"Where do all the hippies meet? South Street, South Street" — the 1963 hit by The Orlons gave the neighborhood its anthem before it had fully become what the song described. South Street runs east-west through South Philadelphia, and its stretch from Front Street to about 10th Street has been the city's counter-cultural commercial strip for sixty years: head shops, tattoo parlors, vintage clothing, record stores, and restaurants that have changed in style and cuisine while maintaining the same general energy of accessible, unpretentious fun.
Philadelphia's Magic Gardens, Isaiah Zagar's mosaic environment, is the cultural anchor at 10th and South. The cheesesteak joints are old-school and good. Seger Park at Cypress and 10th provides a green breathing space at the neighborhood's center. On a Friday or Saturday evening South Street is genuinely lively — a mix of tourists, suburban visitors, and locals who have been coming here since before the tourists arrived. It's not the hippest block in Philadelphia anymore; Fishtown has that distinction. But South Street has a durability and a populism that hipper neighborhoods lack, and the concentration of late-night food, bars, and street life within a few blocks makes it worth a visit.