:)

Man this thread hain't been updated in 9 months... good

The only event reported on, happened yesterday: a dude did not like the quote given for a mobile phone, and in great anger, he left with a high kick to the front door, shattering the glass and closing the shop temporarily.

Main owner Alan has take up a second career in real estate, and he is trying to get that going, knowing that it's only so much longer for the shop. Steve reports that he leaves the shop for hours to do real estate things.

If you do any moonlighting listing properties on eBay for him, be sure to include how many dead hobos each parcel will hold.

Real estate seems like it would be more lucrative than the shop as well. Unless maybe he's selling homes in the ghetto?

Where Lil' Pete lived in East Falls (Philly) there was a gentrification push. It seems likely that'd suppress the pawn business.

He's selling $500,000 homes in the burbs. Or trying to, but this is the perfect time to do that, as the boom is on.

Gentrification is one of the big threats to the shop as neighborhoods that nobody thought would ever flip are flipping. It's really hard to imagine it moving that far north though...

But Steve reports that since the end of the Broad Street Line subway is a block away, white people are now Ubering to it from the north, in order to reach center city. This was a kind of unforeseen thing and may have caused a fairly decent pizza place to move in. (I wonder if they realize they can't do this at night. People will get shot and jacked waiting for an Uber there.)

Meanwhile across the street from the other pawn shop...

I am interviewing tomorrow for a job with the head office of a chain of retail sneaker stores, where all the stores are in strictly urban areas. One of the locations is one block down from the pawn shop. I've never gone in.

I asked Steve if he ever went in, or had any opinion of the place.

"Yesterday a woman came in with a bag of shoes from there. She left it on the counter and said, I'll be back in a bit. Someone spotted the bag unattended, and grabbed it and bolted out the door. The woman came back and totally freaked out on us."

Now that I have signed-up and read all 90 pages (ok, not all), you are going to put an end to this thread. Thanks for that ;)

I first found this one near the end as well - sad to see it go (for me, not Undertoad, we need him around) but so much gold in here...

Thanks y'all. It was worth it doing it for a while for the stories, but it was more worth it quitting it.

http://www.fox29.com/news/controvers...letproof-glass

Because Philadelphia City Council has solved all other problems, they've introduced this bill, which if passed would immediately cause the shop to shut down.

Ugh. Sounds like that's the whole purpose of it.

Ah quick correction: now that I've hunted down more details, the bill only applies to food establishments. The story was unclear.

This will shut down the chinese food place where I used to get lunch. It's still ridiculous...

That is just insane.