"Now he was hurrying carefully, stepping from root-tangle of ivy to stone to earth, confident that this was his graveyard. He could feel the graveyard itself trying to hide him, to protect, to make him vanish, and he fought it, worked to be seen." -Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book.
I have lived near the airport, in a Temple dormitory, in Fairmount, and in South Philadelphia. Though I grew up in the suburbs, Philadelphia has always been a constant in my life. Over the past 3 years, I have come to know these streets, as a local. I often feel like I have vanished into the scenery. Tourists have a way of sticking out. They take photos, they linger in one place for longer than 15 seconds, and in Center City, they do something I forget to do almost every day as I pass by 10 subway stops worth of Broad St., riding my bike to and from school. They look up. Today, I took my camera to Rittenhouse Square and looked up. 'Wow', I thought. 'I forgot how @#$%^&* tall these @#$%^&* buildings are.' Pardon my french.
I chose Rittenhouse for two reasons. One being, that I just really love riding through there. It's the kind of place you think all cities look like when you're watching Sesame Street and you're too little to actually go find out. The second reason, is that it is filled with artists. With the Univ. of the Arts nearby, I knew there would be aspiring somebodies like me all over, and maybe I'd feel less like a tourist. Well, it didn't work. The local in me moved from point to point around the park and surrounding neighborhood with purpose and self-awareness, but the tourist in me kept reaffirming, 'I live in one of the biggest metropolitan areas in the U.S.! Holy @#$%!' I promise, my inner monologue has a much filthier mouth than I do. I took this concept of looking up and lingering and translated it into photos that are almost uncomfortable in angle. Also, I wanted to get as many shots that mingled vegetation and architecture as I could, because Rittenhouse is the best balance of the two in the city. I no longer felt part of the scenery. People were noticing me as they walked by. What they thought, I could only guess: Freshman just moved in from the far off countryside, (No.) Private Investigator, (No, but I'll take it.) peeping Tom, (No, I swear!) future master of the Graphic Arts sowing the seeds of his genius. (I hope so.) Whatever people may have thought, it was nice to be reminded that in a big city, individuals exist, not just traffic and crowds. In the square I saw a man, in his early sixties, wearing a very expensive, very 'I'm so important, you wouldn't even understand what I do for a living' black suit. He looked every bit the part of the imposing, filthy rich, White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, who secretly runs the entire world with his golf buddies. But he was walking this little dog that was so white and fluffy that it looked like someone ripped open a bag of cotton balls in a hurry and they all just spilled out into a few amoeba-like shapes. The two of them made for such an absurd juxtaposition that I had to sketch them. Who walks their dog in a suit anyway?
After Rittenhouse, I figured I would head to City Hall nearby, which at night is just as creepy as it is enchanting and beautiful. Passing through the courtyard of City Hall is my favorite part of my ride to work and school. I always look at the detail and variation throughout the architecture and wonder why we stopped making buildings like that. Instead, we have the Comcast Center, which is impressive in height, but oddly resembles a giant flash drive.
On my way home, I found a few scattered objects on the streets. The most interesting I thought, was a fold-up map of the city. I found it on a sidewalk near a half-empty bottle of brandy right out front of a church in South Philadelphia. The church was open, even though it was late at night, and I imagined that an old drunk had stolen the map from a street vendor while nursing his brandy, used it to find the church, and gave up the bottle right there on the steps in exchange for sanctuary. The church, the bottle, and the map all took on more meaning then they would probably usually carry, with this story in my mind.
When all was said and done, I couldn't help but think how hard we try to be seen, and yet we so often make lasting impressions on those we encounter, completely by chance, like the man and his dog, or the map of Philadelphia, did on me. I wonder what impressions I made today, and even though I'll fade back into the scenery, I wonder what impressions I will make tomorrow.
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