A Virtual Love Letter to Queen Village

by Hilary Siegal Young

If you enjoy Instagram, you may already be following @TheQueenVillager, which quietly launched in 2016. Today, more than 1300 people follow this account, which documents people, places, and happenings of interest within our community. Since we’ve been friends for years, I sat down with the neighbor behind the account, Kristina Lohre, over a glass (or two) of wine at Cry Baby Pasta to find out what sparks her creativity most.

What inspired you to create The Queen Villager Instagram account?

KL: I have to give part of the credit to my husband, Bill Lohre, who runs a really interesting art ‘gram, @WinslowSeldom. I was a bit jealous of the interesting connections he was making in the art world and wondered what interests of mine might go beyond a handle and get me interacting with my community “in real life.” I decided to document my love affair with Queen Village because after two years of living here I was pretty much head over heels, so it just made sense for me to spread the love. I also need to credit amazing neighborhood business owners—such as Jeremy Olsen of RareCo. Vintage, Ginger of the sorely missed Soap Box, Mariel of Three Queens Yoga, Kelsey and Chloe of Red Hook Coffee, and pretty much every worker at Philly AIDS Thrift. All of these fine folks and many more have created unique and welcoming homes away from home for us all.

How do you choose what you share on the account?

KL: I share anything that I stumble upon as I’m walking our streets (posters, displays, people) or any odd thing that really lights me up (film, graffiti, moss). Our neighborhood has so much vibrant street art and seeking it out is a passion of mine, so that’s a recurring theme in my posts. I also like to keep things positive. The majority of my posts are about events or visuals that are close to home but I also like to help expose our neighbors to some of the exciting happenings across the city and beyond.

What was your most popular post about? KL: My followers have been the most fanatic about street art, activism, and food. I just checked out my stats and it will come as no surprise that my most popular post included pictures from Cry Baby’s opening night! What did surprise me is that the most-watched video was one of me and my bursting heart when I reached 1K followers last year. It was the first time I featured myself on a post and I hadn’t realized that a lot of my followers were wondering who the human was behind @TheQueenVillager. I’m a bit shy about posting pics of myself but it was fun to surprise some of my friends around the neighborhood, like the Cohens and the Fleishmans, who hadn’t known I had been the one posting about their stores.

What do you enjoy most about running this Instagram account?

KL: I get a lot of joy in spreading the word about our local businesses and events. It’s been fun to join the ranks of local ‘grams like @FabricRow and @QueenVillagePhila in their quest for community and camaraderie. I also have met the most amazing people and those relationships have opened up my world in awesome ways. Just a few months ago, I went to an opening at Paradigm Gallery, and got to meet a hero of mine, Darryl McCray, aka Cornbread, the godfather of graffiti. Now we are getting together every month to brainstorm on ways we can collaborate with storytelling and film. I am a psychotherapist by trade, but having creative outlets like @TheQueenVillager and working on my latest screenplay or film project really help me to create balance in my life. ■