Philadelphia skyline taken from the High Rise Towers on the University of Pennsylvania's campus. It's a beautiful view which brings back images of my good ol' days at Penn. Yes, I was a Penny!
I really enjoyed my days and nights in Philly back in the early 80s - house music, new wave clubs on South Street (the original hip version of the late 70s-early 80s), Fairmount Park, Wanamakers, The Gallery (before it turned into a cesspool), and so much more. The view today is much more impressive, and Penn (which had already expanded into its own city within a city back then) has grown even more. Like most cities it had its good and bad, but was mostly a fun place - and probably the coolest big city outside of New York on the East Coast. No South Beach, Inner Harbor was just built, no Adams-Morgan, no Atlanta Underground, and Boston was still kinda un-hip then. Philly was the other destination place to be. And it had a great nightlife and relatively safe streets. Yeah they had gangs and you could get mugged, but you faced worse in New York or DC.
How the tables have turned. DC is becoming less chocolate and more vanilla, with white folks venturing more and more into NE (which still has an incredible murder rate), and you can ride the subways in NY 24/7 with no incident, no drugs or graffiti (remembering the days of the old painted-up subway cars and the infamous 13th car - the last subway car where you could buy, sell and engage in drugs with no police daring to challenge you). Back in the day the homeless in NY would attack you. Now they're your friend or a comedy act.
In contrast, Philadelphia has become a place where even sitting out on your back patio during a pleasant afternoon is a dangerous endeavor. Street gangs aren't even the issue - just silly kids, crazy adults, or people at their mental wits end, can come out of nowhere with weapons made for war or police and just shoot you up indiscriminately. It's not just the numbers; it's the senselessness of it all that blows people's minds. And needlessly snuffs out lives. More children and even seasoned adults are being taken out, not as combatants but as bystanders. And the perps? Our children. They are killing us. And their reason? When you find out, let me know.
Stop the violence. There's nothing to be gained from it.
To the rest of us: do your part. Help build our economy again. It's tough out there to be sure, but we gotta teach these kids it's better to earn $100 a week in honest work than to live the illusion of Tony Montana and live a short life like he did, not being able to see your kids grow up (or even have kids) or ever see your family again. There's no conflict going on out there that's worth it. Peace and love together, people!
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