Pennsylvania - chat and photos about Philadelphia, Lancaster, Lititz and other places

[editor]

We were only there for a day, but here's four pages of photos from this most excellent city.

I'm still (cough! hint!) waiting for some captions from a Philly-based urbanite, but here's the pics:

http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-01.html
http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-02.html
http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-02.html
http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/magic-garden.html

 

[lang rabbie]

Great photos.

Is that the tower of City Hall with scaffolding still up on one side?

It looks so blindingly clean and white in the winter sunshine in those shots following the recent restoration that I didn't recognise the grey monolith I remember.


Plenty of trivia for captions in this NY Times article

 

[lang rabbie]

The truly weird building on the right is the Masonic Temple of The Grand Lodge of Philadelphia - the bastard offspring of the Brighton Pavilion and Windsor Castle on an illicit American holiday. If there is a competition for the most lavishly-expensive-decor-but-worst-overall-architecture of the nineteenth century it has to be a contender.

 

[lang rabbie]

As the dollar hits rock bottom, I'm almost tempted to plan an extended East Coast trip including a revisit to Philly just to write those missing captions

 

[editor]

Well, a certain Philly-based urbanite was supposed to be doing the captions, but she's been very, very, very quiet on the matter.

 

[skunkboy69]

I love the ship photo

 

[phildwyer]

Nice, but where's the Italian Market?

 

[Kanda]

Did you fly there?

 

[laptop]

33. Ben Franklin Bridge - from Philly to Camden, a place that everyone in Philly warns you not to go.

At the Philly end of the bridge you will find the "lightning bolt" - one of the many pieces of awful public art in the city.

39. That's got to be in the area of Liberty Bell National Shrine, hasn't it? Market and 5th? Don't recall it the walkway being there when I last was. Faux

62. Reading Terminal Market is the place to go Amish-spotting. They can't get the train in from their farms in Reading and York any more, the railway having shut - so they drive in - these aren't "buggy Amish" - to sell you cheese. The rest of the station was turned into the Convention Center, among many allegations of corruption - Philadelphia politics personified.

 

[phildwyer]

39. That's got to be in the area of Liberty Bell National Shrine, hasn't it? Market and 5th? Don't recall it the walkway being there when I last was. Faux

No, that is 2nd St just above South.

 

[lang rabbie]

No, that is 2nd St just above South.

Is it Head House Square aka "The Shambles" between Lombard and Pine? (All those red brick colonial buildings with cupolas merge into one in my memory)

If so, the building with the cupola is real - the oldest remaining Head House or fire station, but the shed is 1960s faux

 

[editor]

Thanks to the lovely Siobhan (formerly of this parish and wife to nanoespresso), the Philly photo section now has some fascinating and extraordinarily well-researched captions.

I didn't realise that these strange tiles were so famous either!

If you've an interest in American history, check out these galleries:

http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-01.html
http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-02.html

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Lawks. I lived for two years in Philly, remember (or, to be fair, in the suburbs and edges, going into town on occasion). I'll have to take a look.

 

[editor]

Lawks. I lived for two years in Philly, remember (or, to be fair, in the suburbs and edges, going into town on occasion). I'll have to take a look.

Judging by the history packed in to just about every photo I took there, Philly must either be:
(a) so overflowing with history that wherever you look there's a story to tell or
(b) I must have captured almost everything and missed nothing!

(I suspect it's 'A').

 

[FridgeMagnet]

It's overflowing with the stuff. It's the sort of thing that makes you wonder how far back you could go investigating pictures of London - after all, Philly has only been there for a few centuries and anything you care to point at has some huge story behind it.

I have a lot of pics myself on my Flickr account - taking pictures was almost all I had to do - but they're not very well tagged... I just sort of put them up there. Anything from late 2002 to late 2004.

 

[Firky]

Rawk!

 

[lang rabbie]

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is currently home to Thomas Eakins' masterpiece, The Gross Clinic.

Measuring 8 feet by 6, The Gross Clinic is jointly owned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, who bought the painting in 2007 following a remarkable nationwide effort to raise the $68 million needed to stop the painting being sold to Alice Walton (the Wal-mart heiress) and shipped out of state.

Blimey, I hadn't realised my art criticism was that effective.

8 November 2006 - Lang Rabbie declares The Gross Clinic is his favourite painting on U75 thread Post up some of your favourite paintings

11 November 2006 - Thomas Jefferson University agree secret deal to sell picture for $68million

 

[phildwyer]

Judging by the history packed in to just about every photo I took there, Philly must either be:
(a) so overflowing with history that wherever you look there's a story to tell or
(b) I must have captured almost everything and missed nothing!

(I suspect it's 'A').

Philly's a lot older than London, if you go by the age of the buildings. Most of areas like Society Hill and Old City is eighteenth century.

 

[editor]

Some more photos from South Street, which feels about as close to Camden High Street as you're going to get in the city.

http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/south-street-philadelphia.html

 

[phildwyer]

I haven't been to Philly since November. I wonder if Zagar's Magic Garden on South Street still survives? The city has been trying to close it for years...

 

[editor]

I haven't been to Philly since November. I wonder if Zagar's Magic Garden on South Street still survives? The city has been trying to close it for years...

It was still going very strong when we visited and was running education seminars and offering visitor facilities.

I took a ton of photos - I'll post them soon. Here's a few more pics from my trip last winter.

http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-photos.html

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

We were only there for a day, but here's four pages of photos from this most excellent city.

I'm still (cough! hint!) waiting for some captions from a Philly-based urbanite, but here's the pics:

http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-01.html
http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-02.html
http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/philadelphia-02.html
http://www.urban75.org/photos/philadelphia/magic-garden.html

Your links 2 and 3 are the same.

I've never been to Philadelphia. Looking at these photos, I get the impression that it might be a city that seems more at home to a Londoner than other US cities like NY or Chicago. Obviously there are lots of differences, but there seems to me to be a bit of similarity.

 

[editor]

Looking at these photos, I get the impression that it might be a city that seems more at home to a Londoner than other US cities like NY or Chicago. Obviously there are lots of differences, but there seems to me to be a bit of similarity.

To be honest, I felt far more at home in New York and Chicago!

Philadelphia's city centre seemed really small to me (and I walked a lot around the place). I liked the place but - unlike NYC - I wouldn't want to live there.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

To be honest, I felt far more at home in New York and Chicago!

Philadelphia's city centre seemed really small to me (and I walked a lot around the place). I liked the place but - unlike NYC - I wouldn't want to live there.

Interesting. I've been to Chicago and London. I much like Chicago, but it didn't have much of London about it, to my observation.

 

[phildwyer]

To be honest, I felt far more at home in New York and Chicago!

Philadelphia's city centre seemed really small to me (and I walked a lot around the place). I liked the place but - unlike NYC - I wouldn't want to live there.

I prefer Philly to NYC these days. I actually find it quite depressing to visit post-Giuliani New York, going to places like Times Square and the Lower East Side and remembering how they used to be.

 

[editor]

I prefer Philly to NYC these days. I actually find it quite depressing to visit post-Giuliani New York, going to places like Times Square and the Lower East Side and remembering how they used to be.

Well, what I feel is real New York moved out into Brooklyn and beyond some time ago.

 

[phildwyer]

Well, what I feel is real New York moved out into Brooklyn and beyond some time ago.

I'd say it moved to Philly.

 

[editor]

I'd say it moved to Philly.

Nah. I don't think that at all. Totally different scene, IMO.

 

[phildwyer]

Nah. I don't think that at all. Totally different scene, IMO.

I meant literally: a lot of people moved from NYC to Philly when the rents went up, including myself.

 

[editor]

Some more photos from Philly:

http://www.urban75.org/blog/philade...gns-railroad-station-old-cars-and-cityscapes/