34th Street Magazine is part of a student-run nonprofit.

Please support us by disabling your ad blocker on our site.

feature

Hometown Hero

It's a Friday night at the Fire, a North Philly bar and music venue. The place is at capacity - people lined up outside the door shiver in the cold, awaiting a nod from the bouncer.

by CATHERINE PREWETT

An Uncommon Crusade

It's 9 p.m. at a Dunkin' Donuts in Northeast Philadelphia. A husky man in the corner, wearing a white hard hat, is planning his night.

by SAM DANGREMOND

34th Street News

Students question utility of 'electronic mail' April 25, 1994 - All over campus, students are speaking out against electronic mail, or "e-mail," a new technology that some fear may lead to the complete downfall of human civilization.

by 34TH STREET

The Sex Survey



by 34TH STREET

Songs In The Key Of West Philadelphia

Saturday, the Sabbath: Pastor Carl Hinds charismatically leads a sermon on sovereign stewardship and the role of man in service to God.

by ALEX KWAN

Hustle and flow

"adderall? im selling. second floor at a back table" "a doctor or street pharmacist" "i'm on the second floor what you wearing?" "where the hell are you?

by JESSICA GOLD HARALSON

Back to the Drawing Board

Waiting outside an apartment just past 40th and Spruce streets, College senior Peter Logan looked like an indie version of Mad Max, with slim jeans and a black jacket festooned with zippers.

by JAMES YU

Winging it

Ladies and gentlemen, elves, faeries." The fashion show is about to start. There is glitter everywhere, the faint smell of incense wafting back from a few rows ahead. "Designers from all over are here!

by HEATHER SCHWEDEL

Easy as wahid, ithnain, thalatha

School of Arts and Sciences graduate student Marie Brown sits at the front of her Arabic language class, repeating the professor's sentences.

by TALI YAHALOM

On the Wrong Side of the Tracks

Under the rusting tracks of the rundown Market-Frankford El station, the intersection of Market and 52nd streets bakes in the late September sun.

by CHRISTOPHER AHEARN

The Hipster-fication of West Philadelphia

This is the first article in a two-part series in which Street will examine the effects of gentrification on West Philadelphia. erched defiantly on the westernmost frontier of University City, the Dock Street Brewery and Restaurant is situated far beyond what many Penn students consider to be the no man's land of West Philadelphia.

by CHRIS AHEARN

University City Blues

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.

by SOFIA ANDRIANAKOU

The Freshman 14

So you're a freshman. You just survived NSO, but you're still walking in a pack, calling your parents twice a day, and desperately grasping for club meetings to attend - let's face it: you're clueless. Or maybe you're a hardened upperclassmen who's more likely to be recognized by the overnight security guards at Rosengarten than the bouncers at Smoke's.

by 34TH STREET

Street Sweeper

Fling Fling Fling, yada yada yada. It came, we got drunk, some of the cool kids snorted coke, and that was that.

by STEPHEN GLASS

A Meal Plan for West Philadelphia

Instant mashed potato burns are the worst." Worse than the burns from steamed green beans or turkey casserole at the Thursday night soup kitchen.

by RACHEL MEYERS

Word on the Street

Everyone knows that change sucks, but does everyone know that not changing sucks? Nearing the end of my senior year, I've recently thought a lot about Luddites - the band of men in the 1800s who were so distressed by the advent of technology that they waged war on machinery all over the English countryside in the name of their lord and savior King Ludd.

by CLAIRE STAPLETON

The shore house

Because it was so dark in the little room, the windows were painted shut, the salt air eroded the wooden beams, we tried to imagine the beginning of things. Gideon was passed out on the couch, the latest addition to the row of sea shacks that began with my father, our mother decided. He was already thin and thirsty when he returned home after a 30 days sales week to selfish children and separate bedrooms. No longer could he entertain illusions of the world-weary traveler, of his wife weaving her life with his on a loom. My grandmother who has not had a drink in 20 years and can remember said it was her great-grandfather who knew depression is the Gulf of Mexico and gulped like a drowning fish. A distant relative confessed she wept at the herring flopping on the deck, but what does it matter if she laughed or cried? Maybe the crew sang, Oh I am young. Maybe they sang, Oh I am young and heartless. What of the ships that sailed on salt and tonic water, the exquisite quilt that fell apart in the middle of the night, or the threads that parted violently with a knife? Seagulls already jump at the sight of pale flesh.

by PIA ALIPERTI

Babel

Neither a weight worth lifting nor a sound worth amplifying, from the neutral perspective it's a clusterfucked frequency, from the favorable perspective it's an arbitrary one & from the cinema's perspective, well, deaf people cannot feel bass, which, as far as science goes, is false.

by SAM DONSKY

The Schematics of the F-14 TOMCAT

I remember hearing my mother on the phone telling her friend that my father would not be coming back.

by MATTHEW HARRIS

Perfect Strangers

Every warm Wednesday in the Spring, a group of amateur musicians escape their day jobs to play an informal hour of Old-timey music at the Compass.

by ALEX WEINSTEIN