Category Archives: Community

Meals on Wheels

Business, Campus Development, Community, Labor

By Lauren Griffin, Public History MA student at Temple University

Seeing food trucks and carts along a city street is not an uncommon sight. As you walk around Temple’s campus, however, you might notice that there are a few more food trucks than normal. Some of them don’t even really look like food trucks. There’s little stalls, a shipping container, metal carts, mobile trucks, and immobile trucks hardwired into the infrastructure of the street. For the Temple community, these trucks are beloved. During lunchtime, students crowd the windows, placing orders for birria tacos, Japanese teppanyaki, hoagies, and more. Although it might be surprising for something that seems so integral to Temple’s culture as an urban university, the food trucks and their operators had to fight to be there. So, what is the relationship between Temple and the trucks, and where did it start?

Street vendors were common in Philadelphia beginning in the 1800s, but because of their transient nature it can be challenging to pin evidence of their presence. It’s possible that the first street vendor at Temple was the young Walter Johnson, selling the classic Philadelphia food item, pretzels, in 1924. 

The Temple News, December 12, 1924. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries)

Another early food vendor on campus was William “Bill” Bush. Like Johnson, Bush sold pretzels. He also sold ice cream, candy, and apples right in front of College Hall for over a decade. In the 1940s, the city of Philadelphia introduced new sanitation regulations and a system of licensing for street vendors. After adjusting to the new regulations and in response to the growing student population and campus in North Philadelphia, street vendors started clustering around Temple University in larger numbers in the 1960s. Students were increasingly dissatisfied with university food offerings, and the food trucks filled a need for affordable, delicious, and quick food. 

One of the most famous and influential vendors of this time were two brothers, John and Milton Street. The Street brothers started out selling hot dogs and cheesesteaks on campus, but both would go on to become major figures in Philadelphia politics. John Street was mayor of Philadelphia for two terms, and Milton was an activist that fought for affordable housing before turning his attention to public office. Milton Street rose to prominence on Temple’s campus when he began speaking out against discriminatory practices by Temple University that targeted Black vendors on campus. 

Brother Hakim (left) and T. Milton Street (right) of the Black Vendors Association at City Council protesting discriminatory regulations placed on Temple’s food vendors. Street was said to have torn up the City Council bill during this session in 1975. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Street took on both Temple and the City Council to protest unlawful tows of vendor vehicles from the street around campus. Street attributed the problems to vendor competition and confusing and discriminatory regulations regarding where and when vendors could set up their trucks. After fighting against the food trucks for decades, in 1982 Temple created a permanent space, the Vendors Mall on 13th Street, for the food trucks. Street drew attention to the ongoing problems, and Temple built a new structure, the 12th Street Food Court, in 1996. 

The 12th Street Food Court privileged the few, and the following decades introduced new struggles for food vendors. Parking has always been a concern, and Temple has different options for different kinds of trucks. Some trucks are hardwired into the campus infrastructure, while some are removable carts that can be towed to different locations across the city. In 2015, Temple and the City of Philadelphia created a special Street and Sidewalk Vending District that restricted where food trucks could officially be set up. Trucks were allowed between Diamond, 10th, Oxford, and 16th Street, but not on 13th, the original location of Temple’s Vendors Mall. This ordinance also prohibited the use of generators, enforced minimum open hours for all vendors, and limited the number of total vendors to 50. 

A helpful guide to the food trucks from the 2015 Templar yearbook that emphasized creating a personal relationship with the workers. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA).

In 2019, Temple and the city department of Licenses and Inspection (L&I) once again targeted the operations of the food trucks by announcing they would begin enforcing a particularly difficult rule: vendors would have to remove their trucks overnight, hauling the mobile kitchens in and out everyday. This rule was costly for some food trucks, and impossible for many. Students launched a petition in support of the trucks, and eventually it was ruled that trucks would not have to move each night. 

Unfortunately, a new issue was lurking around the corner: COVID-19. The university shut down, and students left campus en masse. Having a semi-outdoor business was actually beneficial during the pandemic given the indoor dining restrictions, but many of Temple’s vendors were unable to move their trucks to find enough customers. Many food trucks went under during the pandemic, and it led to many questioning whether a move to another college campus like Drexel or UPenn would be best. 

Operating a food truck on Temple’s campus presents many challenges, but students and faculty create affectionate connections with the folks that serve up delicious meals each day. The relationship and support for vendors changes with each university administration, and not all vendors are treated equally. Their presence on campus creates a unique urban environment that has become a talking point of Temple marketing. Students love to debate their favorite spots and dishes, but the truck popularity also draws attention and money away from in-house university food services. Eating at the trucks as a student is making a choice to support local business, but does Temple make the same?

Listen to the stories of Temple’s vendors over at the Oral Histories page.

Building Appetites, Building Campus

Campus Development, Civil Rights, Class, Community, Urbanization, , ,

By Lauren Griffin, Public History MA student at Temple University

Throughout Temple’s history, its students, faculty, and staff have used food to forge community. To raise money for sports teams or other extracurricular activities, students would host bake sales, chicken dinners, or ice cream socials not too different from fundraising practices on campus today. Through food, university students created a network of support not just for their university, but for their peers and the larger Temple community. 

One unique food related event was the annual “flour fight” on campus. Sponsored by the Booster Club, 50 sophomore students concealed packets of flour on 20 members of their team. Freshman students were given 10 minutes to search for the packets and dumped them on the poor sophomores when discovered. Less about food and more about the clouds of flour that it stirred up, this was a yearly competitive experience for new students that welcomed them into the Temple community and their traditions. 

Sophomore student Frank Gibson climbed up the telephone pole in true Philadelphia fashion to escape the hoards of freshman. The sophomores ended up winning this year as freshman chased the trickster Gibson and missed the other flour bags hidden among the grounded. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Temple students bonded together, and the university’s appetite grew, but not for food. This time, they wanted land. In 1955, the Philadelphia City Planning Commission designated the area between 12th, 13th, Norris, and Diamond Street as the Northwest Temple Redevelopment Area, contributing urban renewal grant funds to redevelop the 38-acres under Institutional Development District zoning. The area around Temple was designated as blighted, which misrepresented reality. These were homes, gardens, and life that Temple began razing for their reimagined urban university. 

During the 1950s, cities across the United States felt the effects of deindustrialization as factories closed and businesses moved to the suburbs or abroad. Philadelphia’s deindustrialization disproportionately affected its Black residents, and it also heightened the competition within the working-class population as real wages declined and housing costs rose. In the 1960s and 1970s, residents of Yorktown dealt with structural inequality and a predatory housing market that had been preparing for university expansion. The housing crisis, combined with poor economic conditions in the neighborhood, led to the escalation of tensions that resulted in the Columbia Avenue Riots in 1964. 

Police taking shelter from the rain during the Columbia Avenue Riots, 1964. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

In 1965, Temple became a state-affiliated institution and received an influx of funding to expand their physical footprint. Temple began insulating itself from the rest of the community as they shifted into the next stage of development. Rather than close off Temple from the outside world, certain student groups like the Steering Committee for Black Students fought to integrate with the local community, demanding that residents be granted open access to Temple facilities and fighting for the protection of preexisting houses and community structures from Temple’s rapid expansion. One thing in particular they fought for was public access to the Mitten Hall Cafeteria. Temple dodged these requests, and student activists staged sit-ins to block customers from dining. Temple’s administration finally relented, and public access to Mitten Hall was finally granted. This victory was short-lived, however, as the Mitten Hall cafeteria would soon become obsolete as the new Student Activities Center was built in 1971.

Outdoor dining plaza at the Student Activities Center, 1985. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Community access to Temple dining facilities was a nice option for residents, but the situation inside the cafeteria wasn’t exactly stable at the time, either. Students had recently protested the high prices of meals inside Mitten Hall and carried the Brown Bag Boycott. In 1968, a Black waitress at Mitten Hall, Mattie Cross, was fired from her position after a white customer accused her of spilling water on her. The Steering Committee for Black Students protested this and called for Cross to be rehired. They also demanded  in addition that all Black employees at Temple be paid the minimum wage and that Temple release an official statement in apology to their Black employees.

Serving station at Temple University (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

As Temple was in turmoil, the community of North Philadelphia was taking steps to establish their own community spaces. Established in 1968 by Reverend Dr. Leon Sullivan, a prominent civil rights activist, the Progress Plaza at 1501 N Broad Street was the first African American owned shopping center in the United States. The goal of this shopping center was to support Black enterprise and help foster business within the community outside of Temple.

Rev. Dr. Leon Sullivan in front of Progress Plaza, 1969. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Sullivan made a deal with A&P food store chain for a 20 year contract to have a grocery store in the plaza under Black management. This was a major investment for the neighborhood, but satisfaction with the quality of the grocery store fell over the decades. After the Super Fresh market shut down, the area was left without a local source of affordable groceries, turning it into a food desert.

In 2009, decades after the opening of Sullivan Progress Plaza, the center underwent significant renovations and expansions so that Fresh Grocer, a new grocery store chain, could move into the space. While this was welcome news, the neighborhood still suffers from food insecurity. The area has also been classified as a food swamp, which is an area characterized by mostly low-quality food sources, like fast food chains and convenience stores. Many of those fast food restaurants are there because of Temple University catering to the needs of its students. 

When walking around campus, take a look at what food options you see. Are there a lot of big chains or local offerings? What cuisines and ethnicities are represented? Are dietary restrictions and healthy offerings well represented on campus? In looking at the variety of food service in campus, it is also important to recognize who is eating in what spaces, and who is serving.

A vendor serves up hot dogs to an eager crowd on Good Neighbor Day. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Meet Henry Lam

Business, Community,

Henry Lam used to be a student at Temple University. In 2023, he opened up a new restaurant, Hank’s, in the 12th street food court on campus. Born and raised in Philadelphia, he worked in the corporate sector for a while before choosing to open up his restaurant. He says he has more free time, and he now has a more balanced life. He’s now rubbing elbows with veterans of the Temple food service industry over at Richie’s, Orient Express, and Fame’s Famous Pizza. He used to eat their food, but now he’s working with them to help the restaurants on the wall grow.

Henry-Lam-Hanks

Mitten Hall: Serving Students for Decades

Business, Campus Development, Class, Community, Labor, , ,

By Lauren Griffin, Public History MA student at Temple University

The first generation of students that attended Temple sourced their meals from a variety of different places. Some students commuted from home, some sought out meals at diners and lunch shops, or some students ate their meals at their nearby boarding houses. One of the early restaurants near campus was the Temple Restaurant, a lunch shop that was in operation until at least 1911. In 1908, they even served supper for students attending night classes. At this time, men and women had to dine in separate rooms. 

The Temple Restaurant was the first instance of university dining. The Great Depression interrupted the growth of Temple, but the administration responded by offering financial aid and by expanding services available to students. In the 1920s and 1930s with enrollment recovering after World War I and the Depression, Temple began constructing its own buildings near the Baptist Temple. One of those buildings was Mitten Hall, which permanently changed the campus environment as a student activities center. Not only a space for students to host club meetings and study sessions, it also offered a brand new cafeteria space. 

Photo of the cafeteria in Mitten Hall, c1930s. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

In addition, Temple started building dorms for students to live on campus. The construction projects in the 1930s under Temple President Charles Beury marked the beginning of Temple’s significant expansion into the surrounding neighborhood. Temple transformed from a university of row houses and commuters into a more idealized version of a university campus. Those row homes were not empty, however, and it was during this time period that Temple began demolishing the homes of its neighbors and erasing the former history of North Broad Street. 

For students and faculty, life on campus was good for a while. Mitten Hall was the center of student life. The cafeteria, dubbed ‘Casa Grilla,” hosted theatrical performances, poetry readings, dances, and special dinners. Things would change in the 1940s, however, when World War II came to campus. Students were drafted and left the university to fight overseas, and educational programming was modified to better assist a country at war. The US government also established a rationing system and in 1942 began restricting the quantity of high-demand food items that individuals could purchase. The annual Founder’s Dinner celebrating the legacy of Russell Conwell was even canceled one year due to rationing. While individuals were encouraged to plant victory gardens and start canning their vegetables, Temple’s student dining facilities struggled.

Article from The Temple News, March 23, 1945. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

After World War II ended, enrollment at Temple once again surged as veterans returned home and used their GI Bills to go to college. Temple expanded and built more dormitories and student dining facilities. Since the 1930s, the meals at Temple dining halls were prepared by Slater Food Company. Founded by Philadelphian John F. Slater, the company specialized in corporate and university cafeterias that focused on feeding large groups of people as quickly as possible. The relationship between Slater Food Service and the students of Temple was tenuous. In the 1970s, it came to a head with the Brown Bag Boycott.

A photo from the 1968 Temple University Alumni Review depicting two stylish boycotters. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Starting in the 1960s, students expressed their frustrations with how dining halls were managed. Cafeteria “bouncers” would kick students out of the dining room if they weren’t actively eating, food prices fluctuated randomly, and students regularly complained that dishware was dirty and servers got their orders wrong. The Dorm Senate Food Committee met to try and figure out a solution to students’ concerns, but Slater services also had complaints. Slater claimed that they had to devote a significant amount of their budget to replacing stolen dishware, coffee pots, and utensils. If students would stop stealing, Slater pledged to serve sirloin steaks and lobster in the dining halls. The cafeteria bouncer was actually an employee of the university in place to keep the student areas under control, and the dining halls had been notoriously overcrowded for years.

Smiling students protesting in the dining halls with a sign stating “don’t buy slater.” (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA)

In 1968, students had finally had enough. The Brown Bag Boycott Committee instituted a full boycott of Temple dining halls and Slater Food Services and encouraged all Temple faculty and students to bring bagged lunches from home. The catalyst this time around was Slater raising the price of a cup of coffee from 10 cents to 12 cents. This might seem minor, but Slater had been gradually increasing food prices over the past decades. The radicals behind the boycott were successful – prices were lowered. This wasn’t the end of Temple’s relationship with corporate food services, however. Slater would be replaced with Sodexo, and in 2017 the Sodexo contract was replaced with Aramark Food Services.

An inside look at a day in the life of a Sodexo employee, from the 2016 Templar yearbook. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

By the 1970s, Temple and its students had outgrown Mitten Hall. They needed a new space for the growing student population, so they built the Student Activities Center (the SAC) in 1971. The SAC continues to be a hub for student life on campus, offering expansive cafeteria and dining space, offices for student services, entertainment options, a bookstore, and more. It’s been renovated and expanded since the 1970s to continue to meet the needs of the shifting student population.

A sketch from 1984 depicting some proposed changes to the SAC. Is that a pile of boxes being unloaded, or is that little umbrella the formation of a food truck? (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Even though Mitten Hall is no longer the center of student life on campus, it holds a special place in Temple University’s history as a space of community, protest, and development. Students struggled against the corporatization of their meals, but there was a new answer to this problem: food trucks.

Temple, Taverns, and Temperance

Business, Campus Development, Community, Urbanization,

By Lauren Griffin, Public History MA student at Temple University

Header photo courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Print and Picture Collection

Let’s travel back to 1884 North Philadelphia, specifically, the Punch Bowl, a tavern and inn on Lamb Tavern Road near 2100 N Broad Street. The Punch Bowl was built in 1840, but it would be demolished in 1884. Local folks used to gather to watch the horses race up and down Broad Street, and its location wasn’t too far from the many mansions that made their home on North Broad Street. Many patrons of the Punch Bowl could have also traveled over to the tavern after getting off work from one of the many nearby factories, such as the Stetson Hat Company. After the Civil War ended, Philadelphia’s population grew rapidly. Drawn in by new jobs due to rapid industrialization, emancipated Black citizens and immigrants filtered into Northern cities. Streetcars were introduced to Philadelphia in 1858, connecting the suburbs and industrial zones throughout the city.


1862 Philadelphia Atlas showing Lamb Tavern Road, Monument Cemetery, and the area that Temple would begin developing in a few decades. (Philageohistory.org)

Down the road from the Punch Bowl, a man named Russell Conwell was gathering with seven working class men for tutoring lessons. These meetings were the beginning of what would eventually become Temple University. The group would meet at 1913 Mervine Street after getting off work in an attempt to better their life circumstances. Word eventually spread of the educational opportunity Conwell was offering for Philadelphia’s working class men, and the small meetings soon grew too large for the small rowhome.

Wiatt Society house, 1913 N. Marvine (Mervine) Street. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

With an early emphasis on night classes (7:45 – 9:45pm) to accommodate a work schedule, it was likely that Temple’s first students brought food from their homes or found food at local taverns for meals. The first classes of students would sometime meet in the basement of the Grace Baptist church for communal meals. These meals, called “Talent Penny Suppers,” were organized to help fundraise for programming and services during Temple’s early years.

Philadelphia has a long history of taverns, and in the colonial era these taverns were important centers of political debate, community formation, and social life for working men. The early taverns typically offered lodging options, but taverns in the 19th century had reduced their offerings to alcohol and simple meat-based meals. Following the Civil War, the Temperance Movement began to focus on taverns and saloons as centers of masculine working class life, and concerned industrialists supported the move to reduce worker intoxication. Taverns were just one source of food for Temple’s first cohorts.

Page from the 1901 Temple Dental School Yearbook which shares the requirements for admission into the Yankee Club. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Food options in the area would change over the decades as Temple grew, and the introduction of the Prohibition turned taverns into speakeasies. Temple’s crafty students continued to find ways to procure alcohol even with the Prohibition in place. They brewed gin in their bathrooms and smuggled drinks into school dances. Not everyone was against the 18th Amendment, however, and having a dry campus was preferable to some students and Temple administration.

Article from the Temple News in 1926 that shares the results of a student poll. More Temple undergraduate students were against the Prohibition than for it. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

The Prohibition was eventually repealed, and bars once again started popping up around the young campus. One of the more popular local hotspots was the bar Pete’s Tavern on the corner of 13th and Montgomery. With its location so close to campus and student dormitories, Pete’s was a popular spot to grab a drink and socialize. The Temple News even used the bar as their “night office” in the early 1950s.

Students outside of Pete’s Tavern, on the corner of 13th and Montgomery. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Unfortunately, Pete’s Tavern was demolished in 1956 to build a parking lot. That parking lot would also be demolished eventually and replaced with the Tuttleman Learning Center.

Article from The Temple News in 1951 about the upcoming plans to purchase Pete’s Tavern. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Pete’s loss was lamented, but there was always another business to take its place. As Temple ramped up their expansion plans in the 1950s and 1960s, some community members protested having bars in their community. With more and more students living on and around campus, community members were concerned about inebriated students causing trouble. There were also instances of drunk driving accidents as commuters tried to make their way home. Rather than creating a fully dry campus, Temple administration responded by implementing new guidelines in an attempt to educate students on how to drink responsibly.

A 1979 article from The Temple News that shares a new drinking policy for Temple dormitories after a series of drunk driving accidents in the region. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Temple still deploys this tactic when it comes to student drinking. Despite the idea that Temple is a “dry campus,” the lawful sale and consumption of alcohol is allowed on university property, with some exceptions. Students are not allowed to have or consume alcohol within Temple dormitories, but they can walk down to Maxi’s along the Park Mall and grab a drink there. There are other popular student late night hangouts near campus, some of which did not survive the effects of the pandemic and loss of student business.

Page from the 2012 Templar yearbook. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

The presence of alcohol might seem like a common thread through Temple’s history, but behind the alcohol is the importance of social spaces for Temple’s student body. North Philadelphia community members have valid concerns when it comes to alcohol creating issues or being linked to instances of crime in the neighborhood. What kind of social spaces are being created around campus, and who are they for? As demographics shift in “Temple Town,” whose influence holds the most weight in these discussions: Temple administration, Temple students, or North Philadelphia residents?

The 12th Street Food Court

Business, Community, Urbanization,

By Clare McCabe, PhD student at Temple University

In 1994, the food trucks who typically assembled at 13th and Montgomery were given notice that they’d need to leave: Temple University was constructing a new academic building. The trucks, who had been at that location for twelve years, were considered an integral part of campus culture. The 1994 Templar, the Temple University yearbook, lamented that “it will hardly seem like campus without the trucks in the middle of everything.” The trucks were not given a new location to relocate to, and vendors waited for news of their fates with little communication from the university. Feim Amzovski, owner of Fame’s Famous Pizza and the spokesman for the group of trucks, was concerned that the university was taking advantage of truck owners: “Many of the truck owners are non-English speaking people who could easily be misled by the university.” 

“Vendor’s Mall,” a photograph of the previous space vendors inhabited. April 18, 1985. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA)

The University’s answer was not a relocation of the trucks, but instead a new offer altogether. Vendors would be offered a spot in a new university owned and operated food court on 12th street, next to Anderson Hall. Vendors from the original “pad” would be offered right of first refusal, and seven vendors accepted (four of which are still there today- Fame’s, Eddie’s Richie’s, and Orient Express). The costs for the new construction, nearly $715,000, would be recouped by rent paid by tenants. According to the 1996 Templar, owners paid “nearly five times more in rent, as much as $1500, at the new court.”

Construction of the wall in August 1995. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

So why Temple? Why stay? For Jim Amzovski, of Fame’s Famous Pizza, he likes the students, and he likes having off on the weekends. Students are easy customers, he told me, not picky, and understanding when you’ve run out of something: “We have a harder time with the employees.” For the University, the new food court spot was chosen because it drew congestion away from the overcrowded original vendor hub at 13th and Montgomery. But for food truck owners, who suddenly found themselves on the edge of campus instead of its heart, it was disorienting. “At that time, there was nothing on this side [of campus],” Amzovski told me. “They pushed us out of main campus…but eventually [students] learned where we were at and started coming.” 

The 12th street food court represents the University’s first attempt to bring food trucks into the Temple bureaucratic umbrella. Food trucks had long been a part of campus culture and have been used in marketing materials for potential students, but with the food court, they became tenants as well. As food trucks, they are definitionally potentially mobile, inconstant. Though many of the trucks on campus are currently immobile and constant, potentially, they could leave. They are not a part of Temple’s official food service offerings, and so as a result cannot be controlled and regulated in the same way. As stationary tenants in a food court, however, Temple can exert greater control over food service offerings and establishments.  

The food court’s grand opening in February 1996. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Though the vendors on the Wall are not technically food trucks anymore, many of them once were, and their stories are relevant in any examination of Temple’s food culture. Temple University continues to exert regulatory influence over food trucks, like in the form of the creation of the Special Vending District surrounding Temple’s campus. The Special Vending District, which was created in 2015, capped the number of vendors who could park trucks and carts on campus. In addition, any vendor who wishes to take time off now must first notify the University and the city. It also changed regulation regarding the inheritance of permits, an issue that remains a difficult subject for many food truck owners.  

But for the physical vendors on the wall, Temple University is not just a specter of potential regulation, it is also a landlord. As Temple administrations come and go, Amzovski told me that things could change very quickly, and a responsive and helpful landlord could transform into someone very difficult to work with. While the current administration, he says, is responding to needs quickly and is helping to enact badly needed renovations, during the time the university was closed because of COVID, the previous administration continued to charge vendors on the wall rent. “At times, you’re working for nothing just to try to pay the rent,” Amzovski said. If Temple wants regulatory control over the food trucks and food service on campus, they should accept the responsibilities which come with that regulation and treat vendors and owners like the integral part of campus that they are.  

To connect with Clare about her work, please visit our Connect page.

First Come, First Served at the Diamond Club

Class, Community, , ,

By Jacob Wolff, PhD student and educator at Temple University

In the final issue of the Diamond Club’s monthly newsletter, Jean Brodey warned that it “may be within weeks of a permanent closing.” 

Temple University’s private club featured French wines paired with entrées by an in-house chef.  Faculty and administrators were free to saunter about the smoke-filled library, billiards lounge or dining room atop Seltzer Hall while a trio played jazz standards. Occasionally, the president would host a gala. 

Despite the perks, too few members were taking their meals at the club. Even fewer renewed memberships at all. “Its absence will be felt in many more ways,” Brodey added in the March 1979 newsletter. “Honored guests” would be “entertained at Blimpie’s” or worse, the food trucks. 

Administrators intervened shortly thereafter, transferring operations from a nonprofit board to the foodservice vendor under contract with Temple. 

Now over forty years later, students and faculty alike line up for a quick lunch from the iconic trucks on campus. Few decried the postpandemic decision to relocate what’s left of the Diamond Club – a lunchtime buffet with a membership option – on the main floor of a dormitory. Why no protest? 

For starters, mealtime has never been about the food. It’s about the company you keep. 

The original “Faculty Club” was demolished to make way for a residence hall. The rebranded Diamond Club was moved to the corner of Broad and Columbia Avenue, the site of the 1964 protests against police brutality. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA)

When members originally chartered the Diamond Club on 9 January 1967 with the Court of Common Pleas, they promised “to maintain an atmosphere conducive to the free and informal exchange of ideas.” Yet, university leaders imagined an exclusive place segregated from the public they were purported to serve. Temple – to its credit and unlike the University of Pittsburgh, New York University, or Boston University – enrolled a remarkably diverse student body in 1967, estimated at 3,100 local students of Color out of the total enrollment of 34,000 students. But, the bylaws were unequivocal: all undergraduates were prohibited from entering the club, barred even as guests of members. Moreover, only staff “earning the equivalent of an instructor’s salary” were entitled to membership, effectively barring working-class employees who were disproportionately Black or Puerto Rican. 

Membership standards, not meal costs, made the difference. For the dwindling Diamond Club patrons, an ambiguous expectation of “cleanliness and neatness” was nonnegotiable with management; whereas, the Club promoted a 50 percent discount on the 50.00 dollar dues in 1978, hoping to win back business. After the university foodservice vendor took over operations in 1979, club dues kept falling (In 2003, dues bottomed out at $5.00 annually!). 

In the 1970s, a cheesesteak cost $1.65 at the Diamond Club. Adjusted for inflation, this would cost about $8.11 in 2022. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

No matter the cheapening bill, faculty opted instead to join students over cheesesteak or similar fare at the nearly thirty food trucks that operated on campus by the 1980s. Leo Martella opened the first dedicated food truck on 15 June 1954, selling pizza to Temple students. In 1963, with the federally-backed building boom, more trucks arrived on campus. “You can’t make it with just pizza anymore,” he told a reporter in 1981, “the competition’s too tough.” Wayne’s Deli offered an “Inflation deflator” hamburger special, Maggie’s Oriental Café specialized in MSG-free dishes, and Eddy Eggroll promised “a full line of vegetarian” dishes, including yogurt and fruit juices. Faculty members found more diverse culinary offerings from food trucks than they could on the menu at the Diamond Club. 

 A food truck operator serves patrons on the Temple University campus. (Courtesy of Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA.)

Some food history scholars believe that middle-class consumers have become more egalitarian in their choices. Others, like Josée Johnston and Shyon Baumann, see “omnivorousness” as “an alternative strategy to snobbery.” In their analysis, diverse rather than exclusive tastes have come to define a cosmopolitan identity. Might the faculty who “slum it” with students and ethnic entrepreneurs reveal a grittier, yet enduring class distinction within our consumer republic? 

The answer is probably a bit more complicated. 

Dylan Gottlieb, a Temple alumnus (MA ‘13) and historian at Bentley University, reminds us that “we should not mistake [consumer choice] as a substitute for meaningful political struggle.” However, the structural conditions under which university faculty labor have grown more precarious since the original Diamond Club dissolved. 

Perhaps faculty consumption mirrors a downwardly mobile status for all university employees. Appropriations from the Pennsylvania legislature have continued to shrink since the “Great Recession” and poorly-compensated adjuncts or graduate students now teach three-quarters of all undergraduate courses in the United States. 

Temple employees were on the vanguard of building a collective movement among knowledge workers. Thomas Paine Cronin, president of the Philadelphia AFSCME district, chaired a summit of all campus labor unions in 1983 at the Diamond Club. “As the bread and butter issues get tougher,” he explained, “I think the issue of democracy in the workplace becomes more and more prominent.” By the fall of 1986, faculty went on strike. “Terms of the contract were not made public,” according to the New York Times, “but sources close to the talks said the settlement amounted to almost an 11 percent wage increase in a two-year contract.” In 1990 faculty walked out again – some undergraduates marched in sympathy until a court order forced faculty back to work. Graduate workers were forced to cross picket lines, for fear of losing funding through the duration of their doctoral training. Despite decades of organizing, only in 2001 did the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board rule that graduate workers at Temple were eligible for union representation. The lead organizer among graduate workers spearheaded a 2019 petition in favor of food truck operator rights. 

With annual dues and meal costs averaged $350.00 per person in 1977 (almost $1,800 when adjusted for 2022 inflation rates), and a budding class-consciousness by the 1980s, eligible employees most likely could not afford to join the Diamond Club. Nor did they want to, even after dues dropped. The space, then in the basement of Mitten Hall, was just room available for large gatherings. 

No wonder why people hadn’t spilled ink over the 2021 move to Johnson and Hardwick Hall like they did back in 1979. University employees – faculty, staff, adjuncts, and perhaps midlevel managers – no longer want an exclusive space on campus. The food trucks are just fine. 

That’s not to suggest private clubs are no longer relevant. Back in the 1960s, the Diamond Club catered to the shared governance of faculty and administrators. Now running a campus is big business. For the select university leaders who can afford it, places like the Union League exist.  

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