1. Last year I wrote a love letter to the city of Philadelphia for my friend Emma’s blog. It didn’t encompass how deeply I love this city. It’s a place without airs, without pretension. It’s corrupt. It’s broken in ways that will likely never be fixed. It’s not too big, and not too small. It has problems — big, major, insidious problems. It has a subway system that relies on tokens — on tokens! — and grime and crime that would curl your hair, if it isn’t already curly. It’s my home. I love it here. I was born two blocks from where I live right now, in an old, rickety fourth floor walk-up. There are over 80 stairs between me and the ground. This is the view. This is the backyard. It looks like somebody built a home, stopped halfway through, rethought design plans, and then continued building. It looks and feels like walking back into a different Philadelphia, where everyone sat on stoops with boomboxes and talked to neighbors and anyone passing by. I still do this. I went to college here. I fell in love here - twice. I got caught in a hailstorm last summer and danced my way through Rittenhouse Square and then started laughing and then started crying and the rain mixed it all together. I’ve biked and Mummed and swam in fountains when I wasn’t supposed to and sat in parks when I wasn’t supposed to and went down alleys that I wasn’t supposed to. It’s likely that I’m leaving Philadelphia this summer. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m ready to leave. I’ve made peace with it. I’m looking forward to building a community and place in a new city. I’m looking forward to new people and adventures and the 29th year of my life. I do not know what city this will be. I know it will not be Philadelphia.

    Last year I wrote a love letter to the city of Philadelphia for my friend Emma’s blog.

    It didn’t encompass how deeply I love this city. It’s a place without airs, without pretension. It’s corrupt. It’s broken in ways that will likely never be fixed. It’s not too big, and not too small. It has problems — big, major, insidious problems. It has a subway system that relies on tokens — on tokens! — and grime and crime that would curl your hair, if it isn’t already curly. It’s my home. I love it here.

    I was born two blocks from where I live right now, in an old, rickety fourth floor walk-up. There are over 80 stairs between me and the ground. This is the view. This is the backyard. It looks like somebody built a home, stopped halfway through, rethought design plans, and then continued building. It looks and feels like walking back into a different Philadelphia, where everyone sat on stoops with boomboxes and talked to neighbors and anyone passing by. I still do this.

    I went to college here. I fell in love here - twice. I got caught in a hailstorm last summer and danced my way through Rittenhouse Square and then started laughing and then started crying and the rain mixed it all together. I’ve biked and Mummed and swam in fountains when I wasn’t supposed to and sat in parks when I wasn’t supposed to and went down alleys that I wasn’t supposed to.

    It’s likely that I’m leaving Philadelphia this summer. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m ready to leave. I’ve made peace with it. I’m looking forward to building a community and place in a new city. I’m looking forward to new people and adventures and the 29th year of my life.

    I do not know what city this will be. I know it will not be Philadelphia.

    (Source: mikesmith187)

  2. This year was challenging and reflective and full of color and warmth and darkness and light. I left my job at Fresh Air. I moved into a walk-up attic apartment. I exited a long-term relationship. I started lifting weights, ran solo and in races, picked strawberries, biked for miles, wrote and wrote some more. I threw myself into my friends. They thankfully threw themselves right back. I rambled around Philadelphia for hours and hours (both alone and with others) and played board games and abandoned the Internet at home for six months (which was lovely.) I went back to school, to therapy, to New York (thrice) and partied at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (also thrice.) I accidentally slept in a Buddhist Temple in West Philadelphia. I slept (on purpose) in a bungalow in Western Massachusetts and a bachelor pad in Washington DC and in Cambridge and Point Breeze. I went to SparkCamp at Harvard, to NPR in DC, to the Geek Awards in Philadelphia, to The New York Times and The Moth and ProPublica and WNYC and the Village Voice Web Awards. I toured America’s Test Kitchen and ate strawberry pie (twice.) I rode in a Naked Bike Ride (while partially but not completely) dressed and then — on the following day — inadvertently crashed one of the largest African-American family reunions in the country. They invited me back next year. I became an HIV tester, painted a school, scooped ice cream, chopped vegetables and helped edit a college essay. I Tweeted. I consulted. I slept sporadically and then fitfully and then terribly and then well. Good sheets do make a difference. I played Quizzo and potlucked and studied (everywhere!) and went to weddings and on dates. I learned physics, and abandoned caffeine and TV. I baked and cooked and read and hiked and rock-climbed (and belayed) and sang karaoke and wrote jokes and Amtraked. I cried. I did 3 body weight pull-ups. I laughed more than I cried. I accepted (in every sense of that word) and drank more than my body weight in tea. I bought a lot of tea. To 2013. To finishing my postbac coursework and taking the MCAT. To being open to new possibilities. To writing and then finishing my iPhone app. To pitching articles and going to China and the ocean and New Orleans. To family and friends and obtaining a guest bedroom and painting walls. To running Broad Street and Mumming and dancing and working out and celebrating the 5-year anniversary of my rollover car accident. To living and life and thinking about the present more than the future or past. -Mel

    This year was challenging and reflective and full of color and warmth and darkness and light. I left my job at Fresh Air. I moved into a walk-up attic apartment. I exited a long-term relationship. I started lifting weights, ran solo and in races, picked strawberries, biked for miles, wrote and wrote some more. I threw myself into my friends. They thankfully threw themselves right back. I rambled around Philadelphia for hours and hours (both alone and with others) and played board games and abandoned the Internet at home for six months (which was lovely.) I went back to school, to therapy, to New York (thrice) and partied at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (also thrice.) I accidentally slept in a Buddhist Temple in West Philadelphia. I slept (on purpose) in a bungalow in Western Massachusetts and a bachelor pad in Washington DC and in Cambridge and Point Breeze. I went to SparkCamp at Harvard, to NPR in DC, to the Geek Awards in Philadelphia, to The New York Times and The Moth and ProPublica and WNYC and the Village Voice Web Awards. I toured America’s Test Kitchen and ate strawberry pie (twice.) I rode in a Naked Bike Ride (while partially but not completely) dressed and then — on the following day — inadvertently crashed one of the largest African-American family reunions in the country. They invited me back next year. I became an HIV tester, painted a school, scooped ice cream, chopped vegetables and helped edit a college essay. I Tweeted. I consulted. I slept sporadically and then fitfully and then terribly and then well. Good sheets do make a difference. I played Quizzo and potlucked and studied (everywhere!) and went to weddings and on dates. I learned physics, and abandoned caffeine and TV. I baked and cooked and read and hiked and rock-climbed (and belayed) and sang karaoke and wrote jokes and Amtraked. I cried. I did 3 body weight pull-ups. I laughed more than I cried. I accepted (in every sense of that word) and drank more than my body weight in tea. I bought a lot of tea.

    To 2013. To finishing my postbac coursework and taking the MCAT. To being open to new possibilities. To writing and then finishing my iPhone app. To pitching articles and going to China and the ocean and New Orleans. To family and friends and obtaining a guest bedroom and painting walls. To running Broad Street and Mumming and dancing and working out and celebrating the 5-year anniversary of my rollover car accident. To living and life and thinking about the present more than the future or past.

    -Mel

  3. Rittenhouse Square, Christmas Eve.

    Rittenhouse Square, Christmas Eve.

  4. Click on the map above to view an animated visualization displaying Philadelphia homicides from January 1, 2006 through December 18, 2012 (almost seven full years totalling 3,084 homicides.)

    Click on the map above to view an animated visualization displaying Philadelphia homicides from January 1, 2006 through December 18, 2012 (almost seven full years totalling 3,084 homicides.)

  5. A lovely essay about urban farming: “This land is not dirty; it is the anti-clean. The two lots that comprise Farm 51 have, in character, taken over the house itself, and the inside and outside worlds become nearly indistinguishable.” — Andrew Thompson

    A lovely essay about urban farming: “This land is not dirty; it is the anti-clean. The two lots that comprise Farm 51 have, in character, taken over the house itself, and the inside and outside worlds become nearly indistinguishable.” — Andrew Thompson

  6. insilence-wordsaway: Rainy afternoon in the river wards. I’m in love with my part of the city.

    insilence-wordsaway:

    Rainy afternoon in the river wards. I’m in love with my part of the city.

    (Source: a-spotted-fawn)

  7. (Source: flight001)

  8. thebobartlett: Happy Birthday Thomas Eakins, Philly’s greatest painter, born July 25, 1844. 

    thebobartlett:

    Happy Birthday Thomas Eakins, Philly’s greatest painter, born July 25, 1844. 

  9. 25-year-old Neil Kramer, right, blows bubbles with two friends. (1979, Temple University)

    25-year-old Neil Kramer, right, blows bubbles with two friends. (1979, Temple University)

  10. Philadelphia.

    Philadelphia.

  11. Distorted City Hall in the heat (1959)

    Distorted City Hall in the heat (1959)

  12. bigmapblog: Map: B & M Birdseye Map of Philadelphia (1885) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog.

    bigmapblog:

    Map: B & M Birdseye Map of Philadelphia (1885) originally posted to the BIG Map Blog.