Dear Jacinda Ardern, 

Thank you for acknowledging burnout.

Jacinda Ardern’s resignation from her role as the New Zealand Prime Minister on Jan. 19 may have shocked many, but it is clear that this was a decision she did not make lightly due to the pressures and dedication required of the position.

In her formal press release, she acknowledged the success her administration has seen, as well as the difficulty of the grueling public office.

“With holding such a privileged role comes responsibility, including the responsibility to know when you’re the right person to lead, and also when you’re not,” Ardern announced during a press conference. “I have given my absolute all to being Prime Minister but it also has taken a lot out of me.”

Ardern also shared that she now feels she lacks the energy required for such a demanding position.

“As to my time in the job, I hope I leave New Zealanders with a belief that you can be kind but strong, empathetic but decisive, optimistic but focused. And that you can be your own kind of leader – one who knows when it’s time to go.”

When a public official announces a seemingly sudden resignation, it is only natural for the public to assume scandal is the heart of the announcement. To some, the acknowledgement of occupational burnout may be just as shocking. To me, it is inspiring.

From politicians to the public, burnout affects all. It is clear burnout affects more than just busy Drexel students juggling four, five, or six classes with work-study, co-op or other activities. This is one of the most prominent examples so far of a public figure — in this case, the highest leader in a prominent country — being willing to acknowledge the stress an occupation can place on daily life. 

It’s no secret that burnout is real. The American Psychological Association’s 2022 Trends Report noted the rampant spread of burnout and stress in the U.S. and acknowledged the added stress on those in public-facing jobs including teachers and government workers.

According to several studies including McKinsey & Co’s “Women in the Workplace” Report, women are disproportionately affected by burnout, a worldwide issue affecting 43% of surveyed individuals from Global Workplace Report’s 2019 study of over 100 countries.

But acknowledging burnout does not have to mean the end of the world; Ardern’s resignation serves as a reminder of the power of turning over a new leaf. In Ardern’s case, she wishes to spend more time with her family without the weight of her job.

Ardern’s step down from her position may look like a political defeat, but I consider it a respectful passing of the torch and reminder that changing paths and acknowledging that going too hard for too long can be detrimental.

Jacinda Ardern serves as a symbol for many reasons, but for me, she serves as a symbol of knowing when to acknowledge enough is enough and shift to a new focus for a better future.

As students are used to daunting workloads, knowing the workforce has its own challenges is not exactly inspiring. While the year-round Drexel academic calendar may serve well as an adjustment to a year-round schedule post-college, increasing levels of employee burnout intimidate students looking forward to their post-gradation life.

Written by: Drexel Community for Justice and Drexel for PILOTs

Since July 2021, residents of the People’s (UC) Townhomes have been fighting for their homes, families and livelihoods. With a new eviction deadline of Feb. 21, they urgently call on students and Philadelphia community members to stand with them in this fight. 

The People’s Townhomes is a 70-unit affordable housing development owned by real estate developer and corporate landlord Brett Altman and IBID associates. In July 2021, in order to demolish the development and construct new housing on its site, Altman did not renew the contract with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The Townhomes’ residents were given a year to vacate with the promise of housing vouchers to assist in rehousing. However, many residents remained voucherless even after the original eviction deadline. Following the announcement of the demolition of the townhomes, long-time residents formed the Save The UC Townhomes Coalition, which grew to include college students and long-term Philadelphia residents. 

Building on a legacy of Black displacement

The People’s Townhomes’ neighborhood – the Black Bottom –has been home to Black and working-class Philadelphians for generations. This historically Black, working-class neighborhood was established in the early 1900s during the Great Migration;the historical tide of African Americans moving to escape racial violence in the South and pursue better economic opportunities in the North. In the 1940s, the University of Pennsylvania  and Drexel University were made “redevelopment authorities” during Philadelphia’s urban renewal. They were given carte blanche to declare eminent domain. They used this structural advantage to displace thousands of families, demolishing their homes in the name of expanding campuses, “modernizing” the city and making it accessible to big business. Established in the 1980s, the Townhomes are one of the last surviving pockets of affordable housing in the neighborhood -– a last bastion against the aggressive expansion of University City and this pattern of displacement. 

Today, Drexel continues to expand into Mantua and Belmont, and UPenn buys up properties around and along the historically Black business corridor on 52nd St.. Melvin Harris, a Philadelphia native, resident of the Townhomes for over 28 years, and organizer with the Save the UC Townhomes Coalition, says,  “When I see this ‘University City,’ all I see are towers of destruction that are leeching the communities dry to the bone… when I was a kid 90% of this stuff didn’t even exist. This area was housing… thriving neighborhoods, people coming together, communities coming together – now it’s all gone, and for what?” The Black population of University City has nearly halved in the last twenty years alone.  

The real price of gentrification 

Gentrification is not inevitable, it is a choice that people who profit from real estate development in Philadelphia make daily. A process where impoverished urban neighborhoods are transformed around the interests of elite groups and interests; gentrification mirrors patterns of racial segregation and redlining in U.S. cities. While Drexel touts its “civic engagement” in the neighborhood, the university also drives gentrification by not using its resources to protect affordable housing. According to Harris, “Gentrification is a nice word for thievery of land. All it is is the destruction of communities […] What they want us to see as growth, development and expansion…we see gentrification as community genocide.” The decision to demolish the Townhomes maintains this practice of gentrification, or the outpricing, policing and uprooting of Black and working-class people. As Harris says, “As long as gentrification continues, this is our destruction; it is a destruction of our livelihoods, of our people, of our communities, of our children.”

“This is our stand to take our community back.” 

As the eviction deadline of Feb. 21, looms closer, the need for action becomes more urgent. Townhomes residents’ demands are to stop the demolition, or an extension of two years if they are indeed forced to leave the Townhomes. They also demand that much-needed repairs and maintenance be immediately addressed by management, a meeting be scheduled to discuss outstanding issues and a $500,000 financial compensation per family be distributed. Protests and teach-ins led by student organizers have been taking place across UPenn and Drexel’s campuses, but whether Drexel will recognize and respond to its role in Black displacement and gentrification remains to be seen. 

Standing up against the destruction of the People’s Townhomes is protecting real safety for all working-class people.

 “At the townhomes we take care of each other. It is one of the few places left in Philadelphia where there’s safety in the number of the residents that live there,” Harris stated.
If you want John Fry and Drexel to support Townhomes residents’ fight to stay in their homes, please sign and share this petition today!

To celebrate the 97th anniversary of The Triangle, I thought it would be fitting to encourage all our readers to consider joining – so I’ve narrowed down my top reasons to join the team in order to (hopefully) sway you to fill out your application today! 

1. We are not just a team of writers. 

This might be the biggest misconception about joining The Triangle! Over the years, many computer science, graphic design, marketing, and business majors have found their place in The Triangle. We have a diverse team that contributes to the production of our newspaper — everything from managing our finances, running our social media accounts, directing our distribution days, designing the layout, and setting up our website. There’s a place for everyone! 

2. We are completely independent from Drexel University. 

The Triangle is the independent student newspaper at Drexel University, which means we are completely detached from the university. Due to this, we raise our own funds, make all the decisions, and allow our writers to share whatever they are passionate about without being subject to censorship. We are extremely proud of this, and this gives our staff members the chance to explore leadership opportunities by becoming editors and managers within the organization.  

3. We are back to a regular publishing schedule.  

After our COVID-19 induced hiatus, we are back and stronger than ever! Our publishing schedule is now regular, and there is a constant buzz in the office with our many teams working towards upcoming print and online editions of The Triangle. This is a great chance for our writers and photographers to report on current issues and get the word out about things going on around campus, Philly, or worldwide. There is always something going on, making every week, whether a publishing week or not, very exciting! 

4. You get to meet a lot of new people.  

With over 40 members of the Triangle currently, by joining, you already have 40 new friends who are so excited to meet you! And it does not stop there, by becoming a member of our team, you will have unique opportunities to interview students on campus, meet with various Drexel faculty, as well as connect with members of the Philadelphia community.  

5. We have a lot of fun! 

Putting out a newspaper requires a lot of hard work and dedication, but it is always a good time. The Triangle is a place where students of all backgrounds can come together, share stories and make a difference on campus. In my unbiased opinion, you will not find a more diligent, motivated and talented group of people at Drexel University. This is more than just a newspaper; we work like a team and love like a family.  

If I have managed to convince you, be sure to fill out an application, (find it at thetriangle.org/join-the-triangle/) and we hope to see you at future General Body Meetings! 

3990 Market St: It is supposed to be home to 68 low-income Black and brown families. The owner of the building, IBID Associates LP, has given their residents until December 27^th  to find new homes as they let their contract with the Department of Housing and Human Development expire. This further destruction of a once Black community to satisfy ever-hungry University City is a plague to the city and an example of the dark reality of what it means to be Black and poor in University City. Big business sees you as disposable. It’s important to note that “University City” was not always what we called this neighborhood. It used to be called the “Black Bottom,” and to some people it’s still  “Da Bottom.” In reality, “University City” is a marketing campaign that’s bulldozed through a now-forgotten black hub, and has successfully done what gentrifiers do best: erase what once belonged. Calling the area “University City” is a slap in the face to those who knew what their home was when white people were still scared to go within ten blocks of it.

Many long-term residents walk around neighborhoods like Mantua reminiscing about what their community used to be: the small businesses that used to sit where a shiny, out-of-place apartment building has been erected, or their grandmother’s home that got bought up and bulldozed down. The reality is that our schools are not actually dedicated to the betterment of West Philadelphia. They are dedicated to the bottom line and influxes of college students. 

As someone born in West Philadelphia, the strangest thing to me since coming to Drexel University was noticing how many students moved to Philadelphia while being actively terrified of anything that didn’t have a shiny dragon emblem on it or wasn’t full of white people.

I grew up on the dividing line of West and Southwest Philly, on the 5800 block of Whitby Avenue. Back then, there were two things I always knew: first, that we were poor, and second, that we lived in a kind of untouchable, unwanted, poor-people neighborhood. Nobody wanted to move here, or buy our houses, or turn the corner stores into vegan juice huts. We held something beautiful: a lack of gentrifier desirability. I also never felt unsafe in my neighborhood; it was full of locals that had raised their families for generations, people’s grandparents, and kids my age.

When I was in high school, I remember riding the 34-trolley eastbound on the way to school, down Baltimore Avenue to West Catholic. Peering out of the trolley window, I saw a sign on the side of a building on 54^th and Baltimore. It read, “University City Dental Associates.” That was the beginning of the end.

I thought that I must’ve missed my stop. University City? If you know anything about Philadelphia, you know that there was a time when white people were scared to venture beyond 40^th street. There wasn’t even a university in sight for at least twenty blocks.

And that’s how they began to eat up West Philadelphia. 

My qualm is with the wave of students — affluent students — for whom our university, the universities surrounding it and realtors, have uprooted and ripped away the livelihoods of these old neighborhoods. Drexel and the University of Pennsylvania have so successfully wiped away the origins of West Philadelphia that their gentrification coined a nickname: “Penntrification.” There’s something odd about invading a community, swooping in and having corner after corner reshuffled for your comfort, and then complaining about the homeless man that sits outside of 7-Eleven. Worse still, is the constant complaint of “I wish Drexel would make the campus safer!” when your “campus” is the last remaining echo of a local neighborhood. It seems like suburban students come to Philadelphia universities for the “city experience,” and, puzzlingly enough, are upset about exposure to remaining city locals.

However, students are not fully to blame. University City institutions actively support and encourage the slow erasure of Black and brown neighborhoods. Under the guise of creating a safer, more desirable environment, their ultimate agenda will always be to cash a larger check. It comes down to this: our schools are businesses and businesses rarely care about the suppression of the poor, because this very suppression is what keeps them rich. And students piling in for an education is a perfect catalyst and excuse to further bulldoze through a community, regardless of how many statements they put out about “dedication to the community”—because the results speak louder than the press releases.

My only request to students is this: maybe the next time you complain about “rising crime” or the increase in homeless people outside of the store, consider first asking John Fry to cut back a bit this quarter—he might have something to do with their displacement. 

Shawkat Hammoudeh, Ph.D.

The 1970s were miserable, partly because of both high inflation and high unemployment.  That period is known as the “stagflation decade.” The chair of the Federal Reserve during those years was the macroeconomist Arthur Burns, who constructed the misery index as the sum of inflation rate and unemployment rate. The most notable thing about Burns’ index is that inflation and unemployment have the same weight, implying that they reduce wellbeing by the same amount.

If you are unemployed, you may disagree with the weight given by Professor Burns because you may not be able to put food on the table, or you might be evicted from your home. In this case, you vote for unemployment as the worst misery. However, if you are working but still cannot afford food and rent, you may go for inflation. Unemployment may affect a group of people, but inflation affects all people. Which misery would make you more unhappy in this case? It depends, right?

Currently, the unemployment rate is 3.7% and the inflation rate is 7.1%; thus, the misery index is 11.4%. In 1980, it was more than 21%! Today, the unemployment rate is low, but the inflation rate is high, and people think of high inflation as the only misery.

In 2013-2014, Professor Danny Blanchflower of Dartmouth College and others again revised this index and related the inflation and unemployment tradeoff to happiness, using a very large set of data from Europe. Those economists found that both economic miseries reduce happiness, but unemployment reduces it much more. They estimated that a 1-percent increase in unemployment would reduce happiness five times more than a 1-percent increase in inflation. Then the Blanchflower unhappiness index would have the weights 1 for inflation and 5 for unemployment — the current index would be 25.6%!

The current economy gives more weight to labor. Although unemployment is included in the traditional misery index, this variable is a lagging indicator and does not reflect the dynamics of the labor market. Based on that, I would like to propose a modification of the misery index to reflect the growth in wages that would work against unhappiness or misery. I would like to include the wage growth as a negative item in the index because higher wage growth tends to affect higher inflation rates. The current wage growth is about 5%. Based on the current data, the Blanchflower unhappiness index would decline to 20.6%: still very high, but not quite as miserable.

Can we relate academic research to political realities in the United States? Most polls in the last midterm elections guessed that the Democrats would face a red wave based on the high inflation numbers and a misery index of 11.4% as classified by Burns. The elections have suggested that we should not trust surveys, and inflation may not be the number one economic issue to the general public.

The winter quarter has begun, and a lot of students are feeling overwhelmed. This is a normal feeling to have this time of the year. The excitement of the holidays is over, and the cold weather makes it difficult to do fun things outside, especially with more cloudy days and fewer hours of sunshine. Still, it is important to push yourself to stay healthy, and that includes both your physical and mental health.

This winter, make sure that you take advantage of indoor exercise options. I personally use the Daskalakis Athletic Center and enjoy lifting weights and playing basketball. The CDC recommends 150 minutes of exercise a week, or 30 minutes per day 5 days per week. The foods we eat are also important. Drexel University offers free food at Mario’s Market located inside the Rush Building at 30 N 33rd St. If you are  hungry and can not afford something to eat it’s a great place to grab a week’s worth of groceries. I’ve personally gone there and encourage others to do the same. Remember, your physical and mental health are connected. When you take care of your body you are also taking care of your mind, and vice versa.

Drexel University offers students same-day counseling appointments which can be scheduled by emailing counsel@drexel.edu. The Center for Disease Control government webpage states that 1 in 5 Americans will suffer from some type of mental illness in any given year. Mental illness can be caused by a number of different factors including stress, drug or alcohol abuse, feelings of loneliness or as a result of trauma. Many things can cause mental illness, but what is most important is that you seek out help when you realize there is a problem. Imagine what you would do if you thought you had a broken finger. It would be foolish for someone to tell you to walk it off! The correct response to a broken finger is to see a doctor, and the correct response to anxiety, depression, or any other mental illness is to see a trained professional who can help you be the best version of yourself. Do not ignore your health. Our university gives us access to the resources we need to stay healthy and have a successful quarter. We pay for those resources, so do not be shy about using them.

LGBT+ identifying individuals experience anxiety and depression at a higher rate than their peers. When you choose to stigmatize mental health you are also choosing to invalidate the voices of LGBT+ individuals struggling to find acceptance and live the lives they want to live. If you aren’t experiencing stress, anxiety, or depression now it is still possible you will personally experience it at some point in your life. In fact, the CDC states that 50% of all individuals will deal with some form of mental illness in their lifetime. Be the friend you would want to have if you were going through something similar.

This is a tough time of the year for a lot of people, but 2023 is the start of something great for all of us—we just need to keep prioritizing our health. Our hard work and dedication will pay off, but we owe it to ourselves to keep our mind and body in peak condition. Just as you need to change the oil in your car and periodically get new tires, you also need to maintain your health and wellbeing through healthy activities and extracurriculars. Let us make this quarter one that we’re proud of by taking care of our health.

With winter term in full swing, the mountain of stress that comes with the endless homework, projects, exams, and assignments can lead us down a rabbit hole. It can be easy for us to get stuck in the mindset of the “winter term blues” as we stay locked away indoors during this time. However, it is important to push through these lethargic feelings and work towards keeping our mental health in check in order to have a successful winter term! 

For me, having a routine and forcing myself to stick with it really helps me stay sane. While in the moment I may dread having to get out of bed and head to the gym or brave the cold to meet a friend for coffee, once I’m doing the activity, I tend to feel much happier. The routine doesn’t have to be anything elaborate, just a reason to get you away from your desk or room to do something fun. My roommates and I have started a weekly movie night tradition, and while this may not seem like a big deal, we really try to get all our homework done earlier in the day so we can just sit back and enjoy some quality time together while watching tv.  

While this may sound contradictory to my previous piece of advice, make an effort to be spontaneous. Say “yes” to events or plans that come your way! This helps differentiate your days from each other, otherwise every day of the week just seems like a cold day filled with classes. Again, this doesn’t need to be something extravagant, maybe you make last-minute plans to join a friend in Center City for lunch, or you take your homework to a coffee shop you’ve always walked past but never visited.  

Even though sunlight isn’t nearly as abundant now as it is during the summer, it’s more important now, more than ever, to make sure you soak in all the sunshine and fresh air. It’s sure to improve your mood and help clear your mind. On the slightly warmer days try to take a walk around campus or take the longer walking route to class. On the colder days, make sure to open all your blinds and curtains and make it a point to sit by a window. We may not photosynthesize, but you’ll definitely feel a boost of energy thanks to the sun.  

Sometimes, you may not feel like leaving your apartment at all, believe me, it happens to the best of us. The goal isn’t always to get outside or go somewhere, the point is to find ways to still make the most of your day or find something enjoyable to do so you don’t spend the entire day agonizing over schoolwork. Ideas include playing board games, baking or cooking a new recipe, or following along with a yoga session on YouTube. Inevitably, the class assignments will take over, but taking a break to do something fun for yourself can greatly improve your day and mental health.  

I hope you try and incorporate some of these ideas into your daily routine during this winter term, and remember not to let the cold weather or pile of homework prevent you from having a fun term! 

When good men remain silent, the proverb says, evil may triumph. Few recent examples illustrate this more poignantly than the foot-dragging passivity of Attorney General Merrick Garland in the investigation of former President Donald Trump and his advisors in relation to the attack on the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. There has never been any doubt about Trump’s participation in the only insurrection against an American government ever fomented by a sitting president. Trump planned, instigated, promoted, and enabled the insurrection, mobilized the illicit paramilitary groups and others, which, assembling with others at his command, were urged to join him in marching on the Capitol to prevent the lawful certification in office of his successor by Congress. Despite the weapons plainly visible among the crowd, the magnetic sensors to detect them were disabled at Trump’s instruction, opening the way for the violent occupation of the Capitol. Although Trump was physically restrained from the march by bodyguards, he watched the enfolding carnage on television from the White House, expressing his approval of it and refusing all pleas to intervene until reinforcements, summoned by others, arrived to secure the Capitol building. Not until Joe Biden’s inauguration as the forty-sixth president two weeks later was the immediate crisis past, but the threat to American democracy posed not only by Trump’s actions but by the Republican Senate majority to approve efforts to remove him from office or disqualify him from future occupation of it. That Trump’s own party had refused to disavow him despite the threat to the lives of its Congressional members and to a Vice President for whom a gallows had been erected in the Capitol yards, was the strongest evidence that the Trump insurrection had spread not only far outside the Capitol but within it as well. Should the peaceful transfer of power not be enforced as the bedrock principle of democratic government, democracy would remain imperiled in the land of its modern birth. Beyond that, the failure of the Republican Party to this day to reject its ousted and criminal leadery, thereby denying Biden his legal standing as president—has demonstrated that one of America’s two major political parties has effectively abandoned popular democracy. This is a crisis that is not only far from ending, but just beginning.

Biden faced a multitude of crises as he assumed office, including a still-raging pandemic bungled by Trump, a rapidly-collapsing economy, and, within a month of his inauguration, the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II. To deal with this, he needed, as far as possible, bipartisan cooperation. For this reason, and to restore popular confidence in government in general, he was inhibited from directly holding Trump to account.  But he did possess an instrument for doing so at least at one remove from himself and by appropriate lawful process, namely the Department of Justice. 

Two years have passed. If something has been going on at Justice, effectively, nothing has happened. If Donald Trump has been excused at a minimum of dereliction of duty for failing to respond to the Capitol assault while it was underway, his three hours of inaction in front of a television set pale now before the spectacle of a full electoral cycle having passed without any announcement, update, or comment from Merrick Garland about the legal responsibility for January 6 other than that he would follow the facts of the matter wherever they led. What those facts might be, and where they are leading, we haven’t had a clue. Meanwhile, Donald Trump remains very much at large in every sense of the word, still the nominal leader of what we continue to call a political party, and still, astonishingly, the odds-on favorite for renomination to the office he sought to destroy. 

Oh, it isn’t that the Justice Department has been entirely asleep at the wheel. Garland has been assiduous in prosecuting the foot soldiers of the insurrection, those who actually broke into Congress and threatened to eliminate the entire first branch of government. But, as any prosecutor knows, you don’t start with the small fish to catch the big one; you go after his immediate subordinates, his own enablers, confederates, and co-conspirators. You go after the public servants who can rat out the boss, to use the lingo appropriate to the most corrupt, lawless, and seditious administration in American history. Instead, by clogging the courts with small fry who can offer nothing but apology and excuse, you do the exact opposite:  you squander your efforts and resources with the prosecutorial result of giving shelter, not to say aid and comfort, to those who actually plotted to overthrow the American government from within, nearly succeeded, and may have better luck next time.

I’d like to ask Merrick Garland why this has been so.  But he’d only respond with his mantra:  He’ll follow the facts wherever they lead. But not, as it seems, before he has made every attempt to evade them.

It isn’t because no one else has been looking for them. The Senate Select Committee on January 6 labored mightily to produce the most critical and, insofar as its powers lay, comprehensive investigative report in Congressional history, complete with recommendations for indictment by the DOJ—its own proper work handed to it on a platter.

Merrick Garland didn’t say thanks for the million pages of testimony and documentation which his Department, with its vastly greater staff and subpoena powers, received with the Committee’s final report. A good deal of the Committee’s work had actually been done by former Justice Department staff, whose voluntary collaboration with it spoke volumes for their considered opinion of Garland’s actual willingness to follow his famous facts where they led.

Of course, Garland couldn’t fail to react to the Committee’s revelations. He immediately did his best to bury them by appointing a special counsel, Jack Smith, to start all over with the investigation that should have been begun from the beginning of his appointment. Special counsel investigations have usually gone down a rabbit hole, as connoisseurs of the Mueller Report on Trump’s former misdeeds will doubtless recall. In any case, the dubious necessity for Smith to set up an office, get up to speed, and conduct an investigation that, if undertaken at all, was long past due, was excused by Garland’s professed desire to appear scrupulously neutral. Contrast this, if you will, with his immediate appointment of a second special counsel to investigate Joe Biden’s private possession of state documents within days of public disclosure of their existence. Nor are the events unrelated, for Biden’s embarrassment, even if temporary, will make Trump’s prosecution all the more politically difficult.

I cannot say that good men and women have done nothing to avert evil in the case of Donald Trump.  Many have: the police who risked their lives in defense of the Capitol; the members and staff of the January 6 Committee; the journalists, grand juries, and witnesses that, despite threats, are bringing the truth of the Trump conspiracy to light. I cannot say what Merrick Garland will do or not do, or how history will judge his discharge of responsibility in office. However, I can say that, whatever his reasons, the consequences of his conduct so far have done more than anyone else’s to keep Trump from the justice the country needs and he deserves.

By Jonathan Liss

With the digital age lurching ahead at breakneck speed, I thought this would be a good opportunity to look backward a bit. Perhaps it would be beneficial to slow down and consider reintroducing certain non-digital things into today’s popular culture. What do you think? Here are a few suggestions for you to mull over. 

Stingray bicycles, with banana seats and sissy bars — this one is for children and adults that have never grown up. In the 1960s and into the 1970s, Stingrays were the epitome of coolness for boys and girls. The banana seat was ideal for sharing a ride with your best friend while wreaking havoc in the neighborhood. And with the flashy sissy bar, it was easy to pretend you were rolling down the highway with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper in Easy Rider. I am not sure why the Stingray lost its popularity, but I think we should definitely bring it back to life.

A good bike ride always makes me hungry, which brings back fond memories of Horn & Hardart. Horn & Hardart restaurants, based in Philadelphia and New York City, were extremely popular until they fell out of favor due to the rise of fast-food eateries. The iconic restaurant chain was known for its delicacies such as creamed spinach, Salisbury steak, roast chicken, and baked beans, along with its quality drip-brewed coffee. Yet, by far, the best part of a visit to Horn & Hardart was indulging in a plate of creamy macaroni and cheese. Being a mac and cheese aficionado, in my opinion the Horn & Hardart version was the best in the world!

Fortunately for me, vinyl record albums have become popular again. I have quite a collection at home, including many prized albums from my Drexel University days. As a commuter student, I would regularly take the commuter train from my home in Cheltenham to the renowned Reading Terminal (before the Center City commuter connection tunnel was constructed). From Reading Terminal, it was a quick five-minute trip to campus via the train. On the way home from campus, I would often stop at Jerry’s Records on Market Street to kill time while waiting for my train. Jerry’s was my nirvana; a well-stocked record store that sold used record albums for $2.99. As you can guess, I was so absorbed in browsing through the huge selection of rock and roll records that I occasionally missed my train home. 

Finally, as we look forward to warmer weather, who wouldn’t like to partake in a Good Humor strawberry shortcake or chocolate éclair ice cream bar? As a child, the high point of a lazy summer day was the late afternoon arrival of the Good Humor ice cream truck. Unfortunately, in the late 1960s, Good Humor started experiencing competition from Mister Softee trucks and repeated strikes by the Teamsters union. In 1978, after a period of unprofitability, Good Humor sold its fleet of trucks to focus on selling its ice cream in grocery stores. Many of the trucks were sold to former Good Humor vendors who began running their own ice cream businesses. Trivia alert: In 1950, the film “The Good Humor Man” was released: a comedy film about a Good Humor ice cream salesman who becomes involved in a murder. 

Perhaps these simple pleasures for previous generations can become fashionable again. Maybe we are all suffering digital exhaustion and need an alternative to cell phones, iPads, and the like. What do you think?

With the holiday season quickly approaching, it has become easy for us to run to department stores in the mall or places like Target and Walmart to pick up gifts for our families and friends. We tend to forget the small businesses that make up our community and provide us with diverse options, utilize local goods and put the profits they make back into their products. While there were significantly more small businesses in Philadelphia prior to the pandemic, there are nearly 23,000 small businesses located in our city today!  

Walking into a small business is more personal than online shopping or wandering the mall and you have the opportunity to build a relationship with the owner who most likely built their store from scratch. Their stories are inspiring and you can tell their hard work and passion went directly into the items they are selling. An increasing number of smaller businesses manufactures their products with clean ingredients while trying to be more environmentally friendly, so you can feel better about what you are bringing into your home, putting in your body or gifting to someone. Local shops help grow the circulation of money within the community by building up the town’s economy and continuing to bring growth and innovation.  

Supporting your local entrepreneurs this upcoming season is simple, but if you are in need of some ideas of where to start here in Philly, here is a quick rundown of my personal favorites! 

For the book lover in your life, A Novel Idea in East Passyunk is the place to shop at. The floor-to-ceiling shelves are filled with books written by bestsellers and small-press authors, covering every genre from mystery thrillers to cookbooks! You can also find canvas bags, perfect for carrying your new books and character-themed bookmarks and artwork.  

Prepared to feel pampered and calm when walking into Ritual Shoppe in Rittenhouse Square. You can find candles, essential oils, incense matches, crystals and journals that are perfect for anyone ready to start off the new year with a fresh start. They even sell a line of ethically sourced jewelry that is made by hand using sustainable materials. 

Asia Crafts in Chinatown is home to a variety of stickers, stationery products and decorative items imported from Asia. There are plenty of trinkets perfect for anyone looking into sprucing up a new room or who loves collecting nickknacks. They also carry a wide range of Hello-Kitty-themed toys and crafts and BTS fan merchandise as well.  

If you plan to visit the German Christmas Village in Center City, make sure to stop by the 80 different shops set up outside of City Hall! From hot sauce to homemade dog treats to crazy-patterned socks and shampoo bars, the Christmas Village has a little something for everyone. 

If you are planning to start making your list soon, look into the small businesses near you this holiday season and make the effort to start shopping locally!