Tag Archives: Philadelphia

A Word on Urban Redevelopment

It’s not a social good in and of itself. 

I also won­der if folks who are all devel­op­ment uber alles still con­cern them­selves with things like “sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” which seems to be a watch­word among the gen­tri­fy­ing classes.

The knee-jerk reac­tion to build things like music venues in blight­ed areas is tan­ta­mount to “drill, baby, drill.” Do you real­ly want to be asso­ci­at­ed with that?

An Open Letter to Mayor Michael Nutter

Dear May­or Nutter,

I vot­ed for you because I thought you best rep­re­sent­ed what the City need­ed. I had my doubts, but thought that you’d be the best man for the job. I felt sure of it when I shook your hand after your vic­to­ry at City Hall sta­tion on my way to work.

A year lat­er I was­n’t so sure. You and I had an awk­ward inter­ac­tion at a Fels event. I asked you about the casi­no. You were upset and gave your rote answer. I don’t even remem­ber it. I tried approach­ing you after­ward not just to explain myself, but to give you a chance to turn on the charm and con­nect with a vot­er. You did­n’t. You tried to avoid me. When I caught up to you, you told me if I did­n’t like the casi­no, I could move. “It’s a big city,” you said.

Anoth­er year passed. You man­aged to sur­vive a tricky win­ter, despite the fact that the streets were in awful con­di­tion. May­ors in Chica­go lose elec­tions over stuff like this. The city streets were an insur­ance night­mare! I know it was record snow­fall, but does­n’t that mean city ser­vices should rise to the chal­lenge in the name of pub­lic safe­ty, or was it enough to don an Action News cap and give us updates?

You have about a year to turn this thing around. I know that the bud­get’s a mess, but you haven’t done a great job of accen­tu­at­ing the pos­i­tive. Going after the libraries was a dumb move, even as part of brinks­man­ship. You lost cred­i­bil­i­ty with the geek crowd from whence you came. You accept­ed an award from the library the night you threat­ened to close neigh­bor­hood branch­es. It sick­ened me and many peo­ple in my neigh­bor­hood. It real­ly hurt those of us who thought that you’d have a greater degree of sophis­ti­ca­tion than your predecessor.

What­ev­er hap­pened to the bul­ly pul­pit? Where’s the pas­sion, man? What did you tru­ly believe in in the first place? Was it all just a pro­gres­sive facade?

You know what? I start­ed writ­ing this let­ter to con­demn your cam­paign. I want­ed to blame you for giv­ing us false hope. But that’s not good enough. I want you to prove me wrong. I want you to wow me in the time you have remain­ing in office. Do you think you can? Do you think you can go to bat for Philadel­phi­ans and show them that you are indeed the bright bulb we thought we elected?

I know your job isn’t easy, but you knew that, too. Don’t just throw these dif­fi­cult deci­sions in vot­ers faces. It’s child­ish. Rise to the occa­sion and show us what you have. We still want to know about your ideas on tech­nol­o­gy, on your plans for the waterfront…heck, tell us more about bike lanes! Show us where you want to go. All hope isn’t lost, but you need to step up and lead. Can you?

The Matter of David Grasso’s New Club

Two local blogs I fol­low dogged­ly now are Plan Philly and Brown­ston­er’s Philly branch. I real­ly got into the for­mer when I start­ed notic­ing bylines from my online bud­dy Bri­an James Kirk. I noticed that the site real­ly picked up steam and was on top of all the cool devel­op­ment issues and the not-so-cool ones, too. Same for Brown­ston­er. They do the thank­less work that green reporters do: attend zon­ing hear­ings and watch real estate trans­ac­tions to see who’s buy­ing what and why. I’m real­iz­ing in this moment that this is why I love Foo­booz’s restau­rant death­watch so much.

As I’ve said like 1,000 times before, I got a degree in urban polit­i­cal econ­o­my before I found myself get­ting a steady pay­check for know­ing things about folks like Bey­once and Rihan­na. Stuff like this, bor­ing as it may seem, real­ly excites me. And some­times those worlds collide!

Such is the case with talk of a new music venue not so far from my home here in Port Fish­ing­ton or Olde Rich­mond as our sil­ly neigh­bor­hood asso­ci­a­tion likes to call it. It strikes me as a com­plete non-starter, not only because that stretch of road is some of the most des­o­late with­in walk­ing dis­tance, but also because why in the hell does Philadel­phia need anoth­er music venue that size? Do they know the live music busi­ness is cra­ter­ing all around us? Is Live Nation real­ly that des­per­ate to find a new and cre­ative way to lose mon­ey in a mar­ket they already lost?

Aes­thet­i­cal­ly, Gras­so’s design looks like World Cafe Live! on steroids, which is to say, a venue I don’t vis­it often on steroids. (For the record, I’ve been to World Cafe Live! twice and I’ve nev­er paid.) I’ll grant that there’s an off chance it suc­ceeds if artists like Rihan­na, et. al. feel like the Bor­ga­ta is insuf­fi­cient to their “pre­mi­um expe­ri­ence” demands. But I have a hard time believ­ing that the hard luck crowd hit­ting Sug­ar­House is going to schlep up Rich­mond for a big bucks con­cert lat­er in the evening.

It’s inter­est­ing to read David Gras­so’s own com­ment on Philebri­ty, where I’m sure many folks hip to the scene heard of this for the first time. Gras­so address­es the gaunt­let he alleged­ly threw down at the Elec­tric Fac­to­ry, the venue most like­ly affect­ed should his new project go for­ward. You can read his defense here.

I’ve been in Philadel­phia and on the music scene for a sol­id sev­en years. I’ve seen the rise and fall of great music venues, includ­ing the North Star and the Khy­ber. I’ve seen the res­ur­rec­tion of the Tow­er. I’ve watched as Clear Chan­nel strug­gled once they lost their monop­oly on the mar­ket. I’m hon­est­ly sur­prised to see Sean Agnew hav­ing the suc­cess he has, and I’m hap­py for him. Does that mean that Gras­so deserves to build a music empo­ri­um that would direct­ly com­pete with a venue like the Elec­tric Fac­to­ry? Hardly.

I know lots of folks think that the only solu­tion to “save” the Philadel­phia water­front is to devel­op it as intense­ly as pos­si­ble, with­out care for sus­tain­abil­i­ty. I strong­ly dis­agree. I think that if there are areas worth pre­serv­ing, or even reclaim­ing, as pub­lic space, then that should be the rule, rather than arbi­trar­i­ly auc­tion­ing tracts of land to devel­op­ers who don’t seem to under­stand the future of their busi­ness. I’d hate to see this become the fan­ci­est dol­lar store in Port Rich­mond in five years.

We Ate at Zahav

I promised Helen at least 12 date nights last Christ­mas and I’ve been doing my best to keep up my end of the bar­gain with the help of friends and fam­i­ly. We final­ly got around to Zahav last Fri­day. (Fair warn­ing: their web­site enables sound. It’s loud.)

We got the three course tast­ing menu, along with the wine pair­ing. We weren’t dis­ap­point­ed. Tried lamb tartare, called kebbe naya, and it blew my mind. It was so lus­cious it just melt­ed in my mouth and the grilled avo­ca­do was a pleas­ant fin­ish. Drank arak for the first time, too. If you’re into licorice-fla­vored liqueurs, I high­ly recommend.

If you’re look­ing to try some­thing new, def­i­nite­ly hit it up. They have some great hap­py hour spe­cials if you’re just look­ing to try it out before you get a reservation.

In Praise of Two Guys on Beer

There’s some­thing amiss in the Philly beer blo­gos­phere, if you ask me. Lew’s been crazy busy with more impor­tant things, like send­ing his son to col­lege, not to men­tion fin­ish­ing up that book. (Con­grats on both, Dad!) Ram­blin’ Jack has been a lit­tle heavy on the press releas­es late­ly in anci­ti­pa­tion of launch­ing a new site, which has been post­poned, per his lat­est post. Beer­lass has been doing her thing, but her blog tends to make me more hun­gry than thirsty. Love Joe Six­pack, but hate philly.com too much to find his stuff.  Where do I turn for more beer insight?

I’ve been tweet­ing recent­ly with Dave Mar­torana, half of the Two Guys on Beer duo. They have a video pod­cast, which you can also view at their YouTube chan­nel. Nat­u­ral­ly, I’m eat­ing crow here as they haven’t record­ed since the World Cup end­ed, but I think that’s due to some shenani­gans at Indy Hall. Dav­e’s been great about rec­om­mend­ing oth­er video pod­casts to me, like Beer Tap TV and Two Beer Queers.

Thing that’s great about video pod­casts now? They look great on your iPhone 4. Seri­ous­ly. Amaz­ing. I was total­ly over pod­cast­ing. The word just turned me off and the prod­uct often was­n’t much bet­ter. You know what changed all that? HD tech­nol­o­gy. Every­thing looks and sounds awe­some, and you can watch while you ride the train to work! Per­fect, bite-sized morsels of beery goodness.

But you know what? I want more! Rec­om­mend your favorite beer writ­ers and pod­cast­ers. I love local folks, but I want to know who your favorites are. It always helps to refresh sources and I feel like I’m long over­due for some good­ies. Drop your rec­om­men­da­tions in the com­ments so I can check ’em out!