When Cole and I first arrived in Philadelphia, we knew we would be here for two months, later finding out it would be three. One of the things we knew we should do is purchase a city pass. The city pass was about $70 each, not including Elyse, and granted you admission to a variety of places in Philadelphia. I know Seattle has one as well so it was something we already knew about. It was a good investment because we went to every single place the pass allowed, even the places it only gave us a $2 discount. The places included:
the Please Touch Museum
Eastern State Penitentiary
Academy of Natural Science
The Consitiution Center
The Philadelphia Zoo
The Adventure Aquarium
The Franklin Insitute
Last but not least, the Big Bus Tour. We waited on going on the BBT because we didn't think Elyse would be able to handle a 90 bus ride. But after doing the tour we wished had done it first to learn about everything and extra tid bits of places to visit. But we are glad we did it. Elyse did just fine and we got to sit on the top on a nice and sunny day.
We learned a few facts that I wanted to share. Of course it was really hard to take a picture and take notes, so the bext I could do was to take the picture, and quickly upload it to instagram so that I could write a caption. That way I wouldn't forget what was so interesting!! (thats what the iphone needs, a place you can add a caption to your photos right away) There are a lot of places we already visited and posted about so I tried to only take photos of the facts we just learned.
One of the first stops was on Race Street. The streets were named with numbers north and south and trees or things in Nature from east and west. Although race street had a different name before, but races occured on the street which made it named Race street. There is also no 1st street since William Penn was a Quaker and to the Quakers believed that the number 1 had to do with God and that they shouldn't make anything equal to God. Some examples of streets named after trees or things in nature are "Locust street, Chestnut Street, Walnut Street."
Below is a picture of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. It was painted blue and now (as the tour guide claims)the philadelphians claim it as the longest blue suspension bridge in the world :)
Since Benjamin Franklin was clearly the most famous resident here in philadelphia there are so many statues of him and places named after him around the city. This one was interesting since one of the things he is famous for was his lightening experiment with the key and the kite. There are a few statues showing a kite, lightening rod and a key. This picture of a bust of Ben was particularly interesting because it is completely made of keys! Its hard to tell from the picture, but up close you can see the keys very well!
Since I was trying to type that caption I missed taking a picture of Ben at the fire station with a fireman's hat on! The reason for that is that he was a big advocate to advance the fire fighting ablities in Philadelphia.
Above is a picture of the Philadelphia police headquarters. The building was made to look like handcuffs from up above.
below is a picture I found off the internet of the building from above. I think they missed the mark a little, but good effort! looks like a phone to me. The tour guide thought it looked like a coffee cup and two donuts.
On our way to Chinatown, we could see the Comcast Center. Its' the tallest building in Philly. You can see it straight ahead in the picture below. Our apartment is the building right next to the Comcast Center, but its small so you can't see it from the picture. The tour guide asked us "what new technology was the building shape built after?". Turns out, its a flash drive, or jump drive. Pretty neat!
Here is the friendship gate in Phillly. I feel like I see one at every chinatown I've ever seen. But the TG tells us that this one is particularly unique because there are no bolts or screws. It supports itself simply by its own weight. Also the read paint on it is dyed in boars blood.
We came to this one stop light near the reading terminal for a long time so I took a photo of this clock that I liked. But behind it (not pictured) is Philly's Hard Rock Cafe. The TG noted 3 things about it. (I didn't know there were things to know about the HRC) 1. It has the second largest HRC guitar in front of it, with Vegas having the first. 2. Every HRC has a burger or sandwhich in it to try to mimic a famous food from the area, and the one in this one has a Philly cheesesteak type burger with provelone, and sweet peppers. Even though traditionally the cheesesteak is with cheese wiz.
Also in Philly you don't call it a Philly cheesesteak, it's just a cheesesteak.
If I hadn't mentioned it before, Reading Terminal used to be a large train station, but now is an indoor market with lots of cheesesteaks and amish food. Also a train stop in the game Monopoly.
This was a hard picture to get because I was on the otherside of the bus, but this is a statue in front of the Rodin Museum. It is the statue of the Thinker. Behind him, is also by Rodin called the Gates of Hell. I guess people always wonder what the thinker is thinking. Turns out (according to the TG) a speculation is that the thinker was made after one of the parts of the gates of hell, so the thinker is thinking about hell. You can't really see the Gates of Hell in this picture(its past the gate you see). The gates of hell in Philly is one of 3 originals. The Thinker is a cast of many around the world.
So I kind of forgot what this mansion is called but it was in the sixth sense. M Night Shyamalan was from the Philadelphia area and shoots a lot of his films here.
Lastly, here is City Hall. I've taken SO many pictures of city hall because it is near Love Park(you can see the top of the fountain in the picture) and our apartment is next to Love Park. On the top of city hall is a statue of William Penn the founder of Philadelphia. This is the largest masonic building in the world. Which means instead of steel, it is made of granite, marble and limestone. It was once the tallest inhabitable building in the world, but for a short time. It was suppose to be the tallest building in Philadelphia so that William Penn was always the highest point in the city.
The TG told us a fun story about this though. I don't know of the truth behind it, but its fun anyways.
This was the tallest building in Philly for the longest time until the One Libery Place was built which is the really pointy one in the Philadelphia skyline. This started what the TG called "William Penn's curse"! Which was believe that Willliam Penn was very angry with the people of philadelphia for not withholding the gentelman's agreement that no building would be taller than City Hall.
One liberty place was completed in 1987. Before then all the Philadelphia sports teams were winning sports chamionships. (Phillies, Flyers, Eagles and 76ers. After one liberty place was up, all of the teams didn't do as well and continued to have bad luck winning a chamionship. But once the Comcast center was built in 2007, the workers affixed a small statuette to the final beam of the building. Making William Penn, once again, the highest point of Philadelphia. A year and a half later, the Phillies won the World Series. There is more about it on wikipedia if you are curious.
Since the public can't go up the building this is a picture I also had to take from the internet. But this is apprently a picture of the statuette in the comcast building.
Ok, well that was a lot of info!!
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