love letters to places i'll never meet - by Elan Ullendorff

When I lived in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, one of my favorite things to do was wander the main streets of our neighborhood looking through store windows and return home to report on the gossip of the day: did you hear that Pamela’s Diner is closing / the used book shop is moving down the block to a larger space / the bakery is going vegan / we’re getting our 19th boba and/or vape shop? Neighborhoods are more than the businesses that they contain. But it felt like something we could sink our teeth into: every coming soon sign required us to revise the mental model of our potential futures. At the new ice cream store, what flavor would we order? Who would we be with? Who would we be? When we moved to South Philly this summer, I found myself not only mourning that I wouldn’t get to watch Squirrel Hill continue to evolve, but also that I wasn’t there to witness my new neighborhood’s past. I felt a similar sensation when I first met my partner: a sadness that I would never get to meet her f

When I lived in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, one of my favorite things to do was wander the main streets of our neighborhood looking through store windows and return home to report on the gossip of the day: did you hear that Pamela’s Diner is closing / the used book shop is moving down the block to a larger space / the bakery is going vegan / we’re getting our 19th boba and/or vape shop? Neighborhoods are more than the businesses that they contain. But it felt like something we could sink our teeth into: every coming soon sign required us to revise the mental model of our potential futures. At t