June 26, 2008 Issue                                                     

Local News

KICKING OFF THE CONCERTS  The 60th season of the Chestnut Hill Community Association’s Pastorius Park Concert Series kicked off Wednesday, June 18 with a performance of the Allentown Band, despite numerous threats of rain. The concert recognized the anniversaries of both the concert series and the band, which is 180-years-old. The concert also served as recognition of the hard work of former series director, Fred Williams. For a review of the concert, see page 29. The next scheduled concert is a performance by the John Clark Big Band on Wednesday, July 2. See story page 3. (Photo by Erin Vertreace)

Celebrate the 4th

Next week marks the 92nd annual Fourth of July parade and Celebration that has attracted parents and their kids to the intersection of Devon Street and Hartwell Lane for food, fun and games. The event will take place on Friday, July 4.

The event, sponsored again this year by the Bocce Club will begin as it always does with a recitation and flag raising by local “patriot poet” Tom Woodruff at 9:00 a.m., after which children will parade down Hartwell Lane in their costumes and floats (decorated bicycles, tricycles and wagons) to the Water Tower Recreation Center. Numerous prizes will be awarded to the best decorations in a number of categories.

Following the parade, the Water Tower’s ball fields will host a number of games and contests for children. In addition to the games, children can enjoy pony rides, face painting a giant moon bounce and watch a new magician for this year, Richard Gustafson.

Community meeting gets hot, decides naught
by Jennifer Katz

A heated and charged meeting of about 60 residents, Chestnut Hill Community Association board members and former board members on Monday, June 23 produced an abundance of criticism but no action. Former board members held the meeting to discuss questions of integrity surrounding the recent Chestnut Hill Community Association election.

FOW to begin first phase of $7 million trail upgrades
by KRISTIN PAZULSKI

Friends of the Wissahickon will implement a variety of improvements to a one-mile stretch of the park’s trails this summer.

The mile, which runs from Bells Mill Road to the red covered bridge at Thomas Mill Road, is the first phase in a five-to-seven-year project that will eventually renovate all 50 miles of trails in the Wissahickon.

BID invites Hillers to ‘Get Lit’ for lights
by Kristin Pazulski

When the Chestnut Hill Business Improvement District was confronted with the challenge of funding improved lighting for the town’s trees at Christmas, the solution was easy — it is asking the community to “Get Lit.”

Local Sports

CHA’s triple threat Mattei co-winner of Patterson Cup
by Justin Goldman

The three faces of CHA’s Mike Mattei: (left to right) playing football against Malvern Prep, basketball against Germantown Academy and baseball against Mercersburg. (Photos by Jimmy J. Pack Jr.)

It can be said that recent CHA graduate Mike Mattei is a bit nostalgic. He remembers sitting through graduations and hearing the names called for the winners of the J.L. Patterson Cup, an award given annually to CHA’s best athlete. But it wasn’t until last summer that Mattei really thought he had a shot to win the highly coveted award.

Sultan of Sweep: Hill’s Bill Lamb keeps The Prep crew on top
by TOM UTESCHER

On the dock at the St. Joe’s Prep boathouse, Coach Bill Lamb stands by the Strawberry Mansion Bridge, which spans the Schuylkill just below the starting line of the Kelly Drive racecourse.

The accomplished oarsmen of St. Joseph’s Preparatory School attend class on Girard Avenue and row out of a boathouse on Kelly Drive, but a key element in the “Prep” crew’s phenomenal success lies right in Chestnut Hill.

Hill resident Bill Lamb, who graduated from Norwood Fontbonne Academy in 1975 before entering St. Joe’s Prep himself, began coaching the Hawklet freshmen in the early 1980s, and became head coach in the 1991-92 school year. With a team roster that regularly numbers in triple digits, the Prep program is often regarded as the national high school standard when it comes to racing eight-oared “sweep” boats.

In contrast to sculling, the discipline in which each athlete hauls on two oars, sweep rowers work one oar apiece on either the port or starboard side of the boat, and few coaches have had their rowers swing those long shafts as successfully as Bill Lamb. After triumphing time and again at the scholastic level, his Prep protégés have gone on to join top college programs and junior and senior national teams, and several have become U.S. Olympians.