Radar Online has named my mother’s alma mater, Drexel University, the ugliest college campus in the US. I don’t disagree that the campus is ugly, but the article makes one assertion I want to rebut. It says, “Spread out on the wasteland fringes of Philadelphia, Drexel is not only impossibly hideous, it’s also not safe.” Drexel is hardly on the fringes of Philadelphia. It’s just a few blocks west of the central post office and 30th Street Station, Philly’s main train station. Nestled between those landmarks and the University of Pennsylania, it’s about as central as anything can be in West Philly, and the city proper extends another thirty blocks west. Still, I remember being stunned at it’s 1960s institutional blandness when I would walk through it when I lived in West Philly.