I got lunch with my uncle in the Reading Terminal over winter break. The former Philadelphia train station turned iconic market is a maze, even for us locals. As we wove through the crowd — tourists trying and failing not to get in the way, jurors on lunch break, families like ours — the city’s essence was on full display.
Bassett’s, America’s oldest ice cream company, is nestled next to an oyster bar, and the smell of cheesesteaks wafts from an aisle over. A Caribbean restaurant shares a wall with a deli right across from an Asian street food shop. It’s a glorious, chaotic representation of Philadelphia — historic, genuine and layered with identities that somehow form a whole.
When I return to Philly after being in Pittsburgh for school, I am reminded that it’s not just a great city but the best in America. Philadelphia earns that title because it is the most authentically, challengingly real city in the country. It blends history, culture and livability that you cannot find anywhere else…