Philadelphia Weekly

G-Ho no mo': Gone, but not forgotten.

Back in 2005 a group of locals drinking at Doobie's decided the area where their taproom sat needed a decent name. The Graduate Hospital area--as most still know the neighborhood--was just so dull.

"How 'bout Southwest Center City?" someone said. Nah. Too euphemistic.

South of South--or worse, SoSo? That sure boasts neighborhood pride.

Schuylkill, the designation ascribed by Penn's Neighborhood Information System? Too generic--the Schuylkill River is 130 miles long.

South Rittenhouse or Center City South? Too derivative.

Devil's Pocket? A great name, but it applies to only one small section of the neighborhood.

Then someone joked, "How about Grad Ho?"

G-Ho! It was perfect.

A perfectly halfassed play on "Soho," and a perfect way to commemorate the notorious hospital neighbors had long suspected would eventually close.

It did close--back in March. And it was bought from Tenet by the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which is partnering with Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network to reopen it as a long-term acute care facility next summer.

Penn kept Graduate's Tuttleman Building open as a part-time urgent care facility, and some of Graduate's doctors have kept their offices open. Renovations of the main hospital building have already begun.

Where, then, does that leave G-Ho? Eve Lewis, executive director of the South of South Neighborhood Association (SOSNA), never liked it in the first place. "G-Ho is insulting to myself and every woman in this neighborhood, especially since Imus," she says. "But it does have a hip factor."

Larry Shaeffer, a SOSNA board member, had previously requested a name-change committee--which was met with lukewarm response. Lewis thinks now is a good time to revisit that idea.

Barb Failer of the South Street West Civic Association, disagrees. "It's a doomed venture to try to create one name," she says. A resident of 18 years, she argues Broad Street to the Schuylkill River and South Street to Washington Avenue is too big an area to give one name. "It's not one neighborhood," she says. "It's a pocket of several little neighborhoods."

So what does Failer call her own neighborhood? "Well, South Square is probably the best identifiable landmark, but if I'm pushed I'll say South Philly."

Volpe Real Estate, which has been in the neighborhood since 1990, still advertises its listings in the Graduate Hospital area.

Will there ever be a consensus? Perhaps not--which is a testament to the diversity of the neighborhood's people. But when those same people adamantly differentiate South Philly from Queen Village, Girard Estate and Point Breeze, they'll probably eventually circle back to the late, not-so-great Graduate Hospital. Unless a group of Doobie's drinkers have their way with G-Ho.

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A longtime G-Ho proponent, R. Bradley Maule writes the blog phillyskyline.com. Comments on this story can be sent to letters@philadelphiaweekly.com