Crofton, MD: The Two-hundred Fifty-Third Borough
Old news by now, but Philadelphia Weekly reporter Jessica Pressler got a piece in last Sunday's NY Times about Philly's transformation into the "sixth borough" - as if its "hipness" is related to being an extension of NYC. (Is the heroin that good down there too?) Apparently the local "cool-but-we'd-never-say-it crowd" got all brothers-up-in-arms about it with the standard territorial hissing and the like.
It's not exactly an original concept and I seem to remember Jonathan Franzen in The Corrections made some reference to Philly being Brooklyn without Manhattan next door or something to that effect. When I read that I thought, well big shit-steak, you could say the same about Baltimore or several other East Coast cities on the rise but there's a major problem with that logic. It only works in reverse. Better stated: Brooklyn without Manhattan would be Philly or Baltimore.
Those towns are what they are and will only be what they'll be because they don't have a big stinkin' center of the world island next to them. Catch my drift? I'm talking about the ones sweating off the Hudson and East Rivers, which brings to mind, hasn't the conglomerate of Hoboken and Jersey City been the "sixth borough" for some time now anyway? Philly needs to get in line like everyone else. When they pull the #7 ticket I'm sure Wilmington, DE (home to cool indie label Jade Tree!) will be elbowing in for a piece of the action and I hope this ass-lickle-down effect would eventually reach my hometown of Crofton, MD: All along the watertower.
One last thing, I knew the name Jessica Pressler sounded familiar. In one of her old columns she linked to the infamous interview on Lasagnafarm about my experience with Friendster in summer 2003 which gave birth to the Young Manhattanite brand. (Yes, I'm smirking). Jessica P. must have seen it after it was picked up by Gawker which means she dates back to the Spiersolithic era of "snarky" blogging and the woman deserves some street cred!! (Yep, still smirking...)
It's not exactly an original concept and I seem to remember Jonathan Franzen in The Corrections made some reference to Philly being Brooklyn without Manhattan next door or something to that effect. When I read that I thought, well big shit-steak, you could say the same about Baltimore or several other East Coast cities on the rise but there's a major problem with that logic. It only works in reverse. Better stated: Brooklyn without Manhattan would be Philly or Baltimore.
Those towns are what they are and will only be what they'll be because they don't have a big stinkin' center of the world island next to them. Catch my drift? I'm talking about the ones sweating off the Hudson and East Rivers, which brings to mind, hasn't the conglomerate of Hoboken and Jersey City been the "sixth borough" for some time now anyway? Philly needs to get in line like everyone else. When they pull the #7 ticket I'm sure Wilmington, DE (home to cool indie label Jade Tree!) will be elbowing in for a piece of the action and I hope this ass-lickle-down effect would eventually reach my hometown of Crofton, MD: All along the watertower.
One last thing, I knew the name Jessica Pressler sounded familiar. In one of her old columns she linked to the infamous interview on Lasagnafarm about my experience with Friendster in summer 2003 which gave birth to the Young Manhattanite brand. (Yes, I'm smirking). Jessica P. must have seen it after it was picked up by Gawker which means she dates back to the Spiersolithic era of "snarky" blogging and the woman deserves some street cred!! (Yep, still smirking...)
