Friday was the day summer came back. I was hoping for an unseasonably cool, perfectly clear morning so my visit to Wilmington, Delaware could end with a 25 mile view of the Philly Skyline from Fox Point State Park, but the soupy summer haze was not to be reckoned with. That's okay though, for what better condition could there be to get into a reggae mood, praise Jah with a rastafarian sacrament in the midday sun and dip into Bob Marley's onetime home.

In the early 1960s, Ciddy Booker and her son Bob Marley moved from Jamaica's rural hills of Nine Mile to its capital Kingston, where Ciddy was offered a job at a bar owned by Taddy Livingston. Ciddy and Taddy became romantically involved and had a child, but when she discovered he was already married with other children, she took her daughter and moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where she had family. Teenage Bob stayed behind in Jamaica to live with Taddy and another one of his women and her son, Bunny Livingston. Bob and Bunny spent their free time jamming with a friend named Peter McIntosh and a singer named Joe Higgs, who proved very influential to the other three, who would eventually become the Wailers. (Higgs wrote the song "Stepping Razor", which McIntosh made famous as Peter Tosh.)

As the Wailing Wailers, they recorded a number of songs including "Simmer Down", "One Cup of Coffee" and "Where Is My Mother", which Marley wrote as his living situation with Taddy and his wife grew uncomfortable. Though the songs did relatively well in Kingston, they were paid next to nothing, so Bob moved to live with his mother in Wilmington in 1966. He lived there for a little over a year and saved money he made working in a Chrysler factory.

When Marley returned to Jamaica, the Wailers had a fallout with their manager and ultimately teamed up with producer Lee 'Scratch' Perry, who refined their sound. The collaboration produced Soul Rebels, which many consider Marley's finest work, and served as a catalyst for the Wailers' signing to Island Records, where they became worldwide legends.

Marley kept his Wilmington ties, living there on and off for the better part of 12 years. The house his mother bought still stands at 2312 Tatnall Street, one block off of US Route 13 (Market Street in Wilmington), and his widow Rita still owns property in the neighborhood, the Ninth Ward. Strangely -- no, sadly -- there is nothing there to depict or commemorate Marley's time in Wilmington, and the park across the street (behind the fence in the photo at right) is overgrown with weeds and tagged up with graffiti.

Wilmington makes up for it every summer, though, with its annual Peoples Festival. The reggae event has been running for 13 years, has featured performances by all of Bob's musician sons: Ziggy, Damian, Steven, Julian and, this year, Ky-Mani. The Peoples Festival is held at Tubman-Garrett Park, the riverfront park named for Underground Railroad icon Harriet Tubman and railroad stationmaster Thomas Garrett.

The train station is still in the same location (so you can literally get off a Septa train and walk into the festival), and the building that houses its (Amtrak and Septa) train service was designed by Frank Furness. The station is sort of the northern anchor of the Christina Riverfront, which has undergone an incredible transformation in the past 5-10 years alone that includes restaurants like Conley Ward's Steakhouse and an Iron Hill Brewery, Frawley Stadium (the 6,000 seat ballpark for the Wilmington Blue Rocks, the single-A affiliate of the Kansas City Royals), a number of apartments and condos under construction, and a noticeable banking presence. Surprisingly, the bar-restaurant-arcade-music-venue Kahunaville that was one of the Riverfront's earliest and most successful pioneers, closed its doors in November, and its enormous deck sits vacantly. So, rather than supplementing your Christina Riverfront stroll with say an Allman Brothers freakout or Disco Biscuits jaaam, maaan, you'll have to settle for the squawking of herons and the putt-putt-putt of the river taxi.

Back to Wilmington's banking presence. Delaware is an extremely business-friendly state and is a renowned financial center, particularly for the credit card and insurance industries. MBNA, the world's largest independent issuer of credit cards, called Wilmington home until it was bought out by Bank of America two years ago. Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Barclays and ING Direct all have large operations downtown. Chase Manhattan Centre, by Skidmore Owings Merrill, is the tallest building in Wilmington at 330' (good for 42nd in Philadelphia). On a very clear day, you can see it and the tops of a few other buildings from Philly:



Wilmington, Delaware: a city of 72,000 in a region of 500,000 well aware Delawarians. It's the southern anchor of Philly's six million plus metro. It's where Senator Joe Biden commutes via Amtrak to DC every day. It's where WHYY is officially licensed. (That's right, Philly's PBS and NPR affiliate isn't even based in-state.) It's where AAA moved its mid-Atlantic headquarters to from 21st & Market. It's where DuPont processes its chemicals to make plastics and teflon and kevlar and tyvek. It's where the world's longest twin suspension bridge, the Delaware Memorial Bridge (2,150' span, 10,765' total length, 417' towers) takes you to Jersey for free.

It's Dela-where? It's Delaware! (Groan.)

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