Reason #2 To Love Philadelphia: The Funk-O-Mart

Today’s reason to love Philadelphia is 11th Street’s most important store: The Funk-O-Mart.

Never before has funk been so easily accessible in one simple mart.

Perhaps the store’s owners, instead of Alice Walton, can purchase The Gross Clinic and keep it in Philadelphia.

Market East To Be Outfitted With Giant Neon Ramen Ad

Looks like Philadelphia’s going to be getting a giant ad for soup sometime soon. (Sorry, I already used a Geno’s joke today and didn’t want to make another one.)

The Trinity Capitol Advisors has signed a 150-year lease with the estate of Stephen Girard for the lot between Market and Chestnut streets and 11th and 12th — for a cool $90 million — and is planning on making it the hippest hoppin place in town:

“Our idea is really be patient with it and make sure it’s right,” [TCA prez Ken] Kearns said of the four-building complex on Market Street across from The Gallery. “It has the potential to be a Times Square [or] Rockefeller Center for Philadelphia.”

Yes, that’s all well and good, but what will happen to the Funk-O-Mart? You make the Funk-O-Mart close — or force them to go to a different City Blue — and the people will riot.

Philadelphia’s Times Square? [Metro]