For just one, sticky-hot summer day, when baking sidewalks send ripples into the air and hydrants are cracked open like cheap beers, forget those everyday news stories about Philadelphia. For this moment, we?re not the fattest, greenest, poorest or biking-est. We are the partying-est.

As far as we can tell, Philadelphia issues more block-party permits per year than any other city ? more than Boston (with 5,000), New York (2,300), D.C. (500), Los Angeles (250) or Chicago (5,000, though that city gets extra points for loaning out free moonbounces).ÿ

Philadelphians submitted more than 8,000 block-party applications in 2012, according to Streets Department stats; 7,116 of those were approved. Scores of street parties take place each weekend through the summer, but they?re really popular on Memorial Day, Labor Day and, especially, Fourth of July weekend, which is the premier block-party occasion of the year. City Paper requested a list of block parties for the weekend of June 21 and got one ? 19 pages and 216 parties long. That?s impressive, given that getting a permit requires extensive legwork, including obtaining signatures from 75 percent of the households on the block and fronting a $25 to $60 fee. The Streets Department and the local police district then review each application for approval.

In its most elemental form, a Philly block party might be little more than a handful of neighbors clustered around a card table in the middle of the street. But others are reunions that residents look forward to all year long, and some are epic celebrations that attract friends and strangers from across the city.ÿ

In honor of this ever-evolving tradition, CP crashed five block parties around Philadelphia. What did they have in common? Just about every block believed they were the best block. We say that if only more residents on more blocks felt that way, Philly would be a cleaner, happier, friendlier and just plain better place to live.

POINT BREEZEÿ

Neal Santos

2000 BLOCK OFÿSOUTH 23RD STREET

The blow-up kiddie pool has sprung a leak and stands at shriveled half-mast. But a garden hose, twisting wildly in the hands of a cluster of young children, offers plenty of fun. Some blocks just seem to attract kids; this one is home to 53. Tyisha Ywise, the block captain, says that?s why she orchestrates so many block parties. ?In August, we?ll have kids? day; we give out book bags and pencils. We try to get donations. Last year we waited too late, so it ended up coming out of our pockets.? She collected $5 from each family, and bought crayons and erasers in bulk.

The block, a corner of the neighborhood that gentrification hasn?t touched, wasn?t always so close-knit, she says. ?Then, when you start doing things within the block, people see you?re trying to do something, so you become a family.? Neighbors watch out for each other now.

As the women cluster under a canopy, kids on bikes circle them like lazy seagulls, then steer into one another and crash noisily. The men retreat to a folding table to play cards and drink Coronas and whiskey.

Tyree Campbell introduces himself as ?the cook and the DJ? of the block. ?The block party is a little reunion. Everyone gets together to tell stories of whatever happened in their lives over the year ? the tragedies, the good parts. It?s like a stress reliever. You don?t even have to pay a therapist.?

1900 BLOCK OF MORRIS STREET

?I can?t talk right now ? I?m grilling,? a woman explains with a swat of her tongs. Partying is serious business here: Smoke pours out of a dozen grills and a DJ booth issues a deafening wall of bass that inspires intermittent dance parties of two or three teenage girls.

This is more or less a graduation party, says Kevin Hooks, lounging in a camp chair, peach schnapps at the ready. It?s a reminder ?for those who are graduating to continue to strive to be better than their parents.? His stepson is a rising senior at West Chester University, and Hooks is proud. ?I?m from North Philadelphia, and we do the same thing for ours. It takes a village to raise a child.?ÿ

One honoree, Shanada Woodard, is the first of her family to complete high school. The Furness grad poses obligingly in front of a plastic backdrop festooned with diplomas, beside a plastic Grecian column placed there for extra gravitas.

This is a decent block party, Hooks says. But, ?August is when we really all come out.?

Alice Hayman, a 45-year resident of the 1800 block of Morris, says neighbors attend one another?s parties. But the Labor Day party on her block is, of course, the best. ?Everyone comes to ours. Our block is the bomb,? she says. ?The best thing they did is having block parties where we can get people together and stop all this violence. There?s nothing for the kids to do.?ÿ

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EAST PASSYUNK

Neal Santos

1600 BLOCK OF SOUTH LAWRENCE STREET

As dozens of tattooed twentysomethings roll up on skateboards and bicycles, George and Diane Taylor watch from their stoop on narrow Lawrence Street. They?ve been on the block 45 years. In that time, says Diane, ?It changed about 15 times, just like the rest of the city.?

George, who wears a thick gold chain, offers to put on a shirt ? or at least suck in his gut, aka ?the baby? ? before a photographer arrives. He sips a beer as skateboarders shoot down the street and off the top of a quarter pipe. He liked the old neighbors, and he likes the new ones. ?We went from nice people to nice people.?

The matriarch of this block is Jeanette McAllister, a 57-year resident and former block captain whom everyone knows as ?Pony.? But Pony didn?t organize this party. ?They just asked me how to get the permit, so I gave them the paper,? she says. One might imagine Pony wouldn?t be thrilled to host a rager that?s been advertised as ?legendary? to 1,500 Facebook invitees. But as a punk band, part of an all-day music lineup, plugs in its amps mere feet from her doorstep, she says she thinks ?it?s terrific.?ÿ