Philly.com

By Michael Klein

Inquirer Columnist

Humorist Dave Barry will be feted tonight at the Pen & Pencil Club, the night before he addresses the annual conference of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

Barry's last time at the Center City journo hangout: "He said he doesn't remember the ride home - someone drove him," says Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky, who's spent two years planning the conclave. About 125 newsies plus spouses and guests will encamp at the Sofitel through Sunday for speeches, panels and hobnobbing. They'll also tour Citizens Bank Park and the battleship New Jersey and, just to clear their sinuses, ride the Broad Street Subway.

Barry, who lived and wrote from Glen Mills until he moved to Miami in 1986, will speak on "Writing Funny Is No Joke." Seriously classy guy, too. He's paying his own airfare, says Bykofsky. Barry will be one of three Pulitzer winners to speak, in addition to Robin Givhan of the Washington Post, talking about her beat (fashion), and Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune, receiving the group's Ernie Pyle Lifetime Achievement Award.

Tomorrow's keynoter is Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, whom Bykofsky called an easy "get." O'Reilly is "always on TV yelling about [print journalists]," Bykofsky says. "I told him to come down and look at us in the eye and yell at us." When O'Reilly was pressed for a title for his speech, he came up with "Ideology in the Print Press." Bykofsky's take: "Glad to know there's none elsewhere."

High hopes

If a condo developer has its way, Two Liberty Place will be home to the highest restaurant space in the city. The Falcone Group, selling the skyscraper's upper floors as posh residences, has hired a Florida broker, the Prakas Group, to find a restaurant to occupy the 37th floor. Right now, the highest restaurant open to the general public is Nineteen (also known as XIX), on the 19th floor of the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue. (A few private rooms, including the Pyramid Club, on the 52d floor of the Mellon Bank Center, far surpass that.) A 37th-floor restaurant would not be the highest ever in town. Top of Centre Square, which closed in 1993, was on the 41st floor at 15th and Market.

Email The Prakas Group