Heather Raquel Phillips fell for Philadelphia twice. The first time she was a teenager riding a bus over the bridge every weekend. The second time was a Monday night at a local bar, years after she moved in, when a friend of thirty years settled a problem without raising his voice.
Phillips is a visual artist, a bartender and an adjunct lecturer, and the city is the backdrop to nearly everything she makes. She grew up close enough to see it. Getting here took her until 19.
Heather Raquel Phillips Crossed the Bridge at 19
She calls herself a domestic import, born and bred on the Jersey side: Camden, National Park, Bellmawr and Westville, which she counts as her hometown. Camden sits within eyeshot of the skyline, and as a teenager she kept looking across at it.
So she came over. Art classes, South Street, and all-ages night at Revival, where she went to act up. From Friday to Sunday she lived on a bus. She and her best friend counted down the days to Friday every time Monday rolled around, because Philadelphia had the energy and the possibility that home did not.
She moved the moment she could. This is where she found her community and cut her teeth, and the Philadelphia she grew up with still sits under her art practice like a foundation.
Heather Raquel Phillips’ Philadelphia Favorites
Phillips came up during the restaurant explosion of the 1990s. These days she would rather spend her money at small mom-and-pop spots. For a casual lunch she goes to Cafe Boriquena, a vegan Puerto Rican restaurant, and her recent dinner at Polizzi Supper Club was, in her words, an experience.
Shopping usually means food. She is a fan of The Gross Out, the grocery bargain outlet, but she also loves a local craft market, and Traveling Wares at Dirty Frank’s always delivers. She circles the first Sunday in December for solid handmade goods.
Her best-kept secret is the city’s house museums. The Colored Girls Museum in Germantown, a three-story Victorian twin that Vashti DuBois turned into a museum in 2015, is the one she names first. She also thinks it is wild that a working post office still operates inside Independence National Historical Park, the Benjamin Franklin Post Office.
Heather Raquel Phillips and the Monday Night That Won Her Back
Lately she has been falling in love with the city again. She describes Philadelphia as the partner she had been sleeping next to for years, until the fire suddenly came back.
It happened at a neighborhood bar on a Monday. An out-of-town guy kept bothering her, so she found a gent she had known for a few decades and caught his eye. He nodded, sized up the situation, and walked over with the biggest smile in the room. Then he named everyone there and reminded the visitor that we were all from Philadelphia, with people stacked on top of people.
Phillips was awestruck, like her teenage self again. “This city has my back,” she said. “You always know where you stand with Philly folk”, she added. And that goes for her messiest moments as much as her best.
Ask her what makes the city hers and the answers come fast and out of order. Funk-O-Mart on Market Street. Three-card monte on Chestnut. A taxi driver who will walk your dog while the meter runs. Palm trees on Lehigh. Old Polish women selling pierogi in a church basement, and a skyline where nothing stands taller than Billy Penn. She adds the sports teams, heartbreak included.
Phillips thought she knew her city. It took one Monday night and a room full of names to remind her that it knows her, too.
Connect with Heather Raquel Phillips
Follow Heather Raquel Phillips online and at @heatheraquel.
Images: Courtesy of Heather Raquel Phillips, Lori Wasechuk, Steph Wipp
About Post Author
Discover more from dosage MAGAZINE
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
