We passed the old
SS United
States cruise liner on the shoreline just before getting to the city.
Designed by brothers William and Frederic Gibbs and their partner Danial Cox, she has the
distinctive swept back funnels that was her trademark. Philadelphia - June 2007
We headed up the Delaware River to Philadelphia to visit our friends Mary Kay, Scott, Kelsey and Dana Trail who live outside the city. While I have to say that the Delaware river is not the prettiest river we've ever been on, coming into the city of Philadelphia by water certainly made the trip well worthwhile.
We passed the old
SS United
States cruise liner on the shoreline just before getting to the city.
Designed by brothers William and Frederic Gibbs and their partner Danial Cox, she has the
distinctive swept back funnels that was her trademark.
At 990 feet, she is the largest passenger vessel ever constructed in the United States and the fastest ocean liner to cross the North Atlantic - making the eastbound leg in just 3 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes and the return trip in 3 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes. Her average speed during the crossings was about 35 knots.
She left on her maiden voyage on July 3, 1952 and was retired from service 17 years later due primarily to the fact that jet travel to Europe made the ship less profitable to operate. Sorry to say that she's looking a bit worn around the edges these days. Maybe some city will take pity on her in her dotage and fix her up as a floating museum one day.
I always love coming into a city from the water. The picture to the left is of the Philadelphia skyline taken as we got close to the city. The marina we stayed at is very close to Penn's Landing - a wonderful waterfront park area in downtown Philly. We saw this tall ship docked at the Landing as we cruised by.
We stayed at the Philadelphia Marine Center which is located just north of the Ben Franklin Bridge on the Delaware River. Once we got in and got Tardis settled, we headed up to the outside restaurant at the marina to celebrate with a beer. Somehow looking out at the Ben Franklin bridge made us a bit homesick for San Francisco. I wonder why....
After sustaining ourselves with a beer and a sandwich, we headed out to see the city. We started by walking the few blocks south along the river towards Penn's Landing where we spotted this schooner out for a sail on the river.
A couple of tall ships docked at Penn's Landing.
The Moshulu and the Olympia are also docked at Penn's Landing and are shown in the picture to the left below. The Moshulu is a wonderful old square rigger that has found a permanent home at Penn's Landing as a floating restaurant.
The Olympia, built in 1892, is the oldest steel warship still afloat. She was Commodore George Dewey's flagship in the Philippine Islands Battle of Manila Bay during the 1898 Spanish American War. After the war, the Olympia was often used as a visible reminder of President Theodore Roosevelt's 'gunboat diplomacy' following his rule of "Walk softly and carry a big stick." She was dispatched in 1918 to the Baltic Sea as part of the Russian Expeditionary Force in the earliest attempts to defeat communism in Russia. Her final mission was in 1921 when she brought back the Body of the Unknown Soldier from France after WW I to his final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery. The Olympia was decommissioned in December 1922. The second picture below is of the bow of the Olympia. It is shaped to protrude quite a way forward ahead of the ship under water to be used to ram enemy ships and sink them - a useful tactic in the days that the Olympia was built.
The picture to the left below is of a building just north of the marina that had a very realistic painting of a huge American flag draped on one side.
The picture to the right below is of the statue of Tamanend, chief of the Unami. Tamanend played a prominent role in the establishment of peaceful relations between the Native American tribes and the English settlers led by William Penn. He is shown standing on a turtle, which represents Mother Earth to the Unami tribe. The eagle on his shoulder, a revered messenger of the Great Spirit, has a wampum belt in its grasp. The belt represents the friendship treaty between William Penn, Tamanend, and other leaders of the Lenni Lenape nation. The belt is inscribed with the message "To live in peace as long as the waters run in the rivers and creeks and as long as the stars and moon endure."
The picture to the left below is of the first bank in the United States. Congress established the Bank of the United States in 1791. The bank moved from nearby Carpenter's Hall to this building in 1797. It is one of the few 18th century structures built in Philadelphia specifically for a federal institution. After Congress refused to renew the bank's charter in 1811, financier Stephen Girard bought the building and opened it as a private bank.
The picture to the left shows the fancy ironwork we saw on a nearby building.
We got together with the Trails the next morning and headed out to do some further exploring of the city. It's always great to visit a city with someone who is from there! They made wonderful tour guides for the few days that we visited. The picture below is of Scot, Mary Kay, Jeremy, and Kelsey (left to right).
We wandered down through town - admiring much of the wonderful architecture to be found.
City Hall is situated in the heart of the city. It is indeed a most impressive and beautiful building. The figure at the top of the building is a statue of William Penn. Mary Kay told us that it was the rule for many years in the city that no buildings could be built taller than this statue.
The picture to the left below is of the new Philadelphia Center for the Performing Arts. The picture to the right below is of a sculpture of a giant clothes pin we found in the city. I have no idea - although Kelsey, warming up to her tour guide role, was quite willing to make something up - like, "It's a little known fact that the person who invented the clothes pin is from Philadelphia, and this is a monument to him." Uh huh, if you say so......
Mary Kay booked a 'Ride the Ducks' tour of Philly for us for the second day we were in town. It' a neat tour where you go through town and then ride down a ramp into the water and do a mini tour around the waterfront. They gave everyone on board a souvenir 'quacker' noise maker.
Video Clip - Only click on this if you have high speed internet access - and if you don't mind hearing the sound of four crazy people blowing a bunch of quackers!
Click here for a video clip of Janet and the Trail family going quackers. I love how Mary Kay keeps looking around nervously to see if anyone else in the bus thinks that maybe her family had a little too much 'happy punch' earlier in the day.
During the tour, we passed the building where the first U. S. Congress was convened. The Representatives gathered in the downstairs area, while the Senators met upstairs. This is one of the reasons that we still refer to the Senate as the 'Upper House' and the House of Representatives as the 'Lower House.'
We also passed this very interestingly painted townhouse. I guess the new owner wanted something a 'little different' than his neighbors.
On a more historical note, the picture to the right is of the first post office in the city. Note that it is the only post office in the United States that does not have a US flag flying in front. The tour guide told us that this is because the Post Office was established before the United States had gained independence - hence there was no US flag at the time it was founded.
Big splash as the Duck takes to the waters of the Delaware River. We rode down the river, past Penns Landing before coming back onto dry land at the end of the tour. I snapped the picture on the right of another Duck bus coming out of the water.
After the Duck tour, we headed over to the Constitution Center where we learned about the Constitution Convention that was held here in the summer of 1787. The center has some really wonderful exhibits upstairs about how the legislative and judicial branches of our government work. There is also a really interesting area set up with interactive computer screens with faces of Americans that have influenced the country through the years. You can click on a picture and get a brief biography of that person. There was also an exhibit that included life-sized statues of all of the delegates. The picture to the right below is of Kelsey posing with some of them.
We each got our own copy of the U. S. Constitution as part of the visit - which I diligently read when we got back on the boat. There were some things that I didn't know (or didn't remember) as I read it. How well to you think you know about the constitution or about those who wrote it? Take this fun quiz to find out.
We were wandering around town after lunch when we happened upon a very interesting man sitting in a park and portraying Ben Franklin. He was pontificating on some subject (can't really remember what). I was clearly amused while Kelsey clearly was not. One thing I was surprised to learn was that Ben Franklin's son, William, was appointed the Royal Governor of New Jersey. He sided with the King of England and against his father during the American Revolution. Father and son never reconciled, and like many loyalists, William later moved to England. Franklin's daughter, Sally, remained close to her father throughout his life. She supported the Revolutionary cause and at one point led a drive to sew over 2,000 shirts for Washington's army.
The picture below if of the fountain in front of Betsy Ross's house. Something else I learned while we were in Philadelphia was that, while Betsy Ross sewed the first American Flag (as well as many other flags), she did not design the flag. The flag was designed by Francis Hopkinson, who was also one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Leaving Philadelphia, we stopped off at Delaware City - a small town located at the end of the Delaware River where it runs into Delaware Bay. We spotted these very interesting bird sculptures there.
Updated Sept 2, 2007