Chinatown

Oh no, was that a young professional pushing a jogging stroller? Was the kid in that stroller wearing orange Crocs? Excuse me, where did you want to meet up? Brewerytown? Never heard of it. Wait a second, did you see that? Don't tell me that was a thirty-something hipster sipping seasonal Magic Hat at an al fresco tapas bar.

There goes the neighborhood.

There's a farmer's market on Baltimore Ave. in West Philly. There's a pop-up garden in a former vacant lot at 20th and Market. There's a highly sophisticated park that just opened on a refurbished pier under the Ben Franklin Bridge--the Race Street Pier. It's the same one my dad found a dead body floating next to when he was a kid. Charming.

Race Street Pier - Philadelphia, PA

Opened June 2011

I remember the first time someone took me to the Piazza on 2nd Street. It's in an area I would have formerly defined (albeit lazily) as North Philly. My initial reaction was that it was this towering glass complex in the middle of what I had previously written off as urban nothingness--abandoned factories, warehouse, and the like. Truth be told, this was a while back, as their parking complex was still a ruddy dirt lot across Germantown Ave.

Anyway, I had heard ruminations of this place being built, yet I knew nothing of its covert plans to change the surrounding neighborhood into a hipster haven. Either way, I generally enjoyed walking up and down the adjoining strip of still seedy bars and restaurants. Be that as it may, I still remember recalling (rather cynically), "So this is where all the trendy rich folks are going to be moving? Isn't this where that girl got shot? It'll never work."

Juxtaposition of Old and New - The Piazza

2nd Street in Philadelphia

An Oasis in an Urban Desert - The Piazza

2nd Street in Philadephia

Anyway, where was I? Oh that's right, I was ranting. Lower North Philadelphia has lost all but lost its edge! Kensington is on the retreat, being overtaken by the far more chique-sounding monikers of Fishtown and Port Richmond. North Philadelphia on the whole is receding, actually. Names like Brewerytown, Fairmount and Northern Liberties have squeezed themselves onto the map, creating an ever-mounting fault line between Center City and North Philly.

What's even worse, one of my former childhood favorites, the tacky yet classic Spaghetti Warehouse of 1026 Spring Garden Street has finally bit the dust, closing its doors around last Christmas. When I shared this fact with my dad just last night, he was positively jarred: "Really," he said. "Yeah. I'm telling you, it's depressing. The front awning is all ripped and tattered and everything." After that, we shared an unofficial moment of silence.

Trolly Car Dining - The Spaghetti Warehouse

10th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia

The Spaghetti Warehouse in Better Days

10th and Spring Garden, Philadelphia

Listen, I know the food there absolutely sucked, but do you know what being able to eat in a trolly car does to a kid? My dad grew up a block away from this place, and whenever we would visit my grandmother, we would look forward to that occasional treat of what they tried to pass off as spaghetti: egg noodles and ketchup. 

Buon Appetito.

Hey, listen. We didn't know any better, and we liked it that way. And I guess that's what I'm trying to say about this changing face of Philadelphia. Philly and I share a lot of similarities. We're both the middle child, nestled between New York and D.C., always trying to prove ourselves worthy--always trying to gain respect. We've felt neglected and unimportant at times, and it's given us this tough outer shell. We're rough around the edges, but me and my city, we both have a heart of gold. Philadelphia can be somewhat abrasive sometimes, but you know what? That adds to our charm.

So please forgive me if I don't quite know how to react to our city getting...cute. With its locally grown produce in West Philly and its Manayunk Bike Races and its Sofitel Hotel 8th annual Fête de la Musique in what people are now starting to call Philadelphia's "French Quarter" (Rittenhouse, 17th and Sansom). These things are all good. No, they're great. Really. And they're not all instances of gentrification, at least I don't think. After all, West Oak Lane is undergoing something of a cultural Renaissance, with its openings of jazz clubs and hometown eateries/music venues like Relish. That type of development isn't displacing poor residents, right?

...Right?

I'm just scared, okay? A change addict, I love almost all instances of development. This is especially the case in a place like Philadelphia who has, as parts of New York have before us, warped from an early colony, to an industrial and shipping Mecca, to a city in slow decline as the industrial boom ended, to a town rife with boarded up factories and general disarray, to a seedling amidst the rubble, to present day repurposing and widespread development. It's like we're in a new age, really. All around me are signs of Philadelphia on the upswing.

Yet as I walk through a place like Chinatown, with their residents being displaced every day to across Spring Garden by the development of that lumbering giant we know as the Pennsylvania Convention Center, I can't help but feel nostalgic. In a perfect world, I wish that old Philadelphia and this new Philly could coexist harmoniously, that those classic, decades old doorways adorned with Chinese art and architecture wouldn't some day have to surrender to the massive footprint of a future Convention Center parking garage. 

I once heard someone say that all the old, dingy dive bars and quirky restaurants in Manhattan were disappearing, being replaced by more polished, commercialized establishments. The former sleaziness of Times Square has been traded for a Bubba Gumps, Chipotle, Carmine's Italian Eatery, and a Hard Rock Café for cryin' out loud. Is NYC better off now? That's open to debate, but what I do know is that it's recognized around the world as somewhere great, somewhere special.

I'm sorry to see the Spaghetti Warehouse and places/neighborhoods like it go, but maybe it's just part of the sacrifices we have to make to achieve that ever-elusive greatness...

Joy Tsin Lau Restaurant - Chinatown, Philadelphia

The Iconic Arch - 10th and Arch St, Philadelphia