[quote=briansd1]But you’re right about Philly. There are entrenched ethnic enclaves in Philly where new comers are definitely not welcomed. I was driving through Fishtown on a street of white people. There were people sitting around on patio chairs, shooting the breeze with their buddies in front of an auto shop. That neighborhood was littered with shell houses.

As I drove by, they yelled “what the fuck are you looking at!”
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My husband lived in Frankford – just up from Kensington and Fishtown. He used to joke that what the neighborhood needed was better looking hookers.

We still have friends in Mayfair and family in N.E. Philly and Oxford Circle.

If you want to see scary neighborhoods – just go a few blocks east of Kelly Drive into North Philly (north of the Art Museum neighborhood and Girard, east of Strawberry Mansion neighborhood.) I got lost there once and my paranoia kicked in and I locked all my car doors. (And I’m not a paranoid type.)

The lawn chairs on the sidewalk is a weird Philly phenomena… Clusters of folks wearing shorts and tanks sitting on the stoop and sidewalk in front of their houses.