Philadelphia Review: Activities

The food in Philadelphia is quite good for the price, but how about the activities? As any of you know (assuming my friends and some of my sorority sisters are reading my blog) I love sports and in general being athletic. Its kind of my thing. It came as no surprise when I got to Philadelphia that I sought out almost any and every area for sports. Soccer, Tennis, Running, indoor, and outdoor sports are my thing but surprisingly Philadelphia responded quite well. Though my comparison mostly comes from New York (as another big city with lots of activities), There are only some negative similarities.

Running - City running is always tricky business. Stop lights, pedestrians, traffic all hinder the normal scheme of city running especially when you are trying to run a good distance. Philadelphia is about the same as any large city with one exception. There are two nice long stretches where you may run for miles without stopping. Those areas are right on the water from near the Delaware river and along the Schuykill river. I would recommend the east side of the Schuykill river as it has an actual path and is relatively uninterrupted by traffic. The Delaware river path, however, is right next to a major road and thus often noisy and dirty.

Tennis - Tennis was a bit tricky at first but soon became and easy occurrence. Because you need a court to play, its a bit awkward positioning courts in the city, but there are enough in Philadelphia to satisfy any avid tennis player. There are six courts at UPenn (32nd and Walnut), two at Drexel (Arch and 34th), two at Seger Park (10th and Lombard), two at Fairmount Park (23rd and Walnut), ten at JFK Park (All the way south on Broad st.), and two up near the Queen Lane medical campus. For a city as small (or as large) as Philadelphia, this is enough courts for people who play during the weekdays but not quite enough for the people playing during the weekends. Expect lines of one hour or more on the weekends. Come early, play early, and limit your court time to one hour out of courtesy. If you need any tennis equipment, head over to 12th and Sansom for friendly service at "Everyone's Racquet"

Soccer - Disappointingly, Philadelphia has a lot of small sized parks. These parks are definitely not large enough to play soccer, and I can safely say that there is no good location to play soccer inside the city. The closest area with a field is up off of the R3 an hour and fifteen minutes of out of Philadelphia. Another grass field is located near Pat's and Gino's Cheesesteak places (the two most famous ones) but its usually full with local soccer leagues that range from 80 - 120 per season. aka much to much money for the casual player and/or the starving graduate student.

Indoor sports - To my surprise, the indoor sports have a good following in Philly. The dodgeball league is fun and usually a good way to hang out, while the fencing clubs (just one in the area) are well rounded and pretty nice. If you have a hankering for trying a martial art, either do it through the school or hit up center city aikido between 7th and 8th on Market street. Its cheap and the folks are rather nice.

General Outdoor Sports - Outdoor sports are things I would consider like playing football, tossing around a baseball or frisbee, kayaking and the like. Unfortunately, Philadelphia lacks the space for most of this stuff and the space they do have is littered with broken glass and in general the filthiest of filthy areas. Drexel has a nice outdoor turf field and a little stretch of grass for some beach volleyball, but it is often occupied by campus events and students that may or may not welcome you. Give it a try though, this area is better than most. Another area for some of the more relaxed activities is the open field on UPenn's campus at Walnut between 33rd and 32nd. They have a random open field which has a plethora of sunbather's but looks like the perfect area to strap on some boots and kick a ball around. I would still recommend Drexel because the area is restricted (thus clean), but you also need a card to get in.

That's it for the review on sports! Hope it was interesting enough. I'll get back to writing personal entries soon. I just want to finish writing this stuff on Philadelphia before I forget completely. Have a good labor day weekend!