Search Results for: septa girl

BY PHILLYGRRL So, I’m waiting for the Broad Street subway at City Hall. It’s game day. Phillies vs. the Nationals. The station has only a few Phillies fans left. It’s already a half hour past the first inning and the usual sports crowd has long gone. Suddenly, the quiet is broken by a tiny voice. A little boy, maybe three or four, wearing a Phillies cap and jersey, is tugging on his father’s hand. He points to the subway tracks. “It’s scary in there, Papa,” he says, in a trembling voice. Only the boy’s s’s come out as th’s, so […]

BY PHILLY GRRL There are those people who refuse to take SEPTA at night. I am not one of them. On any given week, out of a mixture of sheer stubbornness and necessity, I join the throngs of second-shift workers on their way home. Riding at night is different. Gone are the students and suit-and-tied office workers who pack the aisles during the day. The buses go faster. There is no lingering at stops. People are tired and their tiredness gives way to a sort of looseness that only appears at night. That particular night, I sat at the bus […]

[Photo by TIFFANY YOON] BY PHILLYGRRL It can be hard for both non-SEPTA and SEPTA riders alike to understand the appeal public transportation holds for a former country girl like me. When I moved here from New Jersey as a child, I was fascinated by the trolleys, trains, subways and buses I saw everywhere. Even now, despite the grime and urine, the inconveniences and hassles, I’m still awed by how accessible everything is to the average Philadelphian. With just $2 in your pocket, you can go anywhere you like in the city, a rarity for your average small-town American without […]

BY PHILLY GRRL Wednesday morning. I stand in front of the Arch Methodist Church on Broad and Arch and wait in vain for the Temple shuttle bus to appear. It does not. So when the C bus rolls to a stop, I hesitate a moment, then join the throng of passengers boarding. I’m not sure if I have a token or even enough change to pay the fare, but it is cold outside and the bus driver has sympathetic eyes so I hurry in before she closes the door. There are a few empty seats towards the front, generally saved […]

BY PHILLYGRRL The first time I met her, we were both standing inside the Walgreen’s on JFK Boulevard waiting for the 38 bus to come by. It was one of the coldest nights of the winter and the bus was running late. It was the kind of cold that creeps inside any number of layers and leaves you hopping from one foot to the other, hoping you can crush some warmth into your toes. The man beside me had already run across the street to get a pocket-sized bottle of vodka from the Wine & Spirits store. He’d mixed it […]

Philadelphians are sick and tired of listening to TWU 234 whining over a perfectly good contract and keeping us from getting to work, school, and other commitments. We’re planning to gather this Sunday at 1pm at SEPTA headquarters at 1234 Market Street to tell SEPTA not to back down! We support collective bargaining but will not stand for collective bullying! We would rather go without transit for however long it takes for SEPTA to either negotiate a fair contract with the union that won’t raise fares or replace and retrain all of them. UPDATE: Gov. Rendell and U.S. Rep. Bob […]

BY JENN W. Planes, Trains and Automobiles! Scratch the planes (would be awesome though) and you’ve got your two options of getting to and from school for the students of the School District of Philadelphia. The wonderful world of SEPTA has ground to a halt, effectively stranding me and my school-age commuter peers. I’m Jenn W. and I’m a freshman at Science Leadership Academy smack dab between 30th Street and Suburban Stations. SLA, the a little known gem of a school that has a partnership with The Franklin Institute with project based learning and Mac laptops. Yeah, you wish there […]

1. The Playa: Age doesn’t matter when it comes to the playa. His age or yours. The playa can be a middle school kid two feet shorter than you whose baggy pants sag to reveal Spongebob boxers asking, “Can I text you tonight?” Or he can be a senior citizen on his way to the community center who thinks making kissy noises on his knuckles will convince you to drop your knickers. Either way, the playa is cool, calm and confident. His favorite technique is to enter a totally empty subway car/bus and sit next to you. If you don’t […]

Pennsylvania – A 46-year-old female attempted to commit suicide Friday morning at the SEPTA subway station at 40th and Market streets, Philadelphia Police Department officials said. The woman — who was unaffiliated with the University of Pennsylvania — jumped in front of the eastbound Market-Frankford train at about 11 a.m. Philadelphia Police received a radio call at 11:44 a.m., and SEPTA, Philadelphia and Penn Police and the Philadelphia Fire Department responded to the incident. The victim was trapped under the train and freed at 12:10 p.m. by the Fire Department. She was transported to the Hospital of the University of […]

BY PHILLYGRRL Perhaps it’s best to start at the beginning. When I was a girl of three, I lived with my parents and my older brother in the first floor of a row house on South Farragut Street in West Philadelphia. Occasionally, when my father was using the family’s orange VW Beetle or when my mom didn’t feel like driving, she would take me and my older brother on the Girard Avenue Trolley (Route 15). She’d say she needed to finish errands, but more than likely she just wanted to get out of the house – stuck as she was […]

Photo by DAN LONG EDITOR’S NOTE: I sent my interns — three Temple students with contrasting religious perspectives and zero reporting experience — to cover Pope Francis’ visit with the following instructions: Go have an adventure then come back and tell me about it. The good. The bad. And the ugly. Wade into the crowd and get your hands dirty. Talk to people. Take in the mass. Feel the love. Drink the Kool-Aid. Or don’t. Just be honest with the reader. And above all, have fun with it, you will be a part of history in the making.