History of Courier Hangouts in Philly

from 1994-present
1.The Station, southeast corner of 16th & JFK

The first day I became a messenger my dispatcher told me, “Go to the station and you’ll see this guy Brad sitting on the ground, he’ll tell you what to do”.Brad was the “station guy” for Diamond Couriers, he sat there, smoking cigarettes and other couriers would bring him packages and he would hand them off to drivers, he rarely rode his bike. This is where everyone hung out, I saw so much insane shit there. Puerto Rican Mark (not to be confused w/ Rasta Mark who would always clean the payphone on his sweatpants religiously before he called dispatch) convinced Ronnie(non-courier local zombie) to let him lock his neck to the railing w/ a u-lock, so vicious. PR Mark also locked Pedro’s bike up and dropped the key down the sewer in front of him after he picked up his morning sweep. so illllll…It was right across from Love Park, which was going off at the time, a bunch of couriers just sitting there smoking weed. All kinds of crazies coming by to visit us and sell us shit all day. Fights, car crashes, drug runs to Stiles St. In the winter we would hang in the train station downstairs, that got really nuts. Homeless people vs. transit cops all day, this is when 13th L station was basically a tent city.
shouts to: PR Mark, Rasta Mark, Ronnie, Brother Bill, Brother Mike, Brad Roakie, Lil Neil, Kenny Love, Jamaican Harry aka Hakeem, Chico, Cheeta, Jay Kabe, DeJesus, Triathelon Mark, Fuzzy, El Guappo, Slacker Dave, Alexis,

2.Heaven Sent walker station, northeast corner of 16th&JFK.

This is where the walkers hung out mostly doing what the Diamond “station guy” would do, get packages from offices and hand them off to car couriers so they wouldn’t have to worry about parking etc. Today it’s been adopted by the more derelict end of the bike courier scene. Even though they banned skateboarding from LOVE park, it’s still filled with full time mania, and the couriers are a necessary part of this scene.

3.Intercept Station, north side of Market St. between 16th & 17th

This is where the Intercept crew hangs and has for as long as I can remember, do they still wear shirt and ties? in the late 90’s you could catch Agua and Vesz here plottin’ on a blunt session and a lot of dudes riding mountain bikes with construction tims.

4. Urban Windowsills, northeast corner of 18th&Walnut

While the Timecyclers were always holding down “the park” (see below) it was not dominated by couriers the way it is now and has been since the late 90’s. When our click really came together we kind of weren’t station crew (infinite respect)and we weren’t spandex Time Cyclers so we held down the windowsills outside this trendy ass store. It was kind of like”yea we hang at Rittenhouse too, but we got our own spot” then eventually it all just came together.

(Besides not wanting to listen to Brims pontificate on the wall, the urban windows had close by lock up rails, and you were in the cut outside of straight on view protected by those fedex and ups boxes. All I know is Liar Liar got a job as in-store security in urban and was always chasing art school kids out of there for stuffing ironic shower curtains in there pants. Once he tried to chase a kid onto the bus and thought we’d have his back, yeah right, go shoplifter! )

5. The Park, southwest corner of 18th&Walnut

There’s even couriers hanging out in Google streetview! The Park is where you go to find bike couriers, weather you’re trying to date them or fight them this is where to get at them. (Wintertime @LaColombe around the corner, shout to Blake, LB, John Moore, Mike, TownieTim, Altay) As stated above the park used to be a bit posh, but seems pretty all inclusive these days, but I’m probly out of touch….