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(01/28/03 10:00am)
The Green Line Cafe -- a new coffee and pastry shop at 43rd and Baltimore streets -- has had a successful first week of business, according to co-owners and managers Douglas Witmer and Daniel Thut.
The cafe, which opened last Monday, sells organic coffees and teas, which are bought directly from producers, not coffee conglomerates. It also sells its own line of bottled soda as well as various pastries and cakes.
"It's a little different from typical coffee fare," Thut said of the focus on all organic products, something that Witmer refers to as an effort to be "quality conscious." The two also plan to expand their selection to include soups and sandwiches within the next few weeks.
Witmer and Thut, long-time West Philadelphia residents, had toyed with the idea of opening a coffee shop for years.
"We live in the community, and we felt that there was a need for a place like this where people can come and socialize," Thut said.
"And when the building went on sale, we got serious about it," Witmer added.
It took a year and a half to plan the cafe because storefront renovations took about a year to complete.
Witmer and Thut said that although it is too soon to tell who their core clientele will be, they hope that the coffee shop will cater to both the University and West Philadelphia communities. They added that they do not think their distance from the center of campus will be a problem for business, which has been steady this week.
"There is enough neighborhood support," Witmer said, "and any business from the University is a bonus."
The cafe's proximity to the Green Line subway station, a key spot from which most West Philadelphia residents commute to Center City, will probably work in its favor, said Anthony Sorrentino, director of external relations for the Office of the Executive Vice President. The cafe is also near Clark Park, a popular spot for local residents. Sorrentino added that the University welcomes the addition of new businesses beyond the boundaries of campus.
"It is exciting to see new entrepreneurs adding to the robust marketplace of University City," Sorrentino said. "The University is behind them 100 percent."
The bustling cafe has been filled with people reading, socializing and enjoying the sunny winter days through the cafe's stained glass.
David Bevacqua, who is not affiliated with Penn, made his first visit to the cafe this weekend.
Having just returned from Italy, he said, "It is impossible to get a good espresso in this country, but this is as good as any." He added that the service was wonderful and the location extremely convenient due to its proximity to Clark Park.
Daniel Flaumenhaft, who works in the School of Medicine, has already been to the Green Line Cafe several times this week. He likes the cafe because of its quiet, yet social atmosphere.
One day this week, "I came in to read for half an hour and ended up seeing 15 people I knew and stayed all afternoon," Flaumenhaft explained.
College junior Jamie Wong said that "it is convenient for students living off campus to have a place to go past 40th Street."
Despite the long walk in the blistering cold, even Penn students who live on campus said that they would try the Green Line Cafe. College freshman Patrick Griffin, who lives in the Quadrangle, said that he would consider making the trek to 43rd Street if the cafe turned out to be better than those closer to campus.
"I'd probably go if we could get a whole troop to make the journey down there," said College freshman Kristopher Holum, who lives in Hill College House, noting that he would like to see what the new cafe has to offer. But he added,"We have a Starbucks across the street, which I would be more inclined to go to."
Whether the Green Line Cafe's organic fare and friendly service is enough to attract on-campus residents remains to be seen, but after their first busy week, Witmer and Thut are glad to be in business.
(01/27/03 10:00am)
Call it dorm room disgust, call it restlessness for the high rises to replace their aging furniture or just call it insanity. But whatever you call it, no one can deny that creative genius is thriving here at Penn.
If you had an old iron, an elevator cord spool, some plastic bottlenecks, a decomposing couch and some scotch tape, what would you do?
To some Penn students the answer is obvious -- decorate the apartment.
College sophomore Scott Sokoloff first heard about the abandoned cord spools that were extracted from Hamilton College House's infamous elevators from a senior. The wheels in his head were already turning as he headed out to the dumpsters.
And by the time he was rolling one of the huge circular monstrosities past bewildered Spectaguards in the Hamilton lobby, his mind had already transformed it into a buffet table. Within a month, it had been cleaned off, covered in a tablecloth and had become an integral part of the numerous weekend meals that he and his roommates hosted in their apartment.
Looking back on life pre-spool compared to life now, Sokoloff proclaims, "I believe that no room is complete without a gigantic wheel."
Right down the hall from Sokoloff resides another budding interior designer.
Engineering junior Peretz Cik is the mastermind behind what he proudly refers to as "the ghetto pulley." Using old plastic bottles and string, he created a pulley system in his Hamilton dorm room whereby he can close the door while sitting on his bed across the room.
"I used bottlenecks because they're smooth, and the string pulls over them with little resistance," Cik reports.
When asked if he used his engineering knowledge to develop the system, Cik answers in the affirmative.
"In order to shut the door, the string had to have a force at a certain angle and have the string pointing toward a certain corner of the door."
Next, Cik displayed the projector that he had built to turn his room into a movie theater with nothing more than a cardboard box, a $5 page-magnifier from Staples and a dorm room wall.
The only problem that Cik ran into was that the lens inverted the image and projected it upside down. Cik, undaunted, proceeded to hook up the TV to his computer so that he could invert the TV image before it went through the projector.
"Who wouldn't do this?" is Cik's final conclusion.
The high rises are not the only hotbeds of redecorating innovation.
College freshmen Matt Aquino, Byron Drumheller, Robbie Biggs and Ken-ichi Hino bonded early in the year in their Quadrangle hallway of Butcher -- soon after, their two rooms were famous for their late-night parties.
"Well-known? Just ask our RAs," Aquino says with a smile.
However, the boys realized early on that their cramped rooms with bulky beds were not ideal for the kind of atmosphere they wanted to create for their parties. That is why one night, it suddenly struck them that they could move out of one of their rooms and make it into an official lounge for such occasions.
"That was it -- at 3:30 in the morning we started moving furniture, and we did it all night," Aquino says.
Slowly, they found things to add to their new pad. Aquino's father, who is in the liquor business, gave them old memorabilia that they used to decorate the walls, and one day when Drumheller and Aquino were on 41st Street, they found an old couch that they dragged all the way back to the Quad in the cold.
Next came the scotch tape that they used to write messages on the wall to be further accentuated by black lights.
Unfortunately, they were soon put on probation for their parties, and their party room became a place for them to just chill.
But not all of Penn's on-campus creations are large-scale productions.
Take the case of College sophomore Nora Badal's old iron. She had nothing in her wardrobe to iron, but she did have a hankering for grilled cheese last year in the Quad. As a result, her iron quit its day job and moved from smoothing out creases in her shirts to ironing out toast.
"I wonder what you can make with a curling iron?" she ponders.
MacGuyver would be proud.
(12/03/02 10:00am)
STORRS, Conn. -- They'll be back.
(11/12/02 10:00am)
For the last six weeks, Penn grad students Ben Studebaker and Shasta Jones have done nothing but sleep, eat and drink body building.
(11/12/02 5:00am)
For the last six weeks, Penn grad students Ben Studebaker and Shasta Jones have done nothing but sleep, eat and drink body building.
(11/07/02 10:00am)
When your cabbie, his dispatcher and his map haven't heard of the street you're heading to, it's time to get nervous.
(11/04/02 10:00am)
The Dental School's recently completed Robert Schattner Center was officially dedicated on Friday, following a long series of construction problems and legal battles that have delayed its opening for the last two years.
(10/18/02 9:00am)
Upon arriving at Audrey Claire, the hostess greeted us with a friendly smile and seated us at a small table, which was surrounded by blank walls and candle light.
(10/08/02 9:00am)
Giving birth to a sandpaper baby through his urethra, a perverted neighbor who watched his sister, a psychotic mother and adventures with strangers and gigantic bottles of Vicatin are all part of the life of novelist Chuck Palahniuk.
(08/29/02 9:00am)
Numerous campus restaurants and bars closed -- either temporarily or permanently -- over the summer, leaving the Penn community socially challenged for the summer months.
(06/20/02 9:00am)
Ethnic tension in Russia hit close to home on June 9th when University Professor Rudra Sil was allegedly attacked due to racial violence.
(06/13/02 9:00am)
When I was six years old, there were only two kinds of people in the world: those who knew how to ride a bicycle and those who did not.
(04/15/02 9:00am)
Students, for the most part, followed the rules at Spring Fling this year, as Penn Police have reported few serious incidents over the weekend.
(04/12/02 9:00am)
Several people, whom police believed last night to be Penn students, were arrested yesterday afternoon just as Spring Fling festivities were unofficially getting underway.
(04/01/02 10:00am)
*This article appeared in the 4/1/02 Joke Issue* History Professor Thomas Childers' silence over the recent plagiarism controversy involving him and historian Stephen Ambrose has deeper roots than many first thought.
(03/26/02 10:00am)
When Elliot dropped a trail of Reese's Pieces behind for E.T. 20 years ago, he left a dangerous trail for alcohol advertisers to follow. Product placement has soared to extraterrestrial levels. And Mothers Against Drunk Driving is not too pleased.
(03/06/02 10:00am)
This fall, students looking for their fill of pasta will not need to head to the eastern side of the Schuylkill.
(02/13/02 10:00am)
Some nights, Don Mueller comes home from his day job as a research associate at Penn, changes into a costume and becomes "Doctor Bones."
(02/04/02 10:00am)
Theft
(02/04/02 10:00am)
Two open bottles were leaning against my door Friday morning. When I opened the door, they spilled inside. So I picked them up and placed them on the ground -- a WaWa apple juice bottle and a Nestea bottle. It was too early to really think about why someone had done this, until I started cleaning it up and realized that it wasn't juice or tea. It was piss.
