Going to Philadelphia
Dec 22, 2005 | 6:39 am
#1
Original Poster
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: May 1999
Posts: 46,817
Going to Philadelphia
Going to Philadelphia
It's a sweet paradox that Philadelphia, a city once populated by holiday-averse Quakers, embraces the Christmas season so exuberantly. But this year, Philadelphia has more reason to celebrate than in many years past.
Center City, more populous today than a decade ago, is Philadelphia's throbbing heart and bustles day and night with lively museums, theaters, restaurants and shops. Old City, the atmospheric thicket of low brick buildings and narrow streets near the Liberty Bell, buzzes with the city's trendiest restaurants, galleries and nightspots. But change is particularly pronounced in fringe neighborhoods like Northern Liberties, an enclave north of City Hall, where galleries and restaurants have reclaimed the rusting factories and musty warehouses.
Why the new energy? City planning, focused redevelopment and tax incentives have brought businesses, housing and hope. A generous inventory of old buildings ripe for recycling helped, too, as did the city's foot-friendly layout, plotted more than 300 years ago by William Penn.
And this winter, Philadelphia unfurls its pride in Benjamin Franklin, its illustrious founding father, with a yearlong salute to his 300th birthday. Though the red letter day is Jan. 17, exhibitions and events have already begun. Visit soon, and you'll see the best of wintertime Philadelphia, from the super colorful light display at City Hall to the 35-foot tree in Rittenhouse Square...
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/12/1...l/18going.html
It's a sweet paradox that Philadelphia, a city once populated by holiday-averse Quakers, embraces the Christmas season so exuberantly. But this year, Philadelphia has more reason to celebrate than in many years past.
Center City, more populous today than a decade ago, is Philadelphia's throbbing heart and bustles day and night with lively museums, theaters, restaurants and shops. Old City, the atmospheric thicket of low brick buildings and narrow streets near the Liberty Bell, buzzes with the city's trendiest restaurants, galleries and nightspots. But change is particularly pronounced in fringe neighborhoods like Northern Liberties, an enclave north of City Hall, where galleries and restaurants have reclaimed the rusting factories and musty warehouses.
Why the new energy? City planning, focused redevelopment and tax incentives have brought businesses, housing and hope. A generous inventory of old buildings ripe for recycling helped, too, as did the city's foot-friendly layout, plotted more than 300 years ago by William Penn.
And this winter, Philadelphia unfurls its pride in Benjamin Franklin, its illustrious founding father, with a yearlong salute to his 300th birthday. Though the red letter day is Jan. 17, exhibitions and events have already begun. Visit soon, and you'll see the best of wintertime Philadelphia, from the super colorful light display at City Hall to the 35-foot tree in Rittenhouse Square...
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/12/1...l/18going.html
Dec 28, 2005 | 8:51 am
#3
Original Poster
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: May 1999
Posts: 46,817
Originally Posted by Analise
So you're not heading down to Philly, doc?
Nah, despite the rather poor thread title, not his week, Analise, but soon. And if I were moving, as you might have guessed, it'd almost surely be in the other direction, east, back to NY!
We are to be off skiing and snowboading in New Hampshire, but are delayed due my sons basketball tournament this week. As long as you keep winning, naturally, you keep playing.
FWIW, my wife went to Philly last week to play Santa and deliver gifts for her relatives. No FF miles however!
And I'm holed up here "working" in a lovely Residence Inn in NJ.
Since we always do the "Final Four" deal, we'll also all be back in Philly on Memorial Day weekend as they host the upcoming NCAA lax event at Lincoln Financial. This last year, as you know, was unbelievable as Hopkins finally won it all defeating Virginia in a classic and then Duke in the final. Wow! Did we ever party! Petro was so incredibly happy!!!!!
Not to sound too greedy, but I'm admittedly hoping for a repeat.
Best wishes to you and yours,
Mark
Dec 30, 2005 | 8:25 am
#4
Original Poster
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
Join Date: May 1999
Posts: 46,817
The Eeewww Factor in Downtown Philadelphia
The Eeewww Factor in Downtown Philadelphia
There are very few visual cues to what awaits a visitor in the entrance to the Mtter Museum, tucked into the College of Physicians of Philadelphia building in Center City. It's the kind of federal architecture that Philadelphia is rife with, stately and impenetrable. But that facade conceals a chamber of vivid horrors - or unrivaled delights, depending on one's tolerance for the human condition laid bare.
Long a touchstone for adults with gothic sensibilities, the Mtter is a legitimate family destination - we're talking science and medicine, after all - but its capacity to titillate is twined with a tendency to just plain freak people out, however old they are.
"It certainly begins innocently enough," said Russell Tamberelli, a football fan from Connecticut who had taken his 11-year-old son to the Mtter for a tour before his beloved Green Bay Packers took on the Eagles on a Sunday last month. His team would be pushed around by the Eagles later that day, but the game would not be nearly so gory as the hidden recesses of the Mtter.
Visitors cross the lobby to an outer area suited for measured and benevolent temporary exhibits like the current one, ending tomorrow, on the medical challenges of the Lewis and Clark expedition. But then comes the museum proper, where 20,000 artifacts of a medical nature are crammed in shelf after shelf. It is ancient - the museum was founded in 1849 - creepy and compelling by turns. There are bodies, skeletons, hundreds of fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens and lots of hardware in the form of archaic medical instruments. It is as if the Addams Family had partnered with Dr. Frankenstein in coming up with thousands of their favorite things. Who, after all, can resist a human colon that outgrew its host and eventually killed him?...
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/12/3...es/30down.html
----
It's worth the visit, IMHO!
Mark
There are very few visual cues to what awaits a visitor in the entrance to the Mtter Museum, tucked into the College of Physicians of Philadelphia building in Center City. It's the kind of federal architecture that Philadelphia is rife with, stately and impenetrable. But that facade conceals a chamber of vivid horrors - or unrivaled delights, depending on one's tolerance for the human condition laid bare.
Long a touchstone for adults with gothic sensibilities, the Mtter is a legitimate family destination - we're talking science and medicine, after all - but its capacity to titillate is twined with a tendency to just plain freak people out, however old they are.
"It certainly begins innocently enough," said Russell Tamberelli, a football fan from Connecticut who had taken his 11-year-old son to the Mtter for a tour before his beloved Green Bay Packers took on the Eagles on a Sunday last month. His team would be pushed around by the Eagles later that day, but the game would not be nearly so gory as the hidden recesses of the Mtter.
Visitors cross the lobby to an outer area suited for measured and benevolent temporary exhibits like the current one, ending tomorrow, on the medical challenges of the Lewis and Clark expedition. But then comes the museum proper, where 20,000 artifacts of a medical nature are crammed in shelf after shelf. It is ancient - the museum was founded in 1849 - creepy and compelling by turns. There are bodies, skeletons, hundreds of fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens and lots of hardware in the form of archaic medical instruments. It is as if the Addams Family had partnered with Dr. Frankenstein in coming up with thousands of their favorite things. Who, after all, can resist a human colon that outgrew its host and eventually killed him?...
http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/12/3...es/30down.html
----
It's worth the visit, IMHO!
Mark