Live From ...

City residents are complaining about streets still covered with "wintry mix" (snow, sleet, ice pellets, slush, take your pick). I'm heading out to check this out. If you know of a street I should visit, email me and leave a comment here. If you're in the burbs, sorry, but you can post your own report by clicking "comments" below.

Before I even get to my car, I find my first uncleared mess: It's Callowhill Street, between 14th (just as bad) and 15th. Several inches of snow and slush.

Furrows a half-foot deep face Community College of Philadelphia students as they try to slog across 14th street, along Spring Garden. Wait, there's a plow! With its plow up. Minutes before, a city spreader went by ... without spreading anything.

Some cars were spinning out trying to turn. A couple brave bicyclists were weaving their way along, but managing to keep on rolling.

No, this is for real. The grey soggy sandlike mess is even deep on Broad Street. This is at Race, just a block from Hahnemann Hospital. Ambulances and sick people use these streets.

Don't know if you can read the sign, but it says "Market Street," right in the heart of the city's busy commercial district. "Mobile"? Not very.

Now. now every street's a mess. Kelly Drive was wet and slick, and so was Eakins Oval at the Art Museum. The Ben Franklin Parkway was fairly clear as well.

Turned through five inches of the cold grainy gray claylike stuff onto Front, then just as uncleared Walnut Street to get a gander at this plow which wasn't plowing. Had a Parking Authority logo on the side. Maybe streets aren't their responsibility.

Discover America: Here's Columbus Boulevard (above and below). It's so sunny at the moment, one wonders if had this street been plowed, sun and car exhaust could have rendered even the residual slush into just a bit of slickness. Good thing it didn't rain. All this mush might be clogging the sewers, causing some flooded streets

Here's what Rose McLarin, a bank audit specialist from Mayfair, said in an email about the lack of plowing in the city:

"No big surprise, once again Harbison Avenue and Frankford Avenue are unplowed – both are snow emergency routes – neither road has even seen a salt truck. Since Street has been mayor the only time I saw a snow plow that didn’t take 24-48 hours to show up was when I was able to use a channel 10 link to send the city managing director an email. Isn’t it interesting that the politicians all have nice clear streets to drive down – not so for the rest of us poor tax payers – all we get is the shaft once again."

You can't fight City Hall, they say. So Mark Mogil, 41, who owns a building that includes a pharmacy on Cecil B. Moore Avenue, takes plowing into his own hands. With his $1,500 commercial model Ariens snow thrower -- the one with the "cast-iron transfer case," none of that aluminum stuff for him -- he clears a lot of the street itself, so customers and deliverers can park. He's far from bitter, though. Says: "The city's doing their best. We do our part ... It's part of running a business. ...On the whole, city services are pretty good." Then he adds: "Taxes could be lower."

Inside the pharmacy Lydia Durbin, 48, of Nicetown, had to share her aggravation. She rattled off the names of sloppy streets: "Allegheny ... Indiana ... Germantown Avenue ... All those streets have not been plowed. ... It's crazy. We all were complaining about it."

The temperatures are dropping. The wind is kicking up. This mush is headed for solidity, and I'm soon I'm heading home.

No longer "Live From ... Unplowed Streets." At least for today.