Tattoo #4 ~ Philadelphia, PA ~ March 2024
- patrickwittwer
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
I don't know how or when it happened, but somewhere along the line, my thirtysomething, inkless self decided it would be cool to document my travels on my skin. Maybe each tattoo will represent the trip, maybe they'll make reference to an experience, or maybe they will just be a cool design that I thought was appropriate at the moment. Whatever they end up being, they'll end up here with a little story to go along.
I have always had an interest in tattoos and, from early on, I always wanted to start with a Philly tattoo. So naturally, my Philly tattoo ended up being the fourth. Part of the delay can be attributed to the fact that I got my first tattoo on a whim, thus bumping the ode to Philly down the line. But the real reason was indecision - how could I possibly sum up my love for this amazing city in one permanent mark on my body?
The answer ended up being pretty obvious. For longer than I can remember, I have been a huge public transit nerd. This is owed entirely to my Grandpop, a self-proclaimed trolley buff who coined the term "buffin" to refer to his trips around the region on public transit, snapping photos and collecting memorabilia. My first word, pantograph, came while sitting on Grandpop's lap, mimicking him as he read to me from a book about trains.
I knew I wanted the tattoo to be Septa's route 15 trolley. This route runs refurbished PCC cars in an homage to the trolleys that ran through the city beginning in the 1940s. Not only would this be a tribute to Grandpop and an ode to my city, but it would also pay homage to my favorite neighborhood in the city: Brewerytown. I spent a fair amount of my time in the massive window of my sitcom apartment looking down on Girard Ave and watching the trolleys roll by.
I scoured the internet for a a simple line drawing of one of these trolleys and came up blank. So I dug through some of Grandpop's and my photos, selected one from that cold winter day about ten years back when, while living on Girard Ave, I was lucky enough to see a traffic jam of eight stalled trolleys out front of my apartment. I asked my friend, the lovely and talented Jodi Bosin, if she could do a simple drawing based on my photo and she came up with a design that I love.
From there, I started researching tattoo shops and artists in Philly. I ended up landing on Art Machine Productions on Frankford Ave in Fishtown for the shop and selected Shannon to be my artist. Upon entering AMP and seeing Shannon's workspace, I was sold. After four tattoos in four different shops with four different artists, I felt like I could stick with this one. Unfortunately, a few weeks later this shop closed and Shannon moved to a new shop, but it was still a great experience and Shannon did amazing work!
