A Shoplifting Epidemic, and a Postcard to Democracy

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PHILADELPHIA — The City of Brotherly Love also seems to be the City of Light-Fingered Gloves. Walk into almost any pharmacy, and you’ll see expensive items locked up. Customers must press a button on each display to summon an employee with a key to retrieve, for example, a bottle of Tylenol. My Beautiful Mystery Companion and I noticed this on a recent visit to an academic conference where we both gave presentations.

We had just left the famous Reading Terminal Market, one of the country’s oldest and largest public markets. It’s a great place to stroll and enjoy locally sourced produce, meats and poultry, cheeses, baked goods, and desserts. We couldn’t resist stopping at Beiler’s Bakery to each get a doughnut. I eat one annually, so my blueberry cruller will have to do until next year.

As we got near a CVS pharmacy near the market, we noticed a television cameraman and a fellow holding a microphone. He stopped us and asked if we wished to comment on the wave of shoplifting in Philly. He explained the police department had just conducted an undercover sting operation and arrested 13 people in a short period of time at a single CVS store and 39 people at nine CVS locations in Philly. My BMC explained we weren’t from around these parts, but the TV reporter wanted to interview her anyway. Not me. She is much better looking.

My BMC, as always, made several articulate comments, which were later boiled down to a single sentence. That’s television news for you. You can watch the segment here. My BMC is at the tail end of the interview. As we left, the news reporter said to us, “Be careful out there. This place is dirty and dangerous.”

Dang. Definitely not a plug for Philly tourism.

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This is our second visit to Philadelphia. The last time was in late June a couple of years ago. During this visit, not many people are exploring the historic sites. Spring Break up north had not quite started yet. We walked everywhere from our hotel downtown, about a quarter-mile from Rittenhouse Square, a popular park for dog walkers. We sat on a park bench and watched the dogs for a while. My BMC gave many of the passing dogs a particular voice, depending on their size and demeanor — a deep, bass voice for a Corso, a high-pitched falsetto for a Pomeranian. We find amusement easily.

Since we were here just two years ago, we looked for sites (and sights) we missed the first time, such as City Hall. When one thinks of a city hall, what usually comes to mind is not jaw-dropping, but usually functional and architecturally unexciting. Philly’s city hall is, as Philly.com rightfully brags, jaw-dropping. Construction began in 1871 and took more than 30 years to complete. When built, it was the tallest habitable structure — at 548 feet — in the world. City Hall! It consists of 88 million bricks and 250 sculptures, all created by Alexander Calder, and is topped with a 37-foot-tall statue of founder William Penn. It is still the largest municipal building in the world.

Then there are the window AC units. City Hall has nearly 700 rooms and no central heat or air system. Small window units protrude from many of those rooms and have become another architectural feature of the building.

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A restroom break led us to revisit the Independence Visitors Center, but not before peeking through a window at the Liberty Bell. Construction scaffolding framed the window, with blue pipes wrapped in yellow caution tape. There’s a metaphor somewhere in that image. Nearby, Independence Hall stood tall and stately. Inside the visitor’s center, we stopped at the Dear Democracy exhibit. It is tied to a TED Talk scheduled for June in Philadelphia to mark the 250^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. A stack of postcards was on the counter. Visitors are invited to write a postcard to Democracy (with a capital “D”) and drop it in the clear plastic mailbox nearby.

My message was brief: Dear Democracy: Don’t let the bastards wear you down. Stay strong! Gary B.

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