Living in Manayunk, Philadelphia

Main Street climbs along the Schuylkill through the heart of Manayunk, a strip of bars and restaurants that draws crowds from across the city on weekend nights, with the old canal towpath running quietly just below it for anyone after a walk or a run instead of a bar stool on a Friday evening along the strip. Boutiques and coffee shops fill the daytime hours before the bars take over after dark, the same storefronts shifting character block by block as evening sets in.

The neighborhood's hills give it a distinct character, rowhomes stacked up steep side streets with river views from the higher blocks that flatter parts of the city simply don't offer, the incline itself part of what gives Manayunk its layered, stacked-up look from across the river, block after block climbing toward the ridge above Main Street.

Main Street's popularity means weekend parking gets scarce fast, and that search for a spot is most people's routine way of arriving or leaving the neighborhood, a real tradeoff for the payoff of a genuine commercial strip with a river at its edge and a towpath just below it.