Main Page/Meetings/Philly2021

2021 LFI cohorts 3 and 4 meeting

Please read and abide by our community documents

Community Agreements

To be decided together

Venue

Calvary United Methodist Church, 801 48th Street, on the southeast corner of 48th Street & Baltimore Avenue. Our activities will likely all be on the first floor. The building is accessible via ramp or stairs. It's a chill place with lots of natural light.

Hotel

Sheraton Philadelphia University City Hotel 3549 Chestnut St, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (room assignments to come). Elevator accessible, no stairs to climb at all as far as I know.

Group dinner

White Dog Cafe, TBD. The private rooms might be down a flight of stairs, but I am currently working on this and will update with accessibility info.

Weekend details at a glance

Date	Time	What's happening
August 6	all day/everyone arrives	possible group activities in the daytime; social stuff in the evening (ideas to come)
August 7	10-4 at Calvary	daytime meeting things;possible group dinner, details to come; social stuff in the evening
August 8	10-3 at Calvary

Things to know before your arrival in Philly

Transit from airport

• Getting from the Philly airport to West Philly is extremely easy! There is an airport train that runs frequently: https://www.septa.org/welcome/airport.html. Tickets are $8; buy your ticket on the platform before you get on the train and save the receipt! If the train is arriving when you're getting to the platform and you need to run to catch it, be aware that it's cash only on the train! You'll want to take the train to 30th Street Station. It's a 15 minute walk from the station to the hotel.
• If you're arriving via Amtrak, you're getting into 30th Street Station too. It's a 15 minute walk from the station to the hotel.
• If you need to take a taxi or rideshare from the airport, that is okay, just let Alison know first so that we can budget. Also, it would be great to coordinate with other people who are arriving at the same time.

Transit locally

• All of our "official" locations - hotel, venue, and dinner - are accessible by multiple forms of public transit.
• Public transit: SEPTA is our transit system here and you can get pretty good info about scheduling via whatever your preferred transit app is (also there's a SEPTA app if you want to download that). SEPTA rides are $2.50 each way; you can pay with cash or you can get daily passes in stations where there are ticket machines. You can also buy a SEPTA keycard for $5 and add money to it; with a keycard, fares are $2 and transfers are $1, so if you're planning to stick around in Philly and take transit a lot, it might be worth it.
• The best way to take SEPTA from the hotel to the venue is via the 34 trolley. Get on at the station at 36th and Market (I think there is an elevator at this station, which is underground) and take it to 48th and Baltimore (it will leave you off above ground). Trolleys are unfortunately not accessible; you have to walk up a couple of steps to get on and down a couple of steps to get off (buses are abundant and accessible). When you are exiting the trolley from the back door, you have to step down onto the steps for the trolley doors to open.
• Parking: Street parking is all metered or permits. The Sheraton has a parking garage for people staying in the hotel and I believe it's $35 for 24 hours. This is probably the best price you'll get if staying at the hotel; there are parking garages in the neighborhood if you are driving but not staying at the hotel. Save your receipts!
• Bikes: You can rent bikes from Indego: https://www.rideindego.com/ and there are docking stations all over the place. The closest to the hotel is at 36th and Sansom; the closest to the venue is at 45th and Baltimore. Stay safe people!! It's safer to bike here than for example NYC, but it's still a big city with cars that go too fast. Especially watch out for trolley tracks while biking; they will fuck your shit up. If you plan to bike I'll share more tips about where is safest!

Food

• West Philly: There is lots of amazing food in West Philly, and Baltimore Ave (where our venue is) has many different options. My personal favorites around the neighborhood include Vientiene Cafe, Vietnamese hoagies from Fu Wah, Chili Garden, Abyssinia, and Saad's Halal. The hotel is basically on Penn's campus, and there are tons of "fast casual" type places and chain restaurants, plus lots of amazing food carts (cash only). There are many Ethiopian restaurants in West Philly (my favorite is Abyssinia but they are all pretty good). There is vegan food at all of these places (I personally recommend the falafel at Saad's).
• Coffee and breakfast places: My two favorite West Philly coffee places are Knockbox Cafe and Satellite Cafe. If you like light roast fancypants coffee, people here like Reanimator for that. Most of our coffee places have bagels and pastries and other small food things. If you want for real breakfast, go to Sabrina's Cafe (give yourself time here), Renata's, or Gold Standard Cafe.
• Vegan food outside of West Philly: TBD but just so yall know we have TONS OF IT
• Cheesesteaks outside of West Philly: TBD but I know you want one. There are vegan cheesesteaks too of course!
• Some of Alison's fave food places outside of West Philly: TBD

About West Philly

West Philly is a really special place. For decades, it's been the home of artists, hippies, radicals, families, communes, anarchists, immigrants, punks, musicians, and more -- the heart of the counterculture of Philadelphia. Once upon a time, it was the fancy streetcar suburb for the urban gentry, which is why we have so many enormous and beautiful Victoria houses. We have a strong sense of community here, along with frequent community events and block parties and such (closer to the date, I'll add some of these events). Lots of these activities happen in one of our two big parks: Clark Park (the bigger of two) and Malcolm X Park; there's also a lot of tinier ones scattered here and there.

It's not all utopia here of course; the forces of gentrification have been changing the landscape of the neighborhood for a long time, and more radically in the last 10-15 years. The University of Pennsylvania is one of the biggest drivers of this, but there are numerous forces at work including real estate speculation and local political corruption. What this looks like is the Black and Brown community members (the majority of West Philly) have been pushed further west, southwest, and north, while the tree-lined streets closer to Penn have become whiter and richer.

One of the most notorious and horrifying things to ever happen in Philadelphia happened here in West Philly in 1985; when the city of Philadelphia dropped a bomb on the home of the Black radical group MOVE, killing 11 people (including 5 children) and destroying dozens of homes in the neighborhood https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOVE. Sadly there has never been any accountability or repair to the MOVE family or any of the hundreds of people who lost their homes in the fire, and the city and the University of Pennsylvania continue to cause harm, most recently with the revelation that both have kept MOVE victim remains without the family's knowledge: https://whyy.org/articles/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-desecration-of-move-bombing-victims-remains/. For more on the MOVE bombing, I highly recommend the film "Let the Fire Burn".

It means so much to me that we get to have this meeting in West Philly, my home. I'll add more here later about our local culture and things to do. I can't wait to welcome you all!

Things to do in West Philly

[will add more detail here later]

• Local site with event info: https://www.westphillylocal.com/
• Walk around and look at the pretty houses
• Secret bird sanctuary
• Clark Park
• Malcolm X Park
• Bartram's Gardens
• Woodlands Cemetery
• Mt. Moriah Cemetery
• Fairmount Park
• Paul Robeson house
• Murals including ESPO ones
• Institute of Contemporary Art
• Making Worlds bookstore
• A-Space

Things to do in the rest of Philly (and beyond??)

[I will add more detail here later]

• Rittenhouse Square Park
• More Fairmount Park things
• Walk around center city and look at the pretty houses and teeny side streets
• Colonial Philadelphia historic things ranked by a local
• Eastern State Penitentiary
• Mutter Museum
• The Rosenbach
• Philadelphia Museum of Art (and the Rocky statue)
• The Franklin Institute
• The Barnes
• "The Dream Garden"
• Wagner Institute
• City Hall
• Reading Terminal Market
• Waterfront stuff/Race and Cherry St Piers
• Giovanni's Room
• Oscar's
• Wooden Shoe
• Tattooed Mom's

[will get back to this]

Weather

August is hot and sticky here! It will be HUMID. Stay hydrated! Wear sunscreen! All of our stuff will be in air conditioning. Hottest part of the day is around 3-5 pm.

Safety

It's a big city and crime is definitely a thing. If you're out late I recommend having a buddy or two; walking down Baltimore Ave is usually a good bet because there are more people around and it's well-lit. I can recommend places to go out late that are in highly populated areas that are easily to get to from public transit. All that said, I have personally never had any issues in all my years here; however friends of mine have certainly gotten robbed in the park or on the street. Exercise the amount of caution you would in any big city!

Who

Add yourself to this table if you want folks to know you're coming!

Name	Pronouns	Location	Cohort	Library	When do you arrive/leave (if you want to get specific so people can make plans with you)	Group dinner on Saturday night?
Alison	she/her	Philly	∞		never	yes
Shelley	They/them -or- She/her	Philly	4	Free Library of Philadelphia	I live here	Yes
Mack	he/him	Atlanta	3	Georgia Institute of Technology	Friday/Sunday	absolutely
Kimberly	she/her/y'all	NYC	4	Columbia University Libraries		Yes
Holly	she/her	Oregon	3	Jackson County Library Services
Michelle	she/her	DMV	4	Alexandria Library
Megan	She/Her	Bay Area, CA	4	Burlingame Public Library
Sam L.	she/her	NE Connecticut	4	Enfield Public Library	Fri/Sun	yes
Frans	he/him	Brooklyn, NY	3	Brooklyn College, CUNY	Friday - Sunday	Yes
Abby	she/her	Bismarck, ND	4	North Dakota State Library	Friday 2:30pm; Sunday 3:40pm	Yes!!
Sam	they/them	Iowa City, IA	3	Iowa City Public Library	Thursday 1:00pm; Monday 2:30pm	Yes please!
Frank	he/him	Stamford, CT	4	Ferguson Library (Not the one in MO)	Friday Morning/Early afternoon; Sunday Late afternoon/Early evening	Absolutely and enthusiastically yes!
Marisa	she/her	Springfield MA	Cohort 3	Springfield City Library	Friday 11:00am-Sunday 2:00pm	Heck yes!