THE HOLLOW

As the hollow declines in Landlords population I thought I’d show off some of the neighborhood before it’s all the way over.

I cut it at Queen Lane because I think that it turns into Pulaskitown right there. P-Town/Queen Lane . East of Wayne to Germantown Ave is Brickyard. past School House is more like Central G-town.

Happy Hollow is the Rec Center on Wayne. The actual Hollow is a largely unused park above the playground on the ridge above Wayne with entrances in the playground and from Pulaski. Fernhill is the park that is bordered by Roberts and Wissahickon on the far side, abbotsford and morris on the close side and bisected by Route 1. So our neighborhood gets called Happy Hollow or Fern Hill depending on who’s talking.

Sometimes it’s just SW Germantown.

The borders of our hood would be Wissahickon/Roberts/Wayne/Queen Lane.

Gentrification is in the reving up stage if you don’t know.

Our little corner of paradise doesn’t really feel like ours anymore.

All places I’ve lived in the last 20+ years have gentrified past affordability. At least I own in this neighborhood but geez…happening again. You see the character changing just a little bit at a time and then you decide it’s time to leave and when you come back nothing is the same and you don’t fit in anymore.

(I don’t know if that will happen here. The Hollow is different. Stays the same as much as it changes is the common thought. But… maybe that’s not true anymore.)

Center City, Bella Vista, Queen Village, (Saigon briefly), Graduate Hospital, West Philly, E Williamsburg/Bushwick edge, East Village, Lower East Side, Lower Deck, NY Chinatown…

Empty streets at night. Lurkers. Adventure.

All these places have amazing memories for me. I grew into an adult in these places. I chilled with friends in all these places. got in trouble in all these places. Miss all of these places. They are still there, but believe me they are not still there.

The Hollow was so special for our years of Landlording.

We started families here. all of us. these kids all have a tie to growing up here. A bunch of ex-messenger dads. Friends on every block. All of them learned to ride bikes here. Real magic stuff.

Before real life got in the way we were so connected…

French press Coffee in the AM, sima oner keeps the whole squad dipped in coffee beans. out of towner friends, skate jams, BBQ’s, holidays, road trips, getting drunk and blurry with a dutch in the McKean alley and walking home to Pulaski at night. Sitting in each other’s basements. Abandoned House Music. West Philly squad. Gary Knight on the Fuji Touring IV on Wayne Ave. Rolling around g-town on beater bikes, never locking up. Lurking.

We were a united front.

I know this is some shit you talk about when you’re 20.

“Yo it would be so cool if we all got houses in the same neighborhood.”

But we did it. And we held it for years, some for a decade or more.

Shit man I remember coming here 10+ years ago, staying at Nope’s.

Everything looked so dark at night. No streetlights. Grass everywhere.

At the end of the first Landlords video I made in 2007 there’s some footage out the window of Lew Blum’s F250. Leaving Germantown to go back to NYC.

It was just dark with porch lights moving.

People could not figure out what we were doing out here.

I remember this dude told me a rumor he heard where Nope was keeping alligators in his basement.

I was like…

LOL!

Queen Lane Projects was going off. They knocked it down a couple years ago. But I remember it.

I stayed on McKean that night. Helicopters and cops everywhere searching the alleys. They put the whole neighborhood on blast.

The helicopters aren’t out that much anymore.

You’d be in your kitchen and look in the backyard and it would be lit up like a UFO movie with the chopper blades thumping over you.

Often. Every night in the summer.

Unnerving first times for sure.

It’s changed.

In those first years the 1/2 block skate over to Serge’s was dangerous. I’d jump on my board right off the steps and push fast all the way there…

Rick O inspired pushing where you lift your foot up high and push hard as shit and go fast.

Deli mission was a mission for real.

Have to warn friends from safe places not to be so casual and to guard their grills.

That was nighttime outside.

Everyone got mugged before I got here. All OG Landlords. I think every dude that had a house before me.

I got stuck up on Wayne , on a Sunday at like 7am, but didn’t have shit and did not get stomped out.

I still won’t walk with a wallet late night dog missions but I’m not thinking I’m getting my wig split if I walk on the sidewalk and not in the street.

Through the hourglass like sand the days of our lives LOL.