Sansom St. gas leak hurts area business
The tea at the Bubble House restaurant had an unexpected aroma on Sunday evening -- that of natural gas.
The Bubble House and several other businesses between 34th and 36th streets on Sansom Street suffered a gas leak that lasted through 5 p.m. yesterday and resulted in a day-long shutdown of the entire block.
Bubble House manager George Jordan said the smell was first noticed at about 11 p.m. on Sunday as the staff prepared to close the restaurant. After police confirmed the smell, Philadelphia Gas Works workers were called to the scene.
The gas odor spread to neighboring restaurants early Sunday morning.
According to PGW spokesman Peter Hussie, 12 residential properties were affected by the gas shutoff. He could not identify the reason for it because a report still has not been released, but White Dog Cafe spokesman Tom Kurland said PGW workers told him there was a gas-main leak in the vicinity of the Bubble House.
PGW workers on the scene yesterday refused to comment on the reason for the service interruption.
Kurland said the leak inconvenienced the nearby White Dog Cafe and neighboring businesses all day.
White Dog regained gas service at about 4 p.m yesterday.
The cafe, which averages 200 lunchtime customers, had only 100 during the gas shutoff. The restaurant operates on a mixture of electric and gas, and gas is the dominant heating source. Kings Court/English House and the Law School -- both in the vicinity of the affected Sansom Street block -- did not feel the effects of the shutoff.
Jordan said the Bubble House experienced the same troubles as the White Dog but added that tea service was not interrupted.
His cafe lost about $500 to $1000 in business, Jordan said.
"We told them, 'Good luck,'" he said about turning customers away. The cafe's kitchen operates on gas, but the rest of the restaurant is heated by electric heat boosters.
Bucks County Coffee and the Black Cat Gift Shop were not impacted by the service interruption, according to the stores' employees.
PGW caution signs and broken pipelines lay on the street opposite the Bubble House yesterday evening, indicating that groundwork had been completed.
-- Elaine Wong
NYU pres. extends grad strike deadline
Striking New York University graduate students now have until tomorrow to avoid repercussions from the school.
The sanctions, including cuts in grad student stipends and a loss of the ability to teach next semester, were originally to take effect yesterday.
NYU President John Sexton extended the deadline for unionized graduate students to return to class after he accepted a new grievance procedure for graduate students.
Members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee, which is orchestrating the work stoppage, were not appeased by the reprieve.
The administration "is simply repackaging their previous offers," GSOC spokesman Steve Fletcher said. "They want to create confusion [with the] so-called proposals."
This new development follows a week of civil disobedience across the NYU campus after Sexton announced he would stop paying striking teaching assistants.
The GSOC contract ended Aug. 31, and the Sexton administration refused to renew it. Grad students have been striking since Nov. 9.
-- Jennifer Reiss
