Philadelphia: History on every corner
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Freedom is the fare on a trip to Philadelphia
Dressed in 18th-century garb, complete with a long white apron and a
bonnet, Christen brought us a basket of hot breads — Thomas Jefferson
sweet potato and pecan biscuits, Anadama cornmeal and molasses, and
Sally Lunn, an English tea bread.
"Most of the food is from authentic recipes," she said.
I was dining with Marisa Phillip of the Philadelphia Convention and Visitors
Bureau in City Tavern, the National Park Service's faithful re-creation of the
1773 "most genteel" tavern that was the unofficial meeting place of the first
Continental Congress.
Most of the food and drink is similar to that served in the 18th century, and
the authentic surroundings provide grist for some fascinating flights of
imagination. You can just see George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and
John Adams sharing a pint of ale while discussing the day's events as the
American Colonies struggled with the prospect of declaring independence
from England.
I would bump into America's early history many more times over the next
few days while visiting Philadelphia, where both the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution were debated and approved.
"You can't turn a corner without seeing something historic," Henry, a guide
for Philadelphia Trolley Works, said the next morning as I took a
comprehensive two-hour tour that gives a good overview of the city's many
attractions.
Although we drove by Betsy Ross' house, historic Christ Church, Benjamin
Franklin's tombstone covered with good-luck pennies and Independence
National Historical Park — "America's most historic square mile," the tour
also gave me a preview of Philadelphia's great diversity.
There are great repositories of art such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Rodin Museum; impressive
entertainment venues like the gleaming new Kimmel Center for the
Performing Arts and the historic Walnut Street Theatre; a world-class zoo —
America's first; the nation's third-largest Chinatown; and the largest
landscaped urban park in the United States.
You can shop in America's largest indoor urban shopping center — where
there is no tax on clothing — and dine in a bevy of new restaurants that have
opened downtown in recent years.
"If there is something you have an interest in, I can find something for you,"
said Rosanna Scicchitano, the creative tourism sales manager for the CVB.
This is all set in a city that, despite being the fifth largest in the United States,
is easy to negotiate. Philadelphia retains the grid pattern directed by William
Penn when he founded the city in 1682, making it easy to know where you
are.
And it's easy to walk to the many attractions in the compact areas around
Independence National Historical Park, City Hall and the Philadelphia
Museum of Art.
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Walkable city
"It's a very walkable city," said Maurya Joyce, group sales manager for the
Kimmel Center.
I found it an easy walk to the historic area from my Society Hill hotel. My
first stop was at nearby Christ Church, whose congregation has been
meeting regularly for more than 300 years.
"It has met every Sunday since Nov. 15, 1695," said Nava Hall, a guide at the
church.
The current building was built between 1727 and 1744, with its 196-foot
steeple, which was the highest point in North America for 100 years, erected
in 1754.
George Washington used pews 56-58 when he was president, while
Benjamin Franklin regularly sat in pews 68-70. Although the pews are not
original, they are more than 100 years old.
The church's 1766 prayer book happened to be on display the day I was
there, open to the pages where, on July 4, 1776, the Rev. Jacob Duché
crossed out a prayer to the king and royal family.
"It was a big deal when he did it," said Hall. "It was a high act of treason.
It was really major."
The book is brought out annually on the Fourth of July and displayed through
July. On permanent display is the 600-year-old baptismal font used to baptize
William Penn, that was brought from England 300 years ago.
The church's burial ground, located two blocks away, contains seven signers
of the Declaration of Independence, including Franklin. One street over from
the burial ground is Franklin Court, where Franklin had his house and print
shop.
Because no accurate records exist of the buildings, the National Park Service
has erected metal outlines of the house and shop on their original sites.
However, the arched brick passageway that leads from Market Street is the
same one Franklin walked through.
An adjacent underground museum contains artifacts and information about
Franklin, including a video and a diorama recessed into the floor that uses
small figures to show scenes of Franklin before Parliament, at the Court of
Versailles and at the Constitutional Convention.
Above ground, Ralph Archbold, a live impersonator who is a dead ringer for
Franklin, holds court about the impending crisis with England.
An operating 18th-century print shop similar to Franklin's is located in one
of the rowhouses on Market Street that Franklin built in the 1780s as rental
properties.
Franklin Square is just a block down Market Street from Independence
National Historical Park, which stretches for four blocks between fifth and
sixth streets and contains two of America's most cherished symbols of
freedom — the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall.
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A bright new home
The Liberty Bell Center, which opened last fall, provides a great new home for the revered
bell. A series of exhibits and videos tells the history and significance of the
bell, which was first hung in the Pennsylvania State House in 1753 and
prophetically inscribed "Proclaim Liberty throughout All the land unto All
the Inhabitants Thereof."
The famous crack in the bell occurred sometime between 1817 and 1846;
the exact date and circumstances are a mystery. Its name dates not from
the Revolution, however, but from the 1830s, when abolitionists used it as
a symbol for the anti-slavery movement.
The exhibits lead you toward the Liberty Bell, which is displayed against
the backdrop of a two-story glass wall that looks out at Independence Hall.
National Park Service rangers lead tours of the stately Georgian building,
which is restored to look like it did when our Founding Fathers were making
their momentous decisions within its walls. The furnishings include the
inkstand used for the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The historical park also includes Congress Hall, where Congress met from
1790 to 1800, when Philadelphia was the nation's capital, and Carpenters'
Hall, where the First Continental Congress met in 1774.
In the evening, I donned a headset and joined a walk around the historical
area as the Revolution dramatically came to life at the Lights of Liberty show.
Five-story-tall images were projected on the sides of the historic buildings
as narrators such as Walter Cronkite, Charlton Heston and Ossie Davis
re-created various scenes from the era.
Realistic sound effects in the 3-D headsets had me dodging bullets and
galloping horses. The 60-minute show wound up with a dramatic musical
score as the Declaration of Independence was projected on the side of
Independence Hall. The show is presented from early May through October.
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Crown jewel
At the far end of the park in a modernistic building with large glass walls and
a soaring, spacious lobby is the National Constitution Center. "The
Constitution Center is our crown jewel. It ties it all together so nicely," said
Scicchitano.
The center, which opened July 4, 2003, uses a variety of innovative
techniques to tell the story of the Constitution as it has evolved over more
than 200 years. The center's more than 100 interactive, multimedia
components are designed not only to inform but to engage visitors into
thinking about what the principles of the Constitution mean.
"Freedom Rising is everybody's starting point," said Andrew Lovell, group
sales manager for the Constitution Center. The 17-minute show tells the
history of the Constitution using a live actor and multimedia elements on
a 360-degree screen.
You exit from the 300-seat theater into the circular main exhibition area
which is surrounded by a 16-foot-tall, 450-foot-long glass wall with the
Constitution printed on it. The displays are presented chronologically and
by theme in three concentric circles.
"It is so interactive," said Lovell. "You can vote here, try on a Supreme Court
robe there."
The final stop is Signers' Hall, where you walk among 42 life-size bronze
figures of the 39 men who signed the Constitution and the three who
dissented. You can add your signature affirming the Constitution in a book
that will be permanently housed in the center. Or you can sign a separate
book as a dissenter and explain why.
The National Park Service says that the crack in the Liberty Bell is a reminder
that liberty is imperfect. Another innovative museum in the historic district
uses delicate glass art to represent liberty.
"It is beautiful, easily broken and can never be put back together again in
the same way," said Amanda Hall, public relations manager for the National
Liberty Museum. And like the National Constitution Center, the museum
tries to get people to think.
"We get people to thinking about real issues right off the bat," said Hall as
she showed me an exhibit near the entrance that features Americans who
have been killed for expressing their First Amendment rights.
"We are unique to the historic area," she said. "The others show the past.
We tell a different story — America today and in the future."
The centerpiece of the museum, which has more than 150 original paintings,
bronzes and glass sculptures, is the 21-foot-tall Flame of Liberty by noted
glass artist Dale Chihuly. The artwork and accompanying exhibits tell
stories of heroism and courage that help promote the museum's mission
of encouraging nonviolence and tolerance.
Glass also makes an impressive statement at the $265 million Kimmel Center
for the Performing Arts on Philadelphia's Avenue of the Arts, where a
150-foot vaulted glass ceiling encloses two freestanding performance halls.
The ceiling contains 5,800 units of glass, each weighing more than 1,000
pounds, with no interior support. A large glass wall encloses one end.
Center spokesperson Sally Kutyla said architect Rafael Viñoly wanted the
building, which opened in December 2001, to have "a great wow factor
without detracting from the surroundings. But once you are inside, he
wanted you to know you were in a dramatic place."
The center is home to six resident companies, including the highly regarded
Philadelphia Orchestra, which plays in the 2,500-seat, cello-shaped Verizon
Theater.
"If we didn't have a world-class orchestra, I don't know if this building
would have happened," said Kutyla. "The orchestra is the driving force."
The impressive main hall has a rich, warm feeling with veneer mahogany
walls and cherry floors. A new organ that is scheduled to be ready in 2006
will be the largest concert organ in the world.
The 651-seat Perelman Theater has a rotating stage that can accommodate
dance, chamber music and full-scale theatrical productions.
In addition to the resident companies, the Kimmel Center has an active
program of regular musical and theatrical performances, including touring
Broadway productions.
Philadelphia's rich and varied cultural scene also has many ties to history.
For example, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, which will celebrate
its 200th anniversary next year, is the oldest art school and museum of fine
arts in the nation.
"Next year is really enormous for us," said Shelley McCaffrey, public relations
associate for the museum. "We will have exhibits and special events
throughout the year."
One exhibit, which will run Jan. 11 through April 10, will cover the history of
American art from 1720 to today and will be located throughout the
academy's historic 1876 building.
An 11-story addition next door will be dedicated at the first of the year in
conjunction with the anniversary. The building, which includes offices
and classrooms for the art school, will concentrate on the display of
post-1945 work.
The Academy of Fine Arts specializes in American art. One of its focal points is
the ornate Washington Foyer, where there are three paintings of George
Washington by Charles Willson Peale, one of the academy's founders;
Gilbert Stuart; and Rembrandt Peale.
Although Philadelphia native Sylvester Stallone made the impressive
neoclassical building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art famous to thousands
of movie goers by running up its steps in the Academy Award-winning
movie Rocky, the museum is one of the largest and most respected in the
United States.
The museum's group sales manager, Shari Stoltz, said there are more than
10 theme tours that groups can take of the museum, which was founded
in 1876.
"The collection is very vast. We can do a basic tour or a nice variety of
themes," she said.
The museum's extensive collection includes masterpieces of painting,
sculpture, decorative art and architectural settings from Europe, Asia and
the Americas.
Director of media relations Norman Keys Jr. said "one of the great things of
museums is serendipity," and the Philadelphia Museum of Art fits the bill
perfectly with surprising discoveries around every corner in its 200 galleries.
For example, there is the room housing the world's largest collection of work
by modern artist Marcel Duchamp, who personally supervised its installation.
"We are pretty famous for this room," said Keyes. "Contemporary art owes a
lot to this guy."
After looking at masterpieces by Botticelli, Rubens, Poussin, Gainsborough,
Renoir, Cézanne and van Gogh, you may encounter a room filled with
medieval armor, a complete Japanese teahouse, the reception hall from
the palace of a Chinese nobleman of the Ming Dynasty or a medieval
cloister from France.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located at the end of Franklin Parkway in
8,900-acre Fairmont Park, which is also home to the Philadelphia Zoo and
seven historic 18th- and early-19th-century houses that are open to the
public.
Also on the parkway is the Franklin Institute Science Museum, which also
has a national memorial to Franklin.
"Where we are standing is a national memorial, just like the ones to
Washington and Jefferson," said Brian Henson, manager of group sales for
the institute as we stood beneath a large statue of a seated Franklin. "He
was the patriarch of Philadelphia. We have more than 40 statues of Franklin
in the city."
Exhibits around the edge of the room deal with Franklin's career as a
printer, scientist-inventor and diplomat, and the adjacent science museum
has several exhibits dealing with Franklin.
Groups can see an electricity show in front of Franklin's re-created
workshop or peruse the section dealing with his inventions, such as a
stove and bifocals.
"He never held any patents," said Henson. "He invented things to improve
people's lives."
The museum's Train Factory has an 1838 locomotive, the Rocket, which ran
for 40 years between Reading and Pottstown, Pa., and a huge Baldwin steam
locomotive built in 1926 but never mass produced, because railroads were
suspicious of its size and new gadgets. The engine, which was brought to
the Franklin Institute in 1933, takes visitors on a 16-foot ride back and
forth.
New experiential tours being developed by Scicchitano will include the
opportunity for groups, wearing white cotton gloves, to handle some of
Franklin's possessions, such as a lightning rod, a drinking tankard and
printing press equipment.
The nearby Academy of Natural Sciences, founded in 1812, is the oldest
natural-history museum in the Western Hemisphere and is famous for its
dinosaur collections and botany samples from the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
"We have the actual specimens," said Brian Simard, director of group sales.
"You can see the specimens with Meriwether Lewis' writing around them."
The experiential tours will cover the academy as a whole, with an
opportunity to see the Lewis and Clark botanical items.
"We have different aspects — public museum, historic collection and
continuing scientific research," said Simard.
The museum's dinosaur collection includes the first fossils found in America,
in 1858 in New Jersey.
"Our collections are scientifically important, but they have so much
history to them, too," said Ned Gilmore, the museum's curator of
paleontology.
You can watch scientists working on recently recovered fossils.
"We are always working on fossils we have unearthed in Egypt or Montana,"
said Jason Poole as he carefully chipped rock from a fossil. "This is one of the
spots where we really cater to a mixed audience."
Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love, also does a good job of catering to a
mixed audience with its great diversity.
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Researching your trip
Philadelphia Convention and Visitors Bureau
(800) CALL-PHL, Ext. 2, option 3
rosannas@pcvb.org /
www.pcvb.org |
By Herb Sparrow
The Group Travel Leader
The National Newspaper for the Group Travel Industry
September 2004 Volume 14 Number 7
The Group Travel Leader newspaper is published by The Group Travel Leader
Inc., a Lexington, Kentucky based publishing company that produces niche
travel market publications. Complimentary subscriptions are available to
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