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Day 3: Philadelphia
We’re getting a bit closer to Eastern Time. We went to bed at 11 and got up at 8. Although as it turns out, we never really completely calibrated. Late nights and late mornings most of the trip.
We had breakfast at the Green Eggs Café again. I had Eggs Benedict this time and Marion had the square puffy pancakes again (she couldn’t resist). The hostess recognized us from yesterday although the waiter didn’t. By tomorrow, the whole staff should know us.
We walked up past City Hall to catch the tour bus without having to sit through the first 10 stops. It’s a great looking building even if it’s ridiculously expensive to heat and cool as we learned on the bus tour yesterday. Portland has a similar problem with its main city building. In both cases it’s an architectural icon but extremely inefficient to heat or cool (and in Portland’s case it doesn’t meet earthquake guidelines). And too expensive to fix. And too expensive and difficult given the historical significance to replace. So nothing happens and each year it’s a bigger problem. Nice to know we aren’t alone. Although I must say, I much prefer Philadelphia’s building to Portland’s which looks like a birthday cake.
Kids were playing in the fountain in front of the building. The fountain had path through it and the water comes on and off randomly. It looked like a lot of fun and perhaps a good opportunity for a picture. But we were headed to the bus stop and didn’t want to miss the bus and have to wait 30 minutes so we pressed on. And, as Daniel has pointed out to me in the past, an older guy taking pictures of young children that aren’t his, is a recipe for spending more time than planned in the company of the local constabulary. Or, this being Philadelphia, getting shot.
As it turns out we had about a 10 min wait. And I accidentally got the wrong bus to pull over (a different tour) and had to tell them sorry. Probably not the first time that’s happened (nor the last). But we did help a couple of ladies figure out how to get on the Philly Phlash which is a city bus that goes to various landmarks. So we did our good deed for the day.
This tour guide wasn’t as good as yesterday. Her voice was high and a bit annoying. And her spiel was not as interesting. Of course we’d heard a lot of it yesterday but he delivered it better too. Luckily it was a short ride to the first museum we were visiting. It was quite warm but on the plus side, we were spending most of the day inside.
The museum is the art collection of one guy. It was founded in 1922 by Albert C. Barnes, a chemist who collected art after making a fortune by co-developing an early anti-gonorrhea drug marketed as Argyrol and selling his company at the right time, before antibiotics came into use.
He was a big fan of post-impressionists (and some impressionists) and apparently a collector of hinges and other pieces of metal too. He built up a big collection which he then self-curated, bringing together collections of pieces he thought worked together and arraying everything just so. He did this in all the different rooms of his house (which must have been quite large). It was across the street from his factory and he’d bring his workers over to see it which was actually quite a nice thing to do.
The museum is set up so that each room is just like the rooms of his house with the same layout of pieces. In fact, his will said he would donate his collection to the city but only if it all stayed where it was. But they moved it anyway. There’s a documentary about it. Nobody tells Philadelphians what to do!
There were some really nice pieces. We liked most of it. Less so the African tribal art. Just not our thing. But some cool miniature furniture and a lot of the metal pieces were interesting too. No photography allowed though (not a surprise). In each room we would decide which piece we would want to have the most. Sometimes that was very hard.
There were signs that said no photography (which is not unusual). Marion was sketching and got told she wasn’t allowed. Being the rule follower she is it upset her. But there was no signage indicating it was a problem so there was no way to know. After that they were watching us like a hawk and chastised us again when Marion had her one foot ever so slightly over the line you were supposed to stay behind in front of the paintings. After that we starting standing as close to the line as possible, placing our shoes just inside the line and leaning. So there.
One of the interesting things about the museum is nothing was labeled except by artist (which you have to get pretty close to read. But not too close!). There was a glossary in each room that had all the details for each piece. You’d pick one up, wander the room with it, then put it back and go on to the next room.
The guy did have a good eye for pieces that would work well together and the arrangement was often as interesting as the paintings themselves, which of course was the point.
Marion mentioned the sketching issue to the people at the desk as we left. The person behind the counter was an art student and could empathize. She said it was a request of Dr. Barnes and it was because he wanted the museum to be a totally visual experience with no distractions. So she felt better that there was a legitimate reason for it vs just being Nazis.
From the Barnes we walked to the Philadelphia Art Musuem, passing by the Rodin Museum and taking a few photos of the Thinker who sits out front (thinking). We followed a couple of Muslim women in full black regalia and commented on how hot they must be since it was at least mid 80’s if not warmer by then. But, you gotta do what you gotta do if you’re gonna be believers I guess. They didn’t seem particularly uncomfortable so maybe there’s something to it. Because we certainly were.
The Art Museum is a great grand building and I’m always impressed by it. Sadly a lot of the front area was under construction and/or being set up for some street soccer thing. So not quite as beautiful as it might otherwise be. Not to mention the skyline view you get from the top of the stairs was marred by lots of construction cranes. But the building itself, still very pretty.
And as always, people running up the steps like Rocky. It’s amazing that that still continues. The movie was 40+ years ago. And yet something about it causes a large number of people to run the stairs and stand with arms upraised at the top (including our boy who did it back when we visited with my Dad in 2001).
When Rocky III was filmed, in the movie a statue of Rocky with arms upraised was unveiled at the top of the stairs. It was left there after the movie as a “gift to the city” (or as garbage from the movie depending on your point of view). At some point, the people at the museum said “this isn’t art” and relocated the statue to South Philly (where Rocky was from). Well. As a result, everyone went to South Philly to see the statue and did not come to the Art Museum. After a period of noticeable drop-off in attendance, the museum folk in their infinite wisdom decided maybe it was art after all and installed it in front of the building. Not on the stairs but next to them at the bottom. And the hordes are back. There were people posing with the statue the whole time we were there.
The museum is huge. We didn’t see it all. Just the first floor American stuff. And the European impressionists. We skipped all the 1400-1700 European art on the 2nd floor I remember from last visit (lots of saints, Jesus, Greek myths and such, not my cup of tea). And we skipped the contemporary art too. We’re saving that for the MOMA in NY.
Between the Barnes and the Art museum I discovered I like Cezanne more than I thought I did and Monet less than I thought I did. Marion found she liked William Glackens (whose name sounds like a Star Trek planet – Captain, the Glackens are attacking!)
We managed to exit and walk around to the front (or back?) of the building and walked over to the bus stop on the other side just as the bus was coming, arriving at the stop at the same time (great timing). The third tour guide was worse than the 2nd. But we’d seen all this before too. We’ll miss the last loop of the tour though I think we got our money’s worth. I hate to leave a tour uncompleted but we had a play and it was a long day already and it was hot, so, back to the hotel.
For dinner, we went to the Italian place we’d been passing regularly. It looked nice. It turned out not to be so great. Marion’s chicken piccata was very lemon-y/sour to the point she could barely eat it. My steak was a bit tough and fatty. The waiters sang. One was pretty good. But we were disappointed overall. We made up for it by going to Scoop DeVille (great name) for ice cream and ate it on the way to the theater. Very yummy. After that we felt better.
We discovered Sister Act wasn’t the songs from the movie and were worried. We had had a similar experience with Fame in London and were very disappointed with the result. But it was quite good and the audience was very into it. It turned out we were sitting in seats from people who had been theater subscribers for years and were friends of the people in front of us and to our right. They had decided to move to Florida to live on their boat. The people in front of us thought they’d be there tonight and they could say goodbye. Instead they got us. Too bad. But awesome seats. Center and 10 rows back. We couldn’t have asked for better and we got them less than 24 hours before the show!
It was about a 6 block walk back to the hotel. It was around 11 at night. Three guys were marching around the streets drumming. A bass drum, a 3 snare set and something else. With a tip jar in front of them. At 11pm on a Thursday night. It was fun for us. In fact, if they had gotten close enough we were prepared to give them money. But I suspect it was less fun for anyone living around there. Given this is Philadelphia, where they pelted Santa with snowballs and booed the handicapped children running the bases, we moved on before the shooting began.
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