Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Philadelphia

  • Philadelphia – Eastern State Penitentiary

    This was one of the highlights of my trip to Philadelphia, a trip to the Eastern State Penitentiary. It was opened in 1829 and was designed to be a forward thinking new approach to prison design, with help being offered to prisoners rather than them just being punished. As usual with these things, eventually more prisoners were crammed into the prison and the initial pioneering strategies were mostly lost.

    The exterior of the prison was though always designed to look austere and when it opened the building was some way from the city centre and stood out like a castle. Quite a scary castle….

    The castle like protection is visible from the exterior of the prison, but it’s all fake. The slit windows in the main wall are just a front and the crenellations are just decorative.

    The inside of the wall, with no slit windows showing through.

    One of the numerous prison wings, the first ones were single storey but double storeys were added later on. The prison was closed in 1971 and the intention was to demolish it to build residential units or a shopping centre. It was left to go to ruin for two decades before a decision was made to turn it into a museum. The above photo shows one of the few sections which have been repaired, but the rest is being left.

    One of the two storey prison wings.

    Inside one of the cells and there were hundreds of these to look at. The closed off section at the back is what led into a small exercise yard, a pioneering idea which gave each prisoner an exercise area and they could even use part of it as a small garden. They were later all sealed up though when things got tougher. The cells all had toilets right from when they were constructed, which was well ahead of its time, and they actually had running toilets before the President of the United States as plumbing wasn’t added to the White House until 1833.

    I thought this was a fascinating site and I spent nearly three hours here exploring everything. I managed to take nearly 300 photos, so at some point I’ll post more photos of the prison. I’m not usually a fan of audio tours, but this one worked well, a short introduction and then visitors could use them as they felt appropriate whilst they explored the prison.

  • Philadelphia – Cityscape Photos

    Some photos of Philadelphia….

  • Philadelphia – Rocky Statue

    I had never seen the Rocky Film so this statue was something of a mystery to me. But, in short, I’ve now watched a clip from the first Rocky movie where the actor Sylvester Stallone ends a morning run by jogging up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. So, this is an important site for fans of the movie.

    This is the first statue that I’ve ever seen where there’s a queue to have a photograph taken in front of it. The queue also seemed endless, both when I arrived and left the museum.

    The siting of the statue has caused some argument over the years. It was used as a film prop for Rocky III and it was then given to the city in 1982. The statue, designed by A. Thomas Schomberg, was placed at the top of the steps but some felt that a film prop shouldn’t be located in front of an internationally important art museum.

    So, the city authorities shoved the statue out at the Spectrum stadium in southern Philadelphia, but it was starting to become an iconic symbol of the city because it represented the triumph of the underdog. After some more arguing it was decided that a compromise site would be found, so the statue is now located near to the base of the steps, but it doesn’t impact on the view of the museum.

  • Philadelphia – Rodin Museum (Man With a Lamb)

    Not all of the pieces in the Rodin Museum are by Auguste Rodin, with this one being by Pablo Picasso. It stands just over 6’7″ tall and the original was created in 1943, with this casting made between 1948 and 1950.

    The museum’s web-site describes the work better than I can, saying that this “recalls early Christian images of the Good Shepherd, and Picasso’s depiction of sacrifice and suffering, which he described as an expression of universal emotion, takes on heightened significance in the context of the world war in which it was created.”

    There’s another one of these castings in Vallauris, a French city near Cannes, which is now seen as being a war memorial which commemorates those who fought fascism.

  • Philadelphia – Rodin Museum (The Call to Arms)

    I can’t find a list of where all the other castings of Rodin’s The Call to Arms, also known as La Défense and The Call of Arms, are located, but there’s one in Harvard Art Museum, one at Portland Art Museum, one at North Carolina Museum of Art and another at the Musée Rodin in Paris.

    Rodin had submitted this in 1879 for a project to create a ‘Monument to the Defence of Paris’. He didn’t win, he wrote later on that the sculpture was probably “too violent and too strident”.

  • Philadelphia – Rodin Museum (The Burghers of Calais)

    Not being much of an art expert I had only heard of Auguste Rodin and didn’t know much about him or his works. However, the Rodin Museum (a branch of the Philadelphia Museum of Art) has a lot of works by him, which is handy really since they named the gallery after him.

    I’ve wondered before when I see bronze castings just how it can be classed as a Rodin, for example, if there are 100 examples of the work. My question was answered though, as French law dictates that there can only be twelve castings made for the works to be considered as being by the artist himself (or herself).

    I like this, from a completionist point of view (I always think of the ‘completed it mate’ line from the Inbetweeners when using that word), as I can look out for the works at other museums and galleries around the world.

    Wikipedia tells me where they all are:

    (i) The 1895 cast of the group of six figures still stands in Calais. Other original casts stand at:

    (ii) Glyptoteket in Copenhagen, cast 1903.

    (iii) The Musée Royal de Mariemont in Morlanwelz, Belgium, cast 1905.

    (iv) Victoria Tower Gardens in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament in London; cast 1908, installed on this site in 1914 and unveiled 19 July 1915. The inscription on the pedestal was carved by Eric Gill.

    (v) The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, cast 1925 and installed in 1929.

    (vi) The gardens of the Musée Rodin in Paris, cast 1926 and given to the museum in 1955.

    (vii) Kunstmuseum in Basel, cast 1943 and installed in 1948.

    (viii) The Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., cast 1943 and installed in 1966.

    (ix) The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, cast 1953 and installed in 1959.

    (x) The Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, cast 1968.

    (xi) The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, cast 1985 and installed in 1989.

    (xii) Plateau (formerly called Rodin Gallery and now closed since 2016) in Seoul. This is the 12th and final cast in the edition, cast 1995.

    This also solved my confusion as to where I had seen one of these castings before, and it is outside of the Houses of Parliament. I have been to a handful of the other locations, but I don’t remember seeing those castings.

    The story goes that King Edward III attacked Calais and besieged it, finally saying that he would save the people of the city if six senior figures surrendered. Those six men were expecting to be executed, but Philippa of Hainault who was the wife of King Edward III, didn’t like this and so she saved their lives. The King did what he was told and the six men were allowed to live, although I’m sure there were some political machinations and intentions behind this whole saga.

  • Philadelphia – The Bond

    Designed by James West and made from bronze and concrete, this sculpture was installed outside of the city’s Masonic Temple in 2017. It depicts George Washington showing his masonic apron to Benjamin Franklin, both men today still being regarded as national heroes.

    The sculptor writes on his web-site:

    “When Benjamin Franklin first went to France as a diplomat, he was highly influential and successful in securing a French Alliance in support for the American War of Independence. George Washington, at that time, was serving as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army of the American Revolution. Gilbert du Montier Lafayette, who led the French troops, gifted to George Washington, as a sign of solidarity, a ceremonial apron as a symbol of the bond between these two countries. The monumental statues sculpted by Jim West depict the moment at which George Washington presented that apron to Benjamin Franklin — an apron that is now displayed in the Grand Masonic Museum of Philadelphia, outside of which these statues stand.”

    Its location makes this sculpture very visible, and it makes quite a statement.

  • Philadelphia – Shake Shack

    Another one of my favourite chains and since I’m in the US, I think it’s acceptable to visit for a quick snack (especially to put into perspective that I’d visited seven museums in ten hours and needed food quite quickly)…. Shake Shack are also in the UK with nine outlets (mainly London), but my one and only visit wasn’t a great success and I don’t intend to head back to their UK branches again in the near future at least.

    I do like the large menu boards by the counter, not everyone knows the menu and it’s helpful for the staff to point to when explaining the options to customers. Staff were usual Shake Shack standard, engaging, friendly and helpful. There’s quite a large seating area and although I didn’t explore it on this visit, the beer selection is reasonable for a chain like this. And they offer wine on the menu as well to add a touch more elegance to the whole process.

    It’s a basic order, but that chicken burger is one of the best I’ve had. Succulent and tender chicken, the buttermilk coating is full of flavour, the bun is soft and the sauce adds another dimension of taste. The crinkle cut chips are acceptable, but unexceptional and they could have been a bit hotter. But I can forgive them that, because the burger was excellent. They also forgot my drink, but they fixed that immediately.

  • Philadelphia – Reading Terminal Market

    Reading Terminal Market was opened in 1893 when there was a growing clamour to move outdoor markets indoors for health and hygiene reasons. This allowed traders to ensure that stock was kept at the appropriate temperature and it also made for a more pleasant trading environment for customers. There’s a large temperature controlled basement in the market and there used to be more people employed controlling and managing that than there were on the main market floor.

    There was no shortage of food options, although I had a short amount of time and went for the delights of Miller’s Twist.

    The market has a vibrant feel to it and there’s a reasonable amount of seating dotted around.

    What a lovely display of cold meats, very tempting. There are over one hundred traders at the market, so plenty of choice. Originally the market was underneath the railway track of the Reading Terminal, but this railway closed in the early 1980s and the space above the market is now used by the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

  • Philadelphia – Miller’s Twist

    Roger Miller has been operating this pretzel stand at Reading Terminal Market since 2008 and it is one of the best rated food options at the market. There are many tempting different cuisines at Reading Terminal Market, so they’re doing well to be one of the highest rated.

    The food looked appetising and delicious to me. In addition to the traditional soft pretzels there were also pretzel roll-ups, all looking as tempting as a Greggs savoury counter. The service was polite and efficient rather than engaging, but there was a queue and I can understand why they just want to get the customers through so they don’t have to wait.

    My $3 pretzel dog, which was served nice and hot, although I had meant to order the large jumbo pretzel dog. The hot dog was juicy and full of flavour, whilst the pastry was salted and soft. All very lovely.