Ours is a culture of nostalgia. Sometimes that nostalgia is immediate, like the million-member Facebook group “When I was your age, Pluto was a planet.” And other times it’s for a time we don’t even really remember, like VH1’s I Love the ’80s.

So now, on the verge of graduation, I think it’s appropriate for me to do a little Penn-themed reminiscing of my own. You underclassmen might not remember, but things weren’t always so easy for us students. I’m talking about an era where if you wanted wireless internet, you went to Van Pelt. My memory’s a little cloudy, but I think it’s coming back to me now…

Back in my day, we had the Triangle Diner. TriDi was open 24/7, and it would deliver right to your room in Spruce or even Hamilton. The walls in TriDi were covered with Polaroids of undergrads and waiters dancing to the 50’s tunes that the jukebox would play. And the disco fries were delicious.

Back in my day, we didn’t have that thar shiny building. In fact we didn’t have either of those thar buildings. Amtrak went straight from Trenton to Washington:

Back in my day, Walnut Street was lined with inexplicably creepy buildings like Cinemagic, which could have served as the set for an Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode. And there was a locksmith, where you could make unlimited copies of Penn-issued keys for free. And the old Chinese Buffet was where the new Philly Diner is, and the old Philly Diner was where people got shot in the face.

Yep, those were the good old days…

Tags: being old, nostalgia, TriDi

This entry was posted on Monday, March 31st, 2008 at 4:00 pm and is filed under Penn, Philadelphia, West Philly. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.