Reader David Brown sent us photos of yesterday’s fire at The Westover apartment building near 47th and Pine Streets. Read more about the fire here.

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A reader, Adam, snapped these photos the other day of a guy playing the drums in the bed of a moving pick-up near 49th and Warrington.

Adam writes:

“I love my neighborhood. This guy was playing a full drum kit in the back of a moving pickup truck.  Unfortunately, the cops weren’t music lovers.”

Sure enough, the drummer had to explain himself to police.

There was a great hawk sighting yesterday morning near 43rd and Larchwood. The bird felt pretty comfortable on a fence and seemed completely unfazed by the people gawking at him/her.

By the way, the hawk positioned himself awfully close to a Tom Wolf sign.

We received some great entries in this year’s Pumpkin Carving Contest, many of them from our young neighbors. Many thanks to everyone who participated! And now, it’s time to vote for your favorite pumpkin! All the entries are below. Please choose your favorite and cast your vote at the bottom of this post (please only one vote per person).

Just a reminder that the Readers’ Choice winner will receive our grand prize, which includes some great food and entertainment offers: a $40 gift card from Sabrina’s Cafe, a $40 gift certificate from Cafe Renata, a 3-month membership to International House Philadelphia, and Curio Theatre tickets. In addition to these prizes, a Readers’ Choice winner can also select one prize from the following businesses: Mariposa Food Coop, VIX Emporium, Honest Tom’s Taco Shop, and Rx The Farmacy.

Voting will end at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2 and the Readers’ Choice winner and winners in other categories (Scariest, Funniest, best Philly-themed, and Kids) and their prizes will be announced shortly after that. This year, to encourage participation, we’ll also have a random drawing among the entries that didn’t win in any other category.

OK, ready? Here you go (click to enlarge):

Voting has ended.

[poll id=”5″]

The usual host of zombies, ghosts, goblins and other assorted scary types turned out for Friday’s Halloween parade in the Spruce Hill neighborhood. The annual tradition began near 45th and Baltimore and concluded on the finely decorated 4200 block of Osage Ave, (“Little Osage”). We could go on about the costumes and the Thriller dancers, but it’s easier just to show you. Check out the photos below.

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Elissa Sklaroff with the Clark Park photo collage.

West Philly residents Elissa Sklaroff and James Klasen, whose Clark Park photography project was featured in a June post, are inviting everyone to check out their photo collage in the park on Saturday, Aug 16. Elissa and Jim were documenting events in the park and capturing images of diverse Clark Park visitors of all ages – people who “bring the magical park to life.” Since the beginning of the summer, they have been sharing their photos with the park community and with their “models” by creating a “photo garden” – from nearly a thousand photos taken over the course of the summer, they selected and posted the most representative ones in clusters on the kiosks around the park.

“Feedback has been positive, including lovely comments posted by some who have stopped to look,” Elissa wrote us in an email.

Now, as Elissa and Jim are nearing the final stages of their Clark Park photo project, they have created a collage with an idea to capture the project and the park in a more complete way. All the decorative materials used in the collage were made from recycled materials: “green” shopping bags, soda cans, etc.

The collage will be displayed in the park on Saturday and from 2-4 p.m., Elissa and Jim will be giving prints out to anyone in the park whose picture they used. Additional copies or posters will be available to the public later by request, at either Elissa’s email address (elissa.sklaroff [at] gmail.com) or Jim’s (klasen.james [at] gmail.com).

It should be very festive, writes Elissa, as it is an Uhuru flea market day as well. Many of the vendors have agreed to display printed copies of the collage at their tables and even on food trucks! Elissa and Jim want those in the photos to be happily surprised to see themselves in many locations.

When a friend asked Elissa, “Why are the pictures so close together?” she replied, “Because as humans we are all close together and these photos show how the diversity in Clark Park emphasizes our commonality. This is what we hope we are saying to everyone.”

“We thank everyone with whom we connected during this project”.

(Photos by Elissa Sklaroff and James Klasen)