philadelphia or ...

maps are useless.

roads with names instead of the numbers on the map:

schuykill expressway = 76

blue route = 476

believe it or not, there are still signs in the northeast for the delaware expressway = 95

vine street expressway = 676

boulevard = roosevelt boulevard = route 1 = city ave (once you cross the schuykill)

delaware ave = columbus boulevard

w. river dr. = MLK boulevard

and no sign means what it says. if you are on the vine st heading east and want to get on 95 N just stay in the fucking left lane, regardless of which lane the signs say to be in.

the exits on 95 in the northeast are lies. the girard/lehigh exit dumps you on girard or aramingo…ya wanna go to lehigh? ya better know how the fuck to get there.

the allegheny/castor exit…same thing. ya want the target on castor? good luck.

anyway. i love philadelphia because we make it hard on people who aren’t from here. its easy to get around if you know that when you want to go to colmar, ya gotta take the doylestown (former r5). but if you don’t know, good luck.

some people call it being insular - in a condescending big world non-insular kind of way.

but there’s something fall-in-lovable about a place that makes you get to know it before it sleeps with you. The sign in the subway concourse under my work building still points to the fidelity building - I suppose soon that the fidelity building will be the wells fargo building…but it was the core states and the first union and the wachovia and…

and i guess i’ll walk by wanamakers on the way to it tomorrow, or whatever the fuck they’re calling that place now.