This bus route runs into deep South Philadelphia, and the bus’s errant signage will draw a wry chuckle from anyone who knows South Philly’s history as a center of mob activity and the site of a number of mob hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Within three months of my arrival in Philadelphia in early 1981, two mob murders occurred and were front-page news at the Inquirer, where I was working. One of the victims, Philip “Chicken Man” Testa, was blown up on his front porch, a twist that later showed up in the opening line of Bruce Springsteen’s song “Atlantic City.”
