They make our coffee, ring up our groceries, sell us our books, and cook our food. The less fortunate of them ask us if we can spare some change outside of Wawa. With most of them, we may never get beyond a polite smile, but we may imagine that they're resenting us, silently keeping track of every bad tip and averted gaze.
They're the workers, residents and non-students that we see on campus each day, and much like the students on Penn's campus, they come from a diverse range of places and life experiences.
***
There are no exact demarcations, but the "Penn bubble" is said to extend from about 33rd to 42nd streets. It's nestled in between two boundaries that are largely symbolic but imposing nonetheless: to the east, there's D.R.L., conjuring up images of differential equations, Isaac Newton and the periodic table; to the west, there's West Philadelphia, conjuring up images of, well, West Philadelphia, a terrain that most Penn students won't venture far into during their four years here.
Inside the bubble, certain forces prevail: cell phones are held up to ears and mouths at all hours like they're being pulled by magnets toward the North Pole, girls wear expensive jeans and our lives are more or less charmed. Yes, there are work-study hours to log, financial aid to apply for and student loans to take out, but by and large, money isn't a huge concern.
Penn is one of the richest universities in the world. It's easy to lose sight of that - after all, we're not Harvard - but it's true: our endowment is closing in on six and a half billion dollars. Penn is a prosperous university crowded with students from upper-middle-class backgrounds, poised to achieve a similar brand of upper-middle-class success once they graduate and work for a few years. And yet, there's another big reason that Penn stands out: our campus sits at the edge of West Philadelphia, a neighborhood that's not known for its prosperity.
And so, among the future lawyers, bankers, doctors, movers and shakers that take classes at Penn, there's a whole other group of people that lead their lives and make their homes in West Philadelphia, or as glossy admissions brochures are more likely to call it, "University City."
All of them, for better or for worse, know what it's like to live in the shadow of a great university, and the six profiles below offer a glimpse into their lives.
***
There is a jaunty, handsome air to Dennis Diggs, the Fresh Grocer employee you might find making you a sandwich or hoagie at 1 a.m. With the hoards of drunk and potentially obnoxious Penn students that invade the store on weekends, it's not a stretch to imagine that the store's employees don't exactly relish dealing with their predominantly college-aged clientele.
But when approached past midnight on a Sunday, Diggs - unlike many stockers and cashiers, who looked half-dead - offered this not-so-revelatory revelation: drunk kids are amusing.
"When [students] come in they act like a fool and make the time pass faster," said Diggs, who works at the store's deli counter from 2 p.m. to 2 a.m. six nights a week. And even though the Ivy League isn't known for its attractive students, Diggs isn't complaining. "Who could not get enough of the girls at Penn?" he said. "The only thing is they don't talk back so you can only look."
Although he likes his job for the most part, Diggs is not without criticism toward his employer. The store's offerings are pricey, the food not always so fresh.
For those looking to buy prepared foods, Diggs cautions customers to steer clear of the pizza and the chili. The man who makes the pizza doesn't wash his hands enough and the chili is a "belly buster."
While the sandwiches you can get from Diggs are fresh and generously loaded, he mentioned that some employees have more lax standards, having no qualms about making a hoagie that is piled with old meat and cheese.
"I don't want you to get sick," he said. "You're my entertainment. I need you guys to come here." True to his word, when a customer looking for a late-night snack ordered a turkey hoagie, Diggs scooped out the top layer of sliced meat, which had been sitting exposed and looked crusty, and flung it into the trash.
***
Charles Johnson loves it here, and loves it here unequivocally. A security guard at Huntsman Hall, he's been on the job four and a half years. He's easy-going, always smiling, truly pleased to be on campus. He starts his day at 7 each morning, when he takes his post at Huntsman's Walnut Street entrance, eats breakfast and prepares for what he said is his favorite part of the job - greeting the students.
He's good with names - he can remember over 50 - and even better with faces. In the past, he's received appreciation gifts from Wharton students and even participated in a student stand-up comedy show. He's been around long enough that he said he can tell by sight who's a freshman and who's an upperclassman.
When asked how he might characterize the students that come and go through Huntsman each day, his answer was diplomatic, honest but with a qualifier: "real spoiled but also very graceful and respectable."
But being a security guard is only a day job; Johnson is a musician who's played with George Clinton's Parliament-Funkadelic. Maybe it's fitting, then, that his security posting is at Huntsman, Penn's most glamorous building (if it's ever appropriate to call an academic building "glamorous," that is). From his perch, Johnson has spied Donald Trump, Governor Rendell, Hilary Clinton, Dick Cheney and even Bollywood actress Aishwarya Rai rolling down her limousine window (he said the first thing he noticed were her eyes). Now he keeps a digital camera with him, just in case another celebrity or world leader should pop up.
***
Michael Gaines is 55 years old, lives on the streets and can be found - at least in the case of this past weekend - panhandling north of campus. Gaines, though, describes his daily activities in a different manner. "I would call myself a respecter of elders." He went on to clarify, "Like the other day, I helped an old lady cross the street and then I helped her carry groceries." It may be surprising to the thousands of Penn students who pass people like Gaines each day that they share a certain affinity for giving themselves unofficial promotions. After all, what's the difference between Gaines saying "respecter of elders" instead of "odd-job man," and a Wharton student presenting his/her summer job of "assistant in a smoothie shop" as "assistant to a nutritional engineer?"
It might come as another surprise that many of West Philadelphia's homeless population have not lived on the streets their entire lives. Gaines, for instance, took a long and circuitous route to his current station. He started out as a house painter. "I was eleven years old, a sixth grade dropout, and I carried around a forty-foot wood - not aluminum - ladder." After years of doing this work, Gaines left Philly for warmer climates. "I did welding and sandblasting in North Carolina for eleven years, but you know, when you are young, certain and uncertain opportunities tempt you and life draws you into different dimensions of exploration." When asked to elaborate on those temptations, he replied, "Alcohol, pot, those kinds of things."
From there, Gaines' story follows the path of many of our less fortunate neighbors here in West Philadelphia. He recalls the largest gift he ever received: "It was a white man [who gave me $10]. I don't know if he was a hustler or a laborer. Blacks are slaves to one thing or another, one way or another, and whites have been blessed with riches and thus generosity." Though he describes his current life starkly - "I'm miserable right now" - his outlook is not completely without hope. Before leaving off to continue his search for street charity, Gaines laid out his plans for the future: "As I speak to you, I am in the process of finding a job."
***
Duncan Allen-Burnes had the unenviable task of working at the Penn Book Center during the first week of classes.
He described that week as "rough. There were long lines from around 11 in the morning until 6 at night. I had to stay late every night. After the lines stopped, we still had to restock." Allen-Burnes, 21, has been working at the Penn Book Center, an independent book store at the corner of 34th and Sansom streets, since May. Wearing a nondescript white t-shirt and jeans on a recent afternoon, he has a clean-shaven face and a tall, narrow frame.
A native of Upstate New York, just outside Syracuse, Allen-Barnes moved to Philly with a group of friends, and lives just a few blocks west of the heart of University City. Previously an employee of Whole Foods and a professional house painter, Duncan said he enjoys his gig at the bookstore. In his words, "the people who work here are really nice, and there are lots of good books."
When not at the Penn Book Center, Allen-Barnes said he dabbles in music: "many instruments. mediocre." Despite his cynicism about the degree of his talent, he is working on a solo album with a friend who owns a record studio.
After a few months here, Allen-Barnes hasn't formed a very solid impression of Penn or its students. "I don't know. Seems like a pretty interesting school," he said. "I'm sure there are good parts and bad . just like anywhere else."
***
Brendan, a bartender at Mad 4 Mex, started buying liquor for his parents at the corner store when he was twelve and his Air Force father was deployed in Naples, Italy. At the tender age of fourteen, he had his first experience getting "hosed" (read: drunk) in the form of a cosmopolitan romp through Germany's Oktoberfest. In spite of all that, he maintains that nowadays he's not much of a drinker. It could be that the 22-ounce glass of beer he took to the head after cutting some kid off last St. Paddy's Day knocked the thirst right out of him, or maybe it's that after serving up drinks with names like "Big Azz 'Rita" for a full year and a half, he just isn't drawn to booze like the average undergraduate.
Whatever the reason for his abandonment of the bottle, Brendan has since devoted himself to other, more venerable pursuits, such as reading Chuck Palahniuk and watching the films of George Romero. Despite the fact that he doesn't have the same voracious appetite for comic books that he once did, his right wrist still bears the mark of this one-time passion, in the form of a black box with a dark "Z?" inside, an emblem of Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, a comic book character who went without sleep for ten years before going completely berserk. Brendan said his camaraderie with Johnny is due to the insomnia that's been dogging him since age ten. His fascination with the undead has even prompted him to begin work on his own comic book. The subject? Zombie holocaust. (If it weren't for that Dos Equis and Big Azz 'Rita earlier, this part of the interview might have felt uneasy.) Either way, the comic book is in the works, and so is another Saturday night round of drinks for the Penn patrons at the bar.
***
A student comes to Rami's Luncheonette and orders a falafel with feta. Sami Dakko serves it up and then turns to the next person in line, a girl.
"And how about you, pretty?"
Dakko operates the food cart on 40th and Locust streets, where Penn students are his primary clientele. "[The students] are nice. When you keep smiley face, make joke all day. After they pay, I say 'Where's my $20 tip?' They joke, they talk," Dakko said of his customers.
An immigrant from Lebanon, Dakko has three kids of his own, the youngest of whom recently graduated from Drexel. At 68, he called himself an "old man." But still, he has no intention of quitting any time soon. He said he'll operate the cart "as [long] as I can do it. The problem is I get $239 for social security. My house tax is more." After all, Dakko is just trying to make it - not make it through OCR or make it through Orgo, but make it, period. "I take care of my kids. I don't want them to take care of me," he said.
So how did Dakko get from Lebanon, land of no food carts, to West Philadelphia, land of many? "Long story," he said. "I am a builder, I have a popular name at home. I came here during the war, stayed nine months. The currency changed. It used to be three to the dollar. Then it became 2,000 to $1. So I lost money. I came and thought I would make old houses into new ones. But there are six people in my house. They want to eat today. Everything takes time. With this, the money comes today. I don't want to ask nobody for favors. I work hard, send my kids to college"
