From what I understand, even Center City Philadelphia is not the safest place to roam around in anymore, especially at night. I don't know if in your Temple days you ever got up to the Kensington Avenue area, right near the Frankford El, which has been mentioned a few times already on this thread, but at one time that was a much safer and cleaner neighborhood too, filled with working people and their families, and small businesses. But that has degenerated into a filthy, disgusting, open drug-selling and prostitution neighborhood, filled with people living out on the street, and they call it a "bust-free-zone", as the Philadelphia police don't bother them there.
I posted this youtube link on another thread recently, but if you haven't seen it, and you're interested, there are a lot of youtube video links at this youtube search link that show what a mess that area has become. If you haven't seen that area of Philly (and if you have the stomach for it), you might want to take a look at a couple of those videos, but I'll warn you first that they are heart-wrenching, sickening, and depressing. Here's that youtube search link:
"Kensington Ave Philadelphia"Those videos are just heartbreaking. It was *nothing* like that when I was there. I didn’t hang around Kensington back then, only passed by it a few times. It was a little sketchy, but nothing like what it is now. It was still a relatively productive area with open stores and delis, etc. Of course, this was in the Frank Rizzo and Willie Green days and fentanyl wasn’t a thing yet. Heck, even crack hadn’t become desirable yet. I think that might have just started to rear its ugly head when I left.
I’ve heard Center City is not safe at all anymore and that it’s also wise to keep heightened awareness on the Temple campus even in broad daylight.
The Philly where I came of legal age and of which I have fond memories no longer exists. I haven’t been back in years. I wonder if McGillan’s is still a good place? That was a stone’s throw from where I lived and my friends and I spent many an evening there. I was even in a band that played there once in a while.
There has to be 20-25 people involved. A couple seem to something going down, run up, get a kick in then run away.
Who acts like this? black people.