Neighbors mourn Bus, the mayor of the 500 block of West York in Philly

Bus was sitting on Miss Juanita's steps, where he perched every morning.

From there, he could easily hear his elderly neighbor through her screen door in case she needed an errand done, and he could keep an eye over the grassy corner lot he swept and raked and kept stocked with the secondhand toys he collected for the children on the block.

Mike Cochran, 52, was sitting next to him. It was Cochran's birthday, and he was teasing Bus about going to a girlie bar.

"I ain't going nowhere," Bus laughed, adjusting his red cap, and getting back to his paper and breakfast bread.

Then, the sound of arguing came from across the street. Two young men. Something about a girl and a baby. One of them waving a 9mm handgun that looked too big for his hands. The other one not seeming too impressed.

"You ain't going to do nothing," he taunted.

The one with the gun opened fire, said police. The other danced behind a van.

Cochran yelled to get down. Bus slumped, a stray bullet in his chest.

"I'm hit," he said.

Neighbors held Bus and begged him to breathe. As Bus lay dying, the intended target, Jasper Washington, 21, who lived across the street, mocked Calvin Atkerson, 20, charged in the shooting, who lived around the corner.

"See, you didn't even shoot me, you shoot someone else," Washington yelled.

In North Philadelphia, some streets still have "mayors" - men and women who just by their daily presence in their sidewalk chairs or on their steps provide decaying blocks with a sense of stability.

Until his killing Friday, James "Bus" Hall, 58, was the mayor of the 500 block of West York Street.

Hall's death went largely unnoticed in the chaos of seven homicides last weekend. But not on York Street, where he was a sort of guardian, said Joe Bailey, a grieving friend.

Bus had his routine.

Every morning, he would put on one of his flashy Kango caps, walk outside, and make the loud crow of a rooster as he shook the flagpole in the grassy lot.

"To let everyone know he was up and out," said Cochran.

Then he would sweep the sidewalk and lot. If he saw a plaything in the trash - a keyboard, a football, a doll - he'd put it aside. He also scavenged bike parts and tires, and hung them on the lot's fence.

He looked after the children on the street, making sure they crossed the corners safely on their way to school, and helped the older folks with their groceries, his neighbors said.

He kissed his daily lottery tickets to the sky. He won $100 once, Cochran said.

He sipped Budweiser, called ladies "darling," and sang bits of songs. "I'm in love with a Mexican girl, and I'm going to call her name out loud," went his favorite.

He sold little bottles of corn liquor, but no one could recall his making himself a fool from the stuff.

"A great man," said Sara Betancourt, whose mother, Miss Juanita, cooked Hall's favorite yellow rice and sweet plantains as thanks for his checking in on her.

Robert Anthony High, 5, liked to play in the lot Hall looked after.

"I loved Mr. Bus," Robert said. "He said I was his best pal."

Hall's wife died long ago. He left behind a girlfriend and three grown children. He was a thin man with a gray beard. No one could exactly remember how he got the nickname "Bus."

Police arrested Atkerson and charged him with murder. He was apparently angry at Washington for having a baby with his sister and not taking care of the child, investigators said. Washington has not been seen on West York Street since the shooting.

To remember Bus, people have laid teddy bears in the grassy lot. But someone stole a few of the bicycles he collected for the children.

"He will be missed," said his girlfriend, Juanita Johnson. "He was a decent man."