“Donning a white baseball hat and warmup suit — complete with an iPod strapped to his arm — a casual Philadelphia Mayor John Street patiently sat on a lawn chair on a South Philadelphia sidewalk, hoping to get his hands on the new Apple iPhone Friday morning,” NBC10.com reports.
“‘I’m out here with the rest of the gang, and we’re all waiting for the iPhone,’ said Street, a self-proclaimed technology advocate. ‘This is the latest and I’m going to have it,'” NBC10.com reports.
“Street said he waited for most of the overnight storms to clear before securing his spot at about 3:30 a.m., noting that the two people in front of him were so sleepy they didn’t even recognize him,” NBC10.com reports. “NBC 10 producers also camped out to try to get their hands on an iPhone.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Winston,” “Mike,” “mango,” and “Dave” for the heads up.]
So, he has nothing better to do?
Kudos to the mayor for waiting in line himself and not just hiring one of the professional line-waiters!
Your taxpayer dollars at work, Philly!
Microsoft fixes Exchange Server?
The mayor of Philadelphia is waiting in line?
This thing is going to be so big….
“Other potential glitches? Speed. Allan said Apple’s Edge Network that operates the Wifi service is slow.”
Wow.
Lighten up. Mayors are people too.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe he took a vacation day?
Engadget says he took off after the press swooped in on him.
@Gzero: Yes, he is a person too, it’s just a little unusual, that’s all.
@Moo: Yes, that did occur to me. Lighten up (to quote gzero). It was just an observation, not a judgment.
It’s the first thing he’s done in 7.5 years that makes me proud to have him as our mayor.
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Here’s a brief interview with him about it:
———-
KYW’s Mike DeNardo reports that another person waiting in line early Friday morning was Philadelphia’s own mayor.
Mayor Street got up in the wee hours, grabbed a patio chair, and began his encampment outside the AT&T store on 16th Street in center city at 3:30am:
(Street:) “This device is supposed to be very special. And so, I’m going to see it on the first day. The very first day, I’m going to have it.”
(DeNardo:) “Mr. Mayor, with all due respect, this is kind of geeky.”
(Street:) “Well yeah, I guess so. I mean, that’s okay. We live in a kind of a geeky world. I mean, there used to be a time when the athletes were the ones everybody had so much respect for. I think the geek has come into his own nowadays.”
Philadelphia is an utter garbage pit. The mayor has nothing better to do? What a statement of priorities.
Go get an iPhone, but do it on your own time. Not ours.
Mayor Street of Philadelphia is shown holding his Blackberry in the picture.
LOL
John Street is a freakin’ joke of a mayor. He is nothing better than a street punk. He has “acquintances” who act as protection thugs. When he was a city council member in the 1980’s, he had these “acquintances” drag one of the other council members who disagreed with him out into the hallway during an official council meeting and beat the crap out of him!
Nice.
Oh, and then there are the comments he made after his first election about Philadelphia being a city for the black people and by the black people and that white folks shouldn’t even think that they may get a city job during his tenor or that he will pay any attention to non-black issues. Example? The main road leading into Chestnut Hill sat unrepaired for 11 months because Mayor Street said that those rich white folks in Chestnut Hill could pay for the street repairs themselves! Chestnut Hill is a part of Philly AND has the biggest tax base in the city. I guess we weren’t entitled to use any of that money that we pay in our taxes. (I used to live in Chestnut Hill).
I guess I made my thoughts clear on this issue.
Winston, my neighbor (I live above L’oca @ Fairmount and Corinthian). You going to watch the chaos anywhere tonight?
Sorry about all the smilies above. Whoops!
@Chris:
Philadelphia is better off the father he is from City Hall. Alas, he did head back in and left a flunky in his place.
So I am assuming that “Mike”, “mango”, and “Dave” all live in Philly, too? Or are you from that pit to the East that we call Jersey?
MW = east! I swear to God and I didn’t look, either!
@Cubert:
You bet! I’ll try 16th & Walnut first. If that’s too mobbed (not likely, if the morning crowd is any indication), I’ve got a few remote locations in mind. What about you?
I was thinking about the smaller AT&T store on 20th/21st near JFK. I’ve walked past it a few times recently and they have a big iPhone display so I assume they will be selling. I’m not interested in buying one – I just want to see how big the crowds are and if any chaos ensues!
It appears that expectations of long lines are not materializing – much to the disappointment of MDN and other iPhone fanatics.
This thing is over priced, the real monthly cost is easily going to exceed a 100 bucks, AT&T service is marginal, the battery life is very poor and the device is bulky.
Methinks solutions to all the above is already available and will soon be announced by his Steveness as ‘remarkable improvements in telephone innovation”.
@R2
“Wow” doesn’t even begin to describe how stupid and ignorant that statement is. Being a techie, it really opens one’s eyes to how often things get reported incorrectly.
Some pics from the line at U-Village in Seattle:
http://www.igiveashit.com/ipwn/
Enjoy!
-c
If lines are short, so is your bus.
Thanks, C1! (and appropriately named URL – nice!)
The line at the store where the Mayor WAS waiting is about 20 people as of 1pm today. I have no idea why that local news station is reporting that the store is in South Philly…it’s not. It’s right in Center City.
And at this point he is the biggest lame duck mayor there will ever be. Michael Nutter, the democratic primary winner, and presumptive winner in the November election is really in charge of what’s happening in the City these days.
Interestingly the particular AT&T store in question moved the waiting line to the side street/alley, Ranstead, so all the people waiting are intermingled with garbage containers and are enduring the many trucks that use that street to access the loading dock at Center Square Towers. I’m sure it’s a much nicer wait for those in line at the Apple Store in Ardmore at Suburban Square!
Did anyone notice how many of the technical details were wrong in this article. Lot’s of FUD like can’t get emails in real time, no text messaging, edge is slow wifi, etc.