New-Comer’s Guide to Philadelphia

Sometimes the most honest view of our home comes from outsiders: Visitors and aliens. Alexis de Tocqueville is famous for shedding his insight in his1831 essays on America. Ralph Steadman offered his views in Scar Strangled Banger, 1988.

Before I moved here, I looked online for a guide to Philly but was unable to locate one for a prole as myself. All I found was expensive guides filled with fancy hotels, restaurants and tourist traps. Upon arriving I scoured the bookstores, again with no luck. I noticed many things about the place that struck me as unusual; I began taking notes. In the end of the movie True Stories, David Byrne tells us he likes forgetting. “When I see a place for the first time… I notice everything: The color of white paper, the sky, the way people walk, doorknobs, every detail. Then after a while I don’t notice them anymore…” That’s why I wanted to put this all in print before I no longer ‘saw it.’

Philthy, as it often referred by it's inhabitants, is a tourist town because of its historical role in the forming of the united states. It is a Mafia town. It is a college town. It has a plentitude of hospitals – many of them teaching hospitals. Philly is a union town. It is a Black town. It is blue-collar town. Philly is often compared to NYC; the geological similarities are striking, both flanked by rivers that join below the city. NJ is just across one of the rivers. Connecticut is about as far from midtown Manhattan as Delaware is from Center City. Both are planned cities with a grid-work of streets, both served as our nation’s capital, both have Chinatowns. The heart of New York City is Manhattan. The heart of Philly is Center City.

The fifth largest city in the US with 5.6 million inhabitants. Settled by Swedes in 1640. Pennsylvania was established as a British colony 1681 by King Charles II. Philadelphia was founded by William Penn Jr. in 1681 and laid out in 1682. For as much as Penn’s name is spread around here, the man only lived here a few years. The territory: Pennsylvania was named after his Admiral father. The land was granted by the British crown in return for a loan his father made. Repayment was made in the form of land at Wlm Penn Jr’s behest as a safe haven for the persecuted Quakers. Philadelphia was the first planned city in the colony. The convention at the time was to name streets after prominent families who resided along them. Penn, in keeping with Quaker ideals, wished to avoid the vanity of family names for the streets. So he numbered them consecutively from east to west. It may have been thought too confusing to number the cross streets, so he named them after trees.