With New Liberty Bells Awards, Philly Has Officially Gone “Best Of” Crazy

A promotional image for Visit Philadelphia’s new “best of” awards: The Liberty Bells. (Image courtesy of Visit Philadelphia)

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With the “Liberty Bells” Awards, Philly Has Officially Gone “Best Of” Crazy

This year, 2024, just so happens to be the 50th anniversary of Philly Mag’s Best of Philly awards. We’re starting the celebration with a monthly look back at the past 50 years of Best of Philly. (Naturally, our first was focused on the many Best of Philly cheesesteak awards.) And we have a huge Best of Philly issue planned for this August, which I’m sure you’ll hear more about very soon.

Since 1974, when Philly Mag invented the concept of a city/regional publication coming up with a list of what’s best in the area, pretty much every city magazine, alt-weekly, website, etc., around the country has picked up on the idea. And other Philly outlets have tried to spin their own versions of Best of Philly, some more successfully than others.

The Inquirer actually just jumped into the ring this year with a bizarre version of Best of Philly. They came up with a huge number of categories spanning everything from food to the arts to used-car dealerships (no, really!) to personal injury lawyers (also, no, really!), and the public then spawned a ridiculous number of nominations in each of those categories. (At last count, I think there were more than 40 contestants in the HVAC contractor category alone). Then the public could vote on each category once a day. Believe me when I tell you: Democracy and daily voting is not a good way to determine what is best in Philly. But it sure is a good way to get clicks for your website.

And now, Visit Philadelphia, formerly known as the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (which reminds me: We totally should have given them a Best of Philly Name Change award when they did that) is also getting into the best-of game. Visit Philadelphia just launched the nomination process for its brand-new award: the Liberty Bells.

Fortunately, this is a much more respectable contest than the Inquirer‘s, with just 10 categories, some of which I’ve listed below:

Public Art Piece You Wouldn’t Mind Passing Daily
Most Iconic Museum/Attraction Entrance
Best Historic Attraction
The Sandwich Worth Waiting in Line For
Neighborhood with the Biggest Personality
Philly’s Best-Kept Secret

Some questions: Is there any museum that could possibly beat the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the “entrance” category? Could any neighborhood other than South Philly win for biggest personality?

You can nominate your favorites here. And public voting (ugh) for finalists will begin on March 4th.

News We Didn’t Expect to Wake Up To

A horse was running wild on I-95 this morning.

Local Talent

Philadelphia actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph accepting the BAFTA (Getty Images)

Mount Airy native Da’Vine Joy Randolph continues to slay awards season. She’s already won a Golden Globe and a Critics Choice Award for her work in the 2023 dramedy The Holdovers. And she just picked up a BAFTA, which is basically a British Oscar. Speaking of the Oscars, she’s up for one of those in March. If you’re betting on anybody at the Oscars, bet on Da’Vine.

And the Roots just announced the lineup for their annual Roots Picnic. The event is happening June 1st and 2nd at the Mann Center. Among the local talent: singer Jill Scott and multi-instrumentalist/producer Adam Blackstone. You may remember that Blackstone was just up for two Grammys. He’s been popping up everywhere, from Saturday Night Live to the Super Bowl. Roots Picnic tickets go on sale this week.

By the Numbers

$1 million: Approximate amount of campaign funds spent on salaries and benefits by Cherelle Parker’s campaign last year. But thanks to what’s basically a loophole in state campaign finance law, while Parker’s campaign itemizes things like a $11.12 meal at Wendy’s, the campaign doesn’t have to tell us who got that payroll money. And the campaign most definitely isn’t doing so, causing transparency alarm bells to go off.

49: Roosters and hens rescued from a Bucks County property on Sunday when police responded to a call about an active cockfight. As officers arrived, 25 people fled the scene. Police arrested one man, who was allegedly carrying steroids and metal spurs, both of which are commonly employed in cockfighting.

120: Firefighters who responded to a large fire in North Philadelphia on Monday. It took them about four hours to get the fire under control. Fortunately, no injuries were reported.

And from the This-and-That Sports Desk …

The Philadelphia Union have a CONCACAF Champions Cup match tonight against Deportiva Saprissa in San Jose, Costa Rica, starting at 10 p.m. That and the Villanova game against Butler, starting at 6:30, are all there’ll be to watch, unless you haven’t yet seen this video of Sixer Tyrese Maxey in Vegas for the All-Star game:

That moment @TyreseMaxey saw himself on a @NewBalanceHoops Billboard for the first time #WeGotNow pic.twitter.com/8IFku8x1qG

— NBA (@NBA) February 17, 2024

Maxey had 10 points in 17 minutes in Sunday’s game, which was won by his team, the East, rather handily, 211-186. Defense was, as usual, rather sparse.

Any College Hoops News?

Quick weekend wrap-up: There were two City Six games on the slate Thursday night. Drexel traveled to Hofstra, with both teams sporting identical 15-10 records. The Dragons were down 10 at the half, worked back to within one point through the second, took the lead — and hung on for a thrilling 79-77 win! And a game that pitted the Florida Atlantic Owls against the Temple Owls wasn’t a hoot for the first half, but a valiant second-half burst of energy brought Temple (briefly) within two before they folded their wings in an 80-68 loss.

On Friday, Yale was way ahead of Penn at the Palestra at halftime, 45-30, and it got worse, not better, from there. Final: 76-62. While we’re on the subject of Penn, Texans football coach and Penn grad Kevin Stefanski was just named Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year for the second time.

Back in Hoopsland, Villanova, which had lost five in a row, led the Hoyas in Georgetown at the half, 28-19. Wildcat Mark Armstrong hurt his ankle, though he came back out after the half, and he didn’t score again, which helped G-town close it within three early in the third. Luckily, Justin Moore finally got going, letting ’Nova stretch the lead to 12 before the Hoyas closed it up to four again. Not to worry; the Wildcats triumphed in the end, 70-54.

In Saturday’s matchups, Drexel’s Dragons dragooned Campbell’s Fighting Camels, 81-66; the La Salle Explorers squeaked past the UMass Minutemen, 82-81; the Duquesne Dukes handled St. Joe’s Hawks, 66-56; and Penn lost again in the Ivy League round-robin it was hosting, this time to Brown, 71-64. And on Sunday, the Temple Owls used a second-half surge to come from a halftime deficit and beat the UTSA Roadrunners, 83-77, behind Hysier Miller’s 20-point showing.

The Flyers also played.

All Philly Today sports coverage is provided by Sandy Hingston.