Pennsylvania NYC April Meet-Up in Philly

Sunday's weather: 63/53 New York; 67/52 Philly.

Ben has been in communication with me about the up and coming neighborhoods: Northern Liberties has a good art scene and good restaurants located near Center City that features a lot of Italianate architecture; neighborhoods around Rittenhouse Square are great; Washington Square West is a gay community known as the Gay-bore-hood.

Ben's favorite neighborhood is Bella Vista which is about a 15 minute walk from Center City.

Also know that about 30% of Philly's residents don't own a car. As I remember Philly in my wanderings about 15 years ago is that it is remarkably clean when compared to NYC. NYC is a filthy dirty city.

Cal
 
JMQ said:
Very much looking forward to this. See you at 6:50 am.
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Jean-Marc,

Be there at least 15 minutes early or you may possibly will loose your reserved seat.

Understand that the business model is to overbook and to offer no refunds. Pretty obvious that even with reserved seating it is first come-first served.

My seat number is number 15 for both trips.

Cal
 
Calzone said:
As I remember Philly in my wanderings about 15 years ago is that it is remarkably clean when compared to NYC.
Cal
Click to expand...

This is very incorrect.
Philly isn't called "filthadelphia" by its own residents for no reason. Outside the touristy areas this is one of the dirtiest cities in the western hemisphere.
As for true gritty Philly, try north of Dauphin St. Or West of 50th. Or south of Snyder. Be careful.
After y'all get done shooting, I'm up for meeting for a beer, maybe at Fado or one of many other great bars. I'd be up for a bit of shooting but we have a lot of work to do on the house tomorrow.

Phil Forrest
 
Fidel, it was a great day. Cal, Philippe, and I took the 6:50am bus from 34th st and we got to Philly before 9am. We walk through some parts of town in the North and West of Philly that shall we say were very interesting. Got some great shots. We met up with Ben and had a regal lunch at Reading Terminal. Got back a few minutes ago.... Jean-Marc
 
Phil_F_NM said:
This is very incorrect.
Philly isn't called "filthadelphia" by its own residents for no reason. Outside the touristy areas this is one of the dirtiest cities in the western hemisphere.
As for true gritty Philly, try north of Dauphin St. Or West of 50th. Or south of Snyder. Be careful.
After y'all get done shooting, I'm up for meeting for a beer, maybe at Fado or one of many other great bars. I'd be up for a bit of shooting but we have a lot of work to do on the house tomorrow.

Phil Forrest
Click to expand...

Phil,

We went north and west of University City, mostly because we were warned to avoid those areas. Anyways found ourselves in an area just below 50th Street that had what I think were memorials for little kids that were possibly killed on the street.

The pile of teddy bears that could block a driveway was rather disturbing. Also some of the bordered up and abandoned row houses reminded me of scenes from "The Wire" that depict abandoned parts of Baltimore. The street murals displayed a very different culture than the street murals in NYC. I found great beauty in the murals.

We saw lots of construction and building rubble that reminded me of NYC in the seventies. Also lots of tires were strewn about.

A tale of two cities...

Cal
 
finguanzo said:
So, how did the day trip go..?
Click to expand...

Fidel,

You should come on the next day trip. We are planning to spend the day shooting an abandoned penitentiaury that once was the biggest and most expensive. Al Capone was inprisioned there and there seems to be rather notorious.

Basically you have to be 15 minutes early with reserved seats. 6:50 AM is the departure very near the Javitt's Center. The bus ride is 2 hours 10 minutes and goes by quick. By 9:00 AM you are in Philly.

The ride home requires reservations also, and it seems there is a logjam for people that mistakenly bought general seating and did not secure resevered seating for the cost of $1.00. Met a guy from the morning bus who waited on standby mode watching three buses leave for the return trip without boarding. We were dropped off near FIT around 8:30 PM and our bus departed at 6:15 PM.

Not bad for $30.50 round trip which included securing reserved seats, fees and taxes.

It seems "Eastern Penitentiaury" is rather expansive and is worthy of committing to a full day of shooting. One woman on the street reported that is about the size of 8 city blocks where two NYC blocks and the street inbetween them is about 10 acres.

There are guided tours. $14.00 is admission. They have a separate $10.00 monopod/tripod fee, don't allow flash photography, and the only other limitation is that if you publish any photo that you have to give a "location credit."

Anyways we will do this on another Sunday very soon.

BTW "Maggie" already mentioned doing some fashion shooting there. The prison opens at 10:00 AM and closes at 5:00 PM. LOL.

The bus ride is really straight forward. Shooting in Philly is fresh and relaxing. New Yorkers seem rather uptight and tense in a bad way. Basically no hassles and worth the trip.

Cal
 
A nice day .

In numbers:

3 hours travel
9 hours in Philly
Walked 26km (according to my phone)
Shot 3 rolls (mostly in the a.m.)
Ate 1 reuben sandwich
Awesome weather

And Ben really came thru in the afternoon - thanks Ben
 
JMQ said:
Here is one of Cal in Philly yesterday.
Click to expand...

Jean-Marc,

Thanks for posing this.

The back story is that the mosaic of shards is done by an artist who once was homeless, then he got commissions to do storefronts and entire homes. There is also a park/garden. The door mural is another artist.

Please note my urban cammo chuck high-tops that make my feet invisible.

Cal
 
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