Bouquets and T-shirts: 3 ways to mark — or meme — the I-95 collapse

If there’s one thing Philadelphians are going to do, it’s find the humor in citywide struggles.

After a section of Interstate 95 collapsed in Northeast Philly on June 11 — putting strain on commuters and business owners alike — some started to find the humor in the event. Highway ticker messages to “Avoid Northeast Philly” became the next “Philadelphia vs. the world” mantra, while a livestream of the breakneck speed with which crews are reconstructing the thruway has unironically become must-watch television.

» READ MORE: The I-95 live cam is the sleeper hit of the season

That attitude has become essential for some Mayfair storefronts on Frankford Avenue, which have turned the unexpectedly meme-able detours into novelty business opportunities.

Owner Patrick Kelly of Stein Your Florist Company started selling cup-holder-size “detour bouquets” after his daughter and marketing manager got the idea while eyeballing the news and blow drying her hair the morning of the collapse.

Kelly said Stein’s has sold about a dozen miniature floral arrangements — which come adorned with an I-95 sign — between his shops in Mayfair and Burlington Township. People are popping in to buy them as gifts for running late.

“Flowers have a way of making things wonderful,” said Kelly, who plans to sell the bouquets until the highway is completely repaired.

Justin Pross, the Northeast native who owns the beloved Philly-centric streetwear brand Art History 101, got the idea for a commemorative T-shirt while stuck in traffic on I-95 on the way back from a pop-up shop in Bristol after the collapse.

Pross said 10 people messaged him about the “Avoid Northeast Philly” signs while he was stuck in the car, inspiring him to crank out a riff on the warning for a T-shirt that night. After the design went live online the next day, Pross said Art History sold 95 shirts within the first three hours.

It’s not a forever thing, though, Pross said, because I-95 is opening up to traffic this weekend.

» READ MORE: When will I-95 reopen in Philadelphia? Here’s what we know.

“With the way things in Philly have been going, I’m sure something else will happen that we can make a shirt out of, though,” said Pross.

Looking for a way to mark the day highway traffic stood still? Here are three I-95 novelty items you can buy before the first round of construction wraps up.

These miniature bouquets come in vases the size of a coffee cup for your cupholder, and contain a mix of “typical flower shop stuff” — daisies, lily buds, roses, carnations, and some sprigs of baby’s-breath.

You can pick them up at Stein’s Frankford Avenue location, or just across the Delaware at the Burlington County store.

📍7059 Frankford Ave #1605, Philadelphia, Pa.; 1002 Sunset Rd., Burlington, NJ; 🌐 https://www.steinyourflorist.com/; 💲 $8 to $12 depending on the arrangement

Pross’ design is simple: The now-iconic traffic warning is superimposed on top of a generic image of construction and some caution tape, set against a basic black tee. To Pross, the shirt encompasses an attitude Northeast residents have had forever — the neighborhood is tough, not to be messed with, and always ready for the next challenge.

📍7045 Frankford Ave., Philadelphia, Pa.; 🌐 https://arthistory101.com/; 💲 $30 to $37 depending on size

This limited-edition T-shirt from Jim Anderson — the artist behind the “rough around the edges,” death-metal-inspired Philly apparel brand GrimGrimGrim — is an ode to life in Philly in the summer of 2023. We revere Hoagiefest, get our catalytic converters stolen, and spend time inside watching a construction livestream.

Anderson has been making punk rock Hoagiefest tees since 2020, but he knew this year’s had to reflect the hit meme of the summer.

“You know how it is — people get overly obsessed with things here, like on Twitter,” Anderson said about I-95 TV.

This isn’t the first shirt the graphic designer has sold referencing the collapse. Right after the accident happened — but before it was reported that truck driver Nathan Moody died in the fire — Anderson briefly sold a shirt that used the language of 9/11 conspiracy theories to poke fun at it.

“The way it was being reported for a while made it sound like no one was injured, so I thought, ‘Let’s make fun of it, it’s just like anything else here,’” Anderson said.

Once Anderson learned about Moody’s death, he took the shirt off-line. Anderson said $500 of its sales went to Moody’s family.

🌐 https://www.grimgrimgrim.com; 💲 $25