PHOTOS: 85 Signs Seen During the Philadelphia Papal Visit

I remember the spring of 2001 fondly. It was the end of my freshman year of college. I was glad to get the first year over. I was excited to intern in Center City. And the Sixers were in the NBA Finals.

They lost, but for a few weeks the city was galvanized. It was all my friends and I could seem to talk about. I owned like 10 bootleg Allen Iverson shirts. And every store in Philadelphia seemed to have a “Go Sixers!” sign in the window.

I thought of that this weekend, when Center City was just covered in signs. Tons of businesses had signs up, welcoming Pope Francis or telling you their pope specials. The government had signs telling you where you could or couldn’t go. This is what pilgrims to Philadelphia were reading about us!

I spent the weekend chronicling pope signs in Philadelphia. In a way, I think they tell some of the story from the weekend. I also did a t-shirt round-up and wrote about my thoughts in general.

Including the one above, here are 85 signs (some are “text on things other than signs”) seen during the pope’s visit to Philadelphia.