Jamie Cooperstein

The Voice That Launched a Thousand Stays

Jamie Cooperstein was deep into a senior-year college internship at Fox 29, when a producer delivered the bad news. Her professional video, which she hoped would be her ticket to a big league job as a sports journalist, featured an accent that was far too “Philly” for a national audience.

“He said, ‘You sound too local,'” recalls Jamie. “What he meant was: I can’t say ‘wooder’ any other way. He basically told me, ‘You’re not going to make it on camera. You’re better off going for a behind-the-scenes job as a writer’.”

Just 21, impressionable and crushed, Jamie didn’t think, “I’ll prove him wrong.” Instead, she thought “there goes the dream.”

Lucky for us, another dream was waiting. And this one loved her Delco roots.

Jamie’s mom suggested she talk to her cousin Jeff, who’d built a career in hospitality at the Rittenhouse Hotel. She was just out of college. She’d never even stepped foot inside the five-star property. But she trusted her mom and decided to give it a try.

Almost before she knew it, she was the youngest concierge by a decade at one of Philadelphia’s most luxurious hotels.

“It turned out to be the best job in the world – and perfect for me,” she said. “I got paid to tell people about all the best restaurants, to get great theater tickets, to set up tours – everything that has to do with loving this city, and helping other people to love it too. I could lean into my Delco accent and be a great local representative. I didn’t have to hide who I was.”

For ten years, Jamie was Philadelphia’s professional cheerleader, introducing tourists and visitors and later residents to the city’s hidden gems, making sure they all fell in love with Philadelphia. The Rittenhouse draws guests from all over the world: families visiting Penn or Wharton, patients coming for treatments at Penn and CHOP, and international guests who’d heard of New York and D.C. but weren’t so sure about Philadelphia.

Jamie made sure they left converts.

It helped that Jamie was Philly through and through. All four of her grandparents attended Philadelphia high schools – one went to South Philadelphia High, two went to West Philadelphia High, and one went to Overbrook. She was born at Lankenau Hospital and raised in Delaware County’s Broomall. 

“I was born to automatically love Philadelphia,” she says.

Having grown up in Delco, for many years she’d tell people she was “from the Philadelphia area.” But in 2004, when she started at the Rittenhouse, she moved into the city proper. Since then, she’s lived in actual Philadelphia zip codes.

That same year, she landed another dream gig: Philadelphia Phillies Ball Girl for the first two seasons at Citizens Bank Park. For two summers, she combined her day job evangelizing for Philly with her evenings on the field at brand-new Citizens Bank Park, watching the city’s beloved team up close.

“Talk about the best of both worlds,” she says.

She eventually landed in Society Hill, where she’s lived since 2015, and discovered a neighborhood that feels like a village within the city – trees and chirping birds and little meandering pathways.

“We have unbelievable history here,” she says. “Every direction you walk, you’re going to come across a first” – the oldest post office, the first Roman Catholic church in Philadelphia, all within a few blocks. “But the other thing is the green spaces. You do not always feel like you’re in the city even though you’re in the city.”

It’s also the kind of neighborhood where you can walk to everything – your place of worship, your favorite restaurant and the farmer’s market – all within a few blocks.

During her decade behind the concierge desk, the Rittenhouse consistently won the AAA Five Diamond Award – a distinction so difficult to achieve that Jamie compares it to making it to the Olympics. But what she remembers most isn’t the accolades. It’s the moments that captured what makes Philadelphia special: a big city that somehow feels like a small town where everyone’s in it together.

One memory stands out: One February, a massive snowstorm shut down the city. Jamie had tickets to a preview performance at the Walnut Street Theater – concierges see shows firsthand so they can recommend them to guests. She put on her boots and snow pants after work and trudged down the middle of the street through the blizzard.

Only 12 people showed up that night.

“We gave them such a standing ovation,” Jamie recalls. “It just shows the resiliency of this city – that you can walk through a blizzard and still see your performance.”

In 2013, Jamie got married at the Please Touch Museum – another iconic Philly venue that perfectly captured her love for the city’s landmarks.

These days, Jamie, 44, lives in Society Hill with her spouse and 8-year-old daughter. She left the concierge desk in 2014 after earning her master’s in hospitality from Temple, but she never really left hospitality behind. For the past 11 years, she’s run her own consulting company as a keynote speaker and trainer, coaching businesses throughout the Philadelphia area on how to forge real connections with their customers. Her client list reads like a love letter to the city: Reading Terminal Market, Opera Philadelphia, Center City District, AKA, Brandywine Realty Trust, and Boyds.

Her advice? “Meet somebody where they’re at. Remember that it’s a human interaction, not a transaction.”

She also wrote a book about her wild decade at the Rittenhouse – a nostalgic walk through Philadelphia from 2004 to 2014, back when the city felt different but somehow the same.

And these days, when Jamie talks about her city, nobody tells her she sounds too local.

That’s exactly how she’s supposed to sound.