Philadelphia - The Liberty Bell

This is the second post about our time at Independence National Historic Park:

http://www.nps.gov/inde/index.htm

There are three basic sections, though you could break them down further.

With something as iconic as the Liberty Bell that is still relatively small, it would be easy to just file past it, think "Yep, that's a bell", and move on. The park makes that a better experience.

First of all you start with the foundation of the President's House. When the government was still based in Philadelphia and Washington DC was under construction, George Washington lived here. Although the building has been gone for years, the foundations were discovered and it is set up so that you can get a glimpse of the archaeological dig, with information about that.

You can then follow walls that are set up to give a sense of continuity between the two, which also hold many placards with information about the bell. This includes not just its early history, but people who have come to see it, tours it has taken, and even when there was an April Fool's joke that Taco Bell was buying it and changing the name.

This way, once you get to the bell you have a context and appreciation for it, and you still may not spend that long looking at it, but you may feel more about it. It was excellently done.

The third part is still my favorite though. We'll cover that next week.

Philadelphia - Independence National Historic Park, Visitors Center

There is a lot to the park itself, so I am going to break it down into three sections, starting with the easiest, with the visitors center.

It was an important part of our tour. We started the day with one full bus tour around the city, and by then we were hungry and thirsty - especially thirsty. Later on when we got to the tour (part 3), we were talking with some of the park rangers, and they referred to the TV series "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" and told us that actually it's always humid in Philadelphia. I'm sure it can't always be as hot and humid as it was while we were there, but it was pretty bad. Hydration was very important.

One thing I want to stress is that all of the employees there were wonderful. Many of them were park rangers, and some were not, but all of them were friendly and helpful.

Our first stop was to get some food and drink and the visitors center is the only place in the park for that, though you are in the middle of a city with many options.

There are also options for selfies. You can take your picture with Rocky or the Philly Phanatic, for whom they have statues, but as everyone was getting excited about the Pope's visit, there was also a cardboard cutout of him.

We were especially grateful for the air condition, but there was also an arbor with some shade and a statue that seemed to me like a reference to the statue in Love Park, but it might not have been. Philadelphia is still the City of Brotherly Love, so any references to love can stand on their own.

The gift shop was also there. There were some really cool things, including Ben Franklin dolls that had attached kites with keys, and were wearing cute little glasses, but they were very expensive.

One thing that was interesting was that in connection with the Pope's visit they had many rosaries available, and I believe some Catholic themed books. In addition they had some posters up for observances at local churches. Without having been at the visitors center at any other time, I suspect this means that they keep in touch with things going on in the community and respond to that.

I value that, but this picture is primarily because I thought St. John Neumann looked so much like Martin Sheen.

We also took advantage of their theaters to watch two movies: Independence and Choosing Sides: Young Voices of the Revolution.

I have seen some great movies at national parks, especially Pearl Harbor. I didn't like these as much. Independence seemed a little stodgy, and Choosing Sides seemed to be trying a little too hard to appeal to the young people. My interest grew when I saw that the young Quakeress was being portrayed by Kristen Bell, but what really amazed me was how much I hated Mireille Enos' character. She was playing a Tory, so it was probably that.

If you are in Philadelphia, you absolutely should visit Independence National Historic Park, and the visitors center can be a good part of that visit.

You may love it.

http://www.nps.gov/inde/index.htm

Philadelphia - Cinema Philadelphia

In planning our trip to Philadelphia, I was only thinking of historical locations, not movie locations.

I did know that Rocky was filmed there, and there were the steps, and that there would be nothing more touristy that you could do than run up the steps and jump around, but that was all I had in mind.

There was a lot more.

We learned that the Eastern State Penitentiary has been used as a filming location often. I don't seem to have seen any movies shot there, but I have seen the music video for Tina Turner's "We Don't Need Another Hero". You can't really tell it's there - they just needed someplace big and dark - but since then I have watched "Punk Rock Girl" by The Dead Kennedy's, and you can totally see that.

Actually, that is a very Philadelphia video and song. We did not stop at the Hard Rock Cafe, so I do not have photographs of memorabilia of Philadelphia groups like Hall & Oates and Boyz II Men, so I will probably not do a post on Philadelphia music and I feel bad about that now.

The bus tour let us know about other films too. We passed by the house where the birthday party in The Sixth Sense was filmed, and the Wells Fargo Building that stood in for Duke and Duke in Trading Places.

(I know. I was on a moving vehicle and my camera kept dying.)

I liked both of these movies, but I had not strongly associated them with Philadelphia. I think I was just never familiar enough with it before.

Having been there now, I believe it will be different. I saw some news footage recently and without hearing where it was I recognized (correctly) City Hall right away.

But the coolest movie location for us was one my sisters knew about already. They started talking about Mannequin while we were en route, and I had not known that at all, so I looked it up, and there was an address, 1313 Chestnut Street, that was right by our hotel.

Prince & Company was basically Wanamakers (now a Macy's but still in the Wanamaker Building), and our hotel was next to it. Actually, in this video about filming locations for Mannequin, you can see our hotel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la7sIrNo8Sw&feature=youtu.be&list=UUjU-Cwjfqbo2hMRItlXwnnQ

This was very cool to me, but looking around it became kind of sad. The windows don't have those cool displays any more, for the most part. We only found one with actual mannequins in it, and they had no heads. Stairways are closed off. I get that people could fall, but then the balconies become dumping grounds for boxes, when there could probably still be some cool displays set up.

The one legacy that they do still honor is the Wanamaker Organ, which is important historically, is huge, and which still has regular concerts. That is probably only because they have a society of friends of the organ keeping it going:

http://www.wanamakerorgan.com/

It feels like there are some lost opportunities there. I feel pretty comfortable blaming Macy's.

I'm still glad I got to see it.

Philadelphia - Big Bus Tours

http://eng.bigbustours.com/philadelphia/home.html

In a heavy tourist city there may often be multiple tours, and it can be somewhat confusing.

We ended up with the Big Bus company, and that was mainly because it came with our City Pass.  That is nonetheless a combination that I recommend, and we were happy with it.

There were two points of confusion, which aren't necessarily horrible. One was finding the right bus. We requested a hotel pickup, which they do via a shuttle van. We got in the van, and they picked up some others, and then we were directed to different buses at the departure point. Was it that we got on a van that was coming for someone else? There could be many shuttle vans going around at a time. Was it that the different bus companies share a shuttle service? Not impossible. I really don't know.

The other thing that was confusing was that looking at the list of stops the number kept changing. I think some of the numbers were 22, 23 and 27, but I was never sure. There could be several reasons for this.

One is that some stops may be seasonal or for certain times of day. Construction in preparation for the Pope's visit made some stops unavailable too, though that would probably not affect the literature.

Another possibility is that there are stops and there are attractions, but some stops have multiple attractions. The main starting point is right by Independence National Historic Park. Not only is that an attraction by itself, but you can divide it into multiple attractions. Independence Hall itself is part of a tour of three buildings, there is also the Liberty Bell, including the site of the first presidential home, and the visitors center.

Also, on one round of the bus tour there seemed to be another stop nearby for the Betsy Ross house, Christchurch Cemetery, and Elfreth Alley, but that did not seem to be available when we wanted to go there, so we walked to all three from that main stop, and it was not that far. In the process we also passed by an old Quaker meeting house and Girard Fountain Park, and we had walked to the Lyle exhibit from there. Also, I believe we were quite near the Philadelphia Mint there.

One point of this is that Philadelphia is pretty walkable, but also there is a lot packed closely together. The tour bus will pass near some things multiple times from different sides as they try to show you everything. This can be handy as you can walk from one stop past various attractions and then board again at a different stop, which can be wonderful for time and efficiency as long as you keep your bearings.

I have said this about other cities too, but again, taking that tour first thing, so you get a chance to see where the things are that you know you want to see, but also to learn about things you didn't know about, is always a smart move.