Schumann's Cleveland Pages archives

... and second prize is two weeks! (4 June 1999)

Loyal Cleveland Pages fans had to go without an article last week as I was just too tired from running around Philadelphia while working with a new client. But I did pick up some new material while there.

Update: Next week, for the issue of 11 June... "scratch a Philadelphian and you find a Clevelander." This Cleveland Pages attracted some attention from civic-minded readers in Philadelphia who were eager to set me straight on corruption and out-of-place priorities that sound awfully familiar.

Let me first just say that I had a terrific time there. I had actually been dreading a week in Philadelphia, because on every single previous visit I'd been subjected to some kind of blatant disrespect from local service people. (Ask me about the Alamo car rental counter at the airport sometime.)

This time around, I don't know. Was it the suit, or my now slightly graying hair? Was it that everyone is just in a better mood with Rizzo gone? Bus drivers offered directions; the Pretzel Lady straightened me out on local folklore; and even the guys hanging out on Grays Ferry around Thirty-Somethingith that one evening were in a good mood. I like cities, even more so when they tone down the hostility. Philly has a nice smile when she chooses to show it.

Location and Transportation

For a whole week I had a hotel room, client-paid but still not too overpriced, overlooking the Delaware River (and here I am, resisting a cheap shot at New Jersey, go figure) in the Penn's Landing area. The client's main office and factory/warehouse location is just a few blocks northeast of there. A Philly block is quite a bit bigger than your typical Cleveland block: for example, from Fifth Street to Sixth Street in Philly feels like as far as Ninth to Twelfth along Euclid in Cleveland, maybe even slightly farther.

Even so, the walk was reasonable and would have been easy had I not been lugging around an inefficiently packed bag of "stuff" including my new WinBook. It's not shocking that a business traveler would find a hotel so close to his destination, but the higher density of people and things (see below) in Philadelphia makes it almost inevitable.

Locals call it the "SEPTic[A] System"

I'm a transportation junkie. I find commuter rail systems irresistibly fascinating. Subways with cool stop names that only the locals understand--obviously Montreal tops the list there--are almost as good. So bear with the transit digression here if you don't mind.

SEPTA, the Philadelphia-centered public transit system, has such a bad reputation locally that its current marketing slogan is "We're serious about change." The range and quality of service offered, though, makes the Greater Cleveland RTA look weak. Granted, Philadelphia is a substantially larger city. But imagine a fast subway system making a giant "plus" sign from the densest part of the city going out for miles, with feeder buses running around every fifteen minutes until one o'clock in the morning. For a buck-sixty, plus forty cents for a transfer.

More than half a dozen commuter rail lines run about every half hour throughout the metropolitan area, and that's just including those within the state of Pennsylvania. To me, an outsider, security looked reasonably good and the trains were largely clean and comfortable. Given a larger airport than what I left at home, the SEPTA R1 line makes four separate stops to cover the five terminals... nice when you're hauling your own luggage. Of course the Cleveland rat in me wonders whether SEPTA saved the best-looking part of the fleet for out-of-town visitors who write web pages like this one.

You can't imagine it in Cleveland because the population density is just not there, here. Philadelphia's 1990 Census figures show not quite 1.6 million people on 135 square miles--11,733.8 per square mile. Cleveland had 505,000 on 77 square miles, for 6564.4 per square mile. Because Philadelphia's metropolitan area goes way the heck out into New Jersey and Delaware, the regional density differences are not so pronounced.

Pack twice as many people into the same area, as we had here in the 1950s, and what do you get? An active downtown area that seems to go on for miles along Market Street. (How much of it is economically viable, and how much survives only on subsidy? Good question.) Comparing Philly's "Center City" district to Euclid Avenue is, well, no comparison.

Doesn't anybody here know how to play this game?

Filed under "getting what you pay for," I suppose, it is incredibly easy to get good seats at the ballpark. Two and a half hours before game time I was able to get seats maybe thirty-five feet behind home plate for the Expos-Phillies matchup. Of course the Phillies are hovering around .500 and the Expos aren't even doing that well. Crowds follow winners. I'm told that Philadelphians consider hockey to be much more chic than baseball.

Since it's common knowledge that sports teams create no jobs to speak of, nobody around Philadelphia seems to think the low attendance at games is that big a deal. It was fun telling locals that in Cleveland you need to buy baseball tickets up to a year ahead of time, but not one Philadelphian appeared to be excited about or even jealous of the economic possibilities. I think it's only Cleveland Tomorrow types, and folks who get paid to care, who think sports really matter.

Another one of those fluff pieces

So yes, this is an outsider's one-week view. I don't have to live there, I don't pay the undoubtedly astronomical housing costs, and I spent much of my off-time in areas that are considerably more touristy than homey. I know the racial situation is far from ideal. My contacts were mostly with well-employed professionals, not tourism and promotional hacks but not a random sample of working people either.

So in some ways my observations are admittedly like those of the people who drop by Cleveland for something like an All-Star Game, write gushy "Comeback City" articles for in-flight magazines, and congratulate themselves for their cleverness. I admit it. It's not because I want this to sound happy, it's because I just really like big cities.

In summary, my first impressions were that Philadephians seem to have gotten friendlier, there are an impressive number of them packed into a relatively compact area, the trains are fast and frequent, and the baseball team is mediocre but irrelevant. I can put up with another week pretty soon.

So talk to me

I'll have to go "undercover" next time out. Someone please tell me where to get the real story on Philadelphia.

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