Refrigerator

There Will Be Shale

The great city that was

Things that aren't there anymore

A View of Rome

Philadelphia may not be known for adopting good ideas from other cities, but some good things from the outside world do find their way here. When the Pennsylvania Railroad destroyed New York's magnificent Penn Station in 1963 to make way for the banal Madison Square Garden complex, most of the elegant architectural elements of the Beaux-Arts structure wound up in a scrap heap in Secaucas, New Jersey. But four proud Eagles from its facade were brought to Philadelphia and perched at the corners of the Market Street Bridge, as if to guard the nearby 30th Street Station.

Former Wawas IV: Wawa Goes Forth

A Cole Haan store opened on Walnut at 16th in the space previously occupied by a Wawa Express, the (circa 2005) closure of which surprised anyone who had queued there for a Shortie. Midday lines inside typically stretched the length of the small store. With the subsequent closure of the Wawa at 20th and Locust, those in search of an affordable lunch in the Rittenhouse Square vicinity are left no alternative but the hot dog cart.

I want to have your child

If you see this girl, please tell her I love her.

All That I Couldn't Leave Behind

This Charles Willson Peale portrait of Gen. Washington in his pre-1780 finery was valued at 2.5 to 4 million dollars, but The Strand sold me the auction catalog for two bucks.

No thank you, Bob Moses

It was tempting. Because I just finished reading The Power Broker, Robert Caro's masterful biography of master builder Robert Moses, it seemed only too right that I live next to one of the many highways he built through residential neighborhoods in New York, so that I could be reminded of his legacy with every breath of smog-filled air. But in the end, I passed at the chance to live in what was actually a pretty nice apartment with a seemingly pretty nice lady because the building faces the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.