10 miles into the City of Brotherly Love

Veteran distance walker Garth Poorman, who walked from New York to New Orleans in 2009, met me a few blocks from the home of hosts Jordan & Kristin (and daughter Evalyn!). Kristin & Evalyn walked me to Garth, and then Garth, who lives in the area, guided me the next 10 miles through a very WIDE variety of socioeconomic strata into the heart of Philadelphia. I end the day on the 17th floor of Garth’s cousin’s apartment, overlooking the Philadelphia waterfront, the Old City district, and the NJ border…

“I’ll walk anywhere,” Garth has always told me, as he leads me into and through West Philadelphia, a “blighted” part of town that most who make decent earnings choose to avoid completely…

“Avoid West Philadelphia if you can,” many people told me, “–it’s BAD there.” As it turns out, West Philadelphia became one of the most socially fascinating a friendly places I’ve walked through in quite some time! LOVED it!!
Here I enjoy a pic with J & Kina, who spontaneously stopped and interviewed me for their local radio project.

West Philly

Market Street, West Philadelphia

Something I’ve almost never seen in the United States: urban, big city informal sidewalk vendors.
Nice people!!

Market Street in West Philadelphia was once thriving, many decades ago. Hope remains for a serious return of greater economic vitality…

Murals are embellishing West Philadelphia with their messages and images of Love & Light…

West Philadelphia High School. I’ve never seen so many steel security grates surrounding the windows of any school…

From West Philadelphia, we reach step right into the Ivy League University of Pennsylvania campus. Amazing fast is the transition from one of America’s poorer urban areas, to a school which trains many of America’s wealthiest kids.

UPenn

Ben Franklin Statue at UPenn

Emerging from the UPenn campus, we reach the Schuylkill River, with downtown on the immediate other side of the river.

Schuylkill River

Having cross the Schuylkill, we arrive to the dense, tall-building concentration of downtown Philadelphia…

Crossing Broad Street, we get a quick glimpse up at the massive City Hall, Ben Franklin on top of the 28-story structure…

As Garth walks me to the waterfront, I suddenly recognize this building as we’re passing by. Years ago, at a national speech and debate tournament, teammate Gloria S and I were walking around after lunch, and having spotted this building’s unique architecture, Gloria wanted to pay a visit to see what the building was and is.
We stepped inside, found it to be a union hall, and we were invited to spend an hour speaking with one of the high-level employees. What an amazing conversation…