Fare well, Philly.
After 20 years in Philly’s professional community, I am making the big leap to the Big Apple! In April, I began work at a new position for a NYC-based, legal services nonprofit, Volunteers of Legal Service. This post is my look back.
I moved to Philadelphia in 1996 to attend the University of Pennsylvania. On my first Friday in town, I discovered First Fridays. This boy from suburban North Jersey fell in love. In the same night out, I could sneak some free wine at art galleries and then eat late night at the (original Silk City) diner!
New York City was the city of my youth, but I never really knew New York until I moved here later in life, in 2015, when my wife became the new rabbi at SAJ — Judaism That Stands For All. Back in the day as a Penn freshman, I had quickly assessed that Philly was a city with “one of everything.” Of course, New York had 30 of everything; but it was a bit overwhelming. Philly was a big city with a small town feel.
My love affair with Philadelphia included but went beyond arts and culture. Over time, I became part of the community. My first student project was to raise money for Action AIDS in Center City. During college, I interned for a local concert promoter and would frequently get lost driving to and from concerts — on purpose! — to learn all the streets in the city and suburbs. I taught web design to students at the now-closed University City High School. And as student program board chair, we partnered with Mayor Rendell’s administration to sponsor the first Philadelphia College Festival at the Mann Center. I opened up many of Penn’s student events to the community and played a small role to help found The Rotunda. After graduation, I worked at the short-lived, online, city guide startup philly2nite, moonlighted as the box office manager for Jamaican Dave, and joined the board of directors of the West Philadelphia Cultural Alliance/ Paul Robeson House.
These experiences led me fatefully to a WHYY Radio Times/ Temple Issues Forum “college town” conference in late 2000. The event committee became the early board of directors of Campus Philly, the nonprofit I soon founded alongside a range of civic partners (and with the dedicated leadership of Michelle Freeman, Carol de Fries, and Duane Bumb, in particular). Little did I know that sharing my love of all things Philly would form the basis for a well-regarded economic development strategy. We were inspired by Richard Florida to believe that recruiting young people to live in Greater Philadelphia would lead to job growth, instead of the other way around. (Florida later gave us a shout out in his book, Who’s Your City?).
The 00’s was a fun decade in the civic entertainment business. In 2000, I helped to co-produce Penn’s Spring Fling with The Roots and Ben Folds Five. In 2002, I had the privilege to again book The Roots for the third Philadelphia College Festival. (That same year, I also met my future wife!) I always enjoyed sharing the stage with Mayor John Street at festival press conferences, when he promised to speak briefly… no matter how long it took. In 2003, Campus Philly and the City Rep office attracted 20,000 students and young people to watch Busta Rhymes on the Ben Franklin Parkway, generating 300 noise complaints to City Hall. Not coincidentally, that was the last college festival to extend past sundown, a circumstance that led to useful cost savings on stage lighting!
Campus Philly grew into a full organization with several programs. In 2007 — just two weeks after the birth of my first child Aviel — one could say that I had reached “Peak Philly.” Dunkin’ Donuts and the Philadelphia Eagles teamed up to build a list of “75 Greatest Living Philadelphians,” and as ridiculous as this sounds… I was included! (Thanks, Bonnie Grant.)
Peak Philly: If I had walked out of the stadium with my Dunkin’-Eagles football and was promptly hit by a bus, I would have died a happy man.
Not only did I fall in love with Philly, but I fell in love in Philly, with a Reconstructionist rabbinical student named Lauren Grabelle. At the time, my job was literally to encourage people to stay in Philly after graduation. And so, after hosting a prayer service in our West Philly living room, Student Rabbi Lauren began the journey to build a new Jewish community, alongside others including Andrew Zitcer and Noga Newberg. Meanwhile, while I was considering a new career opportunity in 2010, Lauren invited me to a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” conference in DC, the first big national gathering for J Street. I was shocked because I had no idea that so many American Jews agreed with my views on Israel. And soon enough, I was embroiled in an international controversy because I thought it was a good idea to rent space at Penn Hillel for our local launch event.
When I joined J Street’s staff, a strange thing happened. My Philly professional network was almost entirely irrelevant to my job! It was quite a jump to go from a career in Philly boosterism to Middle East peace politics. The United States has yet to figure out how to help Israelis and Palestinians resolve their conflict. But I can say that, during my time at J Street, we increased confidence in Congress to support President Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran.
After our second child Nadiv was born, it made sense to look for a job closer to home. And with both kids in preschool, it was quite appropriate to use my new advocacy skills and join the nonpartisan Pre-K for PA campaign during the 2014 gubernatorial election cycle.
Working with some great Philly leaders (including Donna Cooper, Steve Wray, Diane Castelbuono, and Sharon Easterling), we made sure that PA candidates addressed state investment in early education. I even used my son as a prop during our petition delivery to Tom Wolf’s South Philly campaign office! By my calculation, state funding in early learning increased by $90M annually during and soon after our campaign. And of course, mayoral candidate Jim Kenney then ran his election campaign with a promise to bring universal pre-K to Philadelphia.
It was around that time that I had coffee with Old City District’s Job Itzkowitz at Little Pete’s diner, of blessed memory, z”l. I knew Job back from the days of Young Involved Philadelphia with Andrew Hohns. With a team of other older-than-we-used-to-be-but-still-younger-than-most local leaders, Job and Andrew had been plotting out Philadelphia’s prospective role for the USA’s 250th anniversary in 2026. That’s right: 1776–2026 is 250 years. If we could just get folks organized, the Semiquincentennial would become a huge deal for the city and the country. In fact, nearly 1 in 4 Americans attended the world’s fair in Philadelphia for the 1876 Centennial. We set out to raise some money and, in 2014, I joined USA250 as its first full-time executive director (with thanks to Sam Katz for kicking things off years earlier).
And then, life took some turns:
I moved to New York City. Lauren’s new synagogue, Kol Tzedek, has become one of the most special faith communities that I know. It is so special that her work attracted the attention of the historic SAJ in New York City, where she was hired as the new rabbi. We moved in 2015, but of course I couldn’t really leave Philly. I spent the next several years developing USA250, and it has been a blast.
Donald Trump became President of the United States. People know where I stand on politics, so I don’t need to go into it here. In fact, I wrote a piece on Medium in 2017 to try to make sense of our current moment and what role I can play as a citizen. I think I’ll be working on that answer for the rest of my life. There is a lot of work to do to make democracy work for everyone.
And so, finally, it is time to say good bye. Six weeks ago, I wrapped up my work with USA250 to complete the transition to New York. My family is here, and my life is here. And while my heart will always have a special warmth for Philadelphia, it is time to make the switch.
I am excited to share more soon about my new job in a forthcoming post, “Hello, New York (2 of 2). Stay tuned! In fact, keep in touch with me on Facebook, on Twitter, here on Medium, on Instagram, or on LinkedIn. Or email me at jon@ghnyc.net.
CODA
This week, I was excited to read about the work of my Campus Philly successor, Deborah Diamond, who hosted the first national conference based on the organization’s work. And especially following the Eagles’ victory over the Pats in Super Bowl LII, I had a good laugh when reading that Philly now beats Boston in attracting recent college grads to live and work.
At the same time, I have begun to reflect on what role Campus Philly might have played as a contributor to gentrification, a phenomenon that a) was hardly known in Philly when we began our work in 2001, and b) seems to be on super steroids here in New York. I don’t regret our work; in fact, we were encouraging people to be more involved with their community, and we did not encourage specific places to live, whether city or suburbs. But I give credit to Deborah for focusing on inclusive leadership and growth (PDF) as a more recent Campus Philly strategy. New understanding requires new thinking, and I am glad to see the next generation of CP leadership evolve and thrive.
And on the fun side, you’ll see above that one of my earliest partnerships was when Campus Philly worked to promote the 2002 NBA All-Star Game to college students in the region. 17 years later, it was recently confirmed that the 2026 MLB All-Star Game is coming to Philly in July 2026, just 50 years after the bonanza of patriotic sporting events during the Bicentennial. I likely forfeited my ticket by moving to NYC. But nevertheless, I am honored to congratulate the Phillies’ David Mongtomery (who sadly passed away after this writing z”l), USA250, and PHLCVB for making the big game announcement happen.
To all my friends in Philly: GOOD LUCK, and KEEP IN TOUCH!
