PWD People of the Year: Melvin Fortune And The Anonymous, Awesome Love Park Bubble Pranksters

Very rarely do we get so much in just one short media appearance. Usually it takes at least a month — or, in Milton Street’s case, a career — of hilarity to approach the top of the Philadelphia Zeitgeist.

Melvin Fortune is a special case. The Philadelphia maintenance worker said only two sentences to the media all year, and yet those two sentences managed to get him a nod in Philadelphia Will Do’s People of the Year. (This most important award of them all!)

After pranksters poured a box of detergent into the Love Park fountain in early September, NBC 10 decided to focus on the bad side of the totally awesome prank, by interviewing a Fairmount Park commissioner who said it’d cost thousands to hose down Love Park and a woman from North Philly who said it was upsetting.

And then NBC 10 talked to maintenance worker Melvin Fortune:

“Keep your bubbles back at home. That’s the signal I’m trying to send to you.”

No sentence better explains Philadelphia, 2006, than “Keep your bubbles back at home.” Thank you, Melvin Fortune. (Who even inspired an anonymous commenter to adopt his persona as an angry conservative, for some reason.) And thank you, pranksters. If you ever want to share the details of your college-style prank that turned totally awesome with the world, you know who to contact.

Philadelphia Will Do People of the Year | The List So Far
Sept. 5: Keep Your Bubbles Back At Home, People

Cops Respond to Ongoing Threat Of Bubbles

E-Mail from a reader:

There are approximately 30 po-po vehicles at Love Park right now. Mr. Bubble, perhaps?

My guess? Somebody forgot to keep her bubbles back at home and Melvin Fortune took it out on her.

Yesterday: Keep Your Bubbles Back At Home, People

Keep Your Bubbles Back At Home, People

Sometime yesterday morning, some totally awesome people did the most totally awesome thing in the history of the world: They poured bubbles in the Love Park fountain.

Yes, someone saw two men pour a box of detergent into the Love Park fountain yesterday morning around 6 a.m., spreading bubbles all over the park and sending people into a frenzy. NBC 10 is all over it:

If you walked by Love Park early Monday morning, you might have thought it was snowing.

It wasn’t snow filling the fountain; it was soapsuds. [...]

While this may look comical, not everybody was laughing.

“I don’t think it’s fair to the city or to the tourists who take pictures here at Love Park,” said Blayney Stukes, of North Philadelphia.

The Fairmount Park commissioner isn’t laughing either. He said it could cost thousands to cleanup the fountain, a bill that taxpayers will have to pick up.

“Keep your bubbles back at home. That’s the signal I’m trying to send to you,” maintenance worker Melvin Fortune said.

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