Joe’s Philly

Philadelphia — Flaws and All

Philly has a lot to offer but it also has areas in need of improvement. Below are some lists which you may find interesting.

You can either scroll through to see them all or click the links in the List of Lists.

List of lists

Ten Things You’ll Love About Philly

  1. Walkability
  2. Great eateries
  3. a comfortable though shrinking gayborhood
  4. the Art Museum
  5. good transportation
  6. the Reading Market
  7. Chinatown — filled with new restaurants and a great atmosphere
  8. The Library Company
  9. Fairmount Park
  10. cafes

Philly’s Gay Bars (in no particular order)

Some Things I Hate About Philly

  1. Bicyclists who refuse to obey traffic laws (uh, that’s just about all of ’em)
  2. Bicyclists who ride on sidewalks (a hefty percentage of them. The city could make a fortune from the $300 fine that’s on the books for this infraction!)
  3. The city’s failure to enforce bicycle laws (because the city government is spending so much time bending over backward to see to it that bicycles own the streets)
  4. People who use sidewalks as their personal trash can, thus cementing the image of this city as Philthydelphia
  5. Wawa — a curse on the city
  6. Businesses who don’t clean their sidewalks — our only financial hope is tourists. Show ’em you love ’em. Clean up your act!
  7. Voters who keep sending the same do-nothing politicians to do the nothing they do well
  8. Politicians who can’t see beyond the tip of their nose
  9. Taxes — wage tax, property tax, center city district tax, sales tax, business tax, home alarm tax, and the list goes on
  10. The CORRUPTION — this city swills it, plays like a pig in a mudpie in the corrupt urban fields, and worse, doesn’t mind at all

Some things the city has failed to do

  • develop the riverfront — a huge, gorgeous piece of property is sitting there, waiting for a visionary to develop it into something beautiful and wonderful and actually useable
  • create an easy way to access that waterfront once it’s developed properly
  • do something with the abandoned buildings IN DOWNTOWN Philly!  This makes us look like — horrors! — Detroit!  Get something built, refurbish, renew. Do SOMETHING!

Philly Cafes You Shouldn’t Miss

The cafe scene in the gayborhood has seen better days. Once — not that long ago — there were a number of cafes dotting the landscape, giving denizens of the gayborhood a place to chat, read, work, or just be alone with their thoughts. Not any longer. Now, former cafes haunt their old locations as empty shells or impractical endeavors.

  • J’Aime — the new guy on the block on 12th near Locust. Beautiful beverages and buttery pastries
  • Miel — not in the gayborhod exactly but near to Stir and holding its own with great fare.
  • Le Pain Quotidien (on Walnut btw Broad & 15th) — also not in the gayborhood but when it’s not busy it’s a place to go.
  • Alice — at 15th and Locust. An authentic Italian cafe
  • Good Karma Cafe — still there but a little out of the boundaries of the gayborhood.
  • The Last Drop — a little closer than Good Karma Cafe and a good go to place.
  • La Colombe — the one on 19th and Chestnut has undergone an overhaul and is quite nice and the branch on 15th near City Hall, though a bit sterile, is nice also.
  • DiBruno Brothers — way out of the gayborhood (both center city branches) though not the sit and read/think/work kind of place that a cafe should be.

Philly Eateries You Need to Visit

  • Mixto
  • Marathon Grill
  • The Continental
  • The Dandelion
  • Parc
  • E Mei
  • Cuba Libre
  • Bistro Romano
  • Bud & Marilyn’s
  • Via Locusta
  • Dan Dan
  • Spice 28
  • Libertine

Things Philly Needs More Of

  • Gay bars
  • Lesbian Bars
  • Sidewalk cafes
  • Exterior lighting on more of the spectacular architecture this city boasts
  • Leaders with vision (No one should hold their breath on this one)
  • Trees