TTN Slideshow: Philadelphia International Flowershow 2010

Philadelphia International Flowershow
Slideshow by Anna Zhilkova

Philagrafika 2010 brings print innovation to Philadelphia

This spring, the city will become the home of one of the largest art projects in the United States with Philagrafika, but why Philadelphia? Curators, like Julien Robson, said they were inspired by the city’s rich history in the textile and paper-making industries.
Philagrafika, a print collaborative with a vision of bringing printmaking to the forefront of contemporary art, will pull together six world-renowned curators to create “something Philadelphia can be proud of and can make it a center of international art,” Robson said.
After overcoming many obstacles involving staff and financial issues, José Roca and his team of curators were able to put together what is more than just an exhibition of printmaking in their city-wide exhibition, The Graphic Unconscious.
Roca said every process of printmaking one could think of can be found throughout the event. There are “videos made from woodcuts and woodcuts made from videos,” he said.
Printmaking may have a reputation as an outdated technique, Roca said, but no method is really outdated.
“Printmaking is ink and paper, and the matrix is the digital file of print,” Roca said, adding that he wishes to provoke the question: “Why does it matter?” He said he hopes to challenge preconceptions of both the observer and the artist.
Philagrafika is set to be a triennial event, for the sake of educating and advancing the public, encouraging direct dialogue with the artists and broadening the understanding of printmaking. Roca and the team of curators said they feel that in the absence of a museum, the public will come to appreciate the presence of the short-term festival.
Alongside The Graphic Unconscious, there will also be Out of Print – featuring five artists with five historical projects in Philadelphia – and the individual projects, which makes use of more than 75 other Philly venues.
“Philadelphia will become the hub of all-things print,” Roca said of the festival’s run from January to April.
Starting Friday, students can see the works of Superflex, Thomas Klipper, Francesc Ruiz, Bethélémy Toguo and Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries at the Tyler School of Art’s Temple Gallery.
Jakob Fenger said he’s not fighting for a cause but that he’s aiming to raise questions. He is one of three members of Superflex – a collective emerging from Copenhagen, Denmark.
Superflex has created a small factory that creates lamps with images of other companies’ products in order to raise questions about copyright issues. He said he feels we are living in a world that is “limiting our freedom more and more, instead of expanding it” through the enforcement of copyright laws.
He said each lamp creates a “small problem.” Each light is a potential lawsuit. Through the illumination, each lamp allows you to see more, both in the physical darkness as well as the darkness of corporations, he added.
“Copyright is the oil of the 21st century,” Fenger said, adding that he is worried that nations will be willing to war over the issue. He said he believes copyright issues will be the burden of this generation.
At the end of the exhibition, Superflex hopes to have produced around 500 lamps. Fenger said they will be auctioning them off and donating the money to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which helps individuals fight copyright lawsuits.
In the next segment of the gallery, there is a piece titled “Philadelphia News.” Designed by Francesc Ruiz, an artist from Barcelona, the exhibit strives to bring to mind the antiquity of the newsstand as the original source of information.
The focus of the piece, an actual newsstand, holds 110 magazines. Each one represents a first impression Ruiz had of the city within his first two weeks of living in Philadelphia. After three months of hand-making each print, his second creation raises questions of the future of news on the Internet.
In the last room of the Temple Gallery, Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries’ “My Pretty Peacenik” video installation is displayed.
“I’m sick of the Wild, Wild West. I don’t own a gun,” a scene says. The installation tells the story of the time when Marc Voge of Heavy Industries, stood up against violence to appease his girlfriend’s pacifist views.
Instead, he got knocked out and lost his girl. Voge and Young-hae Chang, his girlfriend and the other half of Heavy Industries, don’t normally comment on violence, but they said they found this piece to be fitting in Philadelphia.
Voge said that with the pace of technological advancements, the pair’s work is the future of printmaking.
“It’s a cushy job,” said Voge, who refers to himself not just as an artist but an entertainer. “We are irresponsible people … and people love it. That’s art.”
Most of the venues are free and open to the public and will be holding various events over the next three months. Artwork at all of the venues will be on display Friday, Jan. 29th through Saturday, April 11th.
Visit Philagrafika’s blog to read more about each of these artists, discover all 88 venues, learn about the festival itself and check out the calendar with upcoming events.
Click here to see the videos of Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries.
Katherine Zuk can be reached at katherine.zuk@temple.edu.

TTN Video: DA candidate speaks to TTN

Video by Carmen Emmi and Sartaj Phanda

Reporting by Mari Saito

Seeking friendly folk in city

Killing for no reason hinders Philadelphia’s rating on the friendliness scale.

Jazmine Crowder couldn’t help but agree with the pollers on travelandleisure.com, where Philadelphia was rated 26th out of 30 cities on the friendliness scale.

“Philadelphia’s not friendly,” the soft-spoken 20-year-old said. “People need to stop killing for no reason.”
Crowder said she recently lost a friend who was killed and added that many kill over petty discrepancies without thinking things through.

“People want to rob somebody,” Crowder said, “but you don’t have to rob anyone. Just get a job.”

While Crowder isn’t employed at the moment, she is busy taking care of her 7-month-old son, who sat bundled up underneath a blanket in his stroller nearby.

Aside from Philadelphians working toward becoming friendlier, Crowder said that for the sake of her son, the city needs to repair the abandoned buildings lining her neighborhood and the surrounding community.

“These buildings and streets make the city look crappy,” Crowder, who has lived in Philadelphia her whole life, said. “They’ve fixed a nice amount of buildings up, but most of them still look horrible.”

Ashley Nguyen can be reached at ashley.nguyen@temple.edu.

Ugly and unfriendly need to have pride

A travelandleisure.com poll rated Philadelphia unattractive, but the city has bigger things to worry about other than its looks.

Ah, Philadelphia – the city of unattractive, unathletic, unfriendly, unintelligent love.

Philadelphia scored some embarrassingly low marks in a survey conducted by Travel + Leisure magazine this year. The annual survey, “America’s Favorite Cities,” ranks 30 cities in several categories, including people, nightlife, food/dining and airports.

Now, everyone thinks we’re ugly, fat, mean and dumb.

The results make it seem as though somewhere, someone has some beef with Philly. Bad weekend, bad break-up, un-paid parking tickets – you name it. Someone from Philadelphia screwed up big time, and someone else took it out on us via an online survey. But truthfully, we only have ourselves to blame.

Philadelphia visitors ranked Philadelphia’s people 30th (out of 30) for attractiveness, 26th for friendliness, 28th for athleticism/activeness and 24th for intelligence. Philly’s airport and public transportation were also ranked and – as I’m sure you might guess – the results aren’t even close to favorable. The airport thing can slide – a fact is a fact – but our looks aren’t that busted.

Maybe you’re thinking it just isn’t fair for outsiders to say such horrible things about a city that doesn’t belong to them. Well, you’re right. It isn’t fair. But while Philadelphia’s visitors ranked us 30th out of 30 on the “attractive” scale, Philadelphia’s own residents ranked themselves 29th out of 30.

Sure, you can’t judge a book by its cover – or in this case, a city by its number of hotties – but Philadelphia residents ranked the city considerably low in all kinds of categories. Concerts? Low. Safety? Really low. Cleanliness? Don’t even bother.

In only five (out of 56 total) categories did Philadelphia vote itself in a top ten position: Historical sites and monuments ranked third, museums and galleries ranked fourth, and classical music ranked sixth. But really, who cares about classical music when everyone thinks we’re ugly? And we’re apparently too stupid to even enjoy Philadelphia’s cultural and intellectual features.

Granted, there are unavoidable discrepancies when it comes to surveys and polls, particularly online. Travelandleisure.com doesn’t regulate how many times a person can vote, and there is no way to really tell if the person voting is actually a resident.

Regardless, the results of the survey make it seem like Philadelphia residents either have really low self-esteem, or are totally apathetic. And neither makes us look very pretty.

After receiving low scores the past two years, nbcphiladelphia.com made a stink about getting Philadelphians to vote this year, and that was back in June. But no one came to the rescue.

What city could have possibly stripped us of our dignity this year? Welcome to Miami, which came in first for most attractive people and placed in the top 10 for athleticism, style, diversity and apparently great cocktails. What’s worse is Miami was placed 29th for intelligence. This means that a population less intelligent than Philadelphia’s was smart enough to at least vote themselves to the top of the chart on what’s most important – looks.

It only takes a few muscles to smile, Philly, and it takes a lot more to frown. Just like it only takes one click to vote us attractive, but significantly more to complain about being ugly. So try to look sharp this year, so we can rally for the win in 2010.

Some Philadelphians might still insist real beauty is only skin-deep, but that’s just something ugly people say.

Leah Mafrica can be reached at leah.mafrica@temple.edu.

Incomprehensive sex curriculum does not protect youth

Let’s start with what we know: Sex sells, and it’s a buyer’s market. Of course, the primary consumers in this system of carnal capitalism are young people. The teens and tweens of the United States, their minds nubile and malleable, are flooded almost incessantly with sexually saturated messages.

Models in advertisements are selling their bodies first, the product second. An overwhelming amount of popular music has been reduced to nothing more than instructions on how to undress and a catchy beat. The decision to do a sex scene can become the defining moment of a female actor’s career.

We really can’t be surprised, then, that rates of teen pregnancy are the highest they’ve been in 15 years.

Urban areas in particular, such as Philadelphia, have seen the steepest increases in these pregnancy rates. Furthermore, the Center for Disease Control reported a steady increase of STD infection in our city, topping out with 5.2 percent of our population infected with chlamydia and 0.3 percent with gonorrhea.

Even more disheartening are the 30,000 people living with AIDS in the Philadelphia area – and that’s not even counting those infected with HIV.

But have all these statistics been enough to scare you into a life of celibacy? Of course not. Then we should not rely solely on this venereal blitzkrieg to keep Philadelphia middle and high school kids from having sex.

We need to realize nothing can quite match the power of a raging hormone – especially not the standard abstinence-only programs in our city schools. These programs, funded on the federal level by an allocation of more than $1 billion since their implementation a few years ago, are uni-dimensional to say the least.

As Eleanor Levie of the Philadelphia Jewish Voice said, “There has never been any federal funding stream at all for comprehensive sex education.”

The solution is one that takes several factors into consideration.

The Coalition for Quality Children’s Media reported a definitive link between popular representations of sexuality and sexual activity in youths. It appears then, in a culture where a child can be exposed to sex as soon as he’s able to prop himself up to face a TV, sexual education needs to be culturally supplemental, as well as comprehensive.

This means sexual education must build off and refute negative sexual imagery portrayed by media, and as radical as it might sound, it must be done in grade school.

Let’s face it: Physiologically, sex isn’t exactly difficult to figure out. Grade-school students can and have done it – a notion that’s nearly certain, considering 33 percent of junior high school graduates and 67 percent of high school graduates are not virgins, according the Philadelphia Examiner.

What’s notoriously difficult, however, is finding a way to understand the emotional complexities behind this act, why it’s reserved to the confines of marriage and what kind of emotional consequences the deviation from sex within this loving institution can cause. Many people don’t even figure out these aspects until well into adulthood.

All kids hear in school, though, are hard-to-pronounce words like chlamydia and gonorrhea. No wonder they’re hardly fazed.

Junior sociology major Daniela Fiorentino said she agrees with the comprehensive, supplemental sex-ed methodology.

“Kids don’t realize that relationships you have in high school do not last forever,” Fiorentino said. “Therefore, continually giving the most intimate thing you own to multiple people can have devastating emotional effects when that person doesn’t reciprocate their feelings.”

Instilling a sense of self-worth, understanding and appreciation for the act of sexual intercourse within marriage at a young age to combat early exposure to negative sexual imagery? There’s nothing radical about that.

Chase Miller can be reached at chase.miller@temple.edu.

PEX opens doors for freshmen

The new Philadelphia Experience Passport, paired with the GenEd program, aims to acquaint freshmen with arts and culture in the city.

This year, incoming freshmen from the university’s Class of 2013 received a gift from Temple’s General Education Program before the start of the Fall 2009 semester.

At orientation, freshmen were given a compact gray, glossy booklet. The booklet, known as the Philadelphia Experience passport, or PEX passport for short, contains coupons for students to access countless arts and cultural organizations throughout the city, including the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the Philadelphia Zoo, the Franklin Institute and more.

Freshman English and German major Matt Thompson said he is excited about the program.

“I think [PEX] is a good opportunity to let students progress and discover Philadelphia in a way [we] wouldn’t have been able to before,” Thompson said. “It will make students more comfortable getting out of the Temple bubble and [allow us to] experience everything the city has to offer.”

GenEd director Terry Halbert, came up with the idea for the program in January. She heard of a similar program at Drexel University and said someone there knew she was interested in developing a GenEd program with a curricular emphasis on Philadelphia.

Halbert later engaged in a correspondence with the director of Drexel’s program, who explained how the program started and invited Halbert to check out its Web site and mirror the program here at Temple.

“I thought it was cool that Drexel had [a passport program], and I thought, ‘Why couldn’t we?’” Halbert said.

About 37 organizations signed up for the program — more than Drexel’s program — which gives free or reduced-price admission to the different museums, dance studios, festivals and concert venues.

Traditional arts and cultural organizations, such as the Franklin Institute, signed up to be a part of the program, but one of the key features of Temple’s PEX passport is that multiple alternative arts organizations, such as the Kun-Yang Lin Dance Company, which draws from an Asian American cultural perspective to enrich Western contemporary dance, got involved.

“We approached the independent and alternative venues, and what was so cool is that they were even more interested in this venture than the more mainstream [counterparts],” Halbert said. “This is a very good thing to them because they are dependent on fresh blood, a new, young appreciative audience. A neat feature these venues are offering is the chance for students to watch artists, directors and actors prepare for and create the art [before showing it to the public].”

The costs of the savings, which would amount to more than $450 in total admissions fees, is being burdened by participating companies. The organizations are giving up the profit, but the GenEd department is paying to produce the passport. Susanne Willever, a graduate student in art history, designed the passports.

Despite the multiple participating organizations and the sleek, stylish design of the passport, not everything ran smoothly. Delayed printing caused passports to arrive halfway through new student orientations, leaving some freshmen passport-less, Halbert said.

Freshmen who did not receive their passport at orientation can pick it up with an Owl Card at 714 Carnell Hall, the office of the GenEd program.

Danielle Utianski, a freshman psychology major, was one of the students who had to go to the Student Center to pick up her passport before Friday, as they were being held there. She said she looks forward to using her passport, which she said was quickly and easily obtained from the Student Center’s information desk.

“My roommate and I are actually planning on taking a day and seeing as many [arts venues] as we can,” she said.

One downside to the program is that upperclassmen cannot participate. PEX passports are for freshmen only.

“These passports are just for first-year students, students who are just starting out at Temple,” Halbert said. “I’m really sorry about this, and maybe sometime down the line we can offer it to upperclassmen later, but for now students need to understand that it is a special launch for first year students.”

Many upperclassmen said they were disappointed by the news.

“Where was [PEX] during my first year? I would have gone to so many shows,” Danielle Jones, a sophomore film and media arts major, said. “They’re not cheap.”

Julia Wallace, a sophomore psychology major, was a bit more understanding but said she was still disappointed.

“I understand that the university wants to make new students feel welcome and introduce them to Philly, but upperclassmen are only here in the city during the school year, so do they have less of a right to enjoy [PEX]?” Wallace said.

“It just seems like a way to bribe people to come here, while screwing over people who are already here,” she added.

Student opinions aside, people on Main Campus are generally happy with the program.

Deborah Block, a professor in Temple’s theater department and co-founder of Philadelphia Fringe Festival, one of the organizations in the passport, said she was so thrilled when she heard about the program, she offered to help develop it.

Block, also artistic co-director of Theatre Exile, said she hopes students will use the program to get a taste of what the cultural scene in Philadelphia has to offer.

“I [hope] freshmen learn to create an independent relationship with the cultural life of Philadelphia, one that extends beyond the classroom,” she said.

“There are multiple things happening, but one of the goals is for students to learn about Philadelphia and learn to take advantage of and appreciate all of the real wonders and jewels of Philadelphia.”

Joshua Fernandez can be reached at josh@temple.edu.

Alumni, professors and students take Fringe stage

“A History of Sh*t: Manson in Thebes” is an outrageous, off-color comedy featuring talent including Temple students, recent graduates and professors.

It’s not every day students get to see their professor in a 7-foot turd costume or watch as another brainwashes fellow students to join a colon-cleansing cult, convincing them to go on a murdering frenzy.

The collaboration of Temple minds, the Theatre of Evangelical Scientific Revolution and the 2009 Philly Fringe Festival make these and other outrageous scenes possible – and affordable – with the ongoing production of “A History of Sh*t: Manson in Thebes.”

The Philly Fringe play sends Charles Manson, played by Temple religion professor William Allen, back in time to ancient Greece.

There, he and the God of Sh*t, played by university Mosaic professor Norman Roessler, promote colon cleansing, begin a cult and evoke a killing spree – providing a view of what the production calls “the philosophical implications of poop.”

“It’s ridiculous, tragic and hilarious all at once,” Roessler said.

In addition to starring Temple professors, the play’s success is due to many Temple students and recent graduates. Max Marguiles, a Temple alumnus, was helping Roessler with work for an academic journal when the idea of participating in the Philly Fringe Festival was brought up.

Marguiles is a member of the Theatre of the Evangelical Scientific Revolution, a group of artists and comedians who helped bring “A History of Sh*t: Manson in Thebes” to the 2009 Fringe Festival. He was a major link between the theater group and the Temple students, graduates and faculty who joined the production.

“Max was definitely the center point of it,” Roessler said. In addition to the show’s lead roles, there are 15 to 17 people in the ensemble, and of them, about 10 are Temple students, he added.

Sophomore horticulture major Julie Bare plays Oliviana, one of the women who becomes brainwashed by Manson in the play.

“Whenever William Allen or Norm Roessler are in a scene together, it’s outrageous,” said Bare, adding that there’s even a port-a-potty on stage.

“William Allen does a terrific job,” Roessler said. “A lot of stuff is incorporated from his own religious studies.”

Roessler also contributed his academic knowledge and experience with the study of grotesque realism.
“It’s a real collaboration between everyone involved,” Bare said.

“It’s pretty much like a carnival. Everything is going on at once,” Roessler said about the show, which premiered Friday, Sept. 4.

“A History of Sh*t: Manson in Thebes” will run again at the Ukrainian League Thursday, Sept. 10 and 17 at 8 p.m. and at the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia Friday, Sept. 11 at 8 p.m. Admission is $5.

“You’ll laugh, you’ll revolt, your Facebook lifestyle will get a jolt,” according to the show’s Web site. “You’ll scream, you’ll cry, and you’ll only kiss $5 goodbye.”

Audience members also have a chance to win a free colonic. The Infinity Health and Wellness Center of East Falls, Philadelphia donated six colonics, which will be raffled off at each production.

Katya Quinn-Judge, a Temple University alumna who graduated in February with her bachelor of arts in theater, plays the mother of the King of Thebes. Katya’s character also gets sucked into the colon-cleansing cult led by a fictional Manson and, as a result, kills her son.

“We don’t take ourselves too seriously, so the audience shouldn’t either,” said Quinn-Judge.

“It’s called the History of Sh*t. I think it’s probably going to attract a strange crowd,” Bare said. “I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised. It’s a hilarious show.”

Christine Fisher can be reached at fisher.christine@temple.edu.

Violent cities garner little reaction

Whether a crime makes national headlines or remains low key, residents of dangerous cities remain ambivalent about the violence on their streets.

I can hear gunshots, grunts, shouts, screeching tires and faint police sirens in the distance – the typical sounds of a violent carjacking in a rough neighborhood. By now, someone may be bleeding out in the rain under Pittsburgh’s sky, and by the sound of it, the assailant is getting away.

I know my little brother, who sits at his computer killing people with the space bar, will probably never actually murder anyone in his lifetime. He will turn off the computer, groggily brush his teeth, crawl into bed and not think twice about being “Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City’s” most dangerous criminal, having killed at least dozens at point-blank range.

Therein lies the problem. The immunity we acquire to reacting to violence is just as scary as the violence itself.

In 2008, there were almost enough murders in Philadelphia to account for one murder per day. Of a population of approximately 1.5 million, 333 were murdered. It’s mind-boggling that the majority of us have the guts to even walk out our front doors.

It seems the only crimes that turn heads are those that are particularly heinous like mass murders, serial killings or deaths of children. Yet even then, the crimes usually hit too far from home to register as something we can even do anything about, let alone actually feel a connection to.

In less than half a year in 2009, the Pittsburgh area made national headlines for two tragically violent incidents resulting in fatalities. In early April, three police officers were shot and killed in a standoff in an otherwise quiet Stanton Heights neighborhood. On Aug. 4, a man opened fire in an LA Fitness health club in a Pittsburgh suburb, killing three and injuring nine before taking his own life.

Most local residents would say this type of stuff doesn’t happen in places like Pittsburgh. In fact, I wasn’t even aware of the LA Fitness shooting until a friend sent me a text to make sure I was OK. I couldn’t talk because I was preoccupied getting to a bar, unconcerned with something that devastated the lives of many people.

Dr. Thomas Petrone says as humans, our ability to objectify prevents us from internalizing feelings of fear, sadness and guilt. We can get out of bed, walk out of the door and get on with life.

“[Objectification] enables us to have some distance,” said Petrone, a licensed psychologist and professional counselor in Pittsburgh, “to protect ourselves from the vulnerability that comes from witnessing trauma. The down side of it is that we tend to objectify, and then we don’t get the full impact of it.”

This isn’t to minimize the experience of those who feel the impact of violence firsthand, but I think it’s safe to say we are all overexposed, one way or another.

This also doesn’t offer a solution but just a musing as to what exactly it’s going to take to get us – Philadelphians, Pittsburghers, Americans, human beings – to start batting our eyelashes at climbing crime statistics.

But what can we do? We certainly can’t hide in our bedrooms and allow ourselves to be consumed with the full realities of the everyday violence we’ve come so accustomed to. But we can’t go on living like violence is just a character flaw of humanity that we just have to accept.

Leah Mafrica can be reached at leah.mafrica@temple.edu.

Beginner’s Guide to Philadelphia

With the beginning of another semester, incoming freshman are presented with a chance to get to know the city you now live in. We wanted to help make it easier on you with our Beginner’s Guide to Philly.

Center City

When the Phillies won the World Series, a mob of cheering fans ended up here in Center City, the true heart of Philadelphia. Center City has a lot to offer, from famous sites like the historic Independence Hall and the eye-catching Comcast Center, fun hang-out places like the Reading Terminal Market and beautiful Rittenhouse Square to the culture of the Avenue of the Arts and the Art Museum District. At the center of it all, there’s the architecturally splendid City Hall, with William Penn keeping a watchful eye over the city. Always busy and crowded with everyone from well-dressed businesspeople to kids on their fourth grade field trip, Center City is Philly at its best.
- Summer Beckley

Fairmount

Fairmount, also known as the Art Museum Area, encompasses Philadelphia from Girard Avenue to Spring Garden Street. The greenest ‘hood in the city also boasts one of the largest parks in the U.S. and famed solitary prison, the Eastern State Penitentiary (2124 Fairmount Ave.,   easternstate.org). Lesser known is The Bishop’s Collar (2349 Fairmount Ave.) for grub notably cheaper than the imported brews, and the Arts Garage (1516 Parrish St., theartsgarage.com), hosting shows and late-night parties weekly. For your last summer iced cream treat, visit Philly Flavors (2004 Fairmount Ave., phillyflavors.com), and kudos to Mugshots Coffeehouse (2106 Fairmount Ave., mugshotscoffeehouse.com) for its fair-trade coffee and addict-ability. The first Sunday of every month marks pay-what-you-wish admission prices at the Art Museum (2600 Ben Franklin Parkway, philamuseum.org), so you can spend a dollar for all-day gawking.
- Nikki Volpicelli

University City

On the easternmost edge of West Philadelphia, within the 2 1/2 square miles stretching from the Schuylkill River on the east to 52nd Street on the west, lies the academically wonderful world of University City. Home to many of the city’s universities, including Drexel, Penn, University of the Sciences and the Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College, University City was given its name as a way to attract Penn faculty to live nearby. From art venues like the Esther M. Klein Art Gallery (3600 Market St., kleinartgallery.org) at the University City Science Center to Philadelphia’s famous dance company, Philadanco (9 N. Preston St., philadanco.org), the neighborhood boasts plenty of places to check out and things to do. There’s also a host of restaurants like Stephen Starr’s ever-popular Pod (3636 Sansom St., podrestaurant.com), or try the Ethiopian fare at Abyssinia (229 S. 45th St.) if you’re feeling adventurous. In addition to all the shops students would expect from an area surrounding their college or university, University City offers students living throughout Philadelphia a chance to explore a blend of collegiate and city life within one area.
- Lateef Amoo

South Philly

Take SEPTA’s Orange line past South Street, and you’ll find yourself in a heartland of residential communities that are home to a large percentage of Philadelphians. East Passyunk Avenue covers the notable stretch boasting legendary cheesesteak titans Geno’s Steaks (1219 S. Ninth St., 215-389-0659, genosteaks.com) and Pat’s King of Steaks (1237 E. Passyunk Ave., 215-468-1546, patskingofsteaks.com), as well as a score of other bars and restaurants. Take the subway even further south, as far as you can, and you’ll arrive at the sports complex that is home to the Phillies, Flyers, 76ers and the Eagles. And along the Delaware River runs South Columbus Boulevard, where you’ll find major shopping centers.
- Kevin Brosky

Bella Vista/Queen Village

While wandering the notoriously noisy South Street, veer south and explore the quaint and cozy neighborhoods of Bella Vista and Queen Village. Though the area appears to be largely residential, nestled between the quirky row homes and cobbled sidewalks are plenty of independently-owned restaurants, boutiques and coffee shops to discover. These villages, which are also bordered by Washington Avenue to the south, 11th Street to the west and the Delaware River to the east, also encompass the Italian Market, the U.S.’s largest outdoor market. But it’s not all spaghetti and pizza; the neighborhoods have seen a surge of Mexican and Vietnamese pockets, all of which are brimming with authentic cuisine.
- Maria Zankey

Old City

Looking to check out some historical sights in Philadelphia? Take a walk back in time, and travel to Old City, where cobblestone streets will lead you to historical attractions like Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, the Betsy Ross House and the National Constitution Center. This quaint section of town has lots to see, though it does tend to be more upscale, with high-end shops that target tourists and pricy restaurants like Stephen Starr’s Buddakan. But don’t let a tight budget be a deterrent. Old City has plenty of beautiful parks and gardens and can be a great place to simply take a stroll. Also, be sure to check out First Friday, an event occurring every first Friday of the month, when Old City’s numerous art galleries are open to the public throughout the evening, often offering free, light refreshments and live music. Old City is a beautiful part of the city and great place to escape for the day.
- Grace Dickinson

Chinatown

Although only six city blocks, Chinatown is swarming with shops, more than 50 restaurants, markets and other various cultural, ethnic and religious sites. In this section of the city, however, not all the attractions are of Chinese relation. One can find everything from Japanese karaoke to Malaysian food and semblances of other Asian cultures in between. The area is also home to one of Philly’s premier concert venues, the legendary Trocadero Theatre. So if you’re in the mood for some bubble tea, saké (if you’re 21) or belting out some tunes with your Philadelphia neighbors, “come on down to Chinatown.”
- Kathryn A. López

Northern Liberties

A walk south on Second Street from Girard Avenue reveals the striking dissonance that characterizes the Northern Liberties neighborhood. On one side of the street, abandoned buildings and overgrown lots rule; on the other, the Piazza at Schmidts (Second and Hancock sts., atthepiazza.com), a multi-million dollar apartment, shopping and dining complex, sparkles. Northern Liberties, formerly the red-light district of the city, spent the last 10 years blossoming in a gentrification renaissance, but its Philly character and gritty facade hasn’t totally fallen by the wayside. You can still sit down for a brew at old neighborhood hangouts, like the Abbaye (637 N. Third St.). Or, drop by North Bowl lanes (909 N. Second St., northbowlphilly.com) for lip-smacking food, drinks and a sure-to-be buzzing social scene. As exploring goes, Northern Liberties is a prime example of the hybrid of old and new that gives such urban flavor to Philly’s fringe neighborhoods. Take a stroll west on Poplar Street, Brown Street or Fairmount Avenue, and you’ll be sure to spot signs of the old meshed with new development – and maybe even find a gem of a bar or bruncherie along the way.
- Morgan Zalot

Fishtown

Fishtown is the red-headed stepchild of Northern Liberties: She’s cheaper, scrappier and has a lot less teeth, but we love her anyway. If you get past her somewhat tough exterior, you’ll find a diamond with a lot less pretention than its relatives. Try Memphis Taproom (2331 E. Cumberland St., memphistaproom.com) for deep-fried dill pickles or Johnny Brenda’s (1201 Frankford Ave., johnnybrendas.com), epicenter of the Fishy earth, for nightly live music and plenty of craft beers, plus its circular, chalkboard-scrawled menu above the solid oak bar. If boozin’ ain’t your thing, check out Penn Treaty Park, where you can watch the boats sail down the river and remind yourself the grass ain’t always greener on the other side – of the Delaware.
- Nikki Volpicelli

Kevin Brosky can be reached at kevin.brosky@temple.edu

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