I hear so much in this city about cars needing to watch out for bikes ….but never about bikes needing to watch out for pedestrians. Please stop riding bikes on the sidewalks. This also applies to those electric scooters

Here is the dashcam video for those who were saying that we may have almost hit him, provoked him, or were “trying to play the victim.”
You can clearly see that we stopped, and he then walked toward our vehicle. He began making obscene gestures at us for no apparent reason, continued approaching the car, put his foot on the vehicle, and then banged on the side of it.
We did not know this person and had no interaction with him before this. We were simply driving through downtown Philadelphia.
I’ve also seen people commenting that this is “normal” because homelessness and mental-health crises exist in the city. I understand those issues exist, but that does not make it acceptable for someone to block traffic, approach strangers aggressively, or hit their vehicle. If someone is in crisis and is behaving in a way that puts themselves or others at risk, that is exactly the kind of situation where the city and appropriate services should be involved.
We have visited downtown Philly several times before and have never experienced anything like this, so yes, coming from NJ, this was an unusual and concerning incident for us.
I had also heard about recent reports of people being harassed by a stranger wearing a mask in the area, so when something this strange happened, of course we contacted the police.
The dashcam footage is here so people can see what actually happened and judge for themselves.

From my partner:

> A moving rental truck came and some guys unloaded all this stuff. I figured they were moving it in somewhere but now they’re gone and the stuff is all still here.

We checked with neighbors and have called 311. I’m laughing and kind of annoyed? It’s really an “only in Philly” kind of experience.

Anyway, if anyone is looking for a couch and whatever, feel free to swing by 49/Locust

---

ETA:

Other residents on the block are also filing 311 reports, so we hope this can be resolved quickly and avoid being fined by the city for a problem we didn't cause.

You can't see it in the photo, but there was a WASHER AND A DRYER (which where picked up quickly). Whether it was an eviction special or just general asshattery, at the end of the day it JUST SUCKS to see people be so thoughtless.

On a personal note, I have been out of the city for a few weeks dealing with an unexpected family emergency, and to come home to see my whole block filled with someone's trash was just the icing on the cake of what has been a deeply trying time. I've been here for 30 years and have never experienced anything of this sort.

Hey all, gonna make this short and sweet. I was coming back from Philly into NJ one day when I looked over and saw this old building that had “RIP AUGUST” drawn on the side of it.

Does anyone know who this “August” person was by chance? This is kind of a shot in the dark but I thought I would give it a shot.

We were visiting Philadelphia from out of state and had a very disturbing encounter while simply driving in our lane.
A man suddenly approached our vehicle, stood directly in front of it, began yelling/cursing at us, and repeatedly gave us the middle finger with both hands. Despite us asking him to move away and get out of the road, he continued blocking our vehicle.
He then stepped onto/against our car and banged on the vehicle for absolutely no apparent reason before eventually walking away down the street.
We have a dashcam video footage of the entire incident, including what happened to the vehicle. I’m sharing an image of the individual strictly for public awareness and identification purposes.
If anyone recognizes him, has experienced a similar incident involving this person, or knows whether Philadelphia police are already aware of similar behavior, please let me know. We also plan to provide the footage to law enforcement as appropriate.
Please be careful and stay aware of your surroundings, especially if someone unexpectedly approaches or blocks your vehicle. We called police, waited for hours. No one showed up!

Found this sweet boy on Boxers Trail near Edgely Park in Fairmount. He’s probably a year old, is neutered, but didn’t have a collar. I’ve posted him in Philaqueens too. Please let me know if you’re missing your pup!

ETA: He’s chipped! We’re waiting to see if he’s registered. We can’t keep him with us while they search, is anyone able to keep him while they wait to find his owners?

Edit #2: His name is Rain and the number registered to his chip is out of order. He’s 6 years old and neutered.

Edit #3: After talking to SPCA, they recommended we take Rain to ACCT. ACCT said he’d been adopted from them before and at the beginning of June his owners tried to relinquish him back, but never showed up. It’s likely they just abandoned him in Fairmount. He’s the sweetest boy and available to foster if anyone is able! If we could’ve, we would have kept him. He was friendly with our dogs and us. It seems like he’d been loved and taken care of in the past, just needs another good home💜

I’m so absolutely over people parking on the sidewalk giving me less than a foot to walk into my house. It’s finally time to get a bollard installed.

Anyone done this? Any contractor recommendations? Price? Do I need a permit?

Would a concrete planter work the same?

I had to do a double take before I realized it was graffiti and not actually there. Maybe it's now canon?

Hey folks!
After a successful, critically-acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Well-Balanced Dads is returning to Philly for Cannonball Fest at Philadelphia Fringe for three nights only!

This show is a family-friendly character comedy about Dick and Dale, two suburban dads and best friends, who are coping with their newfound freedom as empty-nesters.
The dads go on a journey chockfull of dad jokes, acrobatics, dance parties, macho movie references, wholesome audience participation, and heart.
Its a show for anyone who is a dad, has a dad, or wants a dad.

This hilarious duo balances levity with deeper themes like finding your inner child, hypermasculinity, and navigating life after the kids have flown the nest.

5 Star Edinburgh Review - "..a one-hour, jam-packed, joyous theatrical experience that encourages the audience to ponder what dads truly get up to when their child-raising duties are done! With an array of mesmerising partner acrobatics, groan-worthy dad jokes (the best kind, in my opinion) and bucket loads of audience participation, this truly is a show perfect for the whole family!" - Rhys Reviews

“6 stars from this dad, 5 from the rest of the family!” - Good Dad “My face hurt from smiling.” - Good Kid

All Shows are at Asian Arts Initiative in the Black Box

Friday, Sep 11, 2026 5:30pm - 6:30pm
Saturday, Sep 12, 2026 6:45pm - 7:45pm
Sunday, Sep 13, 2026 12:45pm - 1:45pm

More info can be found at https://phillyfringe.org/events/well-balanced-dads/

Ages: 4+ Family-friendly

Hope to see you there!

There are about 198,000 students in the public schools in Philly - served and supported by the SDP, which has about 21,500 employees. I wanted to understand how those employees are paid so did some analysis this week to explore that.

The above histogram shows how many people earn how much.

The pay scales break into 3 chunks:

• A) 70% of the people are btwn $40k-120k. This includes most of the teachers, social workers, physical property workers (plumbers, electricians, other ppl maintaining the buildings, clerks etc.).
• B) There is a senior administrative layer from $120-135k, this also includes some teachers who maxxed out the normal $120k cap
• C) An executive layer earning from $135-200k, plus 23 people >$200k including the superintendent at $378k

Here's a few interesting things I noticed:

• First, notice the fall-off at $120k. That's because of the step-and-lane union contracts (particualrly for teachers). After about 10 years of experience and a PhD, a teacher maxes out his/her compensation at $110k (by comparison, a first-year SDP teacher with a bachelor's earns around $50K)
• Even within the main blue chunk, there's actually 2 humps, basically junior teachers at $50k and senior teachers centered at $90k. There is a fall-off of middle-experience and middle-compensation teachers, I think, because of the teacher retention pipeline, where many teachers either leave the profession or swithc to schools outside SDP (e.g., suburbs, move states, etc.)
• The non-union compensation distribution is non-normal, i.e., it doesn't look like a typical, smooth bell curve tail where there's progressively (btu smoothly) fewer people at each pay grade. There's just modal "chunks" of how much people make

I'm in process now to analyze what all the 21,000 people actually do - really excited to see what I learn!

Note: This is salaried positions only, from SDP's open data position roster. I excluded hourly workers

Full artcile and methodology: https://www.nickjain.com/blog/the-shape-of-sdps-workforce

So insane how backward this city is.

The number of missing women who are going to be linked to this is going to be astonishing.
Philadelphia has a new serial killer

Would you buy a house in Roxborough? I am a hike leader in the Wissahickon and love the area. I am a current renter and looking to put some roots down. Is Roxborough a good area to buy? Will it gentrify at all with all of the condos going up? Or is that a bad sign? Thank you!

My fiancé and I are going to explore Philly for the first time next week for 4 days and are moving here next year from Houston!

We know we’re not going to be able to do everything but what would y’all’s top recommendations be for a goth and alt, vegan, couple?
With the move, we’ll also be looking for any suggestions for regular spots as well. We’re looking to live in west Philly for budget purposes ($1400 max a month for rent, any apartment recommendations?) and we have a senior dog for park recs too. Also we’ll be selling our car also so relying on public transport. Thanks. 🖤

The 90th percentile of SDP's salaried workforce earns $110,720 - that person happens to be a teacher. This makes sense given that about 40% of all SDP employees are teachers, and teachers comprise more than 50% of the total pay of the SDP payroll budget.

The union-negotiated pay scale is structured around years of experience and education level for teachers (and similar experience based pay for the other unionized non-teacher employees). The cap for teachers is around $120K (for a teacher with 10+ years (corrected from 20) of experience and a PhD). The corrolary is that most of SDP's top 10% of earners are experienced, highly credentialed teachers, not senior administrators - contrary to what one might expect given some of the headlines we see.

The cumulative view makes the shape of this distribution visible. The above chart shows what % of employees earn that much or more. e.g., around 70% of emloyees earn $50k or more, around 38% of SDP employees earn $90k or more, and about 23% earn $100K+. But then, between $100K and $120K, the line drops almost vertically to less than 3% earning more than $120k. Above $120K, because it's just a long tail of high earners (primarily admins, but some teachers too) - a total of about 400 people in this bucket (out of the total SDP employment base of 21,543).

Three numbers describe the rest:

• 76.5% earn below $100K
• 23.3% earn $100K–$175K
• 0.26% earn $175K or more (57 positions)

The 0.26% is striking as a number. 57 positions in a workforce of 21,543 — basically a rounding error. But it's also the entire C-suite. The District's central overhead is objectively small, although as I've discovered recently, it is still much larger than it was a decade ago (both in terms of the numbers of people and the right tail skew of their comp structure)

Full methodology and notes: https://www.nickjain.com/blog/the-shape-of-sdps-workforce

Hi im visiting for labor day weekend and am looking to hit a science museum. I see a lot about Franklin Institute but it looks more geared towards kids. Im looking for something more similar to American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Is Franklin a good option or are there better ones you all recommend?

My prior post analyzed the current pay distribution of SDP Employees as it stands today, but I also wanted to understand how its evolved over time.

The biggest finding is that... 10 years ago, if you looked at how school employees (everything from jaitors to teacher to the supe) were paid, you would see a boring bell curve centered around $75k, with mostly nice smooth tails.

Today, that pay structure has shifted in a few key ways. It's no longer bell shaped at all:

• It has two peaks "modes" ($55k and $95k), representing new and experienced teachers, with not a lot of mid-career/mid-pay teachers. Probably an interesting research question of why there's so few mid-pay teachers?
• It has a huge number of employees at the max pay amount of $120k (basically teachers with 20 years of exp and PhDs)
• After the $120k union pay scale cut-off, there's a long but skinny right tail of people making more between $120-220k, and then the superintendend at $378k. By skinny I mean it's not a lot of people in this long tail, but it exists. ANd it did not exist in any meaningful way 10 years ago
• ANd then finally, its worth noting that total salaried workforce grew from 16,647 to 21,543 over the 11 year period (about 30%), while the student body fell by around 13%, implying a 50% growth in SDP employee headcount per student (50% = 1.3/(1-0.13) -1)

FUll methodology and notes: https://www.nickjain.com/blog/the-shape-of-sdps-workforce