Inqlings: Wells Fargo files for center's name

Another name change is on the way for the Wachovia Center.

Next week, the city zoning board will consider a filing to change the signs to Wells Fargo. The building, which opened in 1996 as the CoreStates Center and spent time as First Union, has carried the Wachovia logo since 2003. Wells Fargo subsumed Wachovia more than a year and a half ago. The name change should be in place before the Flyers and Sixers seasons.

Steve Sabol was an art student nearly 50 years ago when his father, Ed, bought the film rights to the 1962 NFL championship game for $5,000,

So much for art school. Their company, which grew into NFL Films, was born.

Steve Sabol, 67, says he looked at filming an NFL game as Picasso viewed art. "He was looking at a single image from multiple perspectives and from different moments in time," says Sabol, whose mother, Audrey, ran the Art Alliance on Rittenhouse Square and brought home such pop masters as Claes Oldenburg and Jasper Johns to dinner.

Sabol put his art tools away until 20 years ago, when NFL Films moved into a "huge building with white walls" in Mount Laurel, he says. "How many photographs of football players could I put up there?" Sabol started creating football-themed collages, which he dubbed "my own little Barnes exhibition."

For the first time, a Philly crowd will see his work. He's been accepted to exhibit June 26 and 27 at the Manayunk Arts Festival in Booth 193 as part of Garth Davidson Gallery's exhibits. The pieces sell for $1,000 to $2,000.

Is the name Schoolly D too old-school? West Philly's Jesse B. Weaver Jr. - who picked up the name in the mid-1980s when he helped shape what became known as gangsta rap - has a new brand: International Supersport. It'll be attached to a line of clothing, a website, music videos, and his first album in 10 years. How did he pick the name? "I couldn't use just Supersport because a band had it. But I couldn't leave it alone," said Schoolly/Supersport, whose music is used on Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force. "I added International because I'm international. This will keep me going till 2025." Schoolly/Supersport just signed with Craig Kaplan's interactive marketing firm MilkBoy Communications, affiliated with MilkBoy Studios in Ardmore, where the album is being recorded. MilkBoy, incidentally, hopes to open a cafe/music venue at 11th and Chestnut Streets in Center City this summer.

CBS3's weather center is looking lighter, with Doug Kammerer on his way out the door this summer and Maria LaRosa having gone south in the spring. I hear that the station is about to sign Justin Drabick, now filling in. Drabick's last stop: WBOC, which covers Delmarva.

Restaurateur Stephen Starr is in expansion mode again, reviving a plan to occupy the Broad Street Diner at Broad and Ellsworth Streets. Asked to specify the concept, Starr said he's weighing "gastro-diner" or Vietnamese. He's also planning an English pub at 18th and Sansom Streets. No names or opening dates yet. Starr also has two projects up for fall: an Italian restaurant with chef Chris Painter - Il Pittore, at Third and Bainbridge Streets in Queen Village - and a biergarten in Fishtown.

The Hamels Foundation - that's Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels and wife Heidi's off-field project - last week doled out $91,000 in education grants to Alexander Wilson Elementary ($50,000, mostly for a playground); Bayard Taylor Elementary ($12,000 for a curtain for its main "cafetorium"); John F. Hartranft Elementary, John Marshall Elementary, and Edwin H. Vare Middle School ($8,000 each in tech grants); and Thomas G. Morton Elementary ($5,000 for auditorium improvements).

Respect: A Musical Journey of Women is closing its 20-week run at the Society Hill Playhouse on Sunday. It initially had been set to close April 18, then May 2, then May 23, and then June 27. Producers Philip Roger Roy, Bud Martin, and Act 2 Playhouse will take the show to the Herberger Theater Center in Phoenix and the Coral Springs Center for the Arts in Florida this year and early in 2011.

Verizon's How Sweet the Sound gospel competition is looking for local artists to create a mural in connection with its 14-city tour, which is expected to stop in Philly in September. Entry info is at www.howsweetthesound.com

Be one or two degrees of separation from Center City-bred Kevin Bacon: Paramount has put out a casting call for limber guys for a remake of Footloose, his 1984 breakout role. Info: www.footloosecasting.com

Seth Kramer, a 1996 University of the Arts grad, codirected the documentary The New Recruits, airing nationally on PBS (including WHYY TV12) at 10 p.m. Tuesday. Rainn Wilson, of The Office, narrates the story about business students who want to end global poverty by charging poor people for goods and services.

Veteran Lower Merion Detective George Ohrin has a new case: He and fellow producers are shopping a film script called Stuck in the Middle, about a young guy who dies and ends up in purgatory - being an office worker. His partners are Bill Pepitone, a retired New York cop, and his brother Joe Pepitone, a New York news producer; they're nephews of Joe Pepitone, the former Yankees ballplayer.

Gary Coleman's untimely death May 28 was a "wow" moment for actor Nigel Jamaal Clark, who plays the role of Gary Coleman in the touring production of the comedy Avenue Q, due at the Academy of Music Friday through Sunday. The show is about life in a ramshackle tenement, and the producers had named the character after the former child star as a parody. Clark, who did a tribute to his character's inspiration after that night's show, says writers have changed a few lines, including: "And from then on, I've been on a slow, tiresome walk to the grave."