lemon.
I used to head over to Metropolitan Bakery on 19th Street, which I am still mourning the loss of.
I loved their Millet Muffins and raisin walnut bread. My freezer is stuffed with both because I bought as many as I could before they closed. And I’m slowly rationing them so I don’t lose them quickly.
9:30 a.m.
We have a solid division of labor in the household. I do the cooking. But my husband does the shopping. While the scones are in the oven, he may well be on his way down to the Italian Market on his vintage 1962 Schwinn bicycle — expertly serviced by Curtis at Via Bicycle on Broad Street. He’s a fan favorite!
My husband is the provisioner of the house. I get to take what he brings back from the list — and sometimes not from the list. It feels like my own personal version of Chopped. He comes home with five ingredients and says, “What can you do with this?’”
10 a.m.
I’m hitting the gym. I do love eating, which means I need to pay the piper. I go to Pure Barrein Center City. It’s wonderful. It’s a class — a core-based workout that does weightlifting, planks, pushups. An hour there, any day I can get it, gives me enough brownie points for the rest of the day’s culinary adventures.
If the weather is nice, we might substitute a bike ride down the Schuylkill River Trail. Manayunk is a great destination.
Noon
That’s when Small World Seafood is in the area with deliveries. It’s an Old City business that was born out of necessity. The owner provided fresh seafood to restaurants during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then he began an online business selling directly to customers. You can get anything — halibut, skate steaks, steelhead trout, oysters, clams — for a lazy cooking night.
Michelle Craig McDonald’s perfect Philly day includes lots of coffee and cooking, a great Philly workout, and reading crime fiction in Rittenhouse Square.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
1 p.m.
I’ve got the fish and I’m marinating it for dinner. Steelhead trout is one of my favorites, so super easy, a little bit of soy, a little bit of orange, a little bit of brown sugar, a little bit of maple, and garlic.
2 p.m.
On a perfect day, when I can while my time away, you will find me reading in Rittenhouse Square. I have an abiding passion for crime fiction. Ann Cleeves. Donna Leon.
And if it’s not great weather, you could still find me reading, but probably in one of any of a dozen coffee shops that are within walking distance of my house.
There was a great article that just ran recently in The Inquirer about the rise of Yemeni coffee shops in the city, such as Moka & Co.
3 p.m.
This is where it’s going to get busy. I would be remiss if I didn’t bring a little history and culture into this day. The American Philosophical Society has a wonderful project called “The Revolutionary City: A Portal to the Nation’s Founding.” It’s a partnership where five Philadelphia historical institutions — the APS, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the Kislak Center at Penn Libraries, and the Museum of the American Revolution — came together to plan for 2026, and all their exhibits build on each other. Now I know that’s a long afternoon. Readers can pick and choose and see the others on their second favorite perfect Philly day [laughter].
6 p.m.
My husband and I cook together. If it’s Saturday, the compulsory listen is “The Many Moods of Ben Vaughn.” Cooking is my way to unwind and my husband is an excellent sous chef.
8 p.m.
We tend to have a leisurely meal with a glass of wine or two, and review the day’s exploits. An episode of television in the evening is a good escape. We are huge PBS fans. We love British crime dramas. We are huge fans of Shetland, a Scottish crime drama, and Vera, an old British crime drama with a curmudgeonly police detective.
10 p.m.
I am not a night owl. But I will confess to a wee dram of bourbon most evenings. Then, a little more light reading. And it’s time for lights out.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
The Price Point compares homes listed for similar sale prices across the region to help readers set expectations about house hunting.
According to recent Zillow data, homes with “character” — visual distinction and a sense of history — are all the rage.
As the birthplace of the nation, the Philadelphia region has its fair share of drool-worthy older homes of all shapes, sizes, and price tags.
In May, the median sale price for homes in the Philadelphia metropolitan area was $405,000.
So, here are three pre-World War II homes in the Philadelphia region that about$405,000 can buy — all with ample “character.”
A Fairmount condo with a private patio
This second-floor condoboasts a desirable location, according to its listing agent, Jeniffer Benner with Home Sweet Home PHL.
It’s situated on a tree-lined street in the heart of the Art Museum neighborhood, with easy walkability to Center City, the Schuylkill River Trail, and Roberto Clemente Park just a block away.
Benner said a main draw is the property’s private rear patio, which is “tough to find in condo spaces.”
Built in 1920 with a major remodel in 2014, the home’s living room boasts modern features and touches of the past with its traditional red brick exterior. It has nine-foot ceilings, custom shutters, hardwood floors, recessed lighting, and crown molding. The built-in entertainment center has been a favorite of prospective buyers.
“A lot of people think that’s a really nice feature, rather than having a blank box like some of the newer construction condos,” Benner said. “They like that character.”
There are two bedrooms and two bathrooms, with the primary suite including two closets, one a walk-in.
Benner said the condo fee isminimal — $223 per month — because it only covers exterior maintenance and insurance for the townhouse’s three units. Compared to city condo fees that can reach upward of $1,000 a month, the cost is “very affordable.”
The property was listed for sale in March for $420,000. The listing price has since come down to $410,000.
A Tudor-style home in Drexel Hill
This Tudor-style home in Drexel Hill has an old-fashioned feel, as most of the neighborhood’s homes were built between 1925 and 1934, said listing agent Jason Cox with Long & Foster Real Estate.
“This is a throwback, and that’s one of the reasons people love it,” said Cox.
Two columns frame the property’s double-entry doors, which Cox said is an imprint of historical Drexel Hill homes. The kitchen’s mullioned glass-front cabinets and the bathroom’s checkered-tile accents further the home’s traditional aesthetic.
The front yard is shaded by a willow tree, and the backyard is spacious enough for a garden, play set, pool, or all of the above.
The three-story home has one full bathroom and five bedrooms — rare for its listing price. There are three larger bedrooms on the second floor, in addition to a smaller room that could double as an office, and a finished attic with skylights on the third floor.
The living room has a traditional brick fireplace, and the dining room features access to a deck that is a prime location for outdoor grilling. Recently repainted and carpeted, the home is move-in ready.
Cox, who lives a block away from the property, “can’t say enough about the neighborhood.” Ideal for families, the home is walking distance from the local elementary and middle schools, and is a five-minute drive from Upper Darby High School. In the neighborhood, some families have stayed for two or three generations.
Sitting on more than a half-acre, this home’s standout feature is its expansive backyard. About three years ago, the homeowners installed a patio and a gazebo with a mounted TV, transforming the empty space.
“It makes the outside feel like the inside, and it can be screened in,” said listing agent Aaron Wallace with KW Main Street. “It’s the best thing about this property.”
The four-bedroom, two-bath property was built in 1911 but underwent a major renovation in 2020. The contractor did everything “soup to nuts,” Wallace said, including the roof, windows, both bathrooms, and kitchen. “They left no stone unturned with this renovation.”
The bright and airy ground floor includes the mudroom, living room, dining room, kitchen, and full bathroom. Going up a level, there are three bedrooms and the second full bathroom. On the third floor, there’s a generously-sized carpeted room that can be utilized as a bedroom, office, or an alternative living space.
Another highlight is the living room’s fireplace, which is framed by a wooden chevron accent wall and serves as a focal point in the house.
Magnolia’s pre-K-8 school is within walking distance from the home, and there is a baseball field behind the house that hosts local games. Wallace said the homeowners enjoy watching games from their gazebo.
“It has a great small-town feel, and the big city is not too far away,” said Wallace.
Ten Irish Catholics from the hard coal region went to the gallows, convicted of murder in a long-running labor war against the all-powerful coal companies. Another 10 would be hanged over the next few years, for a total of 20. Their trials made a mockery of justice, with a coal company president as prosecutor, a Pinkerton detective hired by the company as the star witness, and Irish Catholics excluded from the jury.
The hanged men were called Molly Maguires, a name straight out of Ireland, where a secret society using that moniker battled the landlords on behalf of starving peasants during the horror of the 1840s potato famine. These Mollies disguised themselves in women’s clothing, or straw clothing, or whiteface or blackface. And they timed their killings around major holidays.
That’s because the Molly Maguires were merely the flip side of a group quite familiar to Philadelphians — the mummers. The connection explains many of the mysteries about the Mollies — where the name came from, why the Mollies wore odd disguises, why they did their killing around high points of the calendar, and why they were revived in Pennsylvania amid resistance to the Civil War draft.
In Ireland, mummers were more actors than musicians. They visited every home in a district around New Year’s and collected money by putting on a skit that always featured a killing. The money paid for a party for the whole community. Groups like the mummers performed this kind of trick or treat around other big holidays — St. Brigid’s Day on Feb. 1, Easter, the summer solstice and Halloween.
During the potato famine, small bands of men — dressed in the women’s clothes or the straw of the mummers — began going from house to house, collecting money for the hungry. But these men weren’t mummers. They were Molly Maguires. And when they didn’t get what they wanted, or when landlords evicted tenant farmers, the mock killing of the mummers became the very real violence of the Molly Maguires.
The entrance to the former Carbon County Jail in Jim Thorpe, Pa., where seven Irish coal miners were hanged in 1877.CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer
The killings often took place around the days that the mummers celebrated, to signal that the Mollies were acting on behalf of the community. The three most celebrated Molly murders in Ireland came within a day or two of St. Brigid’s Day, the summer solstice, and Halloween.
The name itself sounds like something from the mummers’ play. A female character often had names that began with the letter M — Molly Masket or Mary Ann McMonagle. And, curiously, Molly Maguire wasn’t always Molly — a number of death threats were signed “Mary Ann Maguire.” The similarity between “Mary Ann McMonagle” and “Mary Anne Maguire” underlined the links between the mummers and the Mollies.
Famine emigration led many from the Molly Maguire heartland to the booming anthracite industry in Northeastern Pennsylvania. It was one of the few rural places in the United States where famine immigrants settled in such concentrated numbers that the folkways of the Irish countryside were transplanted wholesale, including mummery — and its associated pattern of violence. In 1848, a man acquitted of killing an Irishman was murdered in Schuylkill County, on Dec. 30. The killer, an Irishman, had whitened his face like a mime or a mummer.
Mummery had long been established in Philadelphia, but a peculiar offshoot, called the fantasticals, emerged in Northern Liberties before the Civil War, as a protest against mandatory militia service. At the time, able-bodied men between ages 21 and 45 were regularly required to muster for militia drill. This meant a day without pay — and the fantasticals protested by making a mockery of it.
They showed up for drill in ridiculous costumes, with giant wooden swords, or in some cases the leg of a deer. This mockery widened from muster day to mummers parades around Christmas and the Fourth of July and Halloween, and spread beyond Philadelphia.
Before one of the Molly Maguires was hanged, he put his hand on the dirty floor of his cell in the former Carbon County Jail and then placed it firmly on the wall proclaiming, “This handprint will remain as proof of my innocence.”CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer
In 1855, the Pottsville militia was called out after a mine boss was beaten in Branchdale, Schuylkill County. Though just four men attacked him, the militia rounded up 28 Irish Catholics. Adding insult to arrest, the militia then played a Protestant anthem from Ulster, “The Boyne Water,” which celebrated the defeat of Catholic Ireland.
It just so happened that the fantasticals made their first appearance in Schuylkill County that very year, marching in Pottsville on Christmas Day. The whole performance mocked the Pottsville militia and its music. The captain wielded a giant wooden sword, the rest were dressed in “every imaginable burlesque costume,” and the band was drunk — and played that way. In 1857, when the militia was used to break a strike by largely Irish mine workers in Cass Township, the fantasticals appeared in Schuylkill Haven on the Fourth of July and in Cressona on Dec. 26.
A few short years after those anti-militia mummers parades, opposition to compulsory militia service in the Civil War led to the revival of the Molly Maguires. The man who administered the 1862 militia draft in Schuylkill County was a nativist Republican who saw conscription as a way to sweep large numbers of Irish Catholic Democrats into the maw of a bloody war. He set unfairly high conscription quotas for heavily Irish Cass Township, then urged that the draftees be shipped out before a crucial election.
A cell in the former Carbon County Jail in Jim Thorpe, Pa.CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer
In response, Irish mine workers went out on strike, marching under arms with a fife and drum from mine to mine. Two months later, they went out on strike again, calling themselves Molly Maguires. When a government crackdown appeared imminent, the Mollies targeted residents who had shown government sympathies by volunteering for the military.
On Jan. 2, 1863, five men fatally shot an Irish mine worker home wounded from the Union Army, then cheered for the Confederate president. Over the next nine days, two former militia men were attacked in Cass Township. A few days after Halloween, gunmen with false whiskers and blackened faces killed a mine owner who had been helping to enforce conscription.
Note the progression. In the last half of the 1850s, some Schuylkill County residents were making fun of the militia, but by 1862, they were on strike to oppose the militia draft, and as 1862 edged into 1863, they were shooting former militia members around New Year’s. As in Ireland, what started as mummer revelry ended as Molly Maguire rebellion.
The Molly troubles raged for another 15 years, ending only when a Pinkerton infiltrated the organization. The ensuing executions showed that the Mollies were no match for the coal companies and the state of Pennsylvania when it came to dealing death at high points of the calendar. The biggest killing — the hanging of 10 men on June 21, 1877 — came on the summer solstice.
Philadelphia and its surrounding counties are set for what could be a record-breaking $322 million in federal and state funding to go toward building new trails segments, say trail advocates.
The money is part of a larger $8.2 billion pool of transportation funding updated through the federal Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) for 2027 and spread over four years.
“We consider this to be potentially record breaking,” said Patrick Monahan, vice chair of the Circuit Trails Coalition in Pennsylvania. “It’s proof that the trails are being treated as essential infrastructure, making it safer and easier to walk and bike in the region.”
Pennsylvania gets its TIP plan updated every two years and the majorityof money goes to highways, bus and rail systems, trolleys, and ferries. It is part of an agreed-upon list of priority transportation projects. That list includes 344 projects.
In all, this year’s proposed $322 million in funding for trails would advance 27 bike and pedestrian projects across Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery Counties.
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is set to vote on approving the allocations in July.
The trails, either begun or being planned, are part of the Circuit Trails, a network of hundreds of miles of multiuse trails throughout the Philadelphia region including southern New Jersey, which updates its TIP funding in alternate years.
$11 millionfor the second phase to extend the Schuylkill Banks trail in Philadelphia south from near 61st Street to Passyunk Avenue that would include a new park at the base of the Passyunk Avenue Bridge.
$58.5 million for Philadelphia’s Spring Garden Connector project that would link trail systems along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers and make Spring Garden Street safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
$50 million to improve safety for roadway users, including pedestrians and cyclists, on PA 291 from Irving Street to Ridley Creek. The project includes building a multiuse side path that will be designated as part of the East Coast Greenway, a trail system linking Maine to Florida.
$8.5 million for the Chester Valley Trail, a multiuse trail along the alignment of the former Philadelphia and Thorndale Branch, a former freight train route, including renovation of the Whitford Bridge and Downingtown TrestleBridge for bicycle and pedestrian use.
$10 million to develop a segment in Whitemarsh Township, Montgomery County, that would run from the existing Wissahickon Trail in Fort Washington State Park to the existing Cross County Trail near SEPTA’s Fort Washington Station.
