Crews began dismantling the FIFA Fan Fest site in Fairmount Park, marking the end of a five-week stretch that brought more than 500,000 visitors to the area.<\/p>\n
For many residents who live near the park, the departure of crowds and traffic is a welcome change, though the event also brought a lot of excitement.<\/p>\n
The fan festival drew people from around the world, transforming the park into a hub for soccer fans. But for neighbors in Brewerytown and Fairmount, the influx also meant traffic backups, lane closures and parking challenges.<\/p>\n
“I can’t wait for it to be completely taken down so we can go run through there again and drive through there,” said Brewerytown resident Alex Rybarczyk.<\/p>\n
Another neighbor, Sheena Sheard, shared similar feelings.<\/p>\n
“I’m glad that it’s over. It was fun, but yeah, thanks, we’ll see ya next time!” she said.<\/p>\n
Traffic was the most common frustration for those living nearby.<\/p>\n
“I come in on Girard from work every day, and it was a complete nightmare because they have one lane completely closed. Everyone’s just breaking the laws, like driving around each other, making illegal turns. So I’m excited for that to end,”Rybarczyk said.<\/p>\n
Others expressed mixed emotions about the event’s impact.<\/p>\n
“I have mixed feelings about it,” said Teon White of West Philadelphia. “I know everybody couldn’t really get to the Parkway over to the Art Museum, but I’m glad people had fun, all people from around the world having fun, having a nice hospitality here in Philly.”<\/p>\n
Parking restrictions limited spaces to residents with temporary permits, though some visitors still attempted to park in the neighborhood and ended up getting ticketed or towed.<\/p>\n
“They came to visit us, and that was a bad experience for them. But other than that, it was beautiful,” Sheard said.<\/p>\n
Regular parkgoers said they are eager for the area to return to normal.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been wanting to sit here and chill for a while,” White said.<\/p>\n
But for places like The Black Taxi in Fairmount, a popular soccer bar that became somewhat of a World Cup headquarters for fans, employees are feeling the comedown from their busy five-week run.<\/p>\n
Bartender Ricky Antinucci said the bar experienced unprecedented crowds.<\/p>\n
“We were breaking records every day,” he said. “Insane. It’s been crazy in here. It’s been awesome though because you meet a whole bunch of different people.”<\/p>\n
City officials said some road closures remain in place near the park. All are expected to reopen to traffic by 8 p.m. on Sunday, July 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crews began dismantling the FIFA Fan Fest site in Fairmount Park, marking the end of a five-week stretch…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":949287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5132],"tags":[382170,5229,347292,42752,2034,1448,2830,1311,382171,382172,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-949286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-alex-rybarczyk","tag-america","tag-brewerytown","tag-fairmount-park","tag-fifa","tag-pa","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-sheena-sheard","tag-traffic-backups","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116957164735701126","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}