Neighborhood Kid: Urban life through the eyes of a neighborhood kid

Video: The Walkmen - "In the New Year" (10.15.11)

2011-11-23T10:50:00.000-05:00

My mixed feelings towards Bloktoberfest were easily ignored when I realized The Walkmen were playing a full-set of music. Here is video from their performance of "In the New Year." This video was shot on a Sony Cybershot, point and shoot camera. The video footage comes in and out of focus, but the audio is pretty sharp. Enjoy.

Map: "The younger center" in Philadelphia (Census 2010)

2011-09-13T14:06:00.002-04:00

Map of Philadelphia using Census 2010 tract data to show the distribution of the 20-34 year old population by section of the city. Tracts that are shown have an equal or greater percentage of 20-34 year old residents than the citywide value of 26%. The map indicates a young urban core in Center City and nearby neighborhoods, with a noteworthy percentage of 20-34 year olds in Manayunk and East Falls.

Inequality (and the city)

2011-04-21T14:33:00.000-04:00

From Mother Jones, February 2011

Income inequality in the United States is growing massively. Take a look at a Mother Jones article from February 2011, and imagine the real consequences this is having on people and the city. [link]

Video: Fun with technology, the city, and Radiohead

2011-02-28T20:17:00.001-05:00

Photo: Woohoo, another condo!

2011-02-16T21:44:00.000-05:00

S. 15th Street (south of South Street)

January 30, 2011

A population always hoping for a miracle

2010-12-20T21:10:00.001-05:00

The euphoria of yesterday's Eagles win, quickly branded "The Miracle at the New Meadowlands," could still be seen around the city today. The food cart at 9th and Market already has the clipping from the front cover of the Daily News posted below their menu. From Reading Terminal to Rite Aid, I could hear snippets of conversation that mentioned Desean Jackson and Michael Vick. Every sports talk radio host recalled the same chain of events and played the same Merrill Reese highlights when returning from commercial. On a cold and windy day, the working class of the city experienced a more enjoyable start of the workweek than usual. For another day the city's struggles and pains are lost on a population of sports fans always hoping for a miracle.

A Sense of Place: December 8th and the Old Downtown

2010-12-08T12:29:00.003-05:00

December 8th is always a day that Catholic school kids have off. The church holiday falls perfectly in the middle of the pre-Christmas shopping season. December 8th is a day that mothers take off to spend with their kids. For many mothers, December 8th is a day to take their children Christmas shopping.

For my mother's entire childhood, her mother, an immigrant from Germany would take her and her brother and sister into Center City to see the holiday decorations and to go Christmas shopping. My mother claims that on December 8th her siblings, and the rest of the Catholic school kids in Philadelphia would get dressed up and hop the el to the stop at 13th and Market. The day would usually begin at the John Wannamaker's light show (later the Hecht's show, then the Lord and Taylor show, and now the Macy's show). The giant atrium of the department store would be packed with the loud voices of little kids whose mothers had planned the same routine for their day off.

My mother was born in 1955. She grew up in a middle class, immigrant neighborhood of North Philadelphia. This was a time when North Philadelphia was not a scary place and when surrounding suburbs were just starting to sprout from piles of dirt. One stop shopping malls were still in their infancy stage and families with only one car would probably not be interested in them. In the 1950's and 1960's, downtowns across the country were beginning to notice changes as a result of the decline in manufacturing and the growth of the suburbs. But for neighborhood kids, like those Catholic school kids, the downtown was still an exciting place. All of the city's best shops and restaurants lined Chestnut Street and the flagship department stores proudly stood on Market Street. The downtown was the only place parents took their kids to pick out their Christmas gifts.

Today, anyone can wander into the Center City Macy's to see the light show or visit the Dickens Village on its upper floor. If you go into the store on Saturday or Sunday in December you will see plenty of parents and kids lying on the floor of the jewelry department staring up at the large wall, waiting for the light show to begin. I am sure that each year there is a new group of kids experiencing the tradition of the John Wannamaker's Christmas light show. There might not be the troves of kids in their nice clothing hopping a bus or the el from their neighborhood in excitement to spend their whole day picking out their gifts from the racks of Center City stores. I doubt that December 8th impacts the stores of Center City like it did in the past, but short stories like this can still give this place its meaning.

Photo: Consequences of the American tax system

2010-12-07T11:12:00.001-05:00

Abandoned Street, Baltimore, January 2009

Photo: A weekly sports ritual

2010-12-02T10:07:00.005-05:00

Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, October 17th, 2:25pm

Video: Bernie Sanders on the Bush tax cuts

2010-12-01T11:55:00.070-05:00

I have a theory that every aspect of modern American society can be tracked back to Ronald Reagan. It has been almost thirty years since Reagan election's and the country has experienced a skyrocketing wealth gap, the final phase of deindustrialization, a dismantling of the social welfare system, a new ring of suburban expansion, and a deregulated marketplace. The impact on cities has been massive, and it appears that the Republican approach to the unemployed and the middle class continues Reagan's legacy. Tax policy to favor the wealthy means greater inequality and less federal money to address urban issues.

1) Think. 2) Vote.

2010-11-02T10:48:00.018-04:00

The American political system should be very easy to understand, yet on a daily basis the public is forced to look through the smokescreens set by those with amazing wealth. Politics in America is truly a practice of who controls the message, the image, and the propaganda. In a system that encourages apathy and a lack of participation from the masses, government is simply an extension by which corporations can legitimize their practices.

In this election cycle, I have never seen things more clearly. The United States is a media driven society where intelligent discussion is tough to find and the most productive way to obtain free speech is to buy it. The glut of money in American politics creates a set of rules that favors a two party system with both parties supporting the idea of a capitalist society. Yet, there are still massive differences between the two parties. One believes in a more equitable and fair society where government is the vehicle to accomplish progress and protect the people from oppression. This party often compromises in the face of corporate pressure but still offers the best hope for representing the working class. The other party views the world as a giant economy consisting of a bunch of consumers and producers. They show no concern for human rights and view government as an interference to an absolute "free" market. In their worldview, the individual is merely an economic unit sought to maximize corporate profits and can be manipulated through the use of war and fear.

I have watched a party try to simplify the complexity of society's issues as a problem of too many taxes and too much government spending. This is the same party that conveniently expanded the role of government to maintain a private health care industry, lessen environmental restrictions on business, diminish the rights of minority groups, destroy gun control and dismantle workers' rights. I have seen a party ignore that they have bankrupted the country through war and a military budget that acts as handout for the private defense industry. They became a party of "fiscal responsibility" after blowing a budget surplus and issuing tax breaks that ultimately favored the wealthiest few. They appeal to human fears through talking points like "it's bad for American business," or "out of control expansion of government," or "I want my country back."

I want my country back too. I want a country that does not gauge prosperity on quarterly corporate profits but instead by whether or not its people are living happier lives. I want back the country where corporations could not spend unlimited money broadcasting propaganda and creating anoymous non-profits to mask their agenda. I want back the country that favored science and truth over ignorance. I want back a country that supports the American worker and not the executives of the business. I want back a country that invests in cities and public transportation. I want back a country that treats all human beings with respect and dignity whether they were born in the United States or not.

It is so blatant. With a little reason and thought the choice is obvious. American democracy might already be in peril, but there is one party that envisions its own corporate manifestation of it. This party will continue to cast government as the enemy until it successfully dissolves the state in favor of a country controlled by a handful of corporations. Corporations do not care about the masses, they care about their profits. If you follow the money trail you will find that these corporations are writing scripts and creating images in the same manner they produce advertising for their goods and services. The United States is not a conservative country. The economy will not improve if we stop government spending and unemployment will not end if we cut taxes. There is no nationwide grassroots conservative movement. If a "movement" is funded by billionaires, it is not actually a movement. Instead it is a manufactured scheme to serve the interests of profit and not ordinary people. The Republican Party has never stood for the interests of the American people.

Photo: Nothing like a good bottle of Cutty Sark

2010-10-18T11:34:00.001-04:00

A Liquor Store in Manhattan, October 2010

Growing suburban poverty and the changing image of suburbia

2010-10-11T12:12:00.005-04:00

In 2006, Robert Puentes and David Warren from the Brookings Institution published a report on the American postwar suburbs called One Fifth of America, A Comprehensive Guide to America's First Suburbs. The report became my one of my top citations as I passed through graduate school. Puentes and Warren basically gave you the facts and data for what we already knew: the suburbs from the Wonder Years were becoming the suburbs of Gran Torino. In the 2000 Census, one-fifth of the population lived in the first ring of suburbs right outside the inner city. These are the suburbs that were mostly built right after World War II in 1945 and up until 1970. These are the suburbs of the American consciousness. They are the suburbs of Levittown and the suburbs of your grandparents. By the end of the 1970s, many of these suburbs started to show evidence of decline. At the end of the century this was more widely realized as the majority of the postwar suburbs were experiencing an aging housing stock, declining relative incomes, increasing poverty, and growing older populations. Today the suburban landscape has a vastly different reality than the images of suburbia suggest.

Last week a new report was released by Brookings Institution senior research associate Elizabeth Kneebone that sheds more light on the poverty in America and the changing reality of the suburbs. Kneebone's report The Great Recession and Poverty in Metropolitan America focused on all suburban spaces outside the city, not strictly the postwar suburbs. She used data from the Census Bureau's 2009 American Community Survey to determine that poverty in the suburbs is growing at an alarming rate. Her findings fall on the back of a recent report that poverty in the United States is at a 15 year high. Kneebone examined how poverty is distributed over metropolitan areas to find that two-thirds of the country’s new poor live in the suburbs.

The suburbs added twice as many poor people in the last ten years than the city. For the first time in the history, there are a higher number of people in poverty in the suburbs than in the city. The 2000s reinforced the trend that poverty in America is becoming increasingly suburbanized. In the last ten years, the overall poverty rate for the American suburb increased by 37.4%. The poverty rate for the suburbs (10.4%) is still lower than that of American cities (19.5%), but the overall growth of poverty is occurring more rapidly in the suburbs. This trend is not occurring uniformly throughout the country. Metropolitan areas in the chronically declining Rust Belt and those located in the hollowed out housing markets in the Sun Belt experienced the greatest increases in poverty.

Kneebone does not attribute rising suburban poverty entirely to the Great Recession but cites trends that have been in place for years. This suburban direction of poverty poses challenges to metropolitan areas and local suburbs. Most suburbs never envisioned poverty when they became incorporated, in fact many of them deliberately zoned out housing types that might promote lower income residents. Now that its residents are experiencing poverty, the suburbs are struggling to financially support a social service infrastructure without changing its tax philosophy. The image of suburbia as a community of independent homeowners that embraces limited government and lower taxes is at conflict with the challenges of its new reality. The suburban landscape only provides greater liability amidst energy concerns, the changing preferences of the middle class, and a global economy that stresses the importance of urban centers. The image of the suburbs is slow to change, but with the evidence from the 2000s and the recession, the American conscience might be reconsidering.

Understanding the urban water system

2010-10-05T13:24:00.003-04:00

Last week, the Philadelphia region was pounded with an unusually large amount of rain. The two day rainfall resembled precipitation totals that were more commonly seen in snow accumulation. Areas west of the city experienced amounts that exceeded six inches. Needless to say the intense rains that occurred over a short period of time put a strain on Philadelphia's already overwhelmed water system. The heavy rains caused flooding at spots along the Schuylkill River. Near Center City and the Fairmount Water Works large debris could be seen along the river wall a few days after the water subsided. Aside from the large tree branches, the remaining debris consisted mostly of synthetic materials. These remnants are a reminder of how cities can alter and restore the natural ecosystem they inhabit.

The region's residents have had a mixed relationship with the Schuylkill River over the last 300 years. The river was given its name by the Dutch because of its literal translation as a "hidden river" that flowed into the Delaware River in the southern end of the city. When Philadelphia became one of the world's industrial powerhouses in the mid-1800's, the river conveniently became a sewer for waste and runoff from the industries that existed in present day Fairmount Park. The industrial towns built upstream, like Manayunk, Norristown, and Pottsville, that sat along the river and the Reading Railroad also contributed to their share of waste to river. The river suffered through years of pollution as the region's industrial belt strengthened. The fragmented municipal structure that existed, and still exists today, made coordinating a plan to minimize water pollution nearly impossible. Downstream in Philadelphia the problem devastated the city's drinking water to the point that city government constructed an expansive sewer system to reroute waste and created Fairmount Park along the river banks to held minimize toxic runoff into the Schuylkill. The new sewers greatly changed the urban water system and improved the quality of the Schuylkill but also erased many of the creeks and streams that naturally absorbed the region's rains (see map).

Today the city only has only about a quarter of its historical waterways. These waterways are now replaced by sewer pipes or drained and paved over. In other parts of the city parks sit in old waterways and function as a filter that absorbs rain. A notable example of this can be seen near Independence Mall between Walnut and Chestnut Streets (see photo below). The Dock Creek used to run through this area, pass the existing City Tavern and into the Delaware River. By the beginning of the 19th Century, the creek was heavily polluted and later piped. The sewer system hid the dirty creek and allowed for an extension of the street grid. Today the built environment in the area of the old Dock Creek covers any semblance of a winding creek where some of the city's first wealthy citizens built their homes.

With each passing year it seems like there is more new development to hide the historical past of the city and the natural environment it was built within. The process of development usually brings more concrete and asphalt than ever before. As a result, less water is absorbed by the soil after rain and instead more of it runs off the built environment before reaching a waterway. The runoff carries pollutants from the litter on our sidewalks and the chemicals on our blacktops directly into the same watershed where we get our drinking water. In Philadelphia, and most older cities, storm water flows into the same pipes as household sewage. During heavy rainstorms the pipes become overloaded and water floods into roadways and the basements of houses. The Schuylkill River is an example of this on the largest scale.

The city has turned to "urban greening" to minimize the harm inflicted on our watersheds. Urban greening offers an alternative approach to a massive public works project that would require lengthy construction periods and mounds of capital just to build more pipes. This urban greening approach re-imagines a city that functions like an ecosystem and mimics natural processes. The Philadelphia Water Department is working holistically in neighborhoods all over the city to enact this philosophy. They are planting trees and creating parks to absorb water runoff. They are also adding porous pavements that drain storm water instead of creating puddles. They are also working on individual levels to support neighborhood clean-ups, encourage water conservation, and help install rain barrels. These initiatives help address the problems of the water system, while adding new green spaces and increasing quality of life. It is city government's responsibility to provide the resources and education for a cleaner watershed but it is also up to the individual to respect the ecosystem where they live.

Site of Dock Creek, between 3rd and 4th Streets

Photo: Manufacturing youth

2010-09-28T09:31:00.001-04:00

1607-1611 Walnut Street, September 2010

The Geator: Setting the city to music

2010-09-27T10:45:00.002-04:00

When XPN added Jerry Blavat to the Saturday night rotation a few years ago I was not too psyched. He was given the 6pm time slot that followed a decent afternoon of music that helped me skate through the weekend routine and get me ready for the evening. Usually Matt Reilly (see: the Matt Reilly who moved to Austin), one of XPN's few gems, would end his Saturday afternoon slot with a bunch of anthems like MMJ's "One Big Holiday" or Curtis Mayfield's "Move On Up." These tunes would leave me thirsting for him to set the soundtrack for my Saturday evening sips. The last measure of "One Big Holiday" would transition right into the intro for the "Geator's Rock and Roll and Rhythm & Blues Express." That usually meant that I would keep the station on for five minutes and listen to the the Geator speak in cliches or talk over songs before I would eventually go flip through my iPod.

(photo from Shady Dell Music and Memories)

After a few years of maturity I finally have come around on the Geator. It happened this year over the July 4th weekend with the help of Ben Vaughn (see: the Many Moods of Ben Vaughn - the only remaining gem on XPN). Ben Vaughn and Jerry Blavat combined their Saturday night shows for a two hour tribute to the Geator on his 70th birthday. Ben Vaughn is awesome on his own, but with the Geator at his side, they both were even more awesome. Ben Vaughn began the show with a brief biography of the Geator that constructed an image of a working class kid that loved the city, loved dancing, and loved playing music for people. Vaughn helps the Geator navigate through his record collection and memories of his younger years. The show is filled with references to specific addresses throughout the city that were instrumental in creating the Philly sound. The Geator's voice is so vivid that his stories cause you to imagine a past city filled with record shops, recording studios, and dance halls. Not to be lost in the conversation is the music that radiated from these places.

The two hour show is available for download from Ben Vaughn's website. A listen will certainly cause you to realize why the Geator has been an institution in Philadelphia for the last 50 years.

A Tribute to the Geator hosted by Ben Vaughn
Jerry Blavat as the Geator (Philadelphia Weekly, January 26, 2010)

AT&T Station: A corporation is not a public space

2010-09-19T10:56:00.007-04:00

Photos of the city's former Pattison Avenue station after it was undemocratically branded with corporate logos and renamed AT&T Station. Click here for the corporate view of the deal.

Exterior design by your local towing company

2010-08-27T12:26:00.003-04:00

This week's cover story in the Philadelphia Weekly provides a frustrating account of the city's towing industry. It exposes the underbelly of an industry that is filled with intimidation, corruption, and violence. The article describes how the top towing companies battle each other for business and basically canvass the city for "illegally" parked cars and recent accidents. In some cases, as we would all expect, there are stories of cars that are towed from public spots that seem to be perfectly legal and under the city's jurisdiction. Other cases are more obvious, with large signs boldly bearing the names of Lew Blum and George Smith or friendly neighborhood towing companies like Roxborough Towing and South Philly Towing. We have all seen these signs hovering over vacant parking lots reminding us that we should not even think about parking our car there. They blend into the sides of businesses and buildings and have become an expected part of the landscape. Even their presence on the side of a private home is becoming more commonplace.

On the 200 block of Bainbridge Street, there is a residential property that sought to incorporate its towing company loyalty into the color pattern of the house's design. Its cleanly painted garage door lacks the classic white, square sign that most towing companies create. Instead the property boasts a George Smith Towing logo hand painted in perfect proportions on the face of the garage door. The logo work is pretty impressive, and would be something to brag about if it were for something other than a towing company or if it is in fact George Smith's house. Worked right into the design are the mandated details of the towing fee, storage fee, and lot location. Perhaps what is most impressive is that the paint used for the logo matches the stain on the window frames.

I give a lot of credit to the person who owns the property for their motivation to prevent an unfashionable towing sign or a homemade "No Parking" sign from altering the appearance of their garage door. It is inevitable that their location, right around the corner from car heavy end of South Street, would experience an above average amount of blocked driveways. But when you see the logo of a for-profit towing company branded into the side of house you realize the permanence of this problem. Aaron's article speaks to the personalities and politics involved in this issue. The story reads like an excerpt from "The Suburban Guide: Reasons for Disliking the City." But there is the less exciting issues of the city's zoning laws that could be to blame in this case.

This problem is common in neighborhoods experiencing a lot of new construction. An existing property is deteriorated, its value has dropped, and someone comes in and buys the property. In order to maximize the profit, or to make the place fit the owner's desire, a garage is built. A parking space from the street is taken away in order to access the garage that is now built in place of a previously existing front living room. On streets where private developers play with large tracts of land the result can become a block full of garages with no public street parking (see the 600 block of Christian Street). For obvious reasons sustainable planners, urbanists, and more importantly the Philadelphia City Planning Commission discourage this type of design. A logical thinker can easily reason that this is not a problem since you are simply removing one on-street spot and replacing it with an off-street spot in a garage. But in effect this approach is actually transferring a public parking space that no one household owns (contrary to orange cone philosophy) and placing it in the private ownership of the person with the keys to the garage door.

City Council legislation in 2008 amended Section 14-1402 of the city's Parking Code to prevent single-family houses and duplexes from creating paved parking spaces on front lawns. The Planning Commission highlighted that there was no existing zoning code to prohibit the construction of these makeshift driveways. The bill sought to end the undesirable appearance of this parking method and alleviate the water runoff and heat island effect it causes. As a result they required existing single-family dwellings and duplexes to provide an off-street parking space either through a rear lot or private garage. Any existing property with adjacent neighbors that do not have off-street parking cannot add off-street parking unless approved by the zoning board. The Planning Commission sought to prevent all curb cutouts whenever possible. Extending the provision to multi-unit developments found a different conclusion. The result is the requirement of all infill residential development with 4 or more units to provide one off-street space per unit. Hence in the case of 600 Christian Street, the zoning board seems to view the separate households as one infill development. In that rationale, each single family unit is allowed its own parking space because it is part of a larger residential development. If interpreting the law correctly single unit owners cannot add off-street parking to their existing structure. Only tracts of residential development that result in 4 or more units are able to alter the existing curbscapes.

(600 block of Christian Street, click here to enlarge)

The pretty logo on the 200 block of Bainbridge Street is not the main culprit here. In that case, the original property was probably zoned for a side garage before the nice paint job. On face value the 600 block of Christian Street is a testament to something. Without sifting through the building permits and matching the zoning codes, one could at least accuse the property of poor planning. It's not just happening on that block, but it is happening all throughout the city, but most prominently in real estate markets where those with the capital are trying to attract a demographic that wants this (yes, I am avoiding the word 'gentrification' for now). The physical structure speaks to the fear of interacting with your neighbors. The parking garages speak to privatization of the public streetscape and the prominence of the car. And it speaks to a zoning code that causes a towing company to salivate at the possibility of painting their name on a few more garage doors.

Photo: The bOURSe

2010-08-24T10:57:00.003-04:00

The Bourse

August 1st, 8:57pm

Summer Rewind: Archie Bell & The Drells - Tighten Up

2010-08-10T10:23:00.001-04:00

A few weeks ago Aretha Franklin Presents: Soul Rewind was airing on PBS during the fund raising drive. The program was filled with plenty of classic jams that were written and recorded before I was born. Artists like Otis Redding, James Brown, The Temptations, and Aretha Franklin helped round out a perfect sound track for the humid summer night, like many before. The video for "Tighten Up" by Archie Bell & The Drells was a definite highlight. It is filled with hip groovin' goodness and uncomfortable polyester from a time when the soul sound permeated cities during the summer. In the summer of 1968, the Tighten Up reached number on e in the Billboard R&B and Pop Charts. A few years later they joined Gamble and Huff's Philadelphia International Records label and established a solid career that spanned the late 60's and 1970's. The band's musical output diminished when they split up in 1980. Archie Bell has since released a solo album and collaborated on some neo-soul works. The current work will never match the Tighten Up, but their past has shaped soul music and The Sound of Philadelphia.

Photos: Chinatown Signage and Passerbys

2010-08-05T10:26:00.009-04:00

A Sense of Place: The 33rd Floor of the PSFS

2010-07-30T14:31:00.021-04:00

The PSFS Building is my favorite building in Philadelphia. It can be seen from great distances perfectly resting on 12th Street. It looks like the ultimate destination on a north-south route into center city. I have frequently romanticized about its history while approaching the structure by bike, foot, car or bus. I think about how the route 23 trolley carried passengers like clockwork along the same route even before the PSFS Building was constructed. Whenever I see the red glowing sign atop the building I think about what the city below looks like now and throughout past times.

The building has played spectator to the city's history since 1932. Its rectangular, modern architecture constantly transforms my mind to a period when the city was at the end of its industrial supremacy. I think of a city that is organized by the wealthy business class in its center and surrounded by endless rows of houses and smokestacks that expand out to the horizon. I think of a city that was aware of its uncertain transformation towards the modern and away from its industrial past.

Today the building no longer serves the function of a banking headquarters but instead is a Loews Hotel. In its ground floor by the elevators there is a small gallery paying homage to building's contribution to architecture and its impact on Philadelphia's skyline. From this foyer you can take an elevator to the opulently designed 33rd floor intended to host the bank's board of directors. Thankfully the Loews Hotel keeps this floor open to hotel guests, and unofficially to visitors from the public that can pretend they are hotel guests. The floor is usually empty with the occasional housekeeping staff. When looking out the window you can see the brickwork on the side of the building even at 33 floors above. The space is a gem to see the western parts of the city. From here you get a front seat to the changing skyline of center city as it is disappears into the neighborhoods of North and West Philly. The 33rd floor at PSFS has been a special place for me personally over the last 10 years. It is an easy refuge from the street level for a quick peak at the skyline or a chance to use a bathroom almost 500 feet above (the bathroom at PSFS ranks as one of my favorite bathrooms to use when wandering center city). This floor helps provide a reference for guests that are visiting. It also helps me get reacquainted with the city after periods away from it.

Photo: Drawings By John, Italian Market Festival

2010-07-28T16:31:00.002-04:00

Drawings by John, Italian Market Festival, June 2010

Photo: John's Water Ice, Saturday Afternoon

2010-07-28T10:30:00.011-04:00

John's Water Ice, 7th and Christian Streets, Saturday Afternoon

A Sense of Place: Saturday Night on Steel Pier

2010-07-01T09:33:00.017-04:00

Jutting out into the ocean from the Atlantic City boardwalk are the bright lights of Steel Pier. In 1898, Steel Pier was built and became a grand attraction throughout the region. Today, after years of slow decline, the pier remains as a place for nostalgia and a tacky ripoff.

Years after Frank Sinatra and a high diving horse, Steel Pier still provides wonder and enjoyment for those taking a weekend trip away from the city.

It no longer sits on the original wooden pier and many of the rides have changed. Expect to pay at least $3-7 for a quick go. The ferris wheel might be the best deal at $3.

You can always count on amusement operators to try to convince anyone walking by to play their game. Many of bedrooms are filled with stuffed animals or posters from summer trips past.

The future of Steel Pier might be another casino or a hotel. Its glory days have passed and its luster has faded. But for those that walk by it can provide a glimpse into what life was like in the summers of yesterday.