Eraserhood

 It began as a typical Tuesday morning with me taking the train and subway to South Philly for breakfast at the Broad Street Diner then spending the next 3 hours riding the subway looking for photos for my Subway Nobody portfolio. What's funny is that after 20 minutes on the Broad Street Line I found the photo I was looking for which happened to be the last photo needed for this project, at least for a while. I now had about 90 minutes before the next train left to my neighborhood so I got off in the Eraserhood (David Lynch lived there) which is the last neighborhood to gentrify in center city Philadelphia. There was a time I knew several artists in this neighborhood but they have all been forced out to major rent increases or their buildings being neatly polished and modernized for the new city dweller. As this is the area that's trying to brand itself as Philadelphia's High Line and researching building permits shows there's enough future development to destroy whatever culture and creativity is left. You can see whats about to happen before it actually does, especially if you've lived in the city for several decades. What was weird is that in 60 minutes I passed three people in the streets and alleys. I've been taking photos in this post industrial neighborhood for 20 years  and there were a few buildings and things that about to disappear and to follow the street artist Ghuls. In the end this former 20th century X-rated neighborhood is joining the rest of the PG-13 center city for the 21st Century.