Hundreds of youngsters who showed up to a small area of North Philadelphia last night prompted reports of a familiar but frightening scenario.

But police on the scene said that the incident was more of a combination of several area events and the first warm evening in weeks- not a flash mob of the sort that has popped up in the city several times since last spring.

Anna Edwards, 51, who was near the theater selling baked goods to benefit a youth program she works with, wasn't so sure. She said she heard groups of kids yelling things like, "Flash mob, phase two."

Asked if she thought it was a flash mob, she said: "There were too many of them for it to be bunk. They wouldn't move for anyone; they wouldn't move for the police.

"They were running back and forth from one corner to another being rude and shouting profanities," said Edwards, who works with the Youth Entrepreneurship Program. "I just think it's sad."

Several young people outside the Pearl Theatre at Avenue North, at Broad Street and Cecil B. Moore Avenue, said they were there for the opening night of the remake of "A Nightmare on Elm Street."

Nearby, an under-21 club called Club 923 often attracts a large crowd,and Tyler Perry was performing a few blocks up Broad at the Liacouras Center in "Madea's Big Happy Family," said a police officer on the scene.

Police said a handful of arrests were reported for various offenses, but the number could not be confirmed late last night.

Police, who responded to the area in full force, have been on high alert since huge groups of teenagers, spurred by postings on online networking sites like Facebook, began converging on different parts of the city all at once.

Six times since last May, dozens of young people have flooded South Street or the Market East corridor, some of them fighting each other and attacking or pushing strangers at random.

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