Thursday, October 30, 2008

A Reporter on Broad Street

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that the Phillies won the World Series last night. It doesn't feel real -- maybe because I didn't think it would happen, maybe because I worked through the celebration. Though I had an interesting viewing spot for the end of the game: I watched on a portable TV run on a car battery with about 20 Philadelphia police officers at a shut down news stand on Broad Street in South Philadelphia.

In any case, here's a few photos from Broad Street between Passyunk and Shunk Avenues from last night.













That last shot is of me filing my story at about 1am. I don't usually cover news, so it was all new to me (har har). How was it? For the first hour it was fine. I had a good time, found lots of great people to talk to, and watched the show. But as the celebration ran on, things started to get ugly. I was away from the worst of it in Center City, but I still saw fights, I still saw fireworks shooting off at people, and, in the worst instance, heard someone shout "Yeah, shoot off those fireworks. That's how we're going to shoot Obama if he's election president." I don't care who you're voting for on Tuesday, but those comments are inappropriate and vile -- especially at a World Series celebration. That's about the time I realized it was time to get out of there and start typing.

My pictures aren't the best -- for some good ones, check out the photos by Marc Steiner of Agency New Jersey. He also took the pics of me in the midst of things:



Thank you, Marc, for the goggles. Great idea -- really. I didn't worry about my eyes when I jumped into the middle of the mob.

Tomorrow -- I PROMISE -- I will get back to shore posting since I'm headed to Cape May after the parade. So stay tuned...

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2 comments:

Leah Ingram said...

Love one of Marc's photos of the guy standing next to the fallen street sign, near the cops, and he's holding his hands up as if to say, "Whoa, I had nothing to do with that sign falling, officer. I didn't touch it!"

Anonymous said...

I was in Boston years ago (yikes, decades ago) when they won just one of the World Series games. Not the SERIES and I saw people jumping up and down on a car and completely total it. I didn't understand: They had won!!

Looks like you handled it like a pro.