Feature
Inside Giovanni's Room
Throughout the 1980s, Giovanni’s Room had trouble with bricks. As the gay rights movement swelled and AIDS steadily ravaged the community, every now and then a single brick would come crashing through the bookstore’s front window.
We Always Pack
I imagine he sits in a wood-paneled university library, the kind with bronze statues and painted portraits, thumbing crumbly pages, sipping spiced coffee.
Intersections and Intersections
“I don’t go to clubs much.” She hadn’t asked him anything; clubs are loud. “What?” “Sorry… never mind.” He wasn’t trying to talk to her.
We Both Do
John stepped out into the cold evening and sat down on the apartment building steps. The chilly concrete seemed to cut right through his thin khakis, but he only felt the sting from a distance.
Inside The Artist's Studio
Entering the studio, afternoon light pours through windows spanning two walls. Caroline Harrison hurries to the back corner of the room and emerges from behind easels and canvases with several damp watercolor paintings.
Unprotected Penn
It had been almost three years since Maria last had sex when she went in for her first women’s health checkup at Student Heath.
Don't Touch That Dial
As she hauls in a box of dusty Motown records, the DJ formerly known as Condom Lady situates herself inside the WPEB studio preparing for her Saturday afternoon radio show.
What Philly Sounds Like
Jeff Woloszyn is sitting outside of his establishment at 15th and South streets playing the guitar. It’s 10 a.m.
Look Down Locust
2000 In 2000, Quakers breathed a sigh of relief when Y2K turned out to be Not2Bigadeal.
Military-Academic Complex
The Pentagon permeates everyday life in America. Its influence, along with that of the 15 U.S. intelligence agencies, is almost everywhere.
Mert Alert!
It is a positively blustery November evening. Sitting in cramped room 121 of Sansom Place East, members of Penn’s Medical Emergency Response Team sit and wait for a call that will alter the course of the night’s heretofore quietude. “Requesting medical assistance: injured female at Sansom Place West between 36th and 37th Streets.” Almost instantaneously, the three EMTs on duty leap to their feet.
Do You Believe In Magic?
“You see this?” asks Joseph, an older man sporting a sternum-length scraggly beard, gesturing at the game on the table before him.
Penn Back Then
Remember Penn back in the day? When guys wore three-piece suits to class, gals were few and far between and rooms in the Quad were equipped with crockery?
Fighting For the Flea Market
The crowds at the Uhuru Flea Market are relatively light on the last Saturday in September. With the weather beginning to turn, the usual stream of students and local residents who peruse cheap jewelry and used books in Clark Park each month is slowing to a trickle. A few Penn students meander between mugs wishing the buyer a “Happy Baby Mama Day” and a stall offering homemade soaps in scents like mango and pumpkin.
Pedaling to the Pretzel Palace
It’s a crisp mid-September Tuesday night and several dozen bikers are dawdling in front of the art museum steps.
Let Them Eat Brains
Chinatown is its usual dark self, neon light illuminating small patches of Arch Street, bits of trash collecting along the sidewalk.
Meeting of the Muses
Psychedelphia: a celebration of collaboration and creation, presenting old art and making new art on the spot.
Four Square in the Square
About 20 people in their early twenties are playing four square in Rittenhouse — mostly slim men with cut-off shorts or rolled-up denim.
The 10 People You Meet Freshman Year
So you’re a freshman. We get that, we’ve all been there. You made it through NSO alive, you are way too afraid to change your classes around (your schedule is set), and you think your hallmates are pretty cool.
