Megan Ronning
1. Megan Ronning, age 22, from Yardley, PA has been coming to Boat House Row to run for five years. She has lived outside of Philadelphia her entire life. She runs from the Art Museum area to Manayunk, which is between 6 and 8 miles according to Megan. She runs five days a week and has participated in half marathons. She is preparing right now for her first full marathon. She says that Philadelphia is “ A really historic city—there’s a lot of really nice parts and nice places to eat. There is a lot of cultural diversity, it was one of the first big cities, and people from Philadelphia are very passionate about their sports.” She doesn’t like “driving on 76 because of all the traffic—people can be very nasty on the roads here.”
Zuly Vera
2. Zuly Vera, age 26 is from Venezuela and just recently moved here in the past few months. She is a massage therapist and enjoys living “in a fast paced city that’s old and has good people.” She dislikes the way “that Philadelphia is culturally divided—Italians on one side, Albanians on the other, etc.”
Eriona Nacollari
3. Eriona Nacollari, age 22 is from Albania and has been living in Philadelphia for eight years. She likes that “life here is so fast paced and that people are friendly.” She also points out that while people are friendly, “there are a lot of racial tensions between ethnicities.”
Shane Brengde
4. Shane Brengde, age 24 is from San Diego, California and has been living here for six months. He just started going to Temple’s Law School and he likes “it a lot—I really like that it’s so easy to get around without a car, everything is so close together.” Shane feels that “there is a large gap between rich and poor people, in terms of physical space.”
Maureen Spring
6. Maureen Spring, age 23 has also been living in Philadelphia for a year and a half and enjoys “the nightlife in Philly, but it’s really dirty and there are too many bums.”
Michelle Horton
7. Michelle Horton, age 19 from Yardley, PA has been living in Philadelphia for four months. “I like the culture and entertainment are within ten minutes of anywhere you are in the city,” she says. She came here for school and dislikes nothing about Philly.
Tina Clark
8. Tina Clark, age 20 from Fairless Hills, PA has lived there her entire life. She likes “the close proximity of things” and doesn’t dislike anything about Philly.
Breanne O'Neill
9. Breanne O’Neill, age 20 from Yardley, PA has been living here for a year and enjoys Philadelphia’s “exciting and busy atmosphere.” She says “there is too much pollution.”
Rebecca Heaps
10. Rebecca Heaps, age 19 has been living here for two years and attends Moore College of Art for fashion design. “ I love being so close to all the museums, but I don’t like all the traffic and how crowded everything is. I’m from a rural area so it’s not natural for me.”
Allison Berry
11. Allison Berry, age 20 has lived here for two years and attends Moore College of Art for illustration. “Everything is so easy to get to, especially compared to NYC or D.C.” she says, “I really don’t like how busy the Parkway is.”
Tom Van-Curren
12. Tom Van-Curren, age 20 is from Haddonfield, NJ and he says he loves “everything about Philadelphia and there’s nothing I dislike about it.”
