Mt. Airy prison poet
Children’s protests save life of Death Row inmate
by AMY BRISSON
PART ONE OF TWO
When poet Reginald Sinclair Lewis was moved to a death watch cell to await his execution in July of 1997, he almost gave up.
“It’s cold and lonely being on the death watch, and every day that passed got darker, and I was getting depressed,” Lewis told a Local reporter on August 4. “I thought I was gone. They asked me where I wanted my body to be shipped and what size suit I wanted to be buried in. That really shook me.”
Lewis, a one-time resident of Mt. Airy, does not seem like the kind of person you expect to meet through a sheet of bullet-proof glass in a super-maximum security prison (Graterford). Lewis is on death row for the murder of a Philadelphia pimp in 1982, although he claims that he was in San Diego, California, at the time.
He is verbose, friendly, humorous and a spell-binding storyteller. He also has two self- published books of poetry and a book of essays to his name, and a resume of published work that would intimidate a literature professor.
Back to the old grind for a Mount Airy coffee shop
by PAMELA ROGOW
When Meg Hagele opened the High Point Café on Carpenter Lane in West Mt. Airy a month ago, she thought of the place as a coffee bar. Her plan was to build on her success in Seattle, where she co-owned a popular coffee bar with a top pastry chef.
Indeed, Meg is a coffeemeister. As technical as a scientist and as dedicated as a den mother, she selects her beans, trains her roasters, designs her formulas, stipulates her steam — and cultivates her customers — like the barista she trained to be a decade ago.
She is also a pastry maven. Indeed, her partner in the coffee bar she co-owned in Seattle was a master pastry chef. Not surprising then that High Point Café daily serves a freshly baked range of scones, biscuits, pies, cakes, tarts, cookies, buns and more, according to the seasoned whims of pastry chef Robert Baldwin.
How to get customers to shop at lower end of Hill
by PAT STOKES
Well, it’s August, and it’s hot as blazes as I write this, and that’s not the greatest combination for big things happening on the Hill, in terms of shop activity, that is. Nevertheless, a mini-survey I did a few weeks ago — covering five new-ish shops that sell clothes, decor and related things — yielded glowing reports from the shop owners who were obviously contented, and happy that they had chosen Chestnut Hill for their retail venture.
In a future column I’ll write about the conversations we had and about the innovative ideas these women are coming up with. However one idea is so ingenious I’ll tell you about it right now: It’s a way to make “downhill” shoppers go to the top of the Hill, and especially to make top-of-the-Hill shoppers aware of all the intriguing shops at the lower end. These owners suggest calling the lower part SOHA “South of Hartwell Avenue.” I think that’s positively brilliant. Later I’ll have details: i.e., whose idea it was, how to market it (maybe with a banner in each locale), and the Business Association’s response.
