I definitely can’t find three eggplants for a dollar in my backyard. Or five apples for $1.10, or ten peppers for $1.50. But that’s just what I found under the makeshift tents of the Italian Marketplace in the heart of Philadelphia.
Just across the river from the infamous Camden, New Jersey lies Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With a current population of about 1.5 million people, Philadelphia served as the nation’s capitol immediately following the revolutionary war, and was the destination for many African Americans during the Great Migration northward in the early twentieth century.
As we arrived in Philadelphia on that Sunday morning, spring was just beginning to bloom. The sun was warm, and not a single cloud floated above our heads—we could not have picked a better day for our exploration of the City of Brotherly Love. Philadelphia skyline in view, we crossed the Ben Franklin Bridge excited for the day ahead. William Penn watching over us from high atop City Hall, my travelling group exited the bus into the clatter of center-city Philadelphia.
We had our itinerary well-planned: we would begin by taking Market Street east to the Historic District. But somehow we made a wrong turn (my horrendous sense of direction at work yet again). As I brought out the map (I know…the mark of a lost tourist) to try to get my bearings in this new place, I heard shouting. Crowds of African Americans lingering after an AME church service stared, some even chuckling at the spectacle. A city-style battle, a complex concerto of horn and voice, played out on the road in front of us. The two women fought for several minutes, one in a car and one a pedestrian, much to the chagrin of the line of traffic beginning to build. As we walked out of hearing range, the woman in the car sped away huffily with a final blare of her horn. Welcome to Philadelphia, I thought to myself, must be the city of sisterly love too.
We walked several more blocks and found ourselves on the map. We arrived at the Historic District, expecting busloads of chattering tourists on such a beautiful Sunday. To our surprise, the area was nearly deserted. After having our bags sufficiently ruffled through by security, we walked uninhibited to the iconic Liberty Bell. Inside a glass room, the bell is out in the open, removed from the sticky hands of innumerable schoolchildren by only a rope and the willpower of a park ranger (the bell is kept by Liberty National Park). While there were no class trips that day, the ranger had brought a boy under the ropes to tell him about the bell. The boy, maybe five or six years old, was clearly delighted at his fortune to be standing somewhere where grownups weren’t even allowed to go, and though his understanding of the bell’s actual significance was probably minimal, his excitement was fun to watch nonetheless. After all the hubbub surrounding the Liberty Bell, the visit was somewhat anticlimactic (it is, after all, literally an historic bell with a crack in it); though seeing it without the crowd was an unexpected pleasure.
From the bell, we followed the foolproof, color-coded tourist signs to get to Franklin Court. Arguably Philadelphia’s most accomplished citizen, Benjamin Franklin made his home in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War. The significance of the area in mind, we entered the courtyard behind his reconstructed home and shops, and found one lonely couple, cameras around their necks, wandering the flower-laced paths of history. Only some stones from the foundation remain of Franklin’s original dwellings, including, to my partner Maggie’s fascination, his privy pit. We wandered for just a short while through the underground Franklin museum, since its’ eerie emptiness was creepy (and besides, we were getting hungry).
With our spending capped at $21 for the day, we needed to keep lunch relatively cheap. We decided to make the long walk into the southern part of the city for authentic Philly cheese steaks. When we arrived at Geno’s Steaks, it was around 2 PM, and the line stretched all the way around the building. We staked out a spot in line and prepared ourselves for a long wait.
A couple with colorful tattoos cascading down their arms and backs stood ahead of us in line. They asked us how long we thought the wait would be, but we told them we didn’t know. The group behind us, a father and his three sons, bound by a strong family resemblance, responded that it would only be twenty-five minutes from this point, and that they knew well from experience. As their personalized Philadelphia Flyers jerseys verified, they were Flyers fanatics, and they came to Geno’s before every game. We turned back to the couple in front of us, who said they were vacationing in Philadelphia from Rhode Island for the food and the art.
Before we knew it, half an hour had gone by and we were at the window to order. I had an “American without,” Geno’s lingo for a steak with American cheese and without onions. We sat on the orange picnic-like tables outside, and watched a little league baseball game that was going on across the street.
Walking back north towards the Waterfront District, we walked through the Italian Marketplace. Street vendors had set up shop for the morning, and were just beginning to close as we passed. Table after table of fresh produce, meat, and fish was laid out, advertised with small pickets sticking from each barrel. As we walked along, prices became cheaper and cheaper, but whether because of competition or decline in quality I’m not sure. In any case, the vibrant colors of the rows of apples, pineapples, zucchini, and eggplant seemed to breathe life into the neighborhood surrounding the open-air market. While the district is called the Italian Marketplace, we heard and saw more Spanish than Italian. The Hispanics represent now what the Italians used to: new immigrants looking to make a living in a new city, a new country.
We passed churches and parks along the way, in addition to residential areas. The homes and streets looked historic (some even had hitching posts!) yet livable, and flowering trees were in full bloom along the sidewalks. I had no idea that center city Philadelphia would be so picturesque. Along the way we wandered through the graveyard of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church. The stones were worn, and most of the older ones from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were illegible. An elderly gentleman with a British accent walked over and introduced himself as the guide. He gave us a brief history of the church, but said he had to be going as he needed to lock up for the day. We took this as our cue to head to the Vietnam War Memorial, where we would be picked up.
We rested for a few minutes at the memorial before heading back into New Jersey. Etched in the cool polished marble ellipse were the names of soldiers who gave their lives in the Vietnam War. Small American flags, flowers, and notes lined the walls of the memorial.
My feet aching from our long day of walking, I boarded the bus with the satisfied feeling of having seen, done, and felt a new place.
No comments:
Post a Comment