Where 17th Street bisects the Community College of Philadelphia, groups of black, white and Asian students dot a semi-circular hub of tiered steps surrounded by modern, grey buildings. This might be one of the most diverse places in the city, but students rarely stray from groups divided along racial lines.

The split makes two women who sit and wait for class stand apart from the crowd. Syreeta Montgomery, 24, has a wiry build, skin the color of coffee with extra cream and blond braids that hang past her waist. Katrina Trudeau, 30, is white with watery blue eyes and brown hair slicked back from her face. They met in chemistry lab.

Trudeau lives with her husband, a chef, and two children in a house they recently bought in Germantown, where she grew up. She's studying to be a nurse. "It's practical," she says, without hesitation. A good job that will provide for her family. This is Montgomery's third year studying science, with both eyes trained on Temple.

The women say students of all colors attend class here together, but few get to know classmates who aren't like them. "It's pretty separate," Montgomery says. "A lot of people stay within their race, which I think is cowardice." Trudeau blames it on youth. Many students come here right out of high school and don't yet feel confident enough to take risks, she says. "It's so superficial," Montgomery interjects. "People is people is people."

They glance over at two men in uniforms who dig up planters filled with dried flowers and sink hearty mums, dotted with yellow buds, into the soil. In the block between Spring Garden and Callowhill streets, snakes of people slither like tails around silver trucks. Across the street, four Asian students talk excitedly and an African-American boy and girl flirt, playfully pushing each other. Three white girls sit on a row of benches near some shrubs; they're smoking cigarettes and talking about their majors — teaching and dental hygiene.

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

It's a scene that vendor Joe Uccelletti has watched every September for 12 years. He gets up at five of 4 every morning to get here by 5:15 from his home in the Northeast. He's history by 1:30 p.m. "A good lunch and then I'm outta here," he says, glancing at a woman in bright blue scrubs walking over from Hahnemann University Hospital. "I'm usually busy the whole time."

There are seven other trucks here today, not counting the rolling photo center down the street. "Being here 12 years, I've learned how to talk to most of these vendors," Uccelletti says of what it's like mingling with different races. "There's been a lot of turnover. We kind of stick together. If you need tools, change… But there's competition."

The students here seem mostly well behaved, aside from a few troublemakers, he says. College is a big adjustment for 18-year-old Gloria Vincent, who used to attend class with mostly African-American students like herself, but likes learning about other cultures. "This is a lot different from high school," she says, waiting for a sandwich. She's wearing a long pink polo shirt over dark jeans and sparkly, star-shaped earrings. "I'm used to people running around and screaming. People here are a lot calmer. They're easier to talk to. I'm enjoying my time here."

There have been only two low points so far. The first day she saw a fight between "little kids acting crazy," and books cost "an arm and leg." After CCP, Vincent, who lives near 60th Street, may go to Drexel University for computer science or Temple for law. For now, she's content meeting new people, something she also likes about her job at Target. A few co-workers are from England.

"They tell me a lot about what's going on over there," she says, "in case I ever want to go."