Hey! We’re not just fat – we’re ugly, too

Fresh from the Philadelphia Daily News

By DAN GERINGER & MEGAN SUERMANN
geringd@phillynews.com 215-854-5961

Philadelphia has the ugliest people in the country, according to Travel & Leisure Magazine.

Of the 25 major American cities ranked by citizen attractiveness, Philadelphia finished dead-last.

According to 60,000 respondents to the magazine’s online survey, Philadelphians are slightly more repulsive than Washingtonians (24), Dallasites (23) and San Antonions (22) but way uglier than Miamians (1), San Diegoans (2) and Charlestonians (3).

“This is the city of Fabian and Frankie Avalon and Grace Kelly,” said City Councilman Frank DiCicco. “Are they saying we’ve morphed into ugly people over the last few decades? Somebody’s drinking something out there.”

DiCicco took issue with Travel and Leisure ranking Miami’s beautiful people No. 1.

“My oldest son, the dentist, had a condo in Miami so I’ve been to South Beach a few times,” he said.

“Most people are walking around in thongs so everybody looks good there. But who can tell who lives there and who’s just visiting?

“We have cold weather here so we’re walking around for months with our noses running and our cheeks red and fur caps on our heads. How can you see what we look like under all that clothing?”

“They’ve got to be kidding!” said Councilman Darrell Clarke. “South Beach? How do we compete with that? I mean, give me a break!”

Upon further review, he said, “I’m a single guy so I can say, in all honesty, that while I don’t traditionally look at men to determine how attractive they are, I can tell you that we have the most attractive women of any city.”

Rick Vopper, senior stylist at the Adolf Biecker Spa/Salon on Rittenhouse Square, where he has been “enhancing the natural beauty” of Philadelphians for 31 years, said: “I’m going to disagree with the idea of ugly Philadelphians. I think we’re much more diverse, more multicultural with our appearance than the synthetically pretty people in South Beach.”

Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University, said: “People may perceive Miami to be a younger, hard-body city and Philadelphia to be an older, stodgy, historic place with a lot of losing sports teams. Did I say that? I didn’t say that.

“The missing ingredient is reality. When I walk around Center City or the campus of Temple University, there are attractive people all over the place. It’s a melting pot. It’s vibrant. It’s beautiful. The beauty they should be looking for is the beauty of diversity.”

“Miami’s gross,” said Leslie Rooney, 22, of Northeast Philadelphia. “I think Miami’s the dirtiest city I’ve ever been to. Even the people in Miami, they were pretty hit-or-miss.”

Victoria Morillo, 31, of North Philadelphia said: “It’s disappointing to see that Philadelphia was ranked [last]. I mean, besides the stereotypes that we’re, like, the fattest city, we eat all the cheesesteaks and stuff, there’s still some good-looking people up in here.”

Roger Bradley, 47, of Hunting Park, was “quite surprised by that [the rating] because being a Naval reservist and having an opportunity to travel around the country, I’ve found Philadelphia to be as attractive as any other city I’ve gone to.”

Fred Glick, 51, of Center City said, “If Minneapolis [No. 8] beat us, it’s because the [magazine] guy went around with cute girls there, because they’re all born blond with blue eyes there. Maybe it’s something against brunettes and redheads.

“I hope we’re closer to the top of the list for brains. It’s more important.”

Philadelphians ranked 14th for intelligence, handily beating Miami (23rd) – but, alas, those blond, blue-eyed Minneapolitans ranked second.