it's what you want to know
School’s out for summer.
As of this week, it’s out forever … for star Stoga teacher Deb Ciamacca.
For years, the former Marine and beloved U.S. Government teacher has urged her students to get off the sidelines. “Democracy’s not a spectator sport,” she’d tell them.
After speaking out about gun safety here – and on national and international TV – she put her career where her mouth was.
Hey, Mirror, Mirror: Who’s the slimmest of them all? Shoppers trying on clothes at the new Devon Anthropologie.
Readers have been telling us for months that Anthro’s dressing-room mirrors make them look a tad taller and a smidge thinner than they actually are.
Thanks for the flattering image, the women told us, but, uh, no thanks.
Dream kitchens up in flames.
New bathrooms down the drain.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars, given in good faith, gone.
Employees summarily fired, their paychecks bounced. A lease broken, rent skipped.
The flood of fuming allegations against Element Kitchen & Bath in Paoli (and formerly Devon) beggars belief.
Did this really happen? Here?
No bargain basement remodeler, Element – until it up and vanished – operated out of a splashy showroom in the heart of Paoli at the beautifully renovated KingsHaven Design complex.
It’s a Main Line mystery: Twin buildings – perhaps the most opulent ever built in these parts – sitting idle for years in the heart of Devon.
Unleased.
Unsold.
Ripe for the taking but no one’s biting.
What happened to this modern-day Taj Mahal, its hushed, lifeless halls worlds away from the bustling Whole Foods across the street?
/>By all accounts, things were going swimmingly at the area’s fanciest new fitness “resort,” Life Time Athletic in KOP.
Until they weren’t.
On Saturday, Aug. 5, staff noticed the water level in the indoor pool had suddenly dropped a few feet and the decking in one corner had collapsed.
Uh-oh.
The club promptly closed the pool, drained the water and demolished it.
The culprit? A sinkhole – although management’s e-mails to members never used the “s” word, referring only to the pool’s “inadvertent” closure and “required repairs.”
Not the sort of splash Life Time envisioned when opened for its first summer season in June.
A TV icon touched down in Paoli this week.
Shhhhhh.
Carol Burnett paid a hush-hush visit to overjoyed folks at Daylesford Crossing senior living Monday, charming one and all.
Nope, she didn’t know a soul there.
They live among us, hiding but in plain sight.
They mow our lawns, mind our kids, cook our food, clean our homes.
They are Mexicans, living and working on the Main Line.
Some, of course, work under the table.
Others receive paychecks, have payroll taxes withheld, and file yearly U.S. tax returns.
Just like us.
But in many ways, not like us at all.
Because they are here without papers and have little reason to believe they’ll ever get them.
One such family – living in a rented, single-family home on the western Main Line – asked us to share their story.
They wanted us to put a human face on the immigration crisis.
But, of course, we cannot.
At least, not literally.
Wait ’til you see what Main Line culinary queen Meridith Coyle’s cooked up this time. The gal who brought us Meridith’s Market, Binnie & Flynn’s (Take 2), Fresh Ideas Market and Aneu Catering has come up with, yup, a fresher idea.
Call it “ANEU Approach” to eating, dining, and throwing parties. (She does.)
In expansion mode, she just bought a whole shopping center – near Del Chevrolet and the Van Cleve Pavilion in Paoli.
A scant three weeks later, she opened her re-tooled, three-pronged food biz.
Suddenly, the Main Line is soaking in suds.
Sure, we have locally-owned brewpub faves like Ardmore’s Tired Hands, McKenzie Brewhouses in Berwyn and Malvern, newbie La Cabra Brewing and, slithering soon to Bryn Mawr, Tin Lizard.
And yes, we’ve got a few, but not nearly enough, cozy gastro-pubs like The Goat’s Beard and Teresa’s Next Door in Wayne.
And of course, restaurants far and nigh (Biga, Savona et. al.) have been beefing up their beer lists.
No, the BIG news in brews is this: a brand-new law permits PA peeps to take home beer by the bottle.
Holy Heineken!
If anyone’s story can blot out all the bad press that came out of T/E schools last year, surely LeRoi Leviston’s can.
His journey from starting Stoga quarterback to Mr. Lev, Valley Forge Middle School teacher, to Roi Lush, full-time rapper, is as improbable as it is inspiring.
The odds against LeRoi, 28, were stacked from the start.
He was born on Long Island to parents who “were very into hardcore drugs,” LeRoi tells SAVVY.
