Washington Post = Only slightly less authoritative than the Bible, at least in my family

December 26, 2007 12:07 PM

Help me find a copy of the Washington Post in Philadelphia.

Here's the deal: I live in Philadelphia but grew up reading the Washington Post. I've found a few newsstands or shops (one little stand in the 15th Street El stop has it, but for $1.75, as does one of the vendors on 15th Street near Chestnut) that have it, but most charge way more than the (recently increased) newsstand price of $0.50.

Is there anywhere in Philadelphia where I can get the Post for $0.50 (or somewhere close to that)? Center City or NW Philly would be most helpful.

I read it online most of the time, but having a hard copy on occasion (esp. on Sundays) would be nice.

posted by midatlanticwanderer to media & arts (11 comments total)

As it's an out of town newspaper, you're going to have to pay more to read the WaPo in Philly. While Philadelphia is a local distribution zone for a few non-regional papers (notably the New York Times & New York Post), the Washington Post's 50c price is limited to the DC-Baltimore metroplex. Outside of there, the 50c price no longer applies.

That said, I've found the Borders by City Hall to be a great spot for obtaining out of town papers.
posted by huskerdont at 12:13 PM on December 26, 2007

Penn Station bookstore has them.
posted by elle.jeezy at 12:32 PM on December 26, 2007

I don't have direct experience with the Philly market, though I've found that Barnes and Noble usually carries the Post (depending on the location sometimes only the Sunday edition). Never for the regular newsstand price though, you have to pay good money for the cost it takes to transport I guess. Don't forget Sunday is going to be more money anyway because of all those coupons and extras!

FWIW, the Post offers a digital subscription, they send you a PDF or something of the paper each day for about $10/month. Not the same as the tactile edition, but may be interesting to you nonetheless.
posted by ml98tu at 12:48 PM on December 26, 2007

why not just subscribe to it? we get the new york times delivered in tennessee; surely you can get the sunday wapo delivered in philly.
posted by thinkingwoman at 1:12 PM on December 26, 2007

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll check out the Borders by City Hall. I figured it would be difficult to get it for close to $0.50, but I thought I'd try.

Due to finances and time, I'm not sure I'd be getting the Sunday Post more than once a month, so subscribing probably wouldn't be worth it to me, but thanks for that suggestion and the info about the digital subscription.
posted by midatlanticwanderer at 1:22 PM on December 26, 2007

There's a guy on Walnut just across from the park that has it. It's next to the Kiehl's shop on the corner. He has everything there. That's where I got my Gazzetta dello Sport.
posted by wfc123 at 1:27 PM on December 26, 2007

WFC123, thanks, I'll try that too.
posted by midatlanticwanderer at 2:19 PM on December 26, 2007

Another great newsstand for out-of-town papers and all that: Avril 50, a little out of your area in West PHL, but they have everything.
posted by gac at 2:38 PM on December 26, 2007

we get the new york times delivered in tennessee; surely you can get the sunday wapo delivered in philly.

You can't subscribe to The Post outside of the Baltimore-Washington area. (In fact, they only started delivering to Baltimore about five years ago.) The New York Times -- like the Wall Street Journal and USA Today -- is a national paper, meaning it gets printed in various cities in the U.S. and is delivered from there. The Washington Post is a metro paper (for distribution purposes, even though they have comprehensive national and foreign coverage), meaning it comes off a press only in the Washington area.

The Post does have this weekly national edition, which is a selection of stories that ran in The Post that week.

If I were only buying it, on average, one Sunday a month, I wouldn't go out of my way to find a better price because you're only going to save maybe 25-50 cents if you find the best deal. $1.75 is probably what you'd pay for the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer anyway, and it's far less than the Sunday Times.
posted by Airhen at 4:05 PM on December 26, 2007

I had an HTML failure. Sorry, the weekly national edition
posted by Airhen at 4:06 PM on December 26, 2007

You can order a mail subscription to the WaPo. You receive each day's paper in the mail, but it's almost $1000 (!) and it takes a few days for the paper to arrive from D.C.
posted by HotPatatta at 8:48 PM on May 27, 2008