Dan GrossFormer Philadelphia Daily News gossip columnist and union chief Dan Gross has opened Gross Communications in the city.

Gross, who led the local Newspaper Guild chapter for the past five rocky years at the Daily News, took a buyout in January.  [The Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer, which went through bankruptcy in 2010, were sold to Interstate General last year.]

Gross penned the "PhillyGossip" column for the paper, starting out in 1998 as an editorial assistant and taking over the column in 2004 after serving as assistant to gossip scribe Stu Bykofsky.

Gross' firm handles PR, crisis communications, social media and media training.

He penned a long "life and times" feature about his stint as a gossip column in the June Philadelphia Magazine.