The Outlook

Forecasting Philly 2008

by Nathaniel Popkin

The storefront room at Front and Chestnut is small and disorderly. When I enter, Mrs. Sylvia, the clairvoyant, is talking to a much younger woman with a small boy — presumably her daughter and grandson — and I am interrupting. Next door is a medieval tailor, then an empty lot where early mercantile buildings had stood until this spring. Beyond that, the cartoon sculpture of Irish immigration, I-95, the river.

"I could read you," says the old woman, "Mrs. Sylvia." Her look is incredulous. She slouches in her chair like a bored child. With Michael Nutter about to be inaugurated, I've asked her to tell the city's fortune. "Or I could read him," she continues.

"I don't have him here, unfortunately," I respond, "but I'm not necessarily asking about the new mayor. What about the city's future? Can you tell that?"

"I'll tell you one thing, it can't get no worse," interjects the daughter.

At 17th and Chancellor, I'm greeted by a neat-looking man in his 30s who escorts me up carpeted stairs to a gaudy flat with views of Little Pete's and the parking garage below. There is a flat-screen TV, a giant Christmas tree, a plush sectional. Maria comes in before I have a chance to sit down. She's about 40, with a small face and large, dark eyes. She looks tired. I explain myself.

She nods. "2008 is a strong year."

"Can you do a reading?"

"For Michael Nutter? You're going to be just fine with Michael Nutter in 2008." I press for details; she's ready for me to leave. "I have Christmas shopping to do today."

"The city?" I ask as I'm walking back down the stairs.

"We're strong people here."

The truth, finally; it emerges from beneath her nasal congestion.

We have survived, after all. Not merely eight years of John Street, but assault and neglect from every possible corner. We have survived despite the NRA, 1950s zoning, the business privilege tax and Bush tax policy; despite councilmanic prerogative, crack and heroin and meth; despite the barricades at Independence Hall, the loss of Steve Lopez, G-Love and AI; despite 97 straight combined seasons without a championship, Sam Rappaport, Greek-style pizza, and the blown deal for Meyer Werft; despite Vince Fumo and Faye Moore; despite the suburbanization of public housing, the proliferation of the curb cut, the expectation of Sugarhouse and Foxwoods.

Oh, the bristling, resilient city; we put our faith in one man. Make us beautiful again.

Now the woman before me is ancient. By her difficulty moving I assume she's had a stroke. Mary Miller laughs when I ask how long she's been a palm reader. "Always," she says, though each word is a struggle to pronounce. We're sitting at the kitchen table in her Naples-style one-room basso (the sofa-bed is just in from the sidewalk) on Sixth Street. I shuffle the cards.

"You treat people well," she says, layering cards as if she were playing solitaire. Her fingers are disfigured from arthritis. "You are truthful ... you like the girls, they like you ... you enjoy things, you take pleasure."

I begin to wonder if she's understood my question about the city and its new mayor. "This man," she says without interrupting the sequence of the cards, "he is an honest man. He wants to make things better. He wants to do well."

Well? Will he?

"He tries to make everything perfect. He can't do that. But the city is going to be all right."

I hand her $25 and walk through the torn screen door. Kater Street is quiet. I sit down on the first stoop. The cold marble is refreshing, the sky bright after so many days of gray.

Nathaniel Popkin is a frequent Slant contributor.