By Drew Lazor (Philadelphia Daily News)
BASEMENTS, basically by definition, are the ugly and unloved stepchildren of any tiered structure.
A damp, dank place to stack cardboard boxes full of ex-lovers’ stuff.
A resting place for never-used exercise equipment.
A sunlight-free ecosystem perfect for the cultivation of cobwebs and dust bunnies.
An eminently unsafe hiding place for psychotic clowns armed with blood-stained garden equipment. (Just me?)
But none of these subterranean stereotypes, even the totally rational killer-clown one, apply to what lies beneath the Reading Terminal Market, one of Philadelphia’s most recognized historical and culinary contributions.
Directly below that forever-bustling main floor, jammed with produce-perusing locals, wide-eyed tourists, hungry jurors on lunch break and the hundreds of employees who make it all go, is another world – and everything that goes on above would grind to a permanent halt without it.
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The Philly Declaration 
