City of Brotherly Love

and now.

Wednesday, May 24…

Then...

We’re doing the RD condensed version of Philly. Both sets of my grandparents lived here. Our family also made an annual pilgrimage to Wanamaker's (dept store) the day after Thanksgiving. My brother & I shared our Christmas wishes with Santa, and my parents somehow managed to buy those presents w/o us realizing what was going on. It was a very long day - we'd drive to Wilmington, take the train to Philly, shop, and then reverse the travel. I remember eating at "the automat," which was like a huge vending machine built into the wall and delivering fresh food. But... the last time I visited the city I was probably 12, so it's not like I know it. 
I took 2 pics of the skyline as we drove in, then cropped out all the clutter. The old bldg is the Willow Steam Plant (1927), and the new ones are Liberty Place 1 & 2 (1990), which were the tallest bldgs in the city until 2007.

Innovative Design

 Anyway... our lawyer daughter Amy spent a couple days here a few years back so we asked for her two must-dos. The first was Eastern State Penitentiary (certainly a surprise – I’d never even heard of it) and Freedom Rising, a live, multi-media presentation at the Constitution Center. When it opened in 1929, the penitentiary was the largest and most expensive public structure ever erected, and it quickly became a model for more than 300 prisons worldwide. Each prisoner was confined to a small cell with a bed, basic toilet flushed once a day w/ a bucket of water, a work table (every prisoner had some type of assigned work), tiny skylight and a small, walled exercise yard. Three meals were handed through a small portal (no cell door – prisoners entered from the exercise yard). Total isolation. No mistreatment, but also absolutely no contact. The theory was that this provided time to ponder your misdeeds and become truly penitent. (More on that later.)  Later on, the need for more space meant adding upper floors and more "spokes" and forgoing isolation in order to improve efficiency.

Artist's rendition... from the outside, a medieval fortress or castle.

Long, lonely corridors.

Doors added much later.

A touch of color in the hallway.

Remembering the old days. 

After becoming more socially conscious, we drive into Central Philly for lunch at the rather upscale Oyster House. Not being a seafood fanatic, this isn't a place I normally would have chosen, but - of course - there's a history behind it. On those trips to visit grandparents, my parents would usually have dinner at Kelly's, a popular neighborhood restaurant. I would get the cherry from my mom's cocktail (an old fashioned), and I always ordered lamb chops (which, ironically, Greg & I had for dinner tonight). Kelly's is long gone, but the owner's family now runs Oyster House in a more central location. My salad of greens, black quinoa (who knew I liked blk quinoa???), strawberries, pistachios, peas & goat cheese topped with a perfectly grilled piece of salmon was beyond fabulous. Greg had longneck clams (which I would not have enjoyed), but the skinny fries that came with them were to die for. And, when I finally mentioned why we were there, our server immediately brought out photos of Kelly's and told me how much they love to hear stories from former Kelly customers. So glad we went!


The afternoon, in brief: Freedom Rising was an extremely well done reminder that the 3-pronged, checks-and-balances system of government our founding fathers crafted was radical and revolutionary - so much so that 3 delegates actually did not sign the Constitution. (And the Rhode Island delegate refused to even attend - he wanted things just the way they'd always been.) The Signers Hall exhibit (life-size bronze statues of the delegates as they might have stood in Independence Hall) was also quite impressive. We finished the afternoon with a look at the Liberty Bell.

Two Marylanders flank a Virginia delegate.
(some of these guys were short!)

Not too pretty, but pretty symbolic.

BlogThoughts...  Several - all tied to my acute awareness of how much I'm learning from this trip in general and especially from writing the blog b/c I'm always fact checking or curious to clarify or expand what I've seen, heard or read. Today's gleanings:

1. The full story behind Philadelphia's nickname is pretty interesting. Check out http://www.ushistory.org/us/4c.asp. 

2. I loved the trips to Wanamaker's, but I never knew until tonight how significant a place it was. Philadelphia's first department store, and one of the earliest in the entire U.S. -  its beginnings remind me a bit of Selfridges. The Crystal Tea Room seated 1000; the bldg is now a National Historic Landmark; and the organ (28,000 pipes - more than twice the one at Longwood) is still played on a regular basis. And John Wanamaker was 33 years ahead of Selfridge! 

3. Not until today's tour of ESP did I ever think seriously about the terms penitentiary and prison. The intent of a penitentiary was to reform, whereas a prison intended to punish. It's not that simplistic, of course, but it is pause for thought - especially when we consider how ridiculously high the American rate of imprisonment is in comparison to all other nations.