it's what you want to know
Devon is fired up over DanDan.
It hasn’t officially opened but the new restaurant – at the old Ella’s near the Devon Acme – is already packin’ ’em in.
Just like it does in Center City.
And for good reason.
Friends from Wayne journeyed to Virginia for the woodsy wedding of NBC News’ political reporter Kasie Hunt, Conestoga ’03, where the requested dress was “rustic formal.”
The bride and groom: One of Conestoga’s many success stories, Kasie Hunt, 31, is now seen on TVs across the country, covering Capital Hill politics for NBC News and MSNBC.
The Conestoga High School hazing scandal was a big fat, tragic mess. But look at what Penn State and one of its fraternity presidents – a young man from Malvern – are dealing with.
Brendan Young, 21, an avid golfer whom you may have seen play at Chester Valley Golf Club or working at Golf Galaxy in Berwyn, is one of 18 Beta Theta Pi brothers facing criminal charges after a pledge died in their frat house in February.
In all 200 charges were lodged against the Penn State junior.
Another local defendant, Nick Kubera, who graduated from Downingtown H.S. last year, is facing 43.
While all 18 are in hot water, the charges are scalding for Young and some of his frat brothers: involuntary manslaughter and stuff like felony aggravated assault, tampering with evidence, and hazing.
Horrific.
Ah, Valley Forge National Historical Park, the Central Park of the Main Line.
Walk, ride or hike its 3,500 acres and you can just smell the history.
But the Park’s not resting on its cherry laurels these days.
Far from it.
Thanks to its newly invigorated nonprofit arm, the Valley Forge Park Alliance, it’s marching forward with dazzling plans that will affect ALL of us – anyone who “recreates” in the park (90 percent of visitors), brings guests there, or even drives through.
In every way, the stunning death of Adam Wright was wrong.
He was far too young, too gifted, and too, well, good, to go so soon.
And yet his 21 glorious years on our patch of earth – on Margo Lane in Berwyn, at Conestoga High School (Class of ’13), and at Dartmouth College (Class of ’17) – will forever be remembered.
And remembered with a smile, if Adam has his way.
Throngs of mourners attended “A Celebration of the Life of Adam Wright (June 29, 1995 – Jan. 30, 2017)” at Paoli Presbyterian Church last Saturday.
It was a sendoff for the ages – a testament to a life that was brief, but so brightly lived.
The elite health & fitness company likes the Main Line so much, it’s putting not ONE, but TWO of its mega clubs here.
Our first Life Time – a scratch-built, 140,000 sq. ft. whopper with a “resort-like” outdoor pool and waterslides – will debut in June on Swedesford Rd. in Tredyffrin. (Life Time’s calling it King of Prussia, but the map says it’s Wayne, if only by a hair.)
And just announced: our second Life Time will be in Ardmore – an exclusive “diamond” level club (a notch above KOP’s “onyx premier”) in the former Macy’s building, one of two Grand Dames of Suburban Square. (The tall Times building is the other.)
No matter how you voted, you have to feel sickened by the reported assault of a black female student by a group of white male students on Villanova’s campus last week.
Here’s what reportedly went down: The young woman was walking through the SEPTA tunnel around 9 pm Thursday when a group of guys en route to an off-campus formal approached and knocked her down, shouting “Trump! Trump! Trump!” The student’s face and head hit concrete. According to her friend, she was badly shaken, suffered nausea, vomiting and dizziness and was reluctant to report the attack at first.
From Devon Manor to The Royal Devon?
Could be.
Developer Brian O’Neill confirms that he’s now the proud owner of the large and long-in-the-tooth nursing home/rehab complex on Lancaster Ave.
Residents and patients are being relocated, 124 staffers are looking for new jobs, and Devon Manor goes dark next month.
This is prime real estate, folks – 8.6 acres with lots of frontage on Route 30 and a deep lot. And just a skip and a jump from the Devon train station.
So what will O’Neill do with it?
Well, what do you know? We’re getting a Pizzeria Vetri after all.
Just not in Devon. Not yet. And maybe never, the way Devon Yard’s going lately.
Urban Outfitters Inc. is clustering four of its brands near its Urban Outfitters store at the King of Prussia Mall’s Pavilion.
By mid-fall, we’ll get another Anthropologie, a Free People (relocated from the other end of the Court), and yes, that Pizzeria Vetri (with bar & lounge) that we’ve all been pining for. At the mall.
Meanwhile, back in dear Devon, the Yard project is as mired in weeds and thorns as the old Waterloo plot on which it would sit.
Yuck runs amuck: Neighbor vs. neighbor. Little guy vs. “big, bad” developer. Homeowners’ concerns vs. township interests. Threats and counter-threats.
Ugh.
The latest: Red “Promote Easttown: Support Devon Yard” signs dueling with blue “Save Devon” yard signs around town. (And yup, the first homeowner to put up a red sign last week – architect John Toates – says he found it lying in his mulch the next morning – which is exactly what allegedly happened when the blue signs went up a few months ago. Oy.)
I hold my x-rated photo album while dermatologist Adrienne Rencic checks for changes.
As some of you know, I’ve done a little fashion modeling over the years but a while back I posed for a very different kind of photo spread. I wasn’t showcasing the clothes on my back because, well, there weren’t any clothes on my back.
Here’s how it happened.
My brother and my father are both malignant melanoma survivors so I had long been a faithful, if not enthusiastic, patient of a dermatologist I used to call The Sun Nazi. Every year, the Sun Nazi would inspect the assorted moles, freckles and “beauty marks” peppering my epidermis, tsk tsk over my very faint tan lines, and implore me to get “Total Body Photography.”
About seven years ago – tired of excisions and biopsies – I took her advice and called the Dermatrak Skin Imaging Center (then in King of Prussia, now in Plymouth Meeting).
I’ll never forget my appointment.
After handing over a $500 check for the privilege, I shed all of my clothes (undies included) and jewelry and slipped on a white terry robe.
I was then told to stand in the center of a large blindingly bright studio where a man in a white coat (a photographer trying to look like a doc?) approached and asked me to hand him my robe.
He directed me through 30 minutes of unseemly poses while he clicked away. His job was to capture every square inch of me – scalp, soles and lady parts included – in full-color digital 2D. As I bent and twisted and lifted, I remember wondering if he enjoyed his work.
My photo album came in the mail a few weeks later wrapped in brown paper and conspicuously marked “Personal” and “Private.” Oh dear, what does the mailman think I ordered?
I promptly hid the package – unopened – under my bed.
I still can’t bring myself to look at the pictures, but my new dermatologist seems to appreciate them. I tote my album along to my annual skin checks and she systematically compares every mole constellation against its celluloid counterpart, looking for changes in shape, size, color and spacing. (I’ve had nightmares about leaving the album in the waiting room or in my car. Mommy, what’s this?)
And I’m pleased to report that I’ve had only one suspicious removed since my X-rated escapade. Which means no new stitches, no fresh centipede scars.
So while the experience was debasing in every way (especially for a good Catholic girl like me), I recommend it.
Plus, when you’re middle aged, the photos are good for at least 10 years. Like well-spaced pregnancies, there’s ample time between photo shoots to forget the torture.
