Thom Nickels: Public misbehavior shouldn’t be dismissed as ‘a Philly thing’

At the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, a Lithuanian artist had an idea about how to bridge the loneliness created by forced government lockdowns. Benediktas Gylys created an interactive live stream work of art, a futuristic looking round shaped object that looks as though it had fallen to earth from a flying disk. 

Called the Portal, this extraordinary gizmo came in two parts: one huge glass lens for Dublin, Ireland, the other for New York City near the Flatiron building. People from both cities could then see one another as they waved and smiled or held up signs that read: “New York loves Dublin.” 

At the livestream opening in 2024, Dublin’s lord mayor, Daithí de Róiste said the Portal would make Dublin “more inclusive” because it would enable people “to meet and connect outside of their social circles and cultures.” 

The assumption at that time was that the people smiling and waving in front of the lens would abide by PG-13 family standards. Reality hit, however, when the Portal in both cities began attracting people who acted out in bizarre fashions. Suddenly young people in New York and Dublin were stepping on the Portal, flashing body parts and doing drugs in front of the lens. The wholesome mission of bringing people together had turned into a joke. 

The New York Times reported that an American OnlyFans model had lifted her skirt in front of the lens and that people in Dublin were displaying swastikas and images of the burning World Trade Center on 9/11. The controversy caused the site to be shut down temporarily before its move to Philadelphia. 

The arrival of the Portal in Philadelphia generated a lot of media fanfare. NBC 10 gloated:

“That light-up ‘Portal’ to another part of the world is now live in the center of Philadelphia, connecting the City of Brotherly Love with several other cities around the world.” 

When a crack was discovered in the lens after the move there was speculation it may have been caused by vandalism. Philadelphia city officials breathed a sign of relief when it was determined the crack stemmed from an accident during the installation. The director for the City of Philadelphia’s 2026 exhibition even joked, “Like the Liberty Bell, there is a small crack.”   

Vandalism was soon to come, however. 

Philly thieves attacked the Portal and cut the copper cables connecting the metal to its power generator and then stuffed the stolen goods into a large recycling bin they then took to a local scrap dealer. In another incident, rocks were thrown at the lens and completely shattered it. City officials sprung into action and covered the Portal in a dour covering reminiscent of an autopsy sheet. 

The city said Gylys’s creation would remain in Philadelphia but it would be moved to a safer space, possibly indoors, where hooligans wouldn’t be able to destroy it. 

Billy Penn.com, an arm of WHYY, took the vandalism lightly with the headline: “Philly breaking the Portal is the least surprising story of 2025.” (The implication suggested that Philadelphians destroy everything so why would anyone be surprised.) The Philadelphia Inquirer muted its outrage with comparisons to a facelift: “The Philadelphia Portal is getting a facelift after vandalism left it out of commission since early February.” 

When you think about it, since 2020 Philadelphia has been about “facelifting” the damage created by hooligan thugs, many of them with a leftist political agenda. 

Consider the George Floyd rioters who in 2020 burned down a section of the city and destroyed several businesses near Rittenhouse Square. While the defenders of lawlessness didn’t go so far as to shrug it off as “a Philly thing,” that’s certainly what many did after the Eagles Super Bowl victory riot when city street lamps were torn down and cars were vandalized. 

The phrase “it’s a Philly thing” reduces urban violence and misbehavior to a wink and a nod: it’s not that bad, boys, it’s just the charm of the rustic old town. 

Hooliganism and “trashing it up” is something Philadelphians have come to expect. While “inappropriate behavior” may have caused a temporary shut down of the Portal when it was in New York, nobody vandalized the Portal when it was in that city; it was also not vandalized in Dublin, or in any of the other countries such as Poland and Lithuania that also have Portals. 

Only in Philadelphia did vandalism occur, the city Donald Trump castigated when he said, “Bad things happen in Philadelphia.” 

Which brings me to this: to what degree is the city of Philadelphia —as a Democrat-controlled sanctuary city — encouraging trashy tendencies and acting out in ways that resulted in the removal of the Portal? Can a connection be made? 

I think so, mainly because destructive public behavior stems from a city’s culture. Let’s consider that culture. 

Preply designated Philadelphia as the rudest city in America in 2024. The survey explained that rudeness results from a reluctance to incorporate outsiders and also stems from feelings of insularity or residents wanting “to keep to themselves.” Insularity, when you think about it, would seem to be antithetical to the idea of a Portal. And since the Portal is a big shiny thing filled “with outsiders,” destroying it was a temptation too hard for some Philadelphians to resist.

The “It’s a Philly thing” benighted culture of Philadelphia all but encouraged the extensive and expensive damages during the 2020 George Floyd riots, a time when neighbors had to defend their neighborhoods from rioters with baseball bats because the police were told to handle rioters with velvet gloves. 

The “It’s a Philly thing” culture can also be seen in something as simple as the redesign of public spaces with plants and reflecting pools that look good in architectural renderings but when built are often left to rot — like the 8th and Market SEPTA Market-Frankford station — under mounds of trash and debris. Trash and litter have been a problem for decades. For years the bathrooms in City Hall were graffiti-filled and resembled subway latrines until a Democrat mayor, Ed Rendell, made it a priority to clean them up.   

Violence and trashy behavior takes many forms. Trashing federal authority, trashing the streets, trashing the Portal: It’s a Philly thing, don’t you know.  

Thom Nickels is a Philadelphia-based journalist/columnist and the 2005 recipient of the AIA Lewis Mumford Award for Architectural Journalism. He writes for City Journal, New York, and Frontpage Magazine. Thom Nickels is the author of fifteen books, including “Literary Philadelphia” and ”From Mother Divine to the Corner Swami: Religious Cults in Philadelphia.” His latest is “Death in Philadelphia: The Murder of Kimberly Ernest.” He is currently at work on “The Last Romanian Princess and Her World Legacy,” about the life of Princess Ileana of Romania.