Philadelphia Is Fine

Ben Franklin watches over the city from atop Philadelphia's City Hall

Tim and I have visited Philadelphia several times in the past.  In fact, it is one of my favorite cities
ranking right up there with Washington, D.C.   I've written about the city a couple times in my previous blog; one post you could view here.  So it was good to have a reason to return and find that Philadelphia is still--well, fine.  And what better reason could we have than to visit our daughter Jillian whose job transferred her here earlier this year.

Jillian rented her one-bedroom apartment sight unseen, relying on a single FaceTime call with the realtor who used his camera to virtually walk her through the rooms.  So it was with relief that we found her very happy with her new home.  All her boxes were unpacked, but hanging up pictures single-handedly was beyond her.  How can you step back to see if a picture's position is right if you are all by yourself?  So, she directed me to shift the picture up--down--to the left or the right--until she was happy with the result.  Then Tim used his level to ensure nothing went cockamamie and voila!  The job was done.  Now she's settled and very busy with new friends and new job responsibilities.

While she was busy with work, Tim and I had time to visit a few sights we'd never previously explored.  Always before we'd stayed at a hotel in City Center, but now we had parked the Dawntreader at a KOA campground 20 miles south of the city.  For our first foray into the city this time, we caught the Patco train from the Woodcrest station and crossed the Delaware River from New Jersey.

Our objective was to find the Gloria Dei (Old Swedes') Church, the oldest church in Pennsylvania.  I always thought that it was William Penn and a group of Quakers who founded Philadelphia, but that did not happened until 1682.  Swedish Lutheran colonists were there before him, arriving in 1643 to settle the Delaware River Valley.

The first parishioners modified a blockhouse on this site for worship which was replaced by the present brick church in 1700.  Of course, there have been modifications since then, but the baptismal font is original as is the carving of cherubim.

See the ship model hanging from the ceiling?  There are two of them.  They are models of the ships Fogel Grip and Kalmar Nyckel that brought the first Swedish immigrants to this area.

Do you know who a mummer is?  That is a question that was satisfactorily answered for us at The Mummers Museum.  In German, "mumme" means "disguise."  In medieval Europe, disguised Mummers entered their lords' castles during the Christmas season to dance or play dice in silence.  January 1st is the day that belongs to the Mummers in Philadelphia.

On New Year's Day, thousands of people decked out in colorful costumes strut down Broad Street for the longest-running traditional folk parade in the country.  The mummers devote an entire year to crafting their costumes, writing their skits and rehearsing their performance.  We even got into the act by learning the dance step, "The Strut," at the Mummers Museum.

Not only does Philadelphia have the oldest church in Pennsylvania, but it also has the oldest prison in the country, Eastern State Penitentiary, built in 1822.

It's only a few blocks from Jillian's apartment so we made plans for a tour when Richard could join us on Mother's Day weekend.

It's a grim reminder of an era that linked solitude with moral reform, keeping prisoners in solitary cells.  The Pennsylvania System was a model for prisons worldwide until reformers decried it as too cruel.

Al Capone got his first taste of prison life here in 1929 when he was apprehended outside a Philadelphia movie theater for carrying a concealed, unlicensed revolver.  When he was arrested, he was on his way back to Chicago from Atlantic City, NJ and some say he was reluctant to return to Chicago's escalating mob violence, accusing him of hiding in prison intentionally.  Certainly, the prison officials allowed Capone comforts not typically granted to inmates, including fine furniture, oriental rugs, oil paintings and a fancy radio.  He liked to listen to waltzes in his cell.

We spent the rest of Saturday at the Franklin Institute, a renown science museum that celebrates science, technology and engineering in ways that excite everyone from elementary students to retirees like us.

Jillian and Richard could not resist climbing into the cockpit of a 1948 T-33 Jet Trainer which was suspended from the ceiling in the Air Show exhibit.

Sunday we returned to the Franklin to participate in a Escape Room fantasy called "Intergalactic Escape."  Locked into a progression of rooms where only the successful solution of a series of clues would allow us to escape was a somewhat claustrophobic experience in my opinion.  Yet, thanks mostly to Jillian and Richard, we figured out how to unlock the exit door with seconds to spare before our imaginary starship lost all its oxygen.

Phew!  We were fine and so is the city of Philly!