Letters to the Editor | Dec. 7, 2023

The fatal stabbing of a Macy’s security guard at the very start of the holiday shopping season may represent a turning point in Center City’s ongoing struggle to remain a viable commercial destination. At a time when city planners are considering the construction of a major sports complex only three blocks from the scene of the horrific attack, the stakes couldn’t be higher. The Sports Complex sits at the southernmost edge of the city — closer to Camden than to Market Street. The venues there thrive largely due to a kind of drive-by fandom that can afford escalating ticket prices and can conveniently forgo the trek through Philly’s mean streets. To some extent, the same is true for attendees at annual events like the Mummers Parade, the Broad Street Run, and the Macy’s Christmas Light Show. The city otherwise affords them little in the way of shopping or dining experiences they can’t replicate at local shopping malls or on Amazon. All of which leaves Philadelphians with one overwhelming option: We can either clean our own house or stop expecting guests.

Anthony Nannetti, Philadelphia

Constructing a proposed new public health center on the grounds of Friends Hospital on Roosevelt Boulevard in Northeast Philadelphia is a bad idea, and not just because it would require the demolition of the nearly 170-year-old Lawnside building. The Quakers built the hospital, the oldest psychiatric hospital in the nation, in 1813 at a location far removed from the city for the purpose of encouraging healing through peace and solitude. These are qualities the Friends Hospital campus retains to this day despite the intense urban development around it, which includes a 12-lane highway — known to be one of the nation’s most dangerous arteries — and limited bus service. Meanwhile, a second new public health center being proposed near the Frankford Transportation Center could be made larger, at a location inarguably superior in public transit accessibility. This would enable a second, smaller health center to be sited elsewhere in the Northeast, thereby sparing the campus of Friends Hospital from an incursion that would forever alter its historic and bucolic character while needlessly endangering vulnerable patients arriving by transit or on foot.

Paul Steinke, executive director, Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia, psteinke@preservationalliance.com

In one of his first official acts, Gov. Josh Shapiro eliminated the college degree requirements for hundreds of state jobs. But don’t toss that college application into the trash quite yet. Lest students and families be tempted to cross postsecondary education off their to-do list, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce recently reported that almost two-thirds of jobs in the commonwealth will require postsecondary education or training by 2031. That statistic should encourage high schools throughout Pennsylvania to ramp up their college readiness standards and their college counseling activities to ensure all graduates know their postsecondary options and are well prepared to continue their education.

Debra Weiner, Quakertown

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