Return to Sender: Journalistic Misunderstanding

Dear Business Week:

I'm really pleased—no, really— that you've decided, in your recent Up-and-Coming Neighborhoods feature that my neighborhood, Northern Liberties, belongs on the list. It's a great neighborhood, and in the few months since I've moved there, I've really grown to love it. But did you really have to use a picture of Finnegan's Wake (featured above) to illustrate your point?

Finnegan's is technically in NoLibs. This I know. But most of the neighbors would tell you that they wish it wasn't, except for the ones who prefer to go the denial route and tell you that that particular stretch of Spring Garden doesn't count as part of the neighborhood. (I've heard it referred to as "Old City North" before.)

Northern Liberties is a bright, vibrant community full of great bars and restaurants. Of all the places I've lived in Philly, it's the first that's really felt to me like a real neighborhood. And just as it's accepted me, I'm willing to accept new people seeking its "up-and-coming"-ness, if they're willing to embrace what they're getting. Those are not the people coming to Finnegan's.

The people coming to Finnegan's are loud and obnoxious. They're often drunk before they walk in, having decided that pre-gaming would be a good way to get the evening started. The guys want desperately to get laid, and the girls want desperately to facilitate that, or at least that's what their hemlines say. At closing time, they spill out onto the street and noisily try to find taxis, waking the people who live nearby in the process. The actual Northern Liberties residents. The ones who should have been featured in your feature.

So, in the future, should you decide to discuss Northern Liberties in more detail, I'd suggest you ask a few locals where they like to hang out. If you want a crowd of people like the one in front of Finnegan's in your photo, snap a picture of the line that snakes its way around the corner every Saturday and Sunday at Honey's on Fourth Street. If you're trying to stick to bars, check out North Third or the Standard Tap—they're both neighborhood mainstays that draw big crowds on weekends. If it's art you want, look no further than Ray King's "Hello David" installation on Third Street. Trying to show the convergence of disaffected hipsters and more yuppefied types that proves the neighborhood to really be "up-and-coming?" Spend a few hours snapping photos in Liberty Lands Park. Show off our impressive selection of live entertainment venues by checking out The Fire and Ortleib's, or, if you want to branch out, move a few blocks away from NoLibs and into Fishtown to check out Johnny Brenda's and the M Room. But don't, for the love of God, think that just because you crossed Second Street and made it to Finnegan's Wake, that you've got an idea of what our neighborhood is like. Because you'd be very, very wrong.

Photo above, also used by Business Week, by Flickr user Lucius Kwok.