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13 August 07: PA Love, Army Corps of Engineers Edition
Just got back from this scenic engineering wonder in Huntingdon County. Clicliclick it to enlarge you some Central PA suntannin', leisure boatin', Clem's BBQ
eatin', manmade lake scenery.
Also, please bear with us as we prepare for the week long onslaught of posts, ideas, reviews, photos, Casual Observations and what not.
–B Love
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11 August 07: Heads up: Starry Night
Attention Skyliners: this weekend, you gotta look up, WAY up.
Every August, the Perseid (not Leonid, Albert was right) meteor shower reigns down a light show that
couldn't be touched by Lights of Liberty with Pink Floyd's laser man. Thing is, Philly is a city, a city at the center of a large region, a region of over six million,
six million people who need safety lighting at night. Light pollution, as it were. Factor in dependency on the weather, the possibility that the moon's phase could be
bright, and the idea that, well, it's nighttime and nighttime is my time, and chances are you're not going to be wishing on a shooting star.
However, this year: NO EXCEPTIONS.
The, uh, stars are aligned. Sunday night is about as perfect an opportunity as we'll get in our lifetime for a stellar (ugh) meteor shower. A new moon (meaning
no moonlight). Clear skies. An overnight low of 70. It's perfect.
Get your baby, twist one up, grab a blanket and head out to Valley Forge or Cape May or just go up to the roof deck. Visibility should even be good right in Center City
-- I saw several during the '01 Perseid show in G-Ho. Me, I'm heading to the woods.
Next week is going to be bananas on yr Skyline, so keep it local. See you Monday, stargazers.
[Night Sky Info.]
–B Love
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9 August 07: Coming Attractions
Stay tuned . . .
–B Love
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9 August 07: Hugh E threw us on the news
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“
Father of Pennsylvania, William Penn shaped the land's destiny with a belief in piety and diligence. His royal grant was blessed with forested mountains and
lively waters, bountiful coal and oil, and friutful soil. Those who peopled the colony forged a state of mind and commerce, religious tolerance, ethnic richness, and
industrial productivity. As his "City of Brotherly Love" rises behind him, Penn today endures in weathered bronze atop Philadelphia's City Hall.
”
So said the caption to this Cary Wolinsky photo in the June 1978 issue of National Geographic, which featured a 38 page article on Pennsylvania. ("They'd
Rather Be In Philadelphia" appeared in the March 1983 issue in time to celebrate the city's tercentennial.) Weathered bronze indeed.
Yesterday, I came across an excellent post about City Hall on Hugh E's blog Philly Chit Chat (via Philebrity) indicating that
the Queen of the Quakers was about to undergo yet another facelift. Surely he jests?
No, it's true. Like Hugh E said, "would we even recognize Philadelphia City Hall without Scaffolding?" I wouldn't. I've been living in this city I love since
November 2000, and I have never seen a scaffolding-free City Hall. Earlier this year, they finally removed the ugly scaffolding that wrapped the iron part of
the tower like a thumb cast for two and a half years. Just last week, Ben Rulnick sent me a photo from his Land Title Building office showing that City Hall's south
side scaffolding is at last being removed. Fantastic!
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
"Every ten years," City Hall tour director and friend of Philly Skyline Greta Greenberger says, "the statue of William Penn has to be cleaned and treated." Every ten
years. Forget about a patina, if that's your thing.
So it goes. Beginning Monday August 20th (which, by the way, is Cigar and Scotch Night -- the best promotion I have ever seen -- at Campbell's Field for the
Camden Riversharks / Newark Bears game), scaffolding will be built from the observation deck upward and around Wild Bill. It will take longer to assemble the
scaffolding than to actually apply the treatment, and all told should take no longer than 30 days. (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Yeaaaaaaaaaaaah.)
The treatment will be done by New Jersey's Moreland Studios, the same company who did the job last time. The Preservation Alliance holds funding for the process, and
fortunately little money has to be raised for it, as there is still money in the account from the previous job.
Sooo. If you've never been to City Hall's observation deck, or if you have but you haven't been since they began charging a five dollar fee, you have the rest of this week and all of next week before the view temporarily
changes. It's worth noting that while the Penn treatment is happening, the regular observation deck will be closed (since it will be occupied by scaffolding), but
the interior observation deck will be open. That's the part of the tower with the portholes below Penn and above the Swedes, Indians and eagles. And it'll
still cost five beans.
Why wasn't this Penn job done when the Swedes, Indians and eagles were treated? It's a good question to be sure, but it's a different type of job, and it has a
different contractor. I reckon we can be thankful scaffolding didn't shroud Billy for two and a half years. That scaffolding was there for Center City
District's Christmastime candyland display two years ago, and it was there for the grand unveiling of City Hall's evening lighting scheme. The scaffolding around the
perimeter was there for City Hall's 100th birthday in 2001, and it was there for that grandest of grand City Hall views, that from South Broad Street, for the Eagles
Super Bowl run a few years ago. Even as we celebrate this magnificent, expensive, symbolic and often fucked up building, scaffolding is there to remind us it's never
done, and it's not perfect.
One of these days, it will be done, and we will kick back, look up and say "wow." It's too bad that it won't be because it's such a great building. It'll be
out of relief that the scaffolding is at long, long last, gone.
* * *
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, the best we've seen in what seems like a month of monsoons but which was probably more like three days. Hey, we'll take it.
Today's the kind of day to just go for it. This week has fatigued everyone, it's Thursday, and August is always slow anyway so just blow off work. Hike the
Wissahickon. Fly a kite at Valley Forge. Go to the Phillies game tonight (Kyle Kendrick vs the Marlins' Sergio Mitre). Head to the Northeast Airport and take a ride
in a glider. Or, well, go spend your five bucks and get up to City Hall tower before they cover the thing up in scaffolding.
Whatever you like, Bubba -- it's your day. Seize it.
DO EHT.
–B Love
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8 August 07: I have searched the whole world over,
looking for a place to sleep
Homer: Sorry Marge, this is my quest! I'm like that guy. That Spanish guy. You know, he fought the windmills.
Marge : Don Quixote?
Homer: No, what's-his-name. The Man of La Mancha.
Marge : Don Quixote.
Homer: No!
Marge : I really think that was the character's name, Don Quixote.
Homer: Fine, I'll look it up.
Homer gets a book off the shelf.
Marge : Well, who was it?
Homer: Never mind.
This discussion was overheard at the triangle intersection at 2nd & Girard & American, where your Hump Day Philly Skyline Philly Skyline resides. Don Quixote de
la Mancha by Spanish sculptor Joaquín García Donaire is a replica of the original in Ciudad Real (not unlike Auguste Rodin's The Thinker is
a replica of the original in Paris). He stands there hopelessly optimistically representing his Junogi Kenso-NoLibs dreams. Click it to enlarge,
click it to inspire.
* * *
Speaking of Hump Day, there's an Umpdate to be umped. And LOOK. Here it IS.
- JAMIE MOYER DOES NOT THROW HARD: The head on my Yards Philly Pale Ale (available for $6.50 a pint (oof) right inside the
leftfield gate) hadn't even settled when I sat down in time to watch Hanley Ramirez line Jamie Moyer's first pitch of the game so hard that it hit a seat in the
third row and bounced straight back into Pat Burrell's waiting glove. Pat played it cool and threw it in to the cutoff man, which kept Ramirez (who's one of the
fastest runners in baseball, tied with Shane Victorino for third most stolen bases in the league) at first base seemingly for a single. It all happened so fast that
the umpire did not immediately signal homerun, so some supposed Phillies fan in a green shirt with his two kids in Phillies cap in the first row stood up and
signaled it for him. Hey Green Shirt Man, just who are you rooting for?
The first inning was rough for Moyer, but he got out of it -- and the second, too -- and settled in for a good rest of the game. That first pitch accounted for the
only run he surrendered. It's refreshing to see a solid outing from
the old man, cos he's been hit pretty hard his last few starts out. What was it Mark said? "He sets up his
changeup with his changeup." How about it. He seems to do well in the extreme heat though, so here's hoping Jamie Moyer gets a few more scorchers down the
stretch.
It's a huge week for the NL East: The Mets are now only three and a half up on the recharged Braves, who beat the Mets at Shea last night and
have two more there before coming to Citizens Bank Park for a three game set with the Phils, themselves now four games back of the Mets. (Not that we're aiming for
the Wild Card, but the Phillies are also only two games back of the Padres there.) Go Phils.
Oh, one other baseball note: someone said something about some homerun record or something something? WHO CARES.
- SMELLS LIKE SWINE: A little
birdie piggie done told me: that man of swine, Joltin' Joe Minardi-o, has got an
interesting little study of West Philly that'll be Philly Skyline's first official neighborhood tour of the year, a fact that I personally own up
to. Yr Skyline's branched out in several directions in oh-seven, but that doesn't mean we have forgotten about you, long promised neighborhoods of future coverage.
(Hello, Olney! Hi there, Port Richmond! Whattaya say, East Falls!) Joe's new one is a slight variation on an old theme, and we're sure you'll like it. That'll be
live in the next few days, so keep an eye out for it. In the meantime, warm up with a look at Joe's tours of Germantown Avenue and a pre-Praxis waterfront, each
found HERE.
- HOTEL, MOTEL, HOLIDAY INN: Say what? Longtime Skyline reader Arthur Petrella asked us earlier this week if we thought
The Skinny (come back to that in a minute) could use a Hotels section. That's a very good question, Art. When The Skinny was born over two years ago, condos were all
the proposal rage, some with hotels as part of the package. Since then, we've heard about W and Aloft and all the Convention Center expansion's spurs.
Then out of nowhere, BAM, Peter Van Allen ties it all together for the PBJ in a story titled Swarm of hotels planned. 26 --
twenty-six -- hotels are "in various stages of planning or construction" in Center City, University City, and near the Airport. Among those planned are the
aforementioned W (12th & Arch) and Aloft (whose location is as yet undetermined; the proposed sites include 15th & Locust, Front & Walnut, and the Airport), as well
as an Intercontinental Hotel at Grasso's 1601 Vine project, the renovation of the perfectly gothic Robert Morris Building to bring it back to its hotel roots, a
large hotel at Broad & Race whose brand has not yet been chosen, and hotels included in proposed projects such as 1441 Chestnut, Bridgeman's View Tower and
Mandeville Place.
[PBJ.]
- THE SKINNY, THE SKINNY, JESUS CHRIST THE SKINNY: Yes, dear faithful longtime readers, we are very aware that Version 3 of The
Skinny is still not finished. As we explained earlier this summer, we will be phasing it in, one at a time, and as we explained earlier this week, we will continue
to do so as the master database is fleshed out. We kindly ask for your patience as this happens. Now that there is an entirely new section altogether (Hotels, which
we explained earlier in this post), that bumps the total of projects covered in The Skinny to like 200+. That's data entry and write-ups on 200+ items. Please
understand: The Skinny is a top priority here at Philly Skyline. It's happening. For real. For very serious. It just needs a little time. Haste makes waste, after
all.
- I FUEL AREA BUYOUT: Funny thing, the "YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL" anagram study yesterday: coming home from the game last night, it
looked like that "art" installation had been mostly removed. But fret not, my ugly friends! You may still find your nurturing at you-are-beautiful.com, which shows YETI BUREAU AFOUL installations around the globe.
On a note only related by way of A YOUTUBE FAILURE: this morning my baby she said to me, "did you see that story about the monkey?" I said "no baby, what story and
what monkey?" And she said, "go to Yahoo." So I did. Some genius was able to sneak a monkey past customs
on a flight from Peru to LaGuardia in his hat. A monkey. On a plane. In his hat. I mean, the dude's coming from Peru, who knows what kinds of balloons that
monkey ingested -- they better keep tabs on his #2s.
Anyways, the Yahoo video shows the monkey being held in a cage and explains that the man is being held for questioning, and may or may not be charged. (Again, that
probably depends on what the monkey poops out the next couple days.) So I go over to YouTube in search of footage of the monkey being transported to the
airport and could not find it. A YOUTUBE FAILURE. Instead, Veoh, one of the million YouTube copycats out there, has the footage. So that's how yr Umpdate ends today,
with a Yankin' Viewin' on Veoh clip of a monkey. On a train. Why'd you send my monkey on the train?
–B Love
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7 August 07: For your consideration . . .
As seen at 2nd & Nerd Rips Gang.
–B Love
Ed. note: TRUE STORY. Ulie really is a man's name. I met a fellow of Creole descent named Ulie (he was not fat, though) on his way home to New Orleans from
Jacksonville on Amtrak. We drank canned daiquiris and played cards in the club car. When we got to New Orleans, he asked if I and my other new traveling friends,
three kids from New Zealand, if we had any accommodations. We said we didn't, and he promptly insisted that we share a cab with him to a friend's house in the Garden
District. His friend's house turned out to be the Prytania Inn, a nice sized bed & breakfast convenient to the St Charles Streetcar and many daiquiri houses. They put
us up for ten bucks a night. I never saw Ulie again, but later that same day I met Mike Ditka and went dancing at a very manly club with naked Olympics on tvs hanging
from the ceiling.
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6 August 07: It's not the heat, it's the humidity
Never mind the earlier Dog Days post, this is the real deal right here, Joe. August is back, and it's pissed. It's only 88°, but the humidity is like 10,000%, if
my mouse, keyboard and hair are any indication.
Here's the good news: today's the best we're gonna see this week, so enjoy it. Channel 6's Karen Rogers and her trusty Accuweather Update suggest that Tuesday and Wednesday will be even hotter and even humider. So
much so that both days have drawn an Excessive Heat Warning from the National Weather Service. Ay chihuahua.
It's these white-sky August days that are always so challenging to the shutterbug, the photog, the picture maker. But they're real. In traditional photography
"training", they'll tell you that humid days, in addition to feeling straight up disgusting, are bad for photography. They'll also tell you not to shoot into the sun.
They. What do they ever know? Light giver and shadow maker though it may be, the sun is very much as part of your periphery as that tree that frames
your shot or the telephone wires that don't have to be in your way. And on days like today? The colors of things are certainly more honest, at least immediately
surrounding you. Seize that summer green! Catch that panting dog with his tongue hanging out! Juxtapose that kid with his blue water ice sticking to a bench painted
red and green! Exclaim!
Just a thought. Or a notion, the notion behind actually trudging out into this merciless mugginess for a white light white heat Philly Skyline Philly Skyline. That
monarch butterfly calls 4th & Wood in Old City his home.
Be careful out there, Philadelphia. Drink lots of delicious city tap water with lots of ice, and don't even both with hair product -- just wear a hat.
–B Love
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6 August 07: Dog Days, or,
Tales from the Parkside
Recall if you will our jaunt last fall to the west side of Fairmount Park for a conversation with James Brown (really!) and an in depth look at Parkside, the West Philly neighborhood wedged between the Park and the main line railroad tracks (Amtrak and
Septa). On one end is the Zoo and Schuylkill Expressway; on the other, the Mann Center and 52nd Street.
52nd Street -- West Philly's Main Street -- you might also recall, is home to the city's deadliest intersection, 52nd & Market, as reported by the Daily News'
David Gambacorta in the paper and
on Philly Confidential, the blog he operates with Simone
Weichselbaum.
While that intersection is a good mile away from 52nd & Jefferson in West Parkside, it's emblematic of a noticeable sense of violence or fear or despair that permeates
part of West Philly and, well, whose Main Street is 52nd Street. As Steve Ives expressed in his excellent essay, this particular
culture seems to harvest every year from a crop of focused, complex, neighborhood problems, not least of which is the lack of a father figure, but which also includes
a severe lack of gainful employment.
Baby step though it may be, corporate big box America is now lending a hand in that direction.
In April, ground was broken for Park West Town Center, a
massive new shopping complex where big industry once reigned. The $50 million, 340,000 sq ft retail center at 52nd & Jefferson will be anchored by a Lowe's (which, in
a sense, encourages not just home improvement but also home ownership) and a ShopRite, which will be the largest supermarket in the city upon its completion. Radio
Shack, McDonald's, Eternity and a Wachovia bank round out the tenants.
Park West Town Center was a long time coming -- nearly a decade -- and happened as a result of the collaboration between the West Philadelphia Financial Services Institution and the Goldenberg Group, with the
support and encouragement of then-Councilman Michael Nutter and State Senator Vincent Hughes. WPFSI is a non-profit dedicated to creating, developing and nurturing
business in West Philly, and the Goldenberg Group's development résumé includes Snyder Plaza (Target, Modell's), Columbus Commons (Lowe's, Ikea, Best
Buy) and, interestingly, The Ayer, the art deco condo conversion on Washington Square. (Our Skinny Phase-Ins will resume this week, promise promise promise, with this
project.)
The estimated 420 construction jobs and 800 permanent jobs are certainly a positive sign. Parkside and its neighboring West Philly neighborhoods need jobs, and here
are jobs.
However, at risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, it's hard not to notice this development is, like so many in a time when we've realized we should know better
and do better, auto-centric. ("Bee Love it's hard to transport two-by-fours and plywood on the bus.") Yes, this is true. And theoretically, if you're grocery
shopping in the city's largest supermarket, you'll probably walk away with more grocery bags than you're willing to walk more than a few blocks with. Still, with a
defunct train station sprouting weed-trees and standing above Park West Town Center like a rusting reminder that the R5 trains from the (RICH, WHITE) Main Line no
longer stop at (POOR, BLACK) 52nd Street, it's more than a casual observation.
All the same, baby steps.
* * *
A hop, skip, jump, and five minute bike ride from 52nd & Jefferson sits that top of the tops Philly Skyline vantage points, Belmont Plateau. This morning's Philly
Skyline Philly Skyline was yesterday's scene at the Plateau: trains, zooballoons, dog frisbees, and construction cranes you might also see in our Comcast Center, Murano and Residences at the
Ritz-Carlton construction sections.
Click. Enlarge. Good boy!
–B Love
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5 August 07: Ya jinglin' baby
3 August 07: Last reminder
TONIGHT'S THE NIGHT: For the last couple years, the City Archive has, with Avencia's help, built one of the raddest web sites out there, a searchable, mappable archive of the city's archived photos, bringing the 19th
century into the digital age. And to think that the 37,105 photos (as of 3 August 07) scanned and uploaded barely scratch the surface of the over 2 million
photos they have.
TONIGHT TONIGHT TONIGHT, the Art Institute of Philadelphia yanks them off of your computer and smacks 'em up on their walls. Curated by AI professor Maria
Di Elsi-Connolly, the show features archived photos professionally printed by AI's Academic Director of the Photography and Digital Filmmaking and Video
Production, Robert H. Crites, as well as some of his own contemporary photos for before-and-after goodness.
The exhibit, entitled Philadelphia Stories, is free and runs from August 3-31. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday, 9am-7pm, Friday 9am-5pm, and Saturday
9am-4pm, and the opening is TONIGHT, 4:30-7:30, Art Institute of Philadelphia, 1622 Chestnut.
[Philadelphia Stories.] [AI Philadelphia.] [Philly History.]
In anticipation of the exhibit, Avencia and PhillyHistory.org have graciously granted permission to use some of their historic photos (not necessarily those which
will be on display), for which yr Philly Skyline will contribute a combo Philly Skyline Philly Skyline. This one here is a building we like to call City Hall. The
date on the original photo is unknown, but it's most likely from the early 1890s. The 37 foot statue of William Penn was raised in 1898 and placed atop the
building, where he remained the pinnacle of the Philly Skyline for nearly 80 years. The contemporary photo (taken in March of this year) shows Penn's successor,
One Liberty Place, rising over him.
Click. Compare. Collect.
–B Love
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2 August 07: Hey look -- it's a Fishtown Skyline Philly Skyline!
This was sundown at Penn Treaty Park last night -- you can see the ghosts of Lenni Lenapes here getting their swim on.
Speaking of the Fishtown waterfront, two quick things: 1, the second of two public forums by Penn Praxis' riverfront study group is tonight at the Settlement
Music School in Queen Village, and 2, a big thanks to the always awesome Natalie Kostelni the Biz Journal for some Fishtown love in the current print edition. You
may or may not be able to read it online HERE.
You will definitely be able to check out Nathaniel Popkin's latest essay in this week's City Paper; Why do they call this the City of Brotherly Love?
–B Love
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2 August 07: Oh, the humanity
9 4 dead, 60 79 injured, 20 missing after dozens of vehicles plummet into river
And those numbers will surely rise as the sun comes up and the days go by and the concrete and debris are removed.
What a horrible way for the Twin Cities to make international news. A total collapse of an interstate bridge during rush hour? About the only thing comparable
from our end would be the 676 Bridge across the Schuylkill River. Unthinkable.
Any time big news happens, good or bad, I always turn to that city's/region's biggest news outlet, in this case the MSP Star-Tribune. They already have an entire
section on this disaster with diagrams, photos and stories that put the whole thing into perspective. It is HERE.
Thoughts, prayers, etc to the good people of Minnesota.
–B Love
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1 August 07: TWO reminders
WELL AWARE RIVER? We find out for sure beginning tonight. The long going, ongoing Penn Praxis study of the central Delaware
Riverfront unveils its progress in the form of two forums, one tonight and one tomorrow. Director Harris Steinberg previewed the plan to the Riverfront study's
advisory group last week, and the always thorough Matt Blanchard wrote about it in detail for Plan
Philly. That link has a 14 minute video that nicely summarizes the preview and includes comments from Harris, members of the Planning Commission, community
members and Center City District's Paul Levy. There is also a PDF version of the presentation, with sketches, renderings and explanations HERE.
Philly Skyline will weigh in on this plan after the forums, but suffice it to say the early action items -- namely a protected bike/hike/blade/etc trail
that begins at Pier 70 (Wal-Mart/Home Depot) and runs four miles north -- are a very good thing. The forums require registration and are as follows:
•Wednesday, August 1st: Cescaphé Ballroom, 932 N 2nd St (Northern Liberties, across the street from Conspiracy Showroom), sign-in at 5:30, program at 6:15. Register HERE.
•Thursday, August 2nd: Settlement Music School, 416 Queen Street (Queen Village), sign-in at 5:30, program at 6:15. Register HERE.
* * *
PHILLY HISTORY COMES ALIVE: For the last couple years, the City Archive has, with Avencia's help, built one of the raddest web sites out there, a searchable, mappable archive of the city's archived photos, bringing the 19th
century into the digital age. And to think that the 36,669 photos (as of 30 July 07) scanned and uploaded barely scratch the surface of the over 2 million
photos they have.
This Friday, the Art Institute of Philadelphia yanks them off of your computer and smacks 'em up on their walls. Curated by AI professor Maria Di Elsi-Connolly,
the show features archived photos professionally printed by AI's Academic Director of the Photography and Digital Filmmaking and Video Production, Robert H.
Crites, as well as some of his own contemporary photos for before-and-after goodness.
The exhibit, entitled Philadelphia Stories, is free and runs from August 3-31. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday, 9am-7pm, Friday 9am-5pm, and Saturday
9am-4pm, and the opening is Friday, August 3rd, 4:30-7:30, Art Institute of Philadelphia, 1622 Chestnut.
[Philadelphia Stories.] [AI Philadelphia.] [Philly History.]
In anticipation of the exhibit, Avencia and PhillyHistory.org have graciously granted permission to use some of their historic photos (not necessarily those which
will be on display), for which yr Philly Skyline will contribute a combo Philly Skyline Philly Skyline, seen here. This is the northwest corner of Girard &
Columbia in Fishtown, 1956 vs 2007. (The angle is slightly off -- I goofed my corners up when I took the contemporary pic . . . sorry bout that.)
Click. Compare. Collect.
–B Love
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1 August 07: Greenland's Greetings
Haluu Philly Skyline,
Greeting from Greenland! Though I was really tempted to weekend in Wildwood, I went to Greenland instead to escape the muggy July heat and took the world's
wildest helicopter ride outside the town of Ilulissat, which is in the Arctic Circle. We flew about fifteen feet above the water and between the icebergs (going,
I don't know, 90 miles an hour). Most of the icebergs are larger than City Hall and nine times deeper. Then we skimmed above the glacier that the icebergs calve
off of to see this wild snowscape. As you can see, it was quite surreal. And to think, the Delaware looked this way many ukiut ago. (Ukiut is Greeanlandic for
winters, how they measure their years.)
Tusas'
Josh
[Ed. note: Josh McIlvain is the native Chestnut Hiller better known as Sexcop. He is also the
editor of Philly Fiction, whose second volume comes out this fall.]
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31 July 07: Out among the ruins
Nathaniel Popkin
July 31, 2007
I have been thinking a lot about bee balm lately. Perhaps you know it as wild bergamot -- that's the lighter purple and shorter cousin with the same fluted
flowers that so amuse the hummingbirds -- and the equally riveted hummingbird moths (those with coats of winter velvet, long snouts and two antennae, who
also flap their wings as if there is no tomorrow). Careful readers know that I have been spending time recently in Sussex County, NJ, population density 276 and
two-thirds per square mile, swimming in lakes, creeks, the beloved Delaware.
The entire area, and especially the Delaware Water Gap, is replete with the remains of an agricultural people -- and before that scattered civilizations of Lenape
and European trappers, hunters, traders. My favorite path is the Old Mine Road, part macadam, dirt, gravel, it winds along the river past withering stone walls
like some kind of Anatolian highway. The bergamot and the wild carrot, loostrife, thistle, phlox, yellow flax, the outrageous common mullein are having a field
day in the fallow pasture. The farmsteads, barns, porches, outhouses, and the stone walls that once demarcated property are left to the will of the autumn olive
trees, the bear and vultures, the deer and pheasant.
I have fallen unabashedly in love with the sense of lost control that pervades. The gypsy moth caterpillars have finished -- having devoured 170,000 acres of
forest in Sussex County alone -- and yet with all the rain so many of the trees have already recovered. The moths themselves drift along the roadside, so many to
make Truman Capote smile. Now, the spotted touch-me-not flowers in every crease where mortar has given way. "The spotted blossom hangs like a pendent jewel,"
says Peterson, "succulent stems exude juice when broken." Blacktop breaks away; and roof slate and the red-painted wood from walls of barns. Enter one of
those empty, sweet-smelling barns: the flapping of wings, the slight sound of movement, movement -- where? -- my heart jumps for all this marvelous waste. At the
stone trestle of a washed-out bridge, an American Goldfinch darts past bunches of Joe Pye weed to the tops of the fire-flowers of the sumac trees. All is lost,
or being lost, sifting slowly through our fingers.
And so I dig around the loose boards of an old barn skirted by wild flowers, bulrushes, reed-grass a mile high, oh, the panoply of butterflies, my legs bitten and
shredded by the angry, defensive thicket, digging for wooden boards in good-enough condition to make a table-top and all the while at Sixth and Market, in
gracious ceremony and with the aid of symbolic water from the Nile, officials closed the dig at the President's House. What a terrific exercise it was this
spring and summer to dig through that ground, at once reifying the space and putting it to question. It was, to so many, Katrina-like in its power to illuminate
our nation's -- our city's -- original sin. There it was lying beneath our feet, like the dead rat my kids found after biking to the edge of a washed-out bridge.
We covered the rat with stones from the bank of the Flatbrook. Returning a couple of days later, I pulled off the stone: nothing, or so little I had to point out
the few identifiable bones, what I thought was the skin, a single claw. Nothing, as if the creature hadn't ever existed. But the National Park Service can't
make the bow wall or the story of Hercules' kitchen go away.
Just adjacent to the site of the President's House, Olin Partners has serendipitously designed a speaker's corner; what if we followed the lead of this archeology
display and began to speak the truth?
I brought along with me to the country The Lost Promise of Civil Rights, by my friend Risa Goluboff. Risa is an academic superstar and her book, which
came out in May, is accompanied by almost unbelievable advance-praise. Her point, if I am getting it, is this: somewhere along the road to civil rights, and Risa
marks that point as Brown v. Board of Education, economic justice for African-Americans was sacrificed for a kind of emotional and psychological healing.
So we're drizzling Nile River water while one-of-four Philadelphians lives below the federal poverty line. I'm guessing that rate is even higher for
African-Americans.
I don't mean to knock yesterday's ceremony. You know I am drawn to (and sometimes repelled by) symbolism. In this case, officials attempted to meet the moving
act of the dig itself with something appropriately evocative. There are apparently enough Americans who felt shame in the staining of George Washington's
reputation (and would rather we didn't make such a big deal about his indiscretion) that it's vital to tell the story. And because it implies the need for such a
significant re-telling of the creation-myth of the new republic, the little ruins is sure to have a large impact. But just as bee balm isn't really the strongest
medicine, neither is this kind of cultural rectification. We'll need something more powerful to find -- amidst such colossal ruins -- real hope for the poorest
among us.
–Nathaniel Popkin
nrpopkin@gmail.com
For Nathaniel Popkin archives, please see HERE, or visit his web site HERE.
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31 July 07: A reminder
PHILLY HISTORY COMES ALIVE: For the last couple years, the City Archive has, with Avencia's help, built one of the raddest web sites out there, a searchable, mappable archive of the city's archived photos, bringing the 19th
century into the digital age. And to think that the 36,669 photos (as of 30 July 07) scanned and uploaded barely scratch the surface of the over 2 million
photos they have.
This Friday, the Art Institute of Philadelphia yanks them off of your computer and smacks 'em up on their walls. Curated by AI professor Maria DiElsi-Connolly,
the show features archived photos professionally printed by AI's Academic Director of the Photography and Digital Filmmaking and Video Production, Robert H.
Crites, as well as some of his own contemporary photos for before-and-after goodness.
The exhibit, entitled Philadelphia Stories, is free and runs from August 3-31. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday, 9am-7pm, Friday 9am-5pm, and Saturday
9am-4pm, and the opening is Friday, August 3rd, 4:30-7:30, Art Institute of Philadelphia, 1622 Chestnut.
[Philadelphia Stories.] [AI Philadelphia.] [Philly History.]
In anticipation of the exhibit, Avencia and PhillyHistory.org have graciously granted permission to use some of their historic photos (not necessarily those which
will be on display), for which yr Philly Skyline will contribute a combo Philly Skyline Philly Skyline, the second of which is seen here, the view looking west
from City Hall Tower, 1929 vs 2007.
Click. Compare. Collect.
–B Love
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