Fourteenth Street Spring 2023

SPRING 2023

MAGAZINE

Rave Scene Revival

What’s the price of secrecy?

No money, no problem

Advice for the broke girls of Philly

Bran Flakezz

How to party like a micro influencer.

EDITOR-IN CHIEF: Maria Utz

CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Julia King

PUBLISHER: Jenna Zenouzi

PRINT

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Samantha Sullivan

MANAGING EDITOR: Molly McGurk

ART DIRECTORS: Nadiyah Timmons and Jonaira South

ON THE STREET EDITOR: Michela Weber

UNDERGROUND EDITOR: Gianna Salamone

PHOTOGRAPHER: Ethan Puth

DIGITAL

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Emme Marchese

MANAGING EDITOR: Maryam Muhammad

ART DIRECTOR: Jessica Lee Rogers

SENIOR EDITORS:

Andrew Cagliola Declan Harris

THE EDITOR LETTER FROM

Lindsay Griffin Sam Schreiber

The day Joe Biden won the 2020 election was one of the best days of my life. I was happy with the election’s outcome, but the day was memorable because it was so Philly. While I celebrated outside of City Hall, I noticed a few things: someone dressed head to toe in a green unitard, a crowd cheering for a weiner dog being hoisted into the air and a man being interviewed for the news while smoking a blunt. Growing up in New Jersey, I had always heard that Philly was weird, but now I had seen it for myself. And I loved it.

Philly is a strange place. I don’t think anybody fully understands this city until they live here. To outsiders, Philly has a few famous qualities: crazy sports fans, cheesesteaks, and

unfortunately, a gun violence epidemic that’s gotten worse in recent years. But none of those things are the whole story. My staff and I wanted to celebrate the Philly that we’ve gotten to know in our past four years at Temple, whether it be universal parts of the Philly experience or the subcultures that only a few know about.

We’ve divided our magazine into two sections. “On the Street” highlights parts of Philly that we’re all familiar with, the microcelebrities, herds of ATV riders, and the murals that adorn city walls. “Underground” will introduce you to the lesser-known side of the city: women making waves in the tattoo industry, the soccer fans (who lack the

notoriety of our football fans), and a man keeping people safe at raves.

Sure, Philly has its problems. You’ll even read about some of them in this magazine. But there’s so much more to this city than gun violence or drug use. Philly is quirky. It’s a place where people cheer for weiner dogs to celebrate a presidential election.

On the cover: LeShan Wilkinson

Cover photo by: Ethan Puth

LeShan Wilkinson, Anna Boykis, and Ava Garno

ere in Philly, no matter what neighborhood you’re in, you can find a good soft pretzel. But I drove around the city on a mission to find the best of the best, and now I’m here to share them with you.

1. Urban Saloon

2120 Fairmount Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19130

For my first stop, I took a drive down Fairmount Avenue to Urban Saloon. When I ordered my pretzel, I added beer cheese on the side (this was a life-changing decision). They came out warm and buttery, and combined with the cheese, this exceeded my expectations. When I ripped open the pretzel, it was soft and doughy, with steam pouring out of it. The cheese was warm and gooey and almost tasted like melted sharp cheddar cheese - nothing like Cheez Whiz. $10 plus $2 for the beer cheese.

Rating:

2. Yards

500 Spring Garden St, Philadelphia, PA 19123

PRETZEL LOGIC

Five fabulous finds in Philly.

After such a strong start, I couldn’t imagine finding a better pretzel. But I headed east to Yards Brewing in Spring Garden and, to my surprise, this pretzel also came with beer cheese (at this point, beer cheese is a vital part of the pretzel-eating experience). The pretzel was Bavarian style (bigger and a little sweeter than the regular Philly pretzel), served with their Signature IPA, Yards mustard, and Philly Pale Ale beer cheese. This combination was similar to Urban Saloon’s, but the pretzel itself was seasoned with salt and denser. If you are ever looking for a quick snack, you can head to Yards for Happy Hour and try the pretzel for just five dollars.

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3. Frankford Hall

1210 Frankford Ave, Philadelphia, PA 19125

I hopped from Northern Liberties over to Fishtown for my next pretzel. I stopped at Frankford Hall on Frankford Avenue. This pretzel really caught me by surprise, because it was served with cold cheese. The pretzel itself came in two sizes: Small and Giant. I had to go big and get the Giant, which was very tasty; however, I just could not get over the cold dipping cheese. The pretzel did not steam when I bit into it, which also disappointed me. Who wants a lukewarm pretzel?

Rating:

4. Philadelphia Soft Pretzel Company

1532 Sansom St, Philadelphia, PA 19102

Next stop: Philly Pretzel Factory. When I think about a soft pretzel, this is the one that comes to mind. The cool thing about the Pretzel Factory

is you can choose from an assortment of dipping sauces. I know I said I was a huge fan of beer cheese, but with Philly Pretzel Factory pretzels, the cinnamon and brownie batter dips are my absolute favorite. You get the perfect mix of sweet and salty. I got the classic pretzel twist and it was slim, warm, and the perfect mix of soft on the inside with a hard crust on the outside. Normally I would go for a soft outside, but this salty goodness never disappoints. So, the next time you are driving around Philadelphia or the surrounding counties, be sure to stop and grab a warm, delicious pretzel.

Rating:

5. Pretzel & Log House Amish Market

Westtown Village Shopping Center

1165 Wilmington Pike, West Chester, PA 19382

Because pretzels came to the United States in Lancaster County, I decided to head to the Amish Market in West Chester. This pretzel did not disappoint. To change things up, I decided to get a pretzel log, which contained bacon, egg, and cheese. Not to mention, they have a cheesesteak-filled pretzel log, which really ties together Philly food. But, as I took a bite into the warm gooey pretzel, I was reminded of the pretzel from Urban Saloon mixed with the pretzel nuggets from Philly Pretzel Factory. If you are ever looking to make your way out of the city, I highly recommend stopping at the Amish Market for a tasty treat.

Rating:

By Molly McGurk

Illustrations by Nadiyah Timmons

ONE BROKE GIRL

Having fun with a few dollars.

By Michela Weber

I’ll admit it. I’m a broke girl. Listen, I’m in college and sometimes that part-time, hourly pay just ain’t cutting it. But, I still want to go out with my friends and make the most of the few extra dollars floating in my pockets. So, I’m always on the hunt for cheap ways to have a good time. I’ve gathered the five best deals in Philly (that I’ve come across) for my fellow broke girls and guys.

2. Schuylkill Banks: Movie Night

Every summer, Schuylkill Banks hosts ten movie nights under the Walnut Street Bridge. The screening schedule is released in April, and the event is absolutely free. Just as the sun goes down on the skyline, a gigantic, inflatable movie screen goes up on the Schuylkill River Trail. Throughout the summer, Schuylkill Banks plays a wide variety of movies. In the 2022 season, the screenings ranged from Dazed and Confused to Encanto to FreeGuy. No matter what your taste in films may be, you are sure to find a screening that strikes your fancy.

3. Yamitsuki Happy Hour

At a totally random time each week, Loco Pez announces their infamous Dollar Taco Night. The taco joint releases a meme-centric Instagram post to advertise the occasion. Their 22.4K followers immediately unravel in a frenzy of joy, and understandably so: every taco is $1 from 5 p.m. to close; how on earth can anyone resist that? There are no reservations on Dollar Taco Night, so lines stretch around the block and sprawl into the surrounding streets. But, don’t worry. Loco Pez has three participating locations, so there is plenty of space to get your dollar deal.

Yamitsuki is hands down the best happy hour in Philly-and it happens every night of the week from 4 p.m.to 6:30 p.m. The deals don’t only apply to drinks. For just $8, you can get any two regular sushi rolls. Cocktails are only $6 and two saki bombs are just $10. There truly is nothing that can beat these prices, Yamitsuki is the perfect place for a broke girls’ night out.

4. North Bowl: Late Night Wednesdays

Have you ever heard the phrase, “everything good comes in threes?” Well, North Bowl certainly has. Starting at 10 p.m. on Wednesday nights nearly everything is only $3. Shoe rentals? $3. Bowling games? $3. Tater tots? $3. Beer? $3. You know what, I think you get the point. For those of us who need to “bowl” on a budget, North Bowl has you covered. And, if you can’t make it to North Bowl for Late Night Wednesdays, head

across the city to their partner, South Bowl. South Bowl hosts Three Dollar Thursdays, where (I’m sure you could guess) almost everything is $3.

5. Front Street Cafe: All You Can Eat Pasta

On Wednesdays, the doors of Front Street Cafe become the gates to heaven. For $30, you can purchase their “All You Can Eat Pasta” special. The night begins with focaccia bread and kale caesar salad. Then, you have a choice of seven pasta dishes. Front Street Cafe offers vegan chorizo mac and cheese, chicken mac and cheese, pesto tuscan fusilli, mushroom gnocchi, baked asiago-garlic penne, shrimp and bacon linguine, and turkey bolognese. Assuming you can fit out the door after that feast, you are sure to be walking around with daydreams about your next trip to Front Street Cafe.

1. Loco Pez: Dollar Taco Night

Illustrations by Nadiyah Timmons

IT’S A BE UTIFUL GAME

And the boys at Tír na nÓg will tell you all about it.

By Declan Harris

It’s 7 a.m. at the sports bar. You’re already pounding back beers and watching European soccer. This is how several groups of Philadelphians start their weekend mornings. They crowd bars such as Tír na nÓg, an Irish bar located a few blocks away from City Hall, to root for teams an ocean away.

If you take a step inside on any given Saturday, you’ll be greeted by fans draped in the sky blue jerseys of reigning English Premier League champions, Manchester City. With the unwavering support for the Cityzens, you’d expect to be in downtown Manchester, next to the Haçienda maybe, but no, you’re in Philadelphia at dawn hearing people chant, cheer, and discuss the team that Pep Guardiola has assembled.

“COME ON CITY, COME ON CITY, COME ON CITY!” they chant.

“Haaland, Haaland, Yorkshire-born, Norwegian lad Roy Keane tried to kill his dad

Ha-Ha-Ha-Haaland, hey,” the crowd continues.

All of this may be surprising given the lack of popularity surrounding soccer, or at least the Philadelphia Union, especially when compared to the buzz surrounding the Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, and hell even the Flyers, who haven’t been relevant for a decade.

Despite the lack of fanfare, Philadelphia is one of the leading cities in the United States for the English Premier League, the top division of English soccer. This popularity was rewarded in October 2022 with

NBC Sports hosting their Premier League Fan Fest in Philadelphia, right outside of City Hall, with fans from all around the area swarming Dilworth Park draped in colors of foreign teams.

Perhaps a reason for this surge in popularity could be the relatively unknown fleet of bars in the city that act as havens for fans of different teams to go and cheer on together, mimicking the culture of English soccer. Hooliganism, belligerent or abhorrent fans, people who bleed their club’s colors: these are the things that come to mind when English soccer comes up, but these are also things ascribed to the quintessential Philadelphia sports fan. Just think of the recent Eagles’ super bowl run, when fans were climbing poles and going crazy for their team.

While fans in England may not be able to coexist during games, the same can’t be said for those inside Tír na nÓg, with manager Chelsea saying that the crowds show a more welcoming demeanor.

“We do typically see some healthy sportsmanship,” she says. “It’s just fun. Some crowd around the bar, while some of them will sit down to eat, but it’s mostly just early morning drinking on the weekends.”

Their lagers of choice range from Yuengling and Yards to Ireland’s Guinness and Denmark’s Carlsberg, with the time of day bearing no significance because it’s five o’clock somewhere, right? Despite the drinking, as Chelsea notes, sportsmanship is all the craze, with everyone cheering, offering food or drinks to each other, and talking as if they’ve known each other for years. All of this ensures that whether you’re just strolling in on a weekend morning, a newcomer to English soccer, or a seasoned fan, you are more than welcome to join in on the festivities, adding a hint of that brotherly love to the beautiful game.

ON THE STREET

You get it, you’re there. Leaving the BSL or looking out the window on the El. You see the skyline and kinda fall in love. It’s like the first time. The people climbing the poles post-Super Bowl and the maybe they were in the mob type of Italian market sort of fun. It’s the six-packs to go and the taco spot that stays open until 4 a.m. somewhere in South. It’s all the things you see when you’re kind of hustling, have somewhere to be. Walking fast it slips your mind but to us it’s the most important thing in the world. It’s our city and we want to celebrate it.

BIKE LIFE

Philadelphians just like Lawrence Bloomfield know that ATVs and dirt bikes aren’t street legal... but he does it anyway. And he records it, with over 40,000 fans watching.

By Lindsay Griffin

Photos by Ethan Puth 8 FOURTEENTH STREET

Lawrence Bloomfield threw on whatever clothes he could find, stepped outside of his stone brick home and hopped on his blue and chrome mongoose. He had one thing on his mind: ‘I want to be just like every other kid in my neighborhood riding bikes.’ Except Bloomfield wasn’t just any other kid. He was bad at popping wheelies, but good in school. He graduated from Northeast Preparatory High School in 2016 when he was 15 years old.

Bloomfield’s friends encouraged him to record them. He whipped out his phone and started randomly snapping photos of his friends on their bikes.

Over time Lawrence’s confidence in film grew from a hobby to a professional endeavor. In 2014, he launched Bloomfield Productions, creating his own Youtube Channel @Bloomfield Productions and Instagram page to showcase his work. He now has 30,000 Instagram followers and 12,800 subscribers on YouTube.

In 2021, an international biking company called Collective Bikes was impressed by Lawrence’s cameraman skills. The UK-based company wanted to expand its brand’s reach to the States and saw Lawrence as the perfect match. They reached out through social media and, after meeting in New York City, they hired Lawrence to be a primary shooter for all the film projects on the East Coast. This opportunity allowed Lawrence to be seen professionally and gave him a chance to provide bikes to less fortunate kids in the city.

It is illegal to ride dirt bikes and ATVs, but many people who are a part of the community,

like Lawrence, see it as a chance to bring people together and reduce violence.

Tell me how your love of bikes and film started. So, the bike definitely came first. I was riding bikes back in 2014. And I wanted to be just like every other kid in my neighborhood in Philly that was riding bikes, they were all good at doing tricks. And we call them combos. But I came to find out really quickly that I wasn’t as gifted as I thought. And that led me to the point where a lot of the guys said, ‘Hey, you know, you’re not that good anyway so why don’t you record us?’ So I’m, like, all right, whatever. I took my phone and recorded videos and I slowly came to realize, ‘Hey, I got a really good hand for this.’ That’s where my love for film began. I ended up taking my dad’s camera. I went one block over with my friends and I just started snapping pictures randomly. I didn’t know what I was doing. And I took some pretty dope pictures that I still have. My dad saw how serious I was taking it because he does photography, and he ended up getting me my first camera and it took off from there.

Why do you film bikes?

I tend to show a lot of positivity. And I like to show positivity because there’s too much negativity within the

But I can tell you one thing: The guys are probably not going to stop driving on the street, because it’s just a different kind of adrenaline rush to be in traffic.

city. I grew up in the Northeast, so a lot of my friends are from the hood, they all come from struggling families. If I can play my part and just reach out to a company and get a free bike, and put one kid on a $100 bike, that alone could change a kid’s life. I feel like that’s pretty significant.

What can you say to people who condemn Philadelphia’s bike culture?

Honestly, we really don’t mean any harm to anybody. A lot of people panic when they see us. They might think, ‘Oh, these kids are hooligans.’ And it’s because they’re not really used to seeing this type of activity, I guess you could say, but bikes have been a part of Philadelphia’s culture, especially ATVs. Even as early as the ‘90s people have been riding quads and dirt bikes in the street. And the pedal bike movement is just as big, but I would say the best bet that they have to make it safe is to literally build a park. And we’ve been saying this for years, pedal bikes, dirt bikes, ATVs, side by side, build a huge park that has completely flat ground, and all the riders can come together. And if you let us run the construction and work with us to design it, it would be that much better. But I can tell you one thing: The guys are probably not going to stop driving on the street because it’s just a different kind of adrenaline rush to be in traffic.

How does riding bikes deter Philadelphia youth from getting involved in crime?

It does a really good job of keeping kids off the street. I can refer to some stuff that I’ve shot where I ask kids the same question, which is ‘Where would you be without bikes?’ And I’ve had so many responses from people saying they would probably be involved in some sort of illegal activity. I’ve also seen people from two different blocks that have beef with each other and they come up on bikes riding together and that’s really powerful to see. But, I’ve seen people stop riding bikes and go back to the street. Sadly, it doesn’t save everybody.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

I don’t see myself shooting bikes in the future. And that’s kind of ironic, that I don’t see myself shooting bike content. That’s how I fell in love with filmmaking. I want to make short films, shoot commercials and things like that. That’s really changed my life for the better.

Once I fell in love with filmmaking, I went down the rabbit hole and started learning about different things. And I use everything that I’ve learned that a filmmaker would normally apply to a movie and I’ve applied it to my bike videos, which has given me my outlet within this culture.

I’m not trying to toot my own horn, but there is literally nobody else who is in the bike culture that decided to go to school for it and then apply everything that they know from being self-taught, as well as learning in school and broadcasting it to social media. In a couple of years from now, I just hope that once I’m done here at Temple, I can maybe start up a studio or something either in LA or in New York City because I really love the city vibe. I’ll probably steer away from the bikes really heavily, but bikes will be a really big part of my life for sure.

Is there anything else you would like to share?

If there’s something that you want to do in life, just make sure you know what it is, and surround yourself with people who want to see you win.

By Michela Weber

TRANS

Photos by Ethan Puth

“We are Universal” mural at 1306 Frankford Ave.

-FORMED THE MURAL THAT FISHTOWN

A bold, colorful mural to celebrate transgender residents is the city’s first.

At Frankford Avenue and Thompson Street in the heart of Fishtown,“We Are Universal” rests on the side of Cake Life, a trans- and woman-owned bakery. “We Are Universal” was created by Kah Yangni in partnership with Morris Home, a residential recovery center serving transgender and gendernonconforming individuals.

In an interview with Yangni, they made it clear their artistic intentions and the intentions of every party involved in the creation of the art was to facilitate conversation about and bring awareness to mental health for transgender and gender non-conforming individuals through the beauty of this mural.

The mural details a quotation that reads, “We’re trans, we’re survivors, we are joyful, we feel rage, we are universal” in conjunction with vibrant depictions of residents from Morris Home. The quote came out of a workshop with people from Morris Home.

“They had a really clear idea of what they wanted,” Yangni said. “I picked the words I thought were the most powerful and also got down to the meat of what they were trying to

say, and it was something I knew other trans people, or queer people, or allies could see and be like, ‘Oh, I get this’”

The images of two Morris Homes residents illustrated in the mural, Taz and Jordan, were carefully selected with the intent of conveying two emotions often experienced within the trans community.

“I felt like the one picture of Jordan on the far right kind of captured the happiness piece,” Yangni said. “And then on the left is Taz. He’s more of an activist person. I was like, I’ll have Taz on the left and Jordan on the right, and that will capture the feeling of the sides of the spectrum and the quote.”

Every detail of the mural was strategically planned to convey the intended message and feeling. Yangni chose the color palette to ensure the mural could not be ignored, while also creating a welcoming feeling upon viewing.

“It has to be eye-catching,” Yangni said. “It has to be warm. And the colors together have to be comforting...those pastels that are like childhood colors, I feel like they’re like a hug from a mom or something, they’re very cozy…

I think those colors, in my mind, make me feel really held…They felt right.”

“We Are Universal’’ is Philadelphia’s first mural celebrating the transgender and gender non-conforming communities. Although it’s a monumental moment for the city, tackling this feat meant a great deal of weight on Yangni’s shoulders. As the illustrator for the first transexperience mural, Yangni dealt with conflict regarding how to highlight every aspect or struggle of the community.

“It was a little scary in the sense of… I feel like every time any minority tries to do art, we’re not benefiting from people who have already done the base messages,” Yangni said. “So now we can have a more subtle piece that is responsible to fewer people, and that doesn’t have to do everything. It feels like it’s hard to be subtle. I think I was able to let it go and know that there’ll be other pieces, but we just needed that first one.”

Creating an art piece that centers around

a delicate topic, such as mental health issues rooted in the mistreatment and lack of acceptance of trans and gender-nonconforming people, requires vulnerability from the artist. Yangni was well-aware of the responsibility.

They acknowledged how the trans community is at the very beginning of their fight to be viewed as equal in society. And they recognized the importance of their vulnerability and activism efforts as this pivotal moment in history unfolds.

“I feel like it’s our job to be…vulnerable,” Yangni said. “We’re supposed to be vulnerable.”

The colors together have to be comforting.

THE VOICE

For four decades Marc Zumoff talked to us about the 76ers. Here’s what he has to say about hanging up the headset.

For 39 years, Marc Zumoff was the voice of the Philadelphia 76ers, spending 12 years as the team’s halftime host, and the final 27 years in the broadcast booth for NBC Sports Philadelphia. Zumoff retired in 2021, at age 65, following the conclusion of the Sixers’ playoff series against the Washington Wizards, ending a remarkable career.

However, as one door closed for the Philadelphia native, another opened. He returned to his alma mater, Temple University, to be a part of their recently established Claire Smith Center for Sports Media, helping develop the next generation of sports broadcasters.

It’s been nearly two years since you retired, do you miss it at all?

There are aspects of it that I miss; I miss performing live, I especially miss the people. But I’m really happy that I did what I did. I felt the timing was right, I wanted to be able to retire before my skills diminished. I wanted to be able to retire so that I still had the physical and mental energy and capacity to do other things. And so I’ve kept myself really busy. I have become more of a fan and certainly less of a broadcaster. I’m in a really good place, quite honestly.

Having worn the headset for 27 years, spending 12 as a halftime host, you’ve gotten to call all the Sixers’ highs and lows over the previous four decades. Are there any moments you’d like to go back and revisit?

I think if you asked anybody about their life in general, there are moments that they would like to go back and revisit. But I think when you go through whatever your journey has happened to be, you sit on moments where you make a mistake,

By Declan Harris

Photo by Ethan Puth

but certainly as a fan as well. Sixers basketball was my first love as a kid growing up in northeast Philly. It’s always been my favorite sport and my favorite team. But first and foremost, whenever you’re performing, you get into a certain head where you understand the parameters that are in place. See what it is that you need to do what your mandate is. And so you really never forget that. At least I didn’t. So as I went forth and did what I had to do, I always remembered what it is that I needed to do, how I needed to perform, and how best to represent both NBC Sports Philadelphia and the 76ers.

Did you have any favorite players to watch during your time broadcasting?

I started as a halftime host in 1982-83, so you could look back on many of the players on that team. You had a team that had four hall of famers and potentially a fifth in Andrew Tony, if he had played enough. Then all the Sixers who, through the years, just gave incredible performances. It’s easy, I think, to name Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson, Joel Embiid. But I also would take a liking to the players who are blue-collar players, the players who were specialists. Guys would come into a game, like Clint Richardson from the 1982-83 team, he was a very good defensive player who’d come in and hit a shot. Guys like that, who wouldn’t be afraid to be physical or knock a guy down or just assume a role and not necessarily score, but perform very well in that capacity.

Are there any players or moments that you wish you could have covered from the previous two seasons?

No, I’m good. Whatever unveils itself from this point forward, or whatever’s happened in the last two years. You can’t do it in life, you just simply can’t. We have an odometer and when that odometer reaches the point where you can’t do something anymore, you don’t do it. The sooner you accept that I think the more at peace you can be with yourself as a human being and be able to move forward and do other things. So no, I don’t have any regrets like that whatsoever.

Getting to travel the country and even the world at times to cover the Sixers seems like a dream job. What are the downsides to it? Missing my family certainly was a downside. After a while you had so many games and so much travel, it was almost like having your favorite dessert every night. It was great, and I was privileged to be able to do it, but a fourth game and

five nights, or a five-city tour where you’re on the road for eight, nine days and you forget where you’re waking up… it would make me a little weary sometimes. But other than that, I feel like it was a great gig and I wouldn’t, I couldn’t see myself having done anything else for my life’s work.

Having been retired for nearly two years now, how has it been treating you?

It’s really been everything that I could have hoped for. Very busy with Temple, both teaching and doing administrative work through the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media. I found that to be very rewarding, and I love the people that I work with. I’m eager to continue to help with the challenges that the Klein school is presented with and the Claire Smith Center for Sports Media in particular. I do a lot of philanthropic work, which takes up a lot of my time, but it’s a passion, and I enjoy it from that perspective. I like the fact that I’m flexible enough so that if I want to take a day off or I want to go do something special with my wife, I can do that. Whereas before I was tied up, scheduled pretty much from

found myself transitioning to my alma mater, which was awesome.

How does it feel to impart all of your experiences on the next generation of broadcasters?

I will always remember what it was like to be on the outside looking in, trying to break into the business, not having a lot of friends in the business and how hard it was for me in the beginning. I’ve always remembered that so I keep that in mind when I teach. I want to relate to students in a way that they feel as though they don’t just have a professor who is lecturing, but that they have a mentor or potentially a colleague who they can call on, not only for that class but for years to come. Well, this is my opportunity to impart, hopefully, the wisdom that I gleaned from all of my mistakes and all the stupid things that I did, hopefully making it easier for them. Hopefully, they can utilize that knowledge to avoid those mistakes and build their careers a lot quicker than I was able to.

Had you not been teaching this or something else, you’d be doing your free time? Well, I did have a broadcast coaching business. So I probably would have continued to teach for that. But this is something I always wanted to do. I always wanted to teach and if it wasn’t going to be at Temple, it would have been somewhere else. But I’m elated that it’s on North Broad Street.

How long do you see yourself in the classroom?

October to May, and oftentimes had little, if any, flexibility.

Was coming out of retirement to teach a part of your plan?

Yes, it was actually a part of the plan. Before I hung up the headset, when I knew, probably two years before I officially retired that I was going to retire, I started to do some planning. Paul Gluck, who is a longtime professor at Temple became a guidepost for me and a mentor for me. We started to think about different things that I could do for the school, areas where I can contribute, the fact that I want to teach, and how I can make that transition. He and I met, at least for the previous two or three years before my retirement, plotting things out so that when I retired, a lot was in place, and all I had to do was dot some i’s and cross the t’s with David Boardman, the dean of the Klein school, and I

That’s a good question. All I know is I’m living in the now; I’m experiencing the moment. I’m not looking ahead because I really don’t have to plan anymore. Somebody once said to me, it’s not where you’ve come from, but where you’re going. Well, it doesn’t matter now. Because I can do this for as long as I feel as though I want to, or I can transition and do something else, or I could do nothing. And so it’s not really something I’m thinking about. I’ll entertain that notion when it comes to pass.

I couldn’t see myself having done anything else for my life’s work.

How gardening became one Kensington nonprofit’s act of defiance.

By Jadon George

Photos by Ethan Puth

Kensington Corridor Trust’s community garden, a double-wide plot of grass-poked soil a seedling’s throw from the Allegheny El station, is a portal to a paradise of sorts. “The reason KCT was formed,” Jasmin Velez, a community organizer for the Trust, told me, “was to combat some of the gentrification that was taking place.” Instead of waging mortal combat, however, the Trust purchases properties on and around Kensington Avenue and rents them to businesses that share their values.

Community gardens have a long history as bulwarks against poverty and perdition. After a stock market crash and its subsequent depression sunk thousands of Detroiters into unemployment in 1893, the city’s mayor, Hazen S. Pingree, hatched his “Potato Patch Plan.” Under Pingree’s plan, the Motor City’s

laborers would sow the soil of empty lots with the seeds of future spuds. Not only would this put the city’s workers, mostly of Polish and German stock, to work, but it would also enable them to feed their families until the economy cleared up. Kensington Corridor Trust planted the garden as its own kind of preservation project, and its voice couldn’t have fit more seamlessly into the role had they picked her in a game of Tetris. Velez is, in some ways, the perfect community organizer: She has all the social skills of a governor who can’t lose re-election, no matter where the winds of change are blowing, but none of the performative polish that would make us call that governor a phony. She’s from Kensington, the holder of an advanced degree in a place where a third of the population doesn’t finish high school. And she exudes a

bubbly energy that matches the bright colors of the Trust’s office while still stopping to address the Avenue’s regulars by their first names.

Kensington Corridor Trust’s arrangement with the neighborhood itself comes with a variety of pacts, Velez explained: Every asset KCT invested in would be overseen by a board of the avenue’s residents with the power to decide, among other things, how Trust-owned businesses would spend their profits. KCT itself pledges never to rent to what they dubbed “extractive businesses” like pawn shops and cash-for-gold jewelry stores. “Folks really want to see our commercial corridor bustling with businesses that they can take their families to,”Velez said, “or that they can use themselves.”

Kensington Community Garden is an act of resilience

I THINK WE WANT WHAT EVERYBODY WANTS– A THRIVING COMMUNITY.

“

For them, the community garden was an extension of that vision. KCT built its own community garden between 2020 and 2021 to add green space to the neighborhood’s topography..

“Green spaces help improve spaces, because people are more likely to come into that area.” Velez extended an arm towards the garden and the street to illustrate her point. “There’s visibility. Folks are walking. They’re outside.And they’re kind of beingexposed to neighbors; they’re building relationships with folks. So, we know that spaces—and public spaces, specifically—are going to impact the way people are going to feel about a neighborhood.”

Somehow, the garden itself might have been the biggest open space in Kensington: One end held a permanent picnic table and a steel shed being used for welding classes. On the other side, a building next door to the garden was splashed with a multicolored mural of children, titled “Lots and Lots of Love.” (John Zerbe, the artist who painted the side of the shop, put Kensington’s local kids astride the stone wall.) Between the two edges sat the flowers themselves, split down the middle by a walking path just wide enough for Velez.

We did not make the trek to Kensington on a good day for gardening, to say the least: Even taking our hands out of our pockets felt like a fast track to frostbite. Since the calendar had just turned to the month of March, the flowers themselves didn’t quite look alive, and their stems were cruddish brown. “You should come again and see us in the spring!” Velez said. It wouldn’t be the last time she issued the invite.

It’s tough to ignore the blighted landscape of

Kensington, even in an article about flowers in bloom and murals of cheerful children. In 2018, The New York Times Magazine ran a feature on Kensington. The Times’ Jennifer Percy took to the streets below the El with a DEA officer in tow, and somehow managed to come across just about every aspersion you could imagine: Kensington and its constitutive areas made up “a prison,” “the Badlands,” “the largest openair drug market on the East Coast,” “a magnet for users,” and, in the words of a local pastor—a pastor, for goodness’ sake—“the Walmart of heroin,” which was apparently punchy enough to headline the whole feature.

KCT, despite its criticisms of those who choose to trash Kensington, couldn’t ignore this, either. It was no coincidence that the community garden sat behind a charcoal-colored steel gate, or that Velez had to open it by key at 3 in the afternoon. “We don’t want it to look like we’re keeping anyone out,” she explained. “But we do have to recognize the realities of the neighborhood.” In part, the entire community garden project is about changing the realities of the neighborhood, not by replacing the people and things within it, as so many urban renewal projects are prone to do, but by transforming the world they’re in—and, by extension, transforming the rest of us, too. For the KCT and Velez, that’s certainly the goal.

“I think we want what everybody wants,”Velez said, “which is a thriving community. And I think to see that would be ideal, a dream.”

MY FOU

A carjacking on Carlisle Street found her at the other end of a handgun.

By: Allison Beck

Igot a sort of nauseous thrill whenever

I saw someone for the first time after spring break, because there was always the question of how mine went. It was all right, thanks. I took a road trip to Maine, which was cool, but it started with me getting carjacked at gunpoint, which put a bit of a damper on things.

I’ve been coping with humor.

My friend Simon and I were fashionably late to a cowboy themed party at a friend’s house on Carlisle, just off Norris. We weren’t planning to drive, but I had been cycling through different outfit options for a little too long and Simon was dealing with pain in his legs.

My park job was bad– one tire was on the curb, and we laughed about it. I was thinking about drinking my Diet Coke, and who I was going to see at the party, and the new shirt I was wearing.

The guy came up behind us. He was shorter than me, wearing all black. I could only see his eyes. And the gun, also all black, also pointed at my chest.

If it happens to you, comply. There are people who love you.

We walked back to the car, and I gave him the keys. I’m not sure if our hands touched. If the memory is real, his were cold. He told us to turn around and walk away, and we did. We found police officers at the 7-11. They brought

us back to the corner, and here’s the irony: the car was still there.

The guy’s voice hadn’t dropped yet. He hadn’t asked for phones or wallets. He got in but couldn’t start the car, and ran away with the key.

I laughed when the TUalert went out, because who ever thinks it’s going to be them? And wasn’t it all so pointless?

It lived in my body for a while. I barely slept or ate for a few days, lost my voice, had a cough. Sometimes I panic thinking there’s someone behind me or find my imagination back in what happened and what could have happened. I get tired more easily and I can’t handle as much stress as I used to.

People asked if I was okay a lot, and I am. I still live my life, and I don’t let that experience limit me. My friends and family have been a huge support, and professors have been open and accommodating.

I kept my TUalert, and I kept all of the TUalerts after it. There was one the next night, and the next weekend, and the one after that. I want to know how the people behind them are doing. I want them to know someone understands. I feel something in my chest every time one goes out, and it hurts. I see news stories about kids killed on their way to school and another and another and another person injured or dead, and I know that I experienced a microcosm of what people

across Philadelphia experience every single day–and that hurts.

Jim MacMillan from the Philadelphia Center for Gun violence Reporting was a guest speaker for one of my classes this semester, and he went over all the research they’re doing. It might feel like a logical conclusion that putting more police on patrol would solve the issue, but the center’s research has shown that there is no evidence that more policing actually stops crime. More than that, gun violence is directly correlated with disinvested, redlined neighborhoods that need more support, rather than restriction, to thrive. His work is focused on changing the way journalists and everyone who interacts with the media talks about events of gun violence, their victims, and survivors. It gave me a lot of hope.

Temple also needs to step up and invest in whatever tools they can to help the community. Whether that’s donating or opening up new programs or something else entirely, the university has a responsibility to make things better.

As of March 27th, 2023, there have been 313 nonfatal and 80 fatal shooting victims. I don’t have the answers, and I’m not going to pretend to be familiar with the complex issues facing North Philadelphia or the city at large, but as someone who has been there on the other end of a handgun, something needs to change.

we need to talk about street south

Can the “place of counterculture” retain its iconic identity?

By Jenna Zenouzi

Aline stretches down 3rd and South with close to a hundred 20-somethings shuffling in the cold, waiting for security to make them drop their pepper spray and umbrellas by the door. Peach Pit, a Canadian indie band, is playing tonight, and once inside, my feet are stepped on by pairs of Doc Martens. The smell of weed permeates the air. I’m sweaty already. It almost feels like a step back to the ‘80s, save for the iPhones reaching into the air and the candy-flavored vape pens.

But the theater itself feels intimate without feeling stuffy. A small bar area and some VIP seating, a tiny box office, and a retro marquee out front signifying decades of shows and screenings. The Theatre of Living Arts, commonly referred to as TLA, has been a staple on South Street since 1908. It’s a sound place to start our journey down the Street, with both undergoing a series of renditions, redevelopments, and revitalizations.

In the early 1900s, South Street was bustling with activity brought in mainly by European immigrants, who began opening up businesses alongside Black Americans who had inhabited South Street since at least the mid- to late-1800s. The Street’s economic

success at this time was due to the popularity of shops near Center City without Center City prices, all on the backs of the Black community and Italian, Polish, and European Jewish immigrants.

According to Dylan Gottlieb, who published a 2015 essay on the history of South Street, it’s been a “liminal space” from its 16th and 17th century beginnings, not quite fitting in with Center City nor the “rural townships to the South.” And this liminality, if you will, never truly went away. When I spoke with Joel Spivak, a prominent, semi-retired architect, social activist, and Philadelphia native, he told me of memories of South Street being a welcoming place for those with marginalized identities, including Black performers, openly LGBTQ+ individuals, and just about any group that was otherwise subdued by the White, Quaker-majority of Philadelphia and rural parts of Pennsylvania. He called it a “place of counterculture,” one that fostered an openly diverse community not yet seen in other parts of the city.

This is not to say South Street was without flaws; Spivak’s first apartment in the area was beaten down and, although middle

SoUtH S tr t e e

class shoppers traveled from Center City to South Street to frequent the theater, garment, and catering districts, it was still regarded as a lower-class neighborhood.

While it had a couple decades of local economic and social prosperity, the Street witnessed one of the largest threats of demise in its modern history - the development of the Crosstown Expressway. In the 1950s, South Street’s community came under threat, with eminent domain issues posted on businesses and residences to make room for a highway that was planned to, ironically enough, “advance the redevelopment of Center City” by connecting the Schuylkill and Delaware expressways.

Due to years of neighborhood coalition

All eyes are on South Street

work the project was ultimately shut down. Throughout the near-decade of fighting against it, South Street experienced a sub-revival in its commercial district through the reopening of TLA.The Theatre went through its own phases - from hosting opera performances to screenings of The Rocky Horror Show. To this day, the Theatre hosts “an eclectic mix of art styles at any given moment.” Its opening aided in keeping South Street’s diversity alive despite city developers’ best efforts; South Street’s revitalization efforts did not end with TLA’s opening. Spivak recalls festivals the neighborhood put on to highlight the many countercultures South Street has housed over time.

This energy of diverse communities is what kept South Street alive during pitfalls and a climb to eventual fame as a tourist spot full of character in Philadelphia.

I also spoke with up-and-coming hairstylist Tori McCutcheon, the owner of Tori Did That salon. Her business is highlighted by South Street’s Headhouse District as one of the best in Philly in 2022. McCutcheon is a Philadelphia native who knew she wanted her business to stay in the city. Being part of the headhouse district allowed her to do that in a charming historic location with lots of foot traffic. She described the district as one that is still community-oriented and full of support for fellow local business owners.

McCutcheon fondly recalls childhood memories on South Street with her father: “It was a thing to ride down South Street with your music blaring…the car would literally be

shaking from how loud the music was. It was a thing we would do on Saturday nights - go to South Street with our dad.” However, South Street has changed and it’s unclear if it’s for the better.

This cycle of highs and lows happened again in the 2010s. Even prior to the COVID-19

FOURTEENTH STREET

pandemic, many journalists labeled South Street as experiencing a “retail apocalypse” after noticing shuttered businesses, some of which had previously been in operation for decades. At the same time, as written by Meir Rinde back in 2018, South Street was seeing a revival as “vacant storefronts often signify

transition in a neighborhood,” and investors, mainly local brokerage firms, began stepping in to take advantage of vacant properties. And while a lot of its newest openings of mostly anchor stores, including a Whole Foods, are not exactly in tune with South Street’s history of eclectic storefronts with majorly cool vibes, the vacant spots of places like Jon’s Bar and Grille, Johnny Rockets, and several retailers can be an inspiration for what’s to come.

It really doesn’t take much to find inventive businesses on South Street, whether iconic spots that remain open like the Famous 4th Street Delicatessen, The Raxx Vintage Emporium, or BrickBat Books. There’s a farmers market almost every Sunday, and the Headhouse directory sorts businesses into categories that serve to highlight unique aspects, including fabric row, secondhand stores, womanowned businesses, blackowned businesses, and the arts.

Spivak agrees that inventive businesses are one of the keys to keeping South Street’s foot traffic alive. More than that, he wholeheartedly believes that food is at the heart of South Street. Cheesesteaks live on, but cultural foods in an area as accessible as South Street is what helped attract Philadelphians back in the 1970s and 1980s, Spivak recalled, and restaurants serve as “a way to bring in cultural diversity” and usher in young generations to keep South Street lively.

So next time you and your friends are seeing a show at TLA or stopping at Tattooed Mom for drinks, consider supporting one of the fifty amazing food spots on the Street. At the very least, you’ll find yourself making insane memories.

Volunteers with The Block Gives Back gather outside of the Philadelphia Magic Gardens

UNDER GROUND

It only takes a few months to get over the tourist traps. You figure it out quickly-the Liberty Bell and cheesesteaks get boring. You need something a little off kilter/eclectic/a reason to brag to your co-workers the next Monday morning. Whether you find it at the speakeasy or some tattoo place in Fishtown. It doesn’t matter. Why should it? It hits different, makes you kinda stop and fall in love with the city in a new way. Maybe you overlooked it but now you really see it and we’re here to tell you all about it.

ANGEL AT THE RAVE

Adam Oliver is the renegade medic at Philadelphia’s rave scene.

By

Sullivan

Samantha

Photos by Julia King

t’s a little after 2 a.m. but we’re the first ones at the club. The lights are flashing candy apple red. Smoke is so thick you can’t see more than two steps in front of you. I feel it like usual, the music in my chest from the insane bassline thudding so hard you can’t think–you’re not supposed to. That’s the fun of it. Or maybe the danger.

I see him before he sees me. The long curly hair, the huge septum piercing. You know he doesn’t work a 9 to 5, he’s got other things on his mind. He’s wearing a neon traffic vest and he slips me a little plastic baggie. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s actually the opposite. It’s a stash of harm reduction supplies: different color straws so you can keep track of what you’re sniffing, a clean plastic card to cut drugs with, a pamphlet that walks you through how to administer Narcan. I don’t use, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a don’task-don’t-tell type of operation.

I smile at him, say thank you. He keeps it short, I know he’s busy. It’s a Saturday night at a speakeasy off Broad Street. Wading through the sea of leather outfits and face piercings, he’s a modern day Mother Teresa. Our guerilla medic and guardian angel Adam Olivar is every raver’s protector.

It wasn’t always raves. Olivar started attending punk shows in his hometown of Tucson, Arizona, when he was only 18. A newbie to the mosh-pits and metal gigs, Olivar was finding his footing when one of his friends passed away from an accidental overdose. This initial incident triggered a chain of drugrelated deaths that haunted the Tucson scene for years to come. Alarmed and let down by the lack of resources, one of Olivar’s friends started to supply harm reduction supplies, including Narcan, to shows around the city.

As we all know, the onset of the pandemic in 2020 brought things to a screeching halt. It meant the end of shows for the foreseeable future. It meant the end of temporary tattoo tramp stamps and Jersey club mixes. It didn’t mean the end of drug use. In fact there were more than 99,000 deaths by drug overdose in the U.S. during the first 12 months of the pandemic alone. That’s a nearly 30% increase from just a year before.

However, Olivar continued to distribute harm reduction supplies despite the dystopian social distancing that shut down the scene. In 2021 he moved to Philly, coincidentally right when the electronic music scene really started to take off. I mean really. I’m not talking about a random Charli XCX song thrown in your boyfriend’s DJ set, I’m talking about Jewelsea

and Pumpfake, about Ice Spice in the mix before Rolling Stone started hyping her. The Philly DJs knew what was cool before the rest of the world did. They predicted drill coming back, they started the outdoor raves before Brooklyn could catch up. DJs were coming down from New York to peep the set up at Bartram’s Garden, to hit the mythical 6 a.m. McDonalds run while everyone was coming down in the drive-through, DJ decks thrown in the backseat and poppers being passed around.

Olivar, like every red-blooded American, had his life-changing moment on the Fourth of July when he went to his first rave. There were about 600 kids in some secret location around Fairmount. That’s the thing about promoters, they never tell you where you’re going. You get texted cryptic directions 24 hours before and are told to follow the glow sticks and not to set off the alarms. You’ll find the path. Don’t worry.

But he did.

He saw kids hammered–the kind of hammered where you slur your words and can’t walk straight, magnified by the sketchy Ecstasy and nitrous oxide-induced laughter that leaves everyone confused because nothing was all that funny. Overwhelmed by the amount of people so smashed they could hardly stand, he realized not a single person had harm reduction supplies. If things went wrong there was no calling the cops, there was hardly any service in the area and what about the repercussions? These were mainly college kids in their early 20s; they had their whole lives ahead of them. A drug charge meant the end to all that potential, meant a graduation gown that would stay in their closet and an expulsion letter that would make their parents cry. That’s if everyone was lucky. That is if, god forbid, no one died.

“There was literally nobody,” says Olivar. “There was staff there but not anybody whose specific job there was to have eyes, to make sure nobody was going to hurt themselves. There was nobody with any harm reduction supplies and I was like, damn, that’s really fucked up.”

The first time Olivar brought harm reduction supplies to a rave, the bouncer handed him his money back. It was only a $5 cover but it didn’t matter. The collective, Odd Domain, was awestruck and appreciative, even more so when just a week later someone overdosed at their rave near Eden’s Temple, an abandoned tunnel deep in the woods with spotty cell service.

“An hour or two into the function a girl overdosed,” says Olivar. “One of my friends grabbed me and pulled me across the tunnel and had me help this girl. Luckily she was with a couple of really big dudes who were able to like carry her out of the forest.”

Olivar now carries a medic bag that was a present from his dad. He keeps everything from a portable stretcher to EpiPens on deck. The reality is you never know who is going to need what, and let me tell you, no one is coming to help you.

First held in secret locations, raves emerged in the early 1980s when European techno and American house music started to gain popularity. They quickly became a safe haven for members of the LGBTQ+ community and short-hand for stuff that happened beyond the reaches of law enforcement. Call it a safe haven or the coolest party you’ve ever been to, it was exciting and deviated from the status quo. “It’s not just partying for a lot of people,” says Olivar. “It means a lot more than clubs, drugs, and dancing.”

It’s no secret that drug culture and illicit activity is part of the allure of raves. The body glitter, the B2B sets (when 2 DJs switch off songs during the same set), the lexicon of jungle, techno, trance, drum and bass, etc. This secret alternate world is addicting. You feel cool, walk with confidence. You also face the consequences.

We’ve all sat through middle school health class, when the gym teacher/football coach/ health teacher rolls in the TV from 2001 and someone drones on about the danger of drugs. It’s so boring, you probably texted on your flip phone under the table. You don’t think about it until all of a sudden you’re forced to. Maybe it’s at an abandoned warehouse at 3 am, maybe it’s at “after’s” when someone can’t remember if they snorted K or coke. Whatever, it happens in a second and it’s scary.

Everyone who’s well versed in the scene has a story. It should probably scare people straight, but instead it warrants a “we don’t talk about that’’ glance around the room. It always starts off innocently enough. In this case she was only 20. You don’t need to know her name, you’ve seen her before. A little too messed up to be on the dance floor, sniffing Rush and swaying, sort of looking for a way out but determined to make it to the next set and maybe the one after that.

Her friend told me the story for the first time at a rave the week after. The friend was on acid and got a phone call from this girl,

who was slurring her words and unsure of what was going on. She didn’t really use drugs but for some reason she decided to splurge on some stuff from the street. Her friend got to the venue; the girl was disconcerted but nothing too crazy and besides “everyone was on something.”

The friend didn’t know exactly when things started going wrong. She didn’t notice anything that off. She said the girl just wanted to step outside.

Suddenly–like, super fast–it was out of control. After calling 911, the EMTs threatened to contact her university if she chose to go through with receiving help. She would lose her scholarship and student visa. She wouldn’t be able to graduate despite having an almost perfect GPA and extracurriculars. She could face drug charges. Sitting in the ambulance (which costs around $1,000 without insurance) it all came crashing in. So she ran away.

“She’s a scholarship student, she had multiple

internships,” says the friend. “That was all threatened and would be taken away. She was a senior and could have had her entire experience ruined because she wanted to seek medical attention and was on a substance.”

She was lucky her drugs weren’t laced. She had shared her location and had friends around the block who could pick her up. She wasn’t one of the girls who had Narcan shoved up their nose, who Olivar had to carry out of the woods on a portable stretcher with his fingers crossed. She got home safe. She made it to class on Monday.

That’s the thing, it’s all fun and games until it isn’t. I’ve never seen someone overdose, but I hear it happens before you know it. It’s cardiac arrest and someone’s lips turning blue. It can come a few minutes or a few hours after the initial intake.

“I have seen some honestly really dire situations at raves,” says the friend, “like where someone is on the ground and there are three or four paramedics doing real CPR procedures….People organizing raves now know that they need to have people there who know about the kinds of drugs people are taking too.”

With the anxiety that comes with asking for help and the scarlet letter you get slammed with as soon as you step out of line, it makes sense that renegade medics like Olivar are a necessity. He provides care free from the suffocating stigma and judgment that comes with law enforcement. He’s not showing up to debate your decisions, he’s simply there to ensure that people have access to safe supplies and support. With the 1,276 fatal drug overdoses in Philadelphia occurring in 2021 alone, it sounds an alarm that many are quick to ignore. It’s the most drug overdose deaths reported in a year in the city’s history, yet Olivar has to have a GoFundMe to purchase life-saving supplies.

As the opioid epidemic continues to rage across the country, it’s still seen as a taboo topic. There’s a sense of shame that clouds the conversation and keeps us in a chokehold. As Olivar says, “It’s definitely stigmatized because of how society feels about people who use drugs and listen to techno.” This mindset stunts progress, meaningful conversations, and education. I didn’t know what Narcan was until I started going to raves. I learned how to administer it in the back of a sweat-drenched

club sipping warm vodka from a plastic water bottle. Still, that five-minute tutorial could mean life or death one day.

“It falls under the radar because it’s a different problem,” says Olivar. “It’s a different group of people affected by the opioid epidemic that people don’t really think about. There are people dying in the streets, but also it does become an issue when people are dropping dead at the club.”

Still, in this secret world only ravers themselves can be the solution. They play by their own rules, and there’s a price to pay for secrecy. Sometimes that price is someone’s life.

What’s In His Bag?

Olivar’s medic bag, including bandages, testing strips, and other harm reduction supplies. It can be life saving or sort of casual-a band aid or a dose of Narcan. You can test your drugs to figure out if it’s laced with Fentanyl or get some gauze. He’ll be nice about it, really educational-these supplies are meant to be used.

As for the Narcan, you don’t have to wonder about when to administer it-you’ll know. It’s obvious-they’re a little ghostly, looking sick and are probably sitting on the floor, slurring their words, insisting they’ve never been this out of it before. Take the plastic packaging off and if you’re lucky they’re still standing, maybe swaying. It’s never going to hurt them if you do ityou’re either saving a life or letting someone die. Not on you-it’s just the reality. You have to be rough–shove the solvent up their nose and bank on the fact that there’s time for a reversal. It should happen--press the plunger at the bottom of the nozzle and the dose will hit quick. It needs to be common knowledge but it’s totally taboo.I don’t think it matters. It’s info you need to know and one day someone might still be around because of you.

Rapid Response Testing Strips

NO LAND

MAN’S

By Michela Jo Weber

Photos by Julia King

A new tattoo parlor in Fishtown doubles as a safe haven.

Kristel Oreto is the owner of Now and Forever Tattoo and an allaround badass. After spending years breaking down the barriers placed in front of female tattooers, Oreto opened Now and Forever Tattoo as a safe haven in Fishtown for women, non-binary and transgender tattooers.

A veteran in the tattoo industry and proud mother to sons in the LGBTQIA+ community, Oreto understands the odds stacked against any artist who is not a straight, cisgender male. Today, she serves as a pair of open arms welcoming artists of all identities and backgrounds. But 23 years ago she was facing rejection, mistreatment and stereotyping in her journey to become a tattooer.

“I got into the tattoo industry very young,” Oreto said. “At about 15, I met a tattoo artist through a friend who was getting tattooed by them. There was no social media at the time. There were no women tattooers on TV. There were just a few tattoo magazines, and they were hard to come by.” She didn’t have any female artists to look up to. But, after assisting the tattooer during her friend’s appointment,

Oreto absolutely fell in love.

From that point forward, Oreto was determined to establish her place in the tattoo industry. Her grit, perseverance and confidence were essential as she confronted owners of tattoo shops, who clung to gender stereotypes and out-of-date notions.

“I went to the owner of a tattoo shop and asked for an apprenticeship,” Oreto said. “His response was, ‘The only way a girl should be in a tattoo shop should be answering the phone or sucking dick.’”

Nothing adds fuel to a driven woman’s fire like doubt and rejection, and this man’s distasteful comments turned Oreto’s flame into an explosion. “I went to every tattoo shop in the county, then finally someone gave in and gave me an apprenticeship,” Oreto said. Of course, her uphill battle didn’t end there. Oreto continued to deal with fragile-egoed male artists, who couldn’t stand to witness the acceptance of a woman in the industry. “There was another tattooer working at that shop, and he said, ‘If you hire this girl I’m going to quit. Women aren’t allowed to tattoo,’” Oreto said.

“So, the owner put me on as an apprentice,

and that tattooer went to his station, packed up all of his shit and left.”

Oreto continued the apprenticeship for her last two years of high school. Once graduation hit, she began tattooing full-time. She’s been at it ever since.

She never could have predicted that Now and Forever would be in her future. It simply did not align with the path she was on; she was never in one place long enough to commit to a studio. “Before the pandemic, I used to travel the country doing one to three expos per month for 15 years,” Oreto said. “I would

Anna Outkin and Monica Rastogi are just two of the many artists who have joined Now and Forever Tattoos.

to act as her home base for the rare occasions she was in Philadelphia. But like the rest of her journey, nothing came easy. “The pandemic hit while I was in the process of opening the shop, and I thought ‘Oh my goodness, maybe I need to rethink this,’” Oreto said. “I just waited to see where the world went.”

Her friends and colleagues quickly found out about her plans for a private studio, and began planting seeds in her head. Tattooers began reaching out to her with horror stories about their tattooing journeys and unhappiness in their current studios. Without realizing, Oreto accrued a collective of lady tattooers.

“These stories that are going on are similar stories to what I was dealing with 20 years ago,” Oreto said. “If I was dealing with it 20 years ago, why should these young ladies be dealing with it now?” She took the women under her wing, and cultivated an environment of acceptance, warmth and support. “I’ve given my whole heart and soul to this place,” Oreto said.

Her passion and enthusiasm for creating a comforting and welcoming environment has

going

been wholly translated to artists and clients alike. Oreto’s compassion and acceptance has drawn people into the studio, creating diversity and growth in every aspect. “We’ve definitely grown,” Oreto said. “We have a lot more guest artists, and we have a little bit more of a variety of styles…Before, I only had lady tattooers on staff, and now I have non binary tattooers, trans tattooers, and lady tattooers.”

Now and Forever is not a one-woman show. Each tattooer at the studio shares Oreto’s devotion to creating a space where comfort is king, creativity can thrive, and everyone is free to be themselves. There’s a mutual understanding among everyone who enters that this is not a typical tattoo shop. “I feel at home while working there…As someone who is part of the LGBTQ community I’ve felt safe and comfortable being myself in this studio,” tattooer Anna Outkin said. “Everyone has been so accepting and open-minded. It feels like such a safe space to work in.”

For some clients, visiting Now and Forever is a healing experience. Meaningful efforts from the artists to ensure comfort, the soothing music, and overall ambience

sexually assault them during the tattoo,” Oreto said. “When they came to get the cover-up, they said that they felt a lot safer.”

The studio has proven to be a sanctuary for tattooers and clients to explore their passions, find themselves, and relax in the comfort of the environment. Now and Forever is more than just a tattoo shop. The atmosphere created by Oreto has provided people with a sense of belonging, and will continue to do so.

“I don’t see us going anywhere. We’re staying right here,” Oreto said. “It’s just going to continue to be a revolving door of artists, and always a place where clients have a variety of different styles and tattooers.”

I don’t see us

anywhere. We’re staying right here.

ROMANTIC

THE MOST BAR IN PHILLY IS...

If you’re spending your Friday night barhopping in Center City, you’re probably not expecting to meet the love of your life. In fact, if you were expecting that, I would probably tell you to get a grip. But if you’re going to McGillin’s Olde Ale House, it’s not so far-fetched.

The bar, originally founded by Irish immigrants in 1860, is the city’s longest continuously operating tavern. But that’s not the only record McGillin’s holds. According to their website, more couples have met at McGillin’s than anywhere else in Philadelphia

Greg Mangano, a 33-year-old Connecticut native, was visiting friends in Philadelphia in 2018 when he left his debit card at McGillin’s on a busy weekend evening. He planned to stop in to pick up his card on his way back to Connecticut that Sunday.

But when he returned to McGillin’s for his card, he met Christina DeVito, 29.

“I was having a Sunday Funday,” DeVito said with a laugh.

It was a fun day indeed. DeVito and her friends struck up a conversation with Mangano and convinced him to stay another couple of days in Philly. The rest is history. Greg brought Christina back to McGillin’s in May 2022 and proposed.

“I had a few ideas, but I couldn’t think of a better place than where we actually met,” he said.

The pair is getting married in New Rochelle, New York this November and are proud dog parents to Ophelia the Great Dane.

Twenty years before Greg and Christina, Jennifer and Phil Denne bumped into each other at McGillin’s months after chatting at a party in the late 1990s.

“He asked for my phone number and I didn’t want to give it, so I gave him my email address. That’s how old we are,” Jennifer said.

For his part, Phil said he distinctly

By Maria Utz

MCGILLIN’S ?

remembered ‘Closing Time’ by Semisonic playing. Very late 90s. Since then, the Dennes have gotten married, moved to Newtown Square, Pennsylvania and had three children who are now 17, 14 and 11.

Thirty years before the Dennes met, and long before Christina and Greg were even born, Helen and Charles Bowes met at McGillin’s in 1967. Helen wasn’t looking to meet anyone that day, but she ended up talking to Charles after one of his friends started flirting with Helen’s friend.

Despite Helen’s protests, her friend went home with the man she had met, leaving Helen to get home to Olney by herself.

But Charles was a gentleman.

“He got on the subway with me. He took me all the way up to the end of the line, walked me to my door. Then he got back on the subway again because his car was out in West Philadelphia where he lived. But he saw me home to my door. That’s when I thought, ‘he’s a nice guy.’ So he said, ‘What’s your phone number?’ And I wrote my phone number down on the inside of the match book and gave it to him.”

Over 50 years later, the Bowes live in Lansdowne PA, they have two daughters old enough to be my mother and have had “dogs, cats, fish and snakes.”

Chris Mullins Jr., whose parents have owned the beloved bar for 30 years, estimated that around 500 couples have met at McGillin’s since it opened in 1860. Mullins estimated that he’s heard from over a hundred and fifty couples since he and his parents started keeping track in 2010.

“Growing up, you always heard stories like people saying, like, ‘oh, my grandparents met there, my parents met there,’ you’re just like, kind of, ‘oh, that’s cool. That’s really awesome.’ And you process it casually. But then after it started, like happening more and more and more, we realized we need to report these people.” Mullins said.

So Love Letters, a book signed by dozens of McGillin’s couples, was born. There are engagement photos, wedding photos and family photos featuring adorable McGillin’s babies.

One page features photos from Gaby and Chris Gock’s wedding. Gaby, a longtime

McGillin’s manager, met her husband Chris when he came in for wing night.

Gaby must really love her job, because the couple had their wedding at McGillin’s. The bar has hosted “three or four” weddings to date, according to Mullins.

Other McGillin’s couples include a woman who met her future husband right before she was going to enter a convent, a pair of coworkers who sat down with a table of FBI agents and brothers who both met their spouses at McGillin’s.

So why have so many couples met at McGillin’s? Is it because it’s been open longer than anywhere else? Is the beer really strong? Is it the luck o’ the Irish?

“It’s casual. People don’t put on pretenses when they come here. The way we seat is a very communal kind of seating. So you might be sitting here and meet people next door, and then you just hit it off, ” Mullins said.

“And the beer probably helps a little bit.”

Hundreds of happy couples had their meet-cute here. Who knew?

The Original

r I o t r g R Ls

Way back in 1980-something, while at a British goth concert, a photographer passed along an opportunity at a local alternative music magazine to a fellow young photographer. Looking to pursue both craft and passion, Sandra Davis reached out to Terminal! Magazine, not forgetting to mention she had a friend, a writer, Sandra Garcia, up for the job as well. Fast forward: the duo landed the gig.

“The best thing about working at Terminal!?” agreed the Sandys, “Meeting Carol Schutzbank,” Terminal!’s senior editor and a Temple alumna. The Sandys and Carol’s time working together at Terminal!, however, was short-lived. With the publisher on the fritz, the magazine was not printed consistently, until Terminal!’s publisher eventually vanished altogether, leaving the staff in the dark.

“We waited while she debated,” Davis recalled of Carol as she looked for a solution. In the meantime, she and Garcia began laying the groundwork for a new magazine, B-Side. With a loan from their parents, the brainchild, born of abandoned tools and a female trio with a passion for alternative music culture, launched its first issue in November 1986. Cabaret Voltaire graced the pilot cover, marking what is remembered as “a scary yet exciting time; the start of a journey.”

For 10 years Schutzbank, Garcia, and Davis filled the pages of B-Side, front to back, with a-list interviews, album reviews, photoshoots, and segments like the “totally biased awards.” Even from Philadelphia, they maintained an international staff, with volunteer contributors from every major city in the country, the United Kingdom, and Iceland. Yes, a single contributor in Iceland.

Over the course of a decade, B-Side had its triumphs. Attending music conferences, sticking it to the man, and collaborating with alternative music’s major artists, all while working alongside your friends seems

Shutzbank

r

by Gianna Salamone

almost too good to be true. Life, however, is not a promised linear progression of all things good and losses are inevitable; like the untimely passing of Carol Schutzbank in December 1995. Website tributes and internet forums remember her as a “pioneer of the Philadelphia music scene,” as she was a board member and instrumental to the founding of the Delaware Valley Music Poll Awards. By no means limiting herself to one job, Carol also wrote for multiple music publications, worked as a promoter, and managed two Philly-based bands, Electric Love Muffin and Ruin. After the loss of a great friend and senior editor, B-Side disbanded shortly after.

“I thought I knew how to write when I started,” admitted Sandy Garcia, “but when I look back, the quantity of typos in the early interviews and articles were appalling.” A young, shy writer between day jobs, Garcia was certainly no Barbra Walters when it came to sitting down to interview bands. There were no straight-backed interview chairs in a creepily well-lit room. No teleprompter cycling through the interview questions she had prepared. In fact, the absence of formality was just how Garcia liked it. She dressed her interviews like casual conversations as she spoke to her subjects from under her “fellow artist” cap, not a journalist’s. Some got it. Some asked “what her intent was”, waiting for that “gotcha!” moment. But those anticipated moments never came. “That was never my goal,” she said. “I wanted to know the thought behind the music, the emotions, the creativity that sparked their art.”

Across the artistic mediums, in B-Side’s early days, it was hard for Sandy Davis not to be left star-struck when she posed bands for shoots; a task way more intimate than filming the live performances she was used to. How does one tell Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries to turn her head slightly to the right and still manage to keep their cool?

Carol

“When I overcame that,” shared Davis, “I was able to plan with props and themes to make the portrait images like Tori Amos with a crystal ball, Alanis Morrisette with feathers, and Siouxsie (of Banshees fame) with roses.” Just like Garcia in writing, Davis began to develop her craft further.

Learning how to run a magazine was difficult. Learning how to run a magazine as three young women in a male-dominated industry during the late ‘80s and ‘90s was a battle. “In the grand scheme of things, we were the cliché babes in the woods,” Garcia explained. “We had no idea that other magazines sold their front covers to guarantee a back cover. Others sold their front cover to have a record label pay to cover their print run,” Davis chimed in. “I called it intellectual prostitution.”

The world of print journalism, to those unfamiliar, is just like Monopoly on steroids. On top of passion and craft, there was an entire systematic game to learn. To newcomers, the board and its players were at times less than welcoming. The Sandys and B-Side still had something no other magazine had: they had a Carol Schutzbank to guide the way. “The good thing about starting a magazine in Philly was that Carol already knew key players in the city’s music scene,” said Davis. “If a record company forgot to put us on the guest list, we didn’t need to argue about gaining backstage access for interviews.”

Even as a women-run publication, B-Side was slighted by other women in the magazine industry. “The biggest slap in the face,” as Garcia explained it, came when Print magazine, ironically a magazine for magazine designers, ran an article asking “Why Are There No Female Run Fanzines?” In case the situation lacked any irony, the writer of Print’s article was also a woman. “She never bothered to contact us.”

“But Sandy G., never one to take a slight,” recalled Davis proudly, “wrote a scathing letter decrying journalistic laziness of the writer. They published the

letter, and that gained the little old female-run magazine great attention.”

One year during the New Music Seminar, a major music conference held in New York, the B-Side found itself as a topic of conversation on the all-male-panel floor. “We didn’t care that we were never called to be on a panel, but we always wondered why Carol never gained a space,” said Davis. “During one NMS, a fellow journalist stood up and demanded to know why Carol was not on the panel. Of course, Carol demurred. So many other journalists in the audience cheered and stomped until they put another chair at the male panel and welcomed Carol to the party. It was wonderful.”

At the end of the workday, rather than amicably part ways in the elevator, fleeing the obligation to ask about their colleague’s weekend plans, the Sandys and Carol were often part of each other’s plans. More than colleagues, the trio were great friends. They met up for dinner, attended music conferences, and caught shows together when they could. The office’s inside joke was that Carol was B-Side’s personality. A devout metal, thrash, and hardcore punk enthusiast, she guided the Sandys on which artists to cover in those genres, only occasionally stopping to argue about who would be featured on the next front cover.

“When Carol suffered her heart attack, we felt like the world had been thrown from its axis,” agreed both Sandys. “Granted, Carol had health issues, but a serious heart attack at age 35? Unreal. We will never forget visiting her in the hospital. She sat in her bed showing us her heart x-ray. Fifty percent of her heart was damaged. She acted like ‘Hey, I still have half of it working!’”

The Sandys are not the only ones who can attest to Carol’s

always “glass half full” mentality; one of the several online tributes to Carol recalls how she continued to conduct press interviews from her Temple University Hospital bed, calling her “selfless and committed, but more than anything else, determined.” While she recovered from her heart transplant, the Sandys made the trek to Temple University Hospital every other night. “I don’t even want to think about that tragic final night,” admitted Davis. “Carol truly was a force of nature, and so many people loved her.”

Blood may be thicker than water, and in some cases, you’re lucky enough to have a family connected by music. Josh Schutzbank, the founder of Hot Pot Records, an independent record label in the greater Philadelphia area, knows that if it were not for his Aunt Carol’s contributions to the Philly music scene, he would never have stepped foot in the business. Schutzbank’s decision to step foot into the industry is no doubt a testament to his aunt’s contributions to the music world, but his musical love affair began with stories of her priceless physical music collection. : “My aunt had an insane vinyl collection filled with demos and raw records from huge bands. After my aunt’s passing, my father and grandparents went to her landlord to discuss her ongoing lease. The landlord offered to void the rest of the lease if he could have her entire collection in return.”

“They agreed,” he lamented.

Since Carol’s passing and B-Side’s disbandment in the late nineties, the Sandys agree: women are beginning to have a better chance in the world of music journalism. Navigating the birth of a music magazine as three young women nearly thirty years ago was expected to have disadvantages. Yet as the ladies of B-Side proved, being left out of the conversation was not an option–at least not without a stern letter.

THE SECRETS OF A SUGAR BABY

Red envelopes, fancy dinners, Paris vacations ...it’s a sweet life.

By Anonymous

When I really think about it, I don’t know why more people don’t dive into the sugar baby life. Maybe my moral compass is off and it points slightly left of North, but somewhere along the way certain things stopped seeming all that bad to me. Capitalism put me in a chokehold and I fell in love with money. I never understood the saying “money doesn’t buy happiness,” because it surely can. I’d rather be crying on a yacht than in my Philadelphia living room – that’s just a fact.

However, being a sugar baby isn’t that simple if you’re naive, but if you’re able to sift through the bullshit you could be making upwards of $5,000 a week, plus gifts, and the occasional trip to Paris if you’re committed to it. It’s a job, but a fun job, where the stakes are low and there’s nothing to lose.

When I first moved to Philly from New York, I worked in marketing and merchandising for an international footwear company. I was making decent money, but nowhere near enough to keep up with the way I was used to living. A friend suggested I get back into the sugar baby scene, but the majority of men I met since I moved gave me pause. Most of them were either secretly married, pretended to be doing better in life than they actually were, had huge egos and little dicks, or couldn’t hold a conversation because they were only looking for hookups. Did Philadelphia even have any sugar daddies? Or would I have to set my sights on a Sixers player? I didn’t have the time for that, nor was I looking to “date” an athlete or musician. I just wanted a regular guy, with no-out-of-the-ordinary kinks, that could supplement my income.

Luckily, you can find literally anything on the internet if you know where to look, and what to look for. Any man can fabricate his net worth, the key is not to treat this like internet dating where you get to know this information, but you sift through it beforehand. I was interviewing an employee, all from the comfort of my phone. Being from New York, my ability to sniff out bullshit is comparable to a drug-sniffing police dog,

It was exciting, it was thrilling, and more than anything it wasn’t sleazy.

it’s near impossible to get anything past me. When you’ve been a manipulator and a liar, you can see manipulation and lies as clear as day.

So I signed up for the Seeking Arrangements website, and looked for my Philly cash cow. Scrolling through numerous profiles, there were so many different men. Old, young, finance bros, dentists, lawyers, business owners, married men with children, and the often profile of a clearly broke man with a Gucci belt and a fabricated net worth of a million plus.

Within two days, I had about 20 messages from men, and a couple of women. This is where a skill to sift out frauds comes into play. Initial messages ranged from the usual: You’re beautiful, would you want to grab dinner to see if we click? What are you looking for in an arrangement? Overly sexual questions, like favorite positions and am I willing to get pissed on Tell me a little about yourself and what you’re looking for in a ‘daddy’ and the ultimate narcissist message where they exaggerate what they’ve done in life, where they’ve been and how they have so much money.

Because I’m from New York, and I grew up around old money, new money, no money, and money solely on credit, it’s easier for me to read between the lines.

If you really have money, like have have money, you don’t need to talk about it, because the way you live, act and carry yourself emulates it. Money speaks for itself, so if you’re doing too much talking, then you’re either trying to convince me or yourself, and that’s a red flag.

After a back and forth with some men that didn’t seem completely full of shit, I decided to get lunch with a 56-year-old business owner, who wasn’t overly confident or sexual, and during our exchange prioritized making me feel comfortable, letting me know he had done this before, and wanted to be in only one arrangement with one person. He asked me what type of food I liked, suggested a place and time and that was that.

We had lunch at one of my favorite Mexican places in Old City. The conversation flowed well, he was genuinely interested in learning about me, and showed no signs of narcissism–which many sugar daddies lean towards.

I didn’t have to do any negotiating. I would see him once a week. We would grab lunch or dinner, see a show, pretty much whatever I wanted to do. He would get me a room at the Ritz and a cute red envelope with $2000 would be on the nightstand upon my arrival. It was exciting, it was thrilling, and more than anything it wasn’t sleazy. He was respectful, dependable, and became an important person in my life. Also, I love money, so there was that. Had he been a jerkoff would I have still entered into this “arrangement” if the price was right? I don’t know, my tolerance for disrespect is lower than low, but my love of money and the mobility it brings is pretty damn high. Luckily, I’ve never felt degraded by a sugardaddy. But I’ve damn sure felt that from previous boyfriends for free.

Being a sugar baby was the best job I’ve ever had. The stigma aroundit will never make sense to me, but like anything where women don’t conform to misogynistic and outdated gender expectations and take pride in their bodily autonomy, people will look down on me and what I’ve done. They will say I’m a slut. Ask why I can’t get a real job. Shame me in the hopes that I feel bad about my choices…I won’t and I don’t.

No, it’s definitely not for everyone (although I really don’t get why), but if I’m ever single again, it’s the first thing I’d go back to. I fucking loved it.

BRAN FLAKEZZ’S

GUIDE TO PHILLY

By Maria Utz

In any other city, Bran Flakes is just a mediocre cereal. But in Philadelphia, “Bran Flakezz” is a microcelebrity, social media influencer and the people’s patron saint of partying.

Brandon Edelman, 26, known as “Bran Flakezz” to his 400,000 TikTok followers, posts online about which Philly bars are worth the hype, where to find the best happy hour deals and how to have a “feral” (Bran Flakezz’s vernacular for “wild”) night out with friends in the city.

I’ve heeded some of his advice myself. Edelman has often said that Uptown Beer Garden is one of the best places to go during Center City Sips, the weekly summertime city-wide happy hour. Naturally, I went there for my first-ever Sips experience last summer and it did not disappoint. So I spoke to Bran Flakezz to find out what his other top Philly spots are.

FIRST STOP: SECOND STOP:

Favorite bar for a feral night out?

Probably Voyeur. That’s where I like, love to be. I love the music there. I love that it stays open

THIRD STOP:

I love going to Figo in Northern Liberties because I love Italian food. And you can get like $6 pizzas. $7 meatball sandwiches and fries. That’s, like, my

FIFTH STOP:

Favorite bar for a chill night?

In the gayborhood there’s a bar called U-Bar. It’s a very queer-safe space. Just, like, good energy. It’s just big enough where you can sit down but also can get rowdy if you want to. It’s like it has a dive bar feel.

FOURTH STOP:

Favorite date night location?

Oh god, this is tough. I really like Via Locusta. I think the food is so so good. It has great espresso martinis. Love it there.

Bonus Question- what advice do you have for people who are new to Philly?

Literally talk to everybody. Everyone here is pretty friendly, pretty real, pretty down to earth. I would say that it can be intimidating to make friends because 60% of the city is people who grew up in the outskirts, Jersey suburbs, Philly suburbs, you know, so sometimes it can feel like everyone already knows each other, but there’s always room for friends. Also, be prepared to eat some of the best food ever.