June 16: Mrs. K’s Koffee | Public pool schedule | 607 Bainbridge Street

There are still few remaining classic diners in Center City, writes Inga Saffron. Following the closure and citywide lament for Little Pete’s, Saffron highlights Mrs. K’s Koffee at 325 Chestnut Street, a diner that still serves all-day breakfasts, bottomless refilled coffee, and takes cash only. She admires that “the decor has hardly been touched since Mrs. K’s moved into the functionalist glass office building in 1962” and that the diner, with its “subdued gold-flecked” Formica counter tops and blue-vinyl-covered swivel stools, remains “redolent of midcentury optimism.”

Philadelphia has more public pools than any other city in the country and next week the Philadelphia Parks & Rec will start opening our pools for the summer. For some helpful backgroud, revisit our beginner’s guide.

Governor Chris Christie is banking on the development a 4.5-acre strip of land along the Delaware River as a park to help revitalize New Jersey’s capital city, Phil Gregory reports for WHYY. New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection will use an estimated $3.5 million in Natural Resource Damage Funds for the development of the park while NJDOT will use $15 million in federal funds to build a pedestrian walkway over Route 29 in an effort to “provide access to a part of the Trenton waterfront separated from the downtown area since the 1950s when Route 29 was developed.”

In Bella Vista, owner and sculptor Daniel Dalseth has been renovating 607 Bainbridge Street, the former contemporary art gallery Pageant Soloveev, using sustainable construction techniques. Hidden City’s John Henry Scott writes about Dalseth’s partnership with designer-builder Jeffrey McMahon, and the project’s ethos, elaborate recycling and ‘eclectic use of materials’ that make it stand apart “from the metal-cladded boxes being erected en masse from Fishtown to Point Breeze that have, as of late, served to define new row house construction in Philadelphia.”

In response to Allegheny County’s Port Authority’s plan to use armed police officers to enforce fare payment, a coalition including Pittsburghers for Public Transit, Casa San Jose, the Thomas Merton Center and the Alliance for Police Accountability, are training volunteers to collect petitions against the policy, writes the Post-Gazette. The coalition expressed concerns to the authority that “armed officers could use racial profiling to check for payment” or take a rider to jail for immigration problems. The coalition believes that there should be accountability to pay fares, but “want the agency to treat fare evasion as a civil matter rather than a criminal one.”

Business leaders in Camden want to establish a startup scene in the city, but recognize that it might take “three to five years for Camden to be fully revitalized and attractive for startups to stay,” writes the Business Journal’s Michelle Caffrey. Waterfront Ventures’ Khai Tran’s slow and steady strategy aims to build “an environment where tech startups can establish a foothold in the city and remain here,” while coupling with local workforce development initiatives to train city youth in programming and development skills in order to “provide pathways to well-paying jobs for residents.” Tran hopes these coordinated efforts coupled with recruitment of tech firms, “will help raise current residents economic viability so they can withstand the changes that are coming including gentrification.”

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