Welcome to
West Philly! Apt 6

Important places in our neighborhood (our extra favorites are starred):

Groceries:

*Mariposa Food Co-op: 4824 Baltimore Ave
This is where most people in the neighborhood buy their groceries. It has been around since the 1970s when it started as local collective housing folks buying grain in bulk and splitting it between themselves. It is a great place to visit even if you don’t need groceries too! A very hip spot. It is the only ‘consensus only’ food co-op in the country; this makes it very difficult for anything to change! During COVID, they have certain hours they are closed for cleaning (2-4PM), and sometimes there are lines because they restrict the number of people inside.

Third Wheel Cheese Co: 707 South 50th Street
Local cheese and other local veggies and fruits. If you are staying a while you can sign up for their local produce boxes weekly. Open Thursday to Sunday. Great spot to grab artisanal goods!

Fresh Grocer: 5601 Chestnut St
Big super market with cheap prices. We don’t personally shop here but if you want more bulk items and more reasonable prices, you can choose to go here or travel a bit further to Trader Joe’s or other choices (there’s one in Center City)

Cafe’s 

*Satellite Cafe: 701 South 50th Street
Where locals go; our favorite too. Try their kale smoothie. We also like their Killer Black Bean wrap, and other wraps are yummy too!

Reanimator Coffee: 4705 Pine Street
They have a place to order from the street, to stay COVID-safe!

Eating Places:

*Renata’s Kitchen: 3940 Baltimore Ave
Excellent brunch. Central spot and good people watching.

*Vientiane Cafe: 4728 Baltimore Ave
Authentic Lao/Thai offerings, and a great ambiance. Be sure to try their papaya salad, mango sticky rice dessert. We also always order their Pad Kee Mao and green curry. Yum! (BYOB) Best sticky rice!!

New Delhi (Indian food): 4004 Chestnut Street
An amazing all-you-can-eat buffet. Also on Uber Eats if you don’t want to travel 10 blocks. Yummy chai.

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Eating AND Drinking Places:

*Carbon Copy Pizzeria and Brewery: 701 South 50th Street
Amazing Pizza and a rotating selection of truly creative craft beer. Nice outdoor seating in the warmer months, great for people-watching.

*Abyssinia Restaurant: 229 South 45th Street
Our personal favorite Ethiopian offering. Pro tip: Go in the front door and order a “two-person veggie combo” (our favorite!) and then tell them you are eating upstairs. Go upstairs and you will find a super cool prohibition-style cocktail bar (cash-only) called Fiume. They have excellent cocktails and an amazing array of unique beers. Pay for your cocktails with cash when you are done, and the Ethiopian food gets paid for downstairs (can use a card).

*Fiume: 229 South 45th Street:
You can also just head straight to Fiume if you want to skip the ethiopian food for great cocktails and local vibe. The bartender Brian Nothing is the one who painted the mural on the Larchwood side brick wall, and many apartments feature his original paintings. We may be his biggest single supporter! If you are interested in purchasing one they are very reasonably priced and can be found at https://www.briannothing.com/archive.html (usually $250-$500 for original amazing canvas paintings). He’s local. We don’t get commissions on this, just love to support local artists!

*Clarkville: 4301 Baltimore Ave
Pizza, Beer, and other snacks. Outdoor seating in warm weather. Be sure to try their burrata cheese dish!

Local 44: 4333 Spruce Street
Lots of craft beers and artisanal pub fare. Usually more college students than if you are further West.

Dahlak: 4708 Baltimore Ave
A West Philly Ethiopian mainstay. In the summer, locals go to the outdoor section in the back and hang out. It’s fun.

Gojjo: 4540 Baltimore Ave
Another local Ethiopian food spot. Sometimes some dancing/DJs on weekend nights.

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Some Walks to Do:

Clark Park Farmers Market: 4300 Baltimore Ave. Saturday 10AM-2PM year-round.

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aan the 1910s and 1920s this brilliant man had the bright idea of building garages behind city houses. The FIRST GARAGES IN THE NATION, WHAT! Google him to learn more (‘Clarence Siegel Garden Court’). Notice the architecture on streets like Osage, Cedar, and Larchwood Ave.

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More Food Places: Not West Philly, but well worth the trip

Barbuzzo: 110 South 13th Street
An Uber ride into the center city away, but well worth the trip. Excellent wood-fired pizza, gnocchi, and the best part is their ‘salted caramel budino’. Yum.

Honey’s Sit N Eat: two location options: 2101 South Street (a tad closer) or 800 North 4th Street (farther but hipper neighborhood)
Great for brunch. Hannah has been getting their Enfrijolada with veggie sausage every time she goes for about a decade now and counting.

Some Historical Notes:

Garden Court, Philadelphia (essentially the neighborhood outlined in our map above):
Garden Court is a neighborhood in the West Philadelphia section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located west of Spruce Hill, north of Cedar Park, east of Cobbs Creek, and south of Walnut Hill. In the 1920s, The Philadelphia Inquirer called Garden Court "the most exclusive location in West Philadelphia." Garden Court was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 5, 1984. The neighborhood contains a diverse mix of housing types, including the 116-unit Garden Court Condominiums. It is a racially mixed neighborhood. Income and property values are greater than those of West Philadelphia as a whole. The neighborhood is mostly residential, but contains small rows of shops around the intersections of 48th and Spruce, and 47th and Pine. Breadth: 46th - 52nd Street, Cedar to Locust.

Movement for a New Society (started in this neighborhood, also see the book Oppose and Propose, on the bookshelf):
The Movement for a New Society (MNS) was a U.S.-based network of social activist collectives, committed to the principles of nonviolence, who played a key role in social movements of the 1970s and 80s. According to a description from the MNS publication, Building Social Change Communities (1979), Movement for a New Society (MNS) is a nationwide network of groups working for fundamental social change through nonviolent action. Together we are developing an analysis of present-day society; a vision of a decentralized, democratic and caring social order; a nonviolent revolutionary strategy; and a program based on changed values and changed lives.

Some Specifics about the Building and General Unit Things (449 South 51st Street)

Real Time Feedback: If you have ANY issues you find to be important, please let us know while you are staying with us and not after you leave! We can almost always help you and fix the problem or buy an item you are missing or anything else. Please please please don’t wait til review time to tell us what you needed! We are here to help, we promise!

TV tips: The TV has a built-in Roku player, which gives you access to Netflix, HBO, Showtime, and other on-demand watching. Technically if you use netflix we should be asking you to sign into your own account, but most of them are logged in as us. Please don’t purchase anything lol. Thank you!

Espresso: The Nespresso machine sometimes entails a bit of a learning curve. No, you didn’t break it! You will find the pods in the small drawer underneath the machine. Carefully drop one into the holder so it's just kind of sitting there, and then pull down on the lever to lock the machine. Press one of the buttons on top of the machine to turn it on, and wait until the lights stop flashing (It needs a second to heat up). 

Rubbish and Compost: Garbage and Recycling: We have two containers for garbage so that you can separate recycling from other garbage. You can bring them to the bins in the alleyway (they are all ours). We take them out on trash day so no worries about that. Compost: We do pay for compost removal services, from the bucket you see on the steps. You can put compost directly in there, but we usually recommend purchasing compostable bags on amazon and putting your compost in those bags in the freezer then taking out when they are full. Garbage disposal in sink: Also the garbage disposal can get rid of food waste so we aren’t building up the landfills too much, just please google what you can and can’t put in those if you’ve never had one before (nothing hard, it can jam them). The button on the counter turns it on and off, always run water when using. 
Fire Alarm Stuff: If you burn food or something else that is smokey, don’t open your doorway into the hallway because that is where the central smoke alarms are and if those go off, the firetrucks come. If that happens by mistake, just go outside and meet the fire truck folks and say sorry so they know it is a false alarm. If you make smoke in your house, please just open a window. Then let us know so we can let the monitoring company know as well. Also if the hallway smoke alarm beeps randomly, let us know. Sometimes it does that and we are problem solving why, we can silence it. If you do set off the central alarm for some reason that is not a real fire, you can stand on a chair and press “silent” button in the red box right inside mailroom. It is very loud and we can also come as soon as we can if it happens. If you have a real fire, all units have fire extinguishers under the sink and there are also hallway ones.

Some Specifics about your Apt (6)

• TV tips:
  The TV has a built-in Roku player, which gives you access to Netflix, HBO, Showtime, and other on-demand watching.

• Temperature control:

  There are two wall-mounted units (one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom). They are controlled with remotes. If you want a blast of hot or cold air, press the guy with the muscles (“supercharge!”). Please return the remotes to their cradles when you check out, and also please be mindful of the environment and turn them down when leaving the apartment. In the winter don’t turn the heat below 50 degrees if you go out, so pipes don’t freeze!

• Espresso:
  The Nespresso machine sometimes entails a bit of a learning curve. No, you didn’t break it! You will find the pods in the small drawer underneath the machine. Carefully drop one into the holder so it's just kind of sitting there, and then pull down on the lever to lock the machine. Press one of the buttons on top of the machine to turn it on, and wait until the lights stop flashing (It needs a second to heat up). Then select the size you want (single or double shot). Meanwhile, you can use the milk frother to make a cappuccino or latte. IMPORTANT: there are two 'max fill' lines inside of the milk container. For hot beverages, do not fill past the first fill line (no higher than the little mixing element), or you will have a milk overflow. Push the button on the milk frother (once for hot beverages or twice for cold), and wait until it finishes--light will go off and it will stop on its own.

• Rubbish and Compost:
  Garbage and Recycling: We have two containers for rubbish so that you can separate recycling from other garbage. No need to take them out for short stays, but if they fill up while you are here, you can bring them to the bins at the side of the house or in the alleyway (they are all ours).

• Compost:
  If you happen to have compostables, feel free to toss those into a green compost bag and put in the freezer. (If you are staying for over a week, we would just ask that you empty that out weekly. Compost is picked up Wednesday mornings, so you can toss compostables into one of the buckets on the front porch on Tuesday night. If you are staying for less than a week, leave them in the freezer and we will grab ‘em). The compost bags are the green ones in the kitchen drawer.

• Check Out:
  Nothing fancy--just simple, common sense tidying is all we ask. We change the linens and scrub everything down after you leave, so if you could just leave everything more or less the way it was, hang up any wet towels, close the blinds, and lock the door as you leave, that would be tremendous. Checkout is at 11AM, but if you need a later checkout, please ask. Sometimes we can accommodate this if we don’t have another guest coming that day. Thanks!

A Few Other Odds and Ends:

• Wifi: Network is soundmind and Password is soundmind.

• Quiet hours: Quiet after 11PM please (just no big loud noises after then. Normal loudness level is fine of course!)

• Smoking: No smoking of any kind inside. If you need to smoke, please go on the porch or in the backyard. Please be mindful of the noise level of conversations outside if it is past 11PM.

• Cleaning: I put the vacuum on the stairs going up to the attic (it is the door next to yours). Just so it doesn't take up room in your apt.

• Security: A lot of people ask us if it is safe to walk around at night. We definitely do, but it is never a bad idea to be extra cautious - this being an urban area with all the things that go along with that. It is best to stay in the area on the map, or south or east of us for night-walking (in other words, walk towards Penn or Baltimore Ave for the safer area). Also, if it is dark, we recommend not walking alone. West of 51st Street and north of us can feel a little less safe. And, some other tips: don’t leave valuables in your car in plain sight, don’t  leave doors unlocked when you leave, don’t leave your laptop on the porch unattended, don’t leave street-level windows unlocked/open, etc. Common sense can go a long way here!

• Quiet Hours: Please keep quiet hours between 10PM and 8AM, meaning no loud music or TV turned up loud, guests or loud walking, or anything else that might be disturbing to your neighbors. Some apartments are more sound-proofed than others, so as a default we ask you to respect this.

• White noise machine: If you hear street noise or any other noise that bothers you, there is a noise machine in your unit that you can make many sounds with: white noise, crickets, birds, a babbling brook, or even a drippy faucet (what fun!)

• Hallway light: if the hallway light is annoying to you at night, feel free to switch it off at night, the switch is outside your door.

• Keypad: Only use the keypad on the door - do not lock by using the doorknob. If you type in your keypad lock and after opening or closing you hear several beeps and a yellow light goes off several times, it means it is running low on batteries. In this case, please let us know so we can replace and we avoid any possibility of you being locked out! Alternatively, you can replace in the back with 4 double A batteries, once replaced the code stays the same for you and you’re good to go

• Heat/AC: If you are gone for extended periods of time, please turn the AC off (or at least turn it down), for the environment’s sake. If it is winter, you can turn the heat down to 50 or 60 degrees but don’t turn it completely off because we don’t want pipes to freeze.

• Kitchen and Crumbs: Please keep food crumbs off the counters and floor if you can. This is a city so we are always trying to make sure rodents don’t decide to call our building home. Cleanliness is very much appreciated by everyone who lives here.

• Please don’t forget to write us a review! Also, if you have any feedback - no matter how small or seemingly unimportant - please let us know so we can continue to improve for next guests. It also helps our nonprofit thrive! You can write this in the private feedback section or just text us with thoughts at any point!

• For Amazon or other delivery service, please have them deliver to 4623 Spruce Street, Inside Front Door, Philadelphia PA, 19143 and then in the “delivery instructions” in Amazon you put in 2559 code, so they can get in (do not write this on your address please, only in the code section). If you want to order takeout, tell them ‘4623 Spruce Street’ and they will come to the front porch. If you want to order takeout, tell them ‘4623 Spruce Street’ and they will come to the front porch.

• And, of course, if you need anything during your stay, please don’t wait until the review to let us know - let us try to fix it while you are here! We are in the building so it is no trouble at all.