15 ways to explore the arts in Philly

Philadelphia’s arts and entertainment scene can’t be squeezed into a 1,000-word article. It’s just too big for that. Why else would Americans for the Arts (AFTA), a nonprofit organization that recognizes the country’s best art centers, have visited the city this summer? But don’t take their word for it—take ours. Follow this SparkNotes-like guide to the city during your first 15 days here. And after that? Read the darn book already.

1. Don’t Eat Like a College Student
Imagine if Ramen looked and tasted as appetizing as it appears on the Maruchan package wrapping. That’s the best way to describe pho, a big bowl of white rice noodles and beef slices in broth, which sells for $5 to $7 at Vietnamese markets. Top it off with a blended bubble tea, an avocado, jackfruit or strawberry smoothie sprinkled with tapioca balls.
12th Street and Washington Avenue, Sixth Street and Washington Avenue

2. Fulfill Your Fight Club Fantasies
If you’re looking for a combative edge in fitness (or just an alternative to IBC Student Recreation Center’s crowded weight room), check out the Philadelphia Mixed Martial Arts Academy and the Fight Factory. Both provide mixed martial arts lessons from world-class instructors. Fight Factory’s Eddie Alvarez is considered one of the top fighters in the 155-pound weight class. Not so confident in your butt-kicking abilities? Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is popular among the athletically challenged, since it teaches you how to keep up with bigger, stronger opponents.
1321 Juniper St. and 2200 E. Susquehanna Ave.

3. Love Cheesesteaks, But Love Hoagies
More sliced steak on bread with Cheese Whiz may be Philly’s most enduring culinary export, but hoagies are also a staple at almost any deli in the city. The homemade bread rolls at Sarcone’s Deli and Bakery (734 South 9th St.) are packed with high carbs. Nick’s Charcoal Pit (1242 Snyder Ave.) is famous for its filet mignon sandwich, while Govinda’s (Broad and South streets) puts a vegetarian spin on the white collar sandwich.

4. Go to Church
The colorful events that the Rotunda, a once-abandoned church, hosts range from Holistic Mom Network meetings to monthly hip-hop gatherings. Most of the events are free; otherwise, admission is on a sliding scale and usually under $15. Upcoming shows worth attending: Gods vs Men: The Book of Xen, a colorful dystopian satire with song and dance that is being performed on Aug. 30-31, and Urban ECHO, a dance exhibition that runs the first and second Saturdays of September.
4104 Walnut St.

5. Don’t Drive on I-76 to Admire Nature
Hidden near 38th Street on the University of Pennsylvania’s campus is one of Philadelphia’s best kept secrets: a five-acre botanical garden lush with indigenous wildlife – excluding pigeons, squirrels and cockroaches. In 1897, Dr. John M. MacFarland created the Biopond, which is maintained by Penn’s School
of Arts and Sciences. It’s an oasis in a jungle of concrete.
3710 Hamilton Walk

6. Drink to the Local Economy
Yards Brewing Company set up shop in the historic Weisbrod & Hess building in 2001, and brewed beer with the future owners of the Philadelphia Brewing Company until a bitter breakup in 2007. Yards moved to Delaware Avenue and kept the original recipes for its pale ales and seasonal brews and PBC
maintained the brewery in Kensington. PBC offers a blend of local and European ales like the Walt Whitman, as well as hoppy brews like the Kenzinger. Ben Franklin once said, beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Yards and PBC remind us of his words.

7. Don’t Pay for Art
More than 40 art galleries open their doors to the public and offer live music, food and wine on the first Friday of every month, from 5-9 p.m. F.U.E.L. (249 Arch St.), which was converted into living quarters for the cast of MTV’s Real World: Philadelphia, is a high-ceilinged gallery with hip art. The Old City Jewish Art Association (55 N. 5 St.) is especially generous with free food on the first Fridays. Though members focus on Jewish-themed art, anyone is welcome to browse and dine at no cost.

8. Scratch That: Pay for Art if Van Gogh’s Involved
Originals by Monet, Dali, DuChamp and Van Gogh are among the 225,000-plus works of art featured at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the accompanying Perelman Building. Sundays are free from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., and tickets are $10 with a student ID during weekdays. Try to see the exhibit on Nandalal Bose, one of India’s most prolific modern artists, before it closes on Sept. 1. Jog up the steps and pose next to the statue of Stallone—err, Rocky.
Benjamin Franklin Parkway

9. Laugh So You Don’t Cry
Helium’s open-mic night has featured Comedy Central talent like Greg Giraldo and Joe Rogan, as well as some of Philly’s funniest rising comedians. Kent Haines, Steve Gerben and Chip Chantry are among the city’s best. Feel free to join them: you have three minutes to sink or float in the Philly’s comedic waters.
The environment is supportive and heckling is discouraged, unless someone goes over their time limit.
20th and Samson streets

10. Be Proud of Philly’s Own
The mix of urban soul and independent culture has Philly at the epicenter of one of the strongest rock and hip-hop scenes on the East Coast. Many a hipster swoon for Dr. Dog, mewithoutYou and Man Man, all of whom call Philly their home. Jill Scott, the Roots and Musiq Soulchild are native Philadelphians, while RJD2 relocated to the city from Oregon. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the brilliant, demented minds behind Adult Swim’s Tom Goes To The Mayor and Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job are Temple alumni. Their earlier dabbling in absurdity can be seen on www.timanderic.com.

11. Take a Shower
Shampoo’s name is not a gimmick. Foam rains from the club’s ceiling every Sunday, so bring your rubber
ducky on the dance floor. Five separate rooms, like the blue room for dance and the velvet underground room for old school and classic club tracks, make Shampoo one of the bigger clubs in the city. It’s also one of the few places that caters to the underage crowd. Spoiled Thursdays is for ages 14 to 18. Nocturne Gothic Wednesdays attracts crowds of vampire look-a-likes with $3 drink specials and throbbing industrial music. Don’t worry—they won’t bite unless you give them permission.
Willow Street between Seventh and Eighth streets

12. Believe in Aliens
Founder Jennifer Bates succumbed to leukemia in May 2007, but her legacy lives on through her Fishtown-based bookstore that specializes in the esoteric. Conspiracy theories, the occult and science fiction are all popular subjects at Germ Books. A UFO discussion group meets on the second Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m., where you’re sure to get a weird look is if you ask for Harry Potter.
2005 Frankford Ave.

13. Jog in Our Own Central Park
Consisting of 63 parks that span some 9,200 acres, Fairmount Park has enough space and activities for any city-weary person to get lost in. Kelly Drive has trails for biking and walking that run parallel to the Schuylkill River, which is frequented by rowers. The area near the Art Museum district also has golf courses and pavilion for public events.

14. Swill Beer for Free
Come into Ray’s Happy Birthday Bar on your birthday and the first drink is on the house. Located 40 steps from Geno’s on Passyunk Avenue, this Depression-era dive bar embodies the friendly neighborhood spirit of South Philly. Ray’s has Quizzo on Mondays, karaoke on Fridays, live music on
Saturdays and comedy nights once a month, for no cover. It’s a prime spot to sip on a Kenzinger and light up a cigarette.
1200 E. Passyunk Ave.

15. If Life’s a Tragedy, Throw a Party
Once a month, Eric Broomfield honors his late brother with Carnivolution, West Philly’s wildest party. Located at the Ellen Powell Tiberino Museum, the gathering features Broomfield’s band the Hydrogen Jukebox, which plays Vaudevillian rock. Guests include clowns, fire-breathers, knife throwers and sword
swallowers.
3819 W. Philly Ave.

Northeast cheesesteak joint shows prejudice

Living in Philadelphia nearly my entire life, I’ve been to just about every cheesesteak dive in the city. That’s why I found it so surprising that I only recently heard of a popular cheesesteak place in Wissinoming, a Northeast Philadelphia neighborhood minutes from my own.

From the outside, the shop is modest, sandwiched in between several other businesses on an obscure street, clad in a uniform of tan on Torresdale Avenue, north of Harbison. Stepping inside is like going back to the 1950s: vintage wooden booths, fountain soda and authentic steaks without the bright lights or pretentious tourist bait of Geno’s, Pat’s or Jim’s in South Philly. You’re sure to be greeted with hospitality that can only be found in such a homey neighborhood eatery.

This is Chink’s Steaks, a restaurant with a reputation of great food and an infamously controversial name. Samuel Sherman founded the restaurant in 1949 and bequeathed upon it his nickname, one earned by his Asian-like facial features. Current owner Joseph Groh bought Chink’s from Sherman in 1999 and refuses to change the name for the sake of tradition, despite complaints from the Asian-American community.

“Chink,” a bastardization of the term Chinese and a derogatory racial epithet for anyone of East Asian descent, is undoubtedly offensive. In 2004, Asian American groups began protesting in an attempt to get Groh to change the name of the eatery, citing the term’s hateful nature. The campaign’s popularity eventually died down and ended unsuccessfully.

Being Chinese-American, a racial minority in my city, state and country, social justice has always been an important issue to me. I believe that simply dismissing Chink’s Steaks as a harmless name would only further tag Asian Americans with the model minority stereotype, setting us years backwards in the fight for social equality. While I agree that the restaurant’s name is insensitive, though, it isn’t necessarily unjust. Being Chinese, I am self-assured that no trivial, invented insult can degrade me to the point where I am no longer proud of whom I am.

After a lifetime of enduring prejudice that any minority would experience growing up, I’ve learned that some types of racism cannot be irreconcilably imposed. Only you can allow yourself to be a victim of internalized, social forms of racism. And the fight for justice does not always equate with political correctness.

It’s hard to admit that while many people within my community strive for institutional and systemic social change, the primary culprits of casually throwing around the slur “chink” are my own Asian-American peers, a phenomenon mirrored in other U.S. minority communities.

It would be a shame for Chink’s Steaks to gain notoriety as an establishment based on hate and racism rather than enjoy the reputation it deserves as a long-standing and honest local business.

Doanh Nghiem can be reached at doanhnghiem@temple.edu.

Out-of-towners can take a bite out of this

It’s easy to grab a soft pretzel and water ice before class, and removing the wrapper from a Tastykake cream-filled chocolate cupcake while relaxing in front of the TV is common practice. Such acts are part of being a true Philadelphian – where the motto is: “The greasier, the better.”

In fact, there are many companies, such as A Taste of Philadelphia, which thrive on the notion that Philly foods are hard to come by. Tempting non-city residents with packages like their “The Broad Street Combo,” the company offers a medley of the essentials: a cheesesteak, hoagie, soft pretzels, Tastykakes, Herr’s potato chips and more.

The Philly cheesesteak, perhaps the most popular Philly food of them all, has been a huge hit ever since it was first introduced in the 1930s by founder Pat Olivieri at Pat’s King of Steaks. In 1952, they added Cheese Whiz by popular demand and the rest is history.

“It’s definitely a staple in Philadelphia because you can’t talk about Philadelphia
without mentioning the cheesesteak,” said Geno Vento, son of Joe Vento, who founded the popular Philly cheesesteak hot spot known as Geno’s Steaks in 1966.

“I know there are a lot of versions of the Philly cheesesteak around the world but if you want it authentic, you have to come to Philly.”

While some attribute the lure of the Philly cheesesteak to the hype itself, many others boast that cheesesteaks in Philadelphia simply taste better.

“They just don’t make them the same anywhere else,” said freshman secondary education major Ryan Kalinowski.

“Huge chunks of steak, not chipped steaks – it’s just greasy here.”

It may seem unlikely, but grease seemed to be a deciding factor for senior film student Lindsay Morris as well, as she attributed the popularity of the Philadelphia soft pretzel to its “wetness.”

“You can go to the Soft Pretzel Factory on Frankford [Avenue] after midnight and get them for a quarter – it’s the best!” Morris said.

These twisted pieces of salted dough are also popular in places such as Germany and New York City, but the average Philadelphian consumes about 12 times more pretzels than the national average. To Morris, this comes to no surprise, “There are so many little elements that make a great pretzel and you can only get them in Philly.”

The soft pretzel is often the perfect companion to a water ice. Though Italian ice is popular in Europe and across the United States, only in Philadelphia and New Jersey do people refer to the popular frozen summer treat as “water ice.”

Rose’s Water Ice is a popular vendor in Philadelphia, and Rita’s Water Ice, the popular franchise with locations all along the east coast, was first opened independently in Bensalem, one of Philadelphia’s bordering cities. It was there that Rita’s popularity sparked, and the growing franchise began.

Like Philly cheesesteaks, water ices and soft pretzels are “often imitated, never duplicated” across the globe. There’s one company unique to Philadelphia that pre-wraps their goodness fresh at the bakery and keeps the key to their success hidden in Philly: the Tasty Baking Company.

It is responsible for the famous Philly treat – the Tastykake.

Tastykakes were first introduced in 1914, when Pittsburgh baker Philip J. Baur and Boston egg salesman Herbert T. Morris first went into business in Philadelphia.

Over the years, the name Tastykake has become associated with the moist, icing-clad cakes that line grocery store dessert aisles.

Companies like Hostess and Entenmann’s certainly offer up good competition, but for some, when it comes to cupcakes, there’s no substitute.

“I have to send Tastykakes to my uncle in South Carolina because they can’t get them there,” Morris said.

Whether it’s the idea of eating something at the location where it’s well-known or the fact that certain cuisines really do taste better when prepared where they came from, one thing’s for sure – Philly just wouldn’t be Philly without its famous foods.

Kristin Granero can be reached at kgranero@temple.edu

NY may be happening, but Philly’s got atty-tude

Even though I have lived in Philadelphia for more than a year, I still go back home to New York City at least two weekends every month.

Thanks to the folks at New Century Travel (a.k.a. the Chinese bus, $10 round-trip from Philly to Manhattan, the broke student’s best friend), I travel to NYC often and end up defending moving to Philly nearly every time.

And you know what?

Philly can compete with New York just fine. Here’s why:

1. Cost of living – I am 21 years old, putting myself through school by working a big bad 24 hours a week.

My roommates and I pay $720 a month for a gigantic three-bedroom near the Italian Market.

My protion, $240 a month, means that I have enough money to pay rent, pay bills, buy groceries and go out three times a week.

Not bad, considering $240 in NYC won’t even buy half of a studio apartment.

2. Yuengling – In New York, Yuengling is a premium beer that costs as much as Yards or Red Hook costs here.

So, when you buy a few 6-packs to sneak into your underage dorm room at Temple Towers to share with the kids from your Anthro class, just think, people in Brooklyn pay $15 for the privilege.

3. Bikeability – One day I biked from Cecil B. Moore Avenue and 12th Street, to Baltimore Avenue and 42nd Street, and from there to Snyder Avenue and 3rd Street.

Total time? Three hours.

I crossed half the city on uncrowded streets, took bike lanes most of the way there and never had one near run-in with a car or pedestrian.

Manhattan bikers would kill for how easy we have it.

4. Murals – We’ve got murals.

Lots of them.

Patty Labelle in West Philly gazing benevolently upon you.

The peace mural in Greys Ferry to makes you say, “Aww.”

The history of feminism mural under the Market Street bridge.

Even a Frank Rizzo mural in South Philly for you to shoot paintballs at.

5. Other Stuff – Ed Rendell.

The feeling of living in a half-college town, half-slum.

The never-ending quest for a decent bagel.

Cheap ethnic grocery stores you don’t have to ride the subway to.

Smoking in restaurants.

Not paying $6.50 for a pack of smokes.

TLA Video.

Bridges.

Silk City.

Cheesesteaks, carnitas tortas and Vietnamese subs – all on the same block.

Wawa.

When considering these things, Philly ain’t so bad.

Not bad at all.

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Neal Ungerleider can be reached at n_terminal@yahoo.com