Cheesesteaks' far superior, vegetarian-friendly Philly cousin.
Some people bike for affordable housing. Some people bike for mad street cred in France. And some people bike for getting places, we guess. But forget all of them; there are those who bike for a way worthier cause, and that cause is pretzels. Soft innards, a crispy shell, and salt the size of those crystals they throw on the street when it snows? Pretzels are so totally twisted. Literally!
In honor of the feature in tomorrow’s issue of 34th Street, which follows these valiant riders on a weekly pretzel mission, we present to you after the jump our top three Philly pretzel palaces that bring Philly its twisty, salty, fame. Get on your fixed gear and tell these pretzel princes to throw it in the (paper) bag.
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One of our biggest and most important responsibilities is finding out what people are saying behind your back and telling you. I mean, what are friends for, right?
That’s why today we’re back with a third installation of TwitPenn. The Twitterverse has been talking about your school, and as hard as it is to repeat, we think you should know what they’re saying.
So keep reading, and maybe stop rolling one pant leg up.
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Mayor Nutter will be on campus tonight at 7:30 in the Terrace Room of Claudia Cohen Hall, to talk to the Penn community about Philadelphia and the issues that matter to us, not some stuffy old politician with white hair and a jar of dentures beside his Tempurpedic and an absolutely boring personality. His speech will be followed by a Q & A session, so come prepared to ask hard hitting questions. We’ve got “What is your lunch meat of choice?” and, “Is it true that angels cry when I use bad language?” covered, so don’t steal those.
Be sure to send info/photos to underthebutton@gmail.com if you attend the event!
Let’s face it. The majority of us spend way more time on campus than we should. We’re in a city, for Pete’s sake! A city with lots of fun goings-on around every turn. So in an effort to bring Philly to you, we’ll be posting weekly weekend roundups, chock full of events that make crossing the Walnut St Bridge (or 41st St) totally worth your while. Enjoy the first edition, and be sure to check back for more!
(Asterisk denotes 21+ venue)
This week, NY Magazine gave our city a shout-out in the Travel section. Sure, the article, “Make a Craft Beer Run to Philadelphia” is geared towards weekend get-away-ers, but leaving University City counts for us. This weekend we’re particularly interested in checking out Tria’s Fermentation Class*, stopping at Monk’s* to try Russian River beer, which apparently has a cult following and cannot be found (on the East Coast) anywhere but Philadelphia, and getting an order of craft beer truffles at Verde.
But there’s far more to do this weekend than grow your beer-belly! You can also grow your food belly, right off campus at White Dog Cafe’s Dance of the Ripe Tomatoes Block Party! At this celebration of sustainable and humane farming, which starts at 6 p.m. and goes until 9 p.m., $25 will get you delicious food, one draft beer, lots of cool speakers, and live music!
When you’re done there, head to the North Star Bar, where WXPN will welcome Roman Candle*. The latest album from this Chapel Hill, N.C. band, Oh Tall Tree in the Ear, was named a “modern rock masterpiece” by Paste Magazine. If folk isn’t your style, try anti-folk by hitting up Johnny Brenda’s* instead (also at 9 p.m.), where Jeffrey Lewis will perform with Akron/Family. None of these bands will provide adequate dance music, so if that makes you feel sad, check out Making Time at Pure, a dance night we once called the place to be “If you’re clad in American Apparel and ready to ‘FREAK OUT LIKE CRAZY PEOPLE’.”
The weekend isn’t over yet! Find out what else you should be doing, right after the jump!
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Pure perfection. Forbes says so.
Frankly, we’re not surprised by the nod to Philly in Forbes‘ article “America’s Best Street Food,” but we certainly do respect their taste. Philadelphia’s food carts and cheesesteaks, particularly those of our own University City area, get a shoutout in the article, in which Philly-local food critic David Snyder says, “Cheesesteaks are as much of an institution in that part of town as the Liberty Bell… People don’t look down on carts here as they might in other cities.” Yeah, because they’re awesome.
Toto, I don't think we're in Philly anymore.
In an article straight out of an Urban Studies class, Money Magazine has compiled its annual list of “America’s Best Places to Live.” The mag assembles a list based on a quaint list of criteria: “strong local economies… great schools, affordable homes, low crime, and much more.” After reading about some of Money’s favorite places — Louisville, CO is blessedly lacking in “pretentious eco-hipsters” and Chanhassen, MN boasts “a carnival, ice-fishing contests on Lake Ann, and skating and hockey everywhere” — we’re less than surprised that only two of Pennsylvania’s towns have made the list. Props to West Goshen and Emmanus, but we’re not buying this whole list. Perhaps we’d be less annoyed with this whole thing if Money had straight-up called it “America’s Best Small Towns,” as they did in a cleverly-buried subhead; Philly has plenty to offer — burgers! Urban Outfitters! Helen Cheung! — as a large city. Philly didn’t even make it onto the list of the “25 Best Places for the Rich and Single.” The nerve! Clearly Money has never been to an Owls party. Ardmore just ain’t cutting it.
Check out The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation’s new ad campaign for our glorious city. This one is oh-so-cleverly addressed to World Champions (we like to be reminded of this fact again, and again, and again…) which we obviously love. The other ads are victims of the Goldilocks Paradox: some aim too big (Dear Great Big World) and others too small (Dear Powdered Wig Lovers), but this one is just right. 
Make the trip. For cheap.
In Philly for the summer and short on cash? Well, fret not, because two of New Jersey’s finest (only?) institutions are hooking you up. The Philadelphia Inquirer clued us in to a little-known service offered by Camden’s Adventure Aquarium and Battleship New Jersey: a $2 round-trip shuttle between the riverfront destinations and our own Independence Center at 6th and Market. Sure, there is only one shuttle bus, and the service has had only four patrons as of yesterday, but we think it’s a cheap incentive to encourage breaking out of the Penn/Philly bubble. Take note, however: the service is currently slated to stop running on September 7.
Don't tread on this
Philadelphians love their sports teams. From the Philles to the Eagles to the Flyers, we’ve got a lot going for us here. Now we can add another one to the roster — that’s right, Philly’s getting a soccer team!
Of course, we already knew about this, but the big news as that we’ve finally got a name, team colors, and a logo. Here’s the rundown:
- The team will be called the Union. They toyed with the Independence, but no dice.
- Blue and gold will be the team colors. Apparently these are the colors of the Philadelphia flag.
- You can see the logo over there on the right. It’s got the “Don’t Tread on Me” snake, and 13 stars for the original 13 colonies. How patriotic. And reptilian.
The team won’t start playing until 2010, but just think how much time that gives Philadelphians to complain about how they would have named it better? How about you — do you like the name? Hate it? Have any better suggestions? Share your thoughts in the comments.
For us Streeters, the Sunday edition of the New York Times makes every weekend a bit like Christmas. We devour the Style section, searching for Penn mentions in the wedding announcements and familiar faces in Bill Cunningham’s photos. We check to see if a professor of ours has made it into the Book Review or written something for the Arts section. We attempt the Sunday crossword, and we sneak a peak at those newsy sections, too.
So we were thrilled to see that our beloved Philadelphia got the Times treatment this week. In the Travel section’s “36 Hours in [insert city here]” feature, Philly gets all sorts of attention. There’s mention of the Cézanne exhibit, Silk City, Chifa, and the Magic Gardens. (And we admit, we were also pretty excited to see that Street has covered most of these places this year.) Though we doubt one can fully appreciate all Philadelphia has to offer in just a day and a half, we must say: well done, Grey Lady.
You could be here.
Aspiring artists, aspire no more. Arts on South, a nonprofit collaboration of South Street business owners, residents and property holders, is trying to help your gallery dreams become reality. In an effort to revive South Street (we didn’t know it needed reviving, but we love this idea nonetheless), Arts on South is accepting applications to house your work in empty storefronts (the first of the new “galleries” is at 734 South Street). All you have to do is pay the cost of utilites — rent is, well, on the house. Applications can be found at Eyes Gallery, 402 South Street. And non-artists, you know what this means… lots of new First Friday openings!
They have sweet blue couches.
As a welcome back from Spring Break, Lovers and Madmen is finally open on the corner of 40th and Ludlow, giving us yet another place to sip coffee and work/procrastinate on homework.
The pastry cabinet was a little bare with just two little plates of croissants and the wireless was having some issues, but the staff are extremely friendly and the coffee is tasty. Power outlets are plentifully scattered around, and there’s a nice flat TV on one wall. The Beatles are playing and they’ve promised to get the wireless working soon, but for now we’re skipping off to Saxbys to post this.
I am sure there have been nights where you’ve tossed and turned, burdened by a question like: why has Gerard Butler never played an evil sociopath orchestrating murders from a jail cell, only to be stopped by the undeniable fierceness of Jamie Foxx? Maybe because you, like we film editors, understand that that movie would suck.
Regardless, they’re filming it anyway. Which is fine, because they’re shooting in Philadelphia! Right now, in fact. And because Gerard Butler is infinitely hotter than Shia LaBeouf (who shot scenes for Transformers 2 at Penn), we’d love to meet him and get him to speak to us in the accent he couldn’t bother to perfect for 300 because he was working on his abs. Here’s a blurry pic of the fantastic Mr. Foxx racing around town. Send better, Butler-ier pics to us here.
E-mail us at street-film@dailypennsylvanian.com and you’ll score free tickets to the newest movies in town.
We're keen on pictures of birds today.
Despite calling Philadelphia “our city” and telling outsiders that we live here and know it like the back of our hands… most of us don’t. Content to stay in our little Penn bubble, we rarely venture past 32nd Street, leaving the comforts of University City for the occasional dinner or Thursday night soiree.
Which is really a shame, because there’s a lot to do around here. And I’m not saying this from experience (although, to be fair, I ventured out to 50th and Baltimore the other day), but because I just stumbled on uwishunu, a Philly-centric blog that tells you all of the things you wish you knew (u wish u nu?) about Philly.
Seriously, though, despite the lackluster spelling job, this group of Philadelphia natives really gives you a good selection of things that are going down in Center City. So perhaps the next time you consider spending the night at Copa, you’ll find something a bit more intriguing to do instead.
How ‘bout those terrifyingly strong gusts of wind that literally forced everyone to walk sideways all day? Not only did the weather cause innumerable bad hair days and cases of flecks-of-dirt-in-the-eye, but it also provoked my friend to tell me jestingly that I would get a “second wind” once I had my afternoon Starbucks. Ha.
The one good thing about the wind was the hilarious facial reactions it incited. Ever watch a girl walk right into a tornado of leaves and Philly garbage with her hair down, jacket open and cell phone pressed uselessly to her ear? I hope someone took pictures.
