Thank You, Philadelphia: What Building REC Philly Taught Me About This City

From left: Will Toms, Questlove, and Dave Silver after Questlove’s performance at REC Philly. / Photographs courtesy of REC Philly

This is not a goodbye letter. This is a letter of appreciation.

It’s a thank-you to a city that helped guide me over the last decade. The people. The places. The neighborhoods. The opportunities. The support.

What started as an idea in a basement in North Philly grew into a warehouse down the road, and eventually into an institution at the corner of 9th and Market streets. But growing REC Philly, alongside my high school best friend and dozens of young, passionate changemakers, was never just about the spaces we built. It was about the people who poured themselves into the vision. The team who built REC. The creators who defined it. The business community that believed in it and showed up for it, year after year.

Dave Silver, Will Toms, and team the night of the grand opening of REC Philly’s space at Fashion District in 2019

As a Temple student who grew up in the suburbs, I never imagined how deeply committed I’d become to Philadelphia. But the city made it easy. Since 2012, from basement parties to dive-bar showcases, every single event we hosted revealed someone new in the creative community whose talent stopped me in my tracks. That discovery made the hard days of building a business easier to push through. Behind every challenge was a creator getting closer to doing what they love for a living, and a team working tirelessly to help make that possible.

For more than a decade, Philly’s creative community carried me through some of my most difficult moments as an entrepreneur. I’m not sure the creatives ever knew that their work was often what kept me going on the darkest days — but it was. That’s one of the main reasons for this letter.

From left: Will Toms and Dave Silver at the REC Philly construction site at Fashion District in 2019.

If the creative community was the fuel that kept the car running, then the business community was the oil. From the very beginning, Philadelphia’s business leaders showed up in ways I didn’t expect. There aren’t many cities where a twenty-something entrepreneur with a wild idea can send a DM to the leader of one of the largest corporations in the city — and actually get a meeting. But that’s what happened. Comcast — and shoutout to Danielle Cohn — opened doors before I even fully understood what I was building. That single conversation turned into a relationship that lasted more than seven years, with Comcast’s Lift Labs becoming a key sponsor and client as REC grew.

I have similar stories with Independence Blue Cross, PECO, and the City of Philadelphia itself, local institutions that didn’t just talk about supporting the creative economy, but actively invested in it. Philadelphia can be tough, no doubt. But if you’re consistent and thoughtful with your asks, there are warm, generous people here who genuinely want to help you build something meaningful.

One story that best captures the spirit of this city came during the pandemic. Like so many others, REC was on the brink, and artists across the city were struggling to find ways to survive.

Roger LaMay of WXPN honoring a grantee at the Black Music City showcase event in 2022

I’ll never forget the call from WXPN’s general manager, Roger LaMay. They saw what was happening to the creative community and wanted to help, but needed a partner to bring the idea to life. That collaboration became Black Music City, a program that ran for five years and distributed over half a million dollars to Black creators in Philadelphia. It remains one of the projects I’m most proud of, not just because of the impact, but because it reflected the trust and care that exists within this city’s ecosystem.

I could tell stories like this for pages. I could list artists and partners endlessly. But I’ll spare you. The point is simple: Philadelphia has the talent, and it has the support, to build a truly thriving creative economy. I still believe we’re only scratching the surface.

Philadelphia Is All We Need

The REC Philly team at the construction site in Fashion District in 2019

REC may not be operating the way it has for the last several years, and while that’s difficult, I’ve learned that sometimes things need to stop so other things can start. Creators learned through our programming at REC. They met collaborators. They built relationships that will carry them forward. All of that feels like a fuse waiting to be lit, and I look forward to supporting that spark in new ways moving forward. I know my business partner, Will Toms, does too. It will just look different than it has over the past decade.

And I need to offer my deepest thank you to the team who, for years, sat in that warehouse at 9th and Dauphin streets, freezing cold in the winter, boiling hot in the summer, working under a roof sealed with trash bags. We believed in a vision and built it together, piece by piece, until it became real. There will never be another experience like that, and I’m forever grateful to everyone who helped bring it to life.

REC had the distinct honor of welcoming all levels of talent into our space, from emerging creatives to living legends. I’m deeply grateful to everyone who trusted us with their time, their work, and their names.

From left: Will Toms, Kenny Gamble, and Dave Silver at REC Philly’s creative space at 9th & Market.

People like Wallo267 and Gillie Da King, who recorded early podcast episodes in our studio. Kenny Gamble, who walked the halls of REC in a hard hat before we opened and immediately understood the vision. Questlove, who spun records at one of our festivals, nodding to his teenage years running through the Gallery. Tierra Whack, who trusted us with her merchandise when we opened our retail store. Jason and Travis Kelce, who recorded an early episode of New Heights in Studio A. Armani White, who spent countless hours in our live room preparing to tour the world. These moments happened within four walls, but they’ll stay with me for a lifetime.

Dave Silver, Will Toms, and the team behind Jason Kelce’s Underdog Apparel nonprofit clothing line

I know there’s curiosity about what led to REC’s space closing, and while that story deserves its own time and place, this letter isn’t about that. What I will say is this: Challenges arose when we stopped being fully dedicated to the impact we were making in Philadelphia. Like many ambitious entrepreneurs, we wanted to expand our reach. We took that shot. We learned from it. And one of the biggest lessons I’ll carry forward is this: Sometimes depth matters more than scale. Philadelphia could have been enough, and in many ways, it always was.

I’ll end here. Philadelphia is one of the largest cities in the country, yet it still feels like a small town. When you do things right here, the impact ripples. People care deeply. They’re tough.

They’re opinionated. But they love this city. And that passion, whether it showed up as support or criticism, was fuel for me over the years.

They say if you can make it in Philadelphia, you can make it anywhere. I’m grateful I got the chance to try. Thank you, Philly. Let’s see what we do next.

Dave Silver was co-founder/CEO of REC Philly from 2015-2025.