At first, New Hope struck me one way – that I hoped it was the last time I’d have to visit New Hope. Main Street there is a long strip of ice cream shops, biker bars, frat bars, gay bars and every type of tourist shop you can imagine. You can tell the people who spent the night in a hotel in New Hope because they’re all wearing New Hope t-shirts.

We all split up for 30 minutes to document the town. I was weaving my way between a group of drunk 21-years-old with green matching shirts with “Todd’s 21st b-day crew” printed on the front and an image of a toilet bowl on the back when I noticed a group of 3 guys heckling a police officer. The cop was ticketing a car at an expired parking meter.  In fact, everyone who walked by was giving the cop a hard time. Once the officer walked away, I asked the guys what they were saying to him. It turned out one of them was a cop from Massachusetts and they were actually commiserating with him about all the flack he was catching from tourists.

They asked, “Have you ever had a Captains and Ginger?”

“Never in my life.” I said.

“Well why don’t you join us and we’ll get you one!”

The next thing I knew, I was telling them about a recent night on a friend’s stoop in the East Village of Manhattan where we saw a guy making his way down the street, humping black trash bags. The cop from Massachusetts (and one on the right in the photo) followed up with, “Did you hear about the guy who liked to wait around in Port-o-lets?”

“In them?!”

“In them.”

As a cop, it turned out he’d seen way more than just the port-o-let guy. I decided maybe the trash humper wasn’t such a bad guy after all. He just liked trash in bags.

And after 30 minutes, I was back at the car, ready for the next town. In the end, I have these three men to thank for saving my trip to New Hope. It’s amazing what you can learn in half an hour when you stop in on Main Street.

A man walks down New Hope, PA's Main Street and talks on a cellphone.

New Hope is an hour away from East Orange, but feels worlds apart. It is upscale. There is a duck crossing.  This is what you think when you think of “Main Street U.S.A.”–a lot of shops, bridges and a historically winding pedestrian canal.

We park outside of Rita’s Pie Cones Shakes shop.

Turns out New Hope is one of those abandoned towns where artists come in, take over and make it their own. New Hope is like a combination of San Francisco’s Castro District and Times Square.   Biker bars, leather shops, horse drawn carriages and Philadelphians eating ice cream like cows are going out of style.

Kara is the only one who has a good time.  She talks about fetishes with some cops who buy her a Captain Morgans and Ginger.