Amen to what Phil wrote. I live near Philly. I went to college in Chapel Hill, NC in the mid-70s. It was HOT. Summers in this area now are about as hot, humid and long as those in central NC in the 70s. Phil is also right about there being no Fall or Spring here either.
Philly has a great airport for int'l travel now. It has great sports teams, lots of colonial history and, I think, a going arts scene.
It is dangerous; I feel much more at ease most places in Manhattan than in lots of areas in Philadelphia. If you are thinking of moving there, I'd recommend spending an extended period getting to know the city.
Chip
Chip,
Thanks.
I have done some recon to discover the good, the bad and the ugly.
The problem is "woman factor." When I mentioned the reality that the 90 miles difference in being further south, the way air stalls over Philly, and how the humidity gets even worse than NYC, it pretty much gets unheard.
I also know that Camden just across the river is a very troubled place that is full of bad.
A while back I went to Philly with Philippe and Jean-Marc shooting, and we went to North West Philly where we were told to avoid. Kinda reminded me of Baltimore and scenes from the HBO series "The Wire."
Interesting to note the places where people have been killed and the memorials created with stuffed animals. I know if I want to increase my chances of being shot, Philly is a place to go. Seemed like every few blocks was a pile of stuffed animals where someone died in Northwest Philly.
I am Cantonese, and Hong Kong has tropical humidity like in Havana Cuba. I'm 5'9" and today 152 pounds, so basically although muscular I am also a "girlie-man" who has a body well suited for tropical humidity.
Phil above has gone on one of my "Death Marches" where we hiked deep into the industrial area that separates Brooklyn and Queens during a heat advisory. Understand that Phil and I have training as endurance athletes so we really know our bodies.
Meanwhile my gal is Irish, English and Dutch that has genes for a northern European climate. She does poorly in the heat. For me as long as I don't have to wear a suit or formal wear I'm comfortable sweating.
I know they predict that Toronto within a decade will have the climate of NYC. Climate change is so rapid that Maple trees are unlikely to procreate fast enough as temperature changes drastically change the enviornment. They predict that Maple trees likely could become extinct in Canada.
I love Montreal as a possibility, but there flooding will be a problem.
Currently I live in East Harlem. About 2 years ago a NYPD cop was killed not far from my apartment, a woman was mugged after being assalted with a brick as a weapon, quite a few rapes nearby... I know there are a lot of killings that are gang related that go unreported. I stumble into crime scenes, but I don't see them on the nightly news.
Today on my walk to work I saw a woman being arrested and cuffed by one of the projects. Also know that just down the block from where I live is a halfway house that use to be called the "Parole Transition Institute."
When I lived in Williamsburg it was on the Southside, and two decades ago basically you didn't see people outside during the day. At night Maggie would call me when she surfaced from the subway using her cell phone, and I would meet her on Bedford and Grand Avenue as her body guard to escort her home. Pretty much the Southside was a no-man's-land.
When I lived in Greenpoint, the first week we lived in our row house one of my neighbors was mugged right in front of our house. When I opened the door when someone was frantically knocking this woman barged in who was hysterical.
Later that summer the statistical one murder per year that happenes in Greenpoint happened two blocks away. A young man was stabbed in the temple with an ice pick.
The following year a drunk was beaten to death in McGolrick Park just down the block.
The point I'm trying to make is that living in high crime areas is not new to me, but I for one would rather not. Maggie is 65, but she is not considering the decades ahead, and she is not being realistic about the vulnerability to crime.
I also don't think she understands what it is like having a gun pointed at you and how suddenly life could end. I was unfortunate to have multiple guns pointed at me by the NYPD. Once I was profiled in a case of mistaken identity, and it would of been just another case of "Black Lives Matter" instead it would of been a skinny Asian Teenager in the early 70's.
The second time was during a robbery pre SWAT Teams when the NYPD used 6 shooters (revolvers). The cops entered from every door of a McDonalds where I was working as a cashier. I was lucky because the one of four bad guys, the one who was pistol whipping a manager because he wouldn't open the safe, did not have his pistol in hand when the cops came in.
The gun was on top of the cash sitting in a box he was carrying, and he was standing right behind me when the cops entered and yelled freeze.
Very likely I would of been "collateral damage" after the first shot fired otherwise. I would of been killed at the age of 17. In the event mentioned above of profiling and mistaken identity I was 15.
I'm with Phil. I sick of being around crime. It to me is smart to avoid danger if you can. Understand my gal has a PhD, but she is not so grounded in reality. She is stuck with living urban, and I'm kinda stuck with her.
Also in my work I have been documenting a disappearing NYC. Pretty much I have enough of a sense of home to take with me. I still prefer to live in the lower Hudson Valley and would rather love to live where the air was cleaner.
I still have hope that she will see not only the good, but also the bad and the ugly. Philly has a stagnant economy. About the only change I have seen over the years is that the vacant abandoned houses are now torn down by the city as their policy.
Cal
