A New Point of View

Sunlight danced off the arches of Philadelphia’s City Hall as I stood admiring its beauty from beneath the doorway of China Town, if there were a grander sight somewhere else in the world at this moment I could not imagine one. We had walked about ten yards and already Matt, my travel partner, and I were lost. While he immersed himself in our one and only barley decipherable map of Philadelphia, I stood and wondered how many people had ever gazed upon City Hall from the spot I was standing in today. By the time Matt had decided on a direction for us to begin walking in I had come to the conclusion that at some point in history at least four presidents if not more had once stood on the exact cobblestone as I. Together we meandered across the street to Thomas Paine Plaza where an enormous intricately assembled statue entitled “Government of the People,” stood looming above our heads. The shape of the sculpture was comprised of four to five muscular human bodies intertwined together. The most interesting aspect of this piece was that none of the men’s faces were showing. Again I stood and amused myself with ideas on why the artist decided to sculpt his work in this way. To myself I thought that maybe the statue was supposed to represent a strong government with no one specific leader, hence the lack of a particular face on any one of the men. However I decided that sharing my thoughts with Matt would actually require the two of us to converse. I debated and eventually came to the conclusion that a discussion about the meaning of a sculpture would be too much too soon for Matt and I, considering the fact that up to this point our conversational skills were still on the one word level.

We hung a left and continued down JFK until in turned into not JFK and within a span of less than ten minutes we were now lost again. At this point we decided to toss our map and wing it the rest of the way. We continued to walk along and as we passed Carlton St. we noticed a rundown bridge with an elaborate array of Chinese decorative lights hanging from the ceiling of the Bridge. We stood underneath the lights for a few minutes and marveled at its unique beauty. Here Matt and I spoke again. “That’s cool,” I said. “Yeah, I agree,” he said.

We ventured on down the same street until we came to the African American Episcopal Church. The church was huge in comparison to its neighboring buildings and the stones it was built with were covered in decades of mold and dirt. At first glance it was very unappealing to the eye. We stood at the front door for a moment and listened to the sermon going on inside. The front doors were cracked open and inside there was a large bouquet of fresh flowers arranged in the lobby. I sneezed at the sight of them, today was a bad day for my allergies. We circled the church once looking for anything interesting, and I noticed that all the doors on the church were painted red, an interesting color for the doors of a church. Matt found at stone built into the base of the church that read “1844-1909.” “That’s old,” I said. “Yeah, really old,” he said. At least we were making progress?

By this time we were hungry. We made our way to Redding Terminal; a place Matt had been to before and knew was good. As we were about to cross the road into the terminal a blonde tight pants wearing wannabe from the streets girl dressed in all pink with a matching pink book bag to boot ran screaming past the two of us, who at this point were standing motionless on the curb of the street dumb struck at the sight. In a fit of hysteria the mystery girl through her phone to the pavement and stomped her foot in indignation. She had the vocabulary of a rap star and didn’t hesitate to curse like a sailor. I couldn’t help but stare at her only out of confusion, and when she noticed my gaze she again didn’t hesitate to direct her rap star drunken sailor slang at me. To avoid repeating the exact belligerence that she spoke I’ll just say she called me every derogatory word under the sun, and that about sums it up. “Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to star I just didn’t know if you needed help or something?” I stuttered trying to find the right words that would sooth this raging beast before she resorted to physical violence as my punishment for staring at her. “Gurl it cew’ I jus pissed duh bus driver didn’t wait fah meh.” From this spelling one should be able to interpret the woman’s strong dialect. “Is there anything I can do?” I asked approaching her with caution. “Naw I be aight.” With that she turned and strutted back down the street in the direction she had come. I turned to look at Matt’s reaction. It was a blank stare. I shrugged my shoulders for lack of another motion and we continued into the Termial.

All day I had been saying that I wanted to get a Philly Cheese Steak, but when we got there the food court was so incredibly packed with foods I had never seen before that I decided I would try something other than a cheese steak. We ended up both getting sandwiches that were easily the size of a small animal, and of course I devoured every last morsel of mine. I think I may have scared Matt a little bit judging by the look on his face that read, “Holy shit, I didn’t see that coming.”

After lunch we walked on to JFK Park to see the LOVE statue. I had never seen it before and it was actually smaller than I thought I was going to be. I was also surprised at how clean it and well taken care of it was. The red letters of the statue seemed as if they were freshly repainted that day so as to preserve the awe inspiring first glance of the statue itself. It had now been almost three hours since we had arrived in Philly and my leg strength and will to carry on were slowing disintegrating with every passing minute we spent walking. Matt could see that I was struggling and suggested that we start heading over to the Vietnam Memorial a few minutes ahead of schedule, where we were to be picked up. I agreed without hesitation and when Matt turned to lead the way I preformed a silent victory dance in his wake. When we arrived people were already there. We discovered that we could talk through the marble wall that encircled the memorial. That entertained the group until it was time to leave. Clusters of friends moved in packs onto their respective busses sharing interesting travel stories and entertaining experiences. As I made my way to my seat on the bus I recapped the events of my day. Everything from the Chinese lights to the Redding Terminal whizzed through my head, places that weren’t originally on my radar of places to visit somehow managed to cross my path and gave me a whole new perspective of a city with already so much history.