Archive: June, 2009
Children have an innate need to touch things. This is how they discover and learn about the world around them. Not a lot of places, however, cater to this impulse. Parents are constantly yelling at their kids to “Take that crayon out of your mouth!” and “Let go of the dog’s ear!” If a child picks up a toy at a department store or an apple in the produce aisle, they are scolded. The Please Touch Museum of Philadelphia understands that children gain knowledge through their sense of touch and has built a fun, safe environment for kids to learn and play. The museum has over 12,500 toys and games from 1945 to present that are all prominently displayed throughout the museum.
Now adults can have their chance to unleash their inner child. The Please Touch Museum has recently launched its “Grown-Up Tours.” The tours are a stroll down memory lane where participants can learn about the colorful history of the unique museum. The tour features a walk through the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, which was the world’s largest fair for which Memorial Hall was built. Guests can enjoy the restored architecture of the famous building while learning about the pieces of artwork that were displayed in the galleries at the Centennial.
Another feature is the museum’s fully restored Woodside Park Dentzel Carousel, which originally operated at a Philadelphia amusement park less than ten blocks from Memorial Hall. The carousel’s animals, which date back to 1908, include 40 horses, four cats, two pigs, two goats and four rabbits.
The history of growing up in Philadelphia is also an important part of the tour. You can climb aboard the Rocket Express, a monorail that carried children above the eighth floor toy department at the famous local John Wanamaker’s department store. You can also revisit the set and costumes of the hit kids' show Captain Noah and his Magical Ark.
Self-guided Grown-Up Tours are now available seven days a week for $10 per person. Guided group tours can be scheduled between 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays. For more information please visit www.pleasetouchmuseum.org.
Many people like drama if it’s not their own. Many other people like to try ethnic food. If you find yourself falling into one of these two categories, then Philadelphia is the place to be on Saturday, July 11.
At 2:30 p.m., the London Grill, located at 2301 Fairmont Ave., will celebrate Bastille Day with an afternoon full of rioting and uprisings, including a reenacted beheading of Marie Antoinette. There will also be delicious French cuisine, live musical entertainment and other festivities to mark the events that set the French Revolution into action.
A "mob" of enraged costumed Parisians will storm the historical Eastern State Penitentiary, which will be acting as a stand-in for the Bastille. Armed troops will fake-capture Antoinette and drag her to a real, functioning guillotine, ignoring her scathing cries to “Let them eat TastyKate!” as she tosses over 2,000 of the delicious, local treats from the prison’s towers. After the guillotine has fallen, London Grill will serve up the audience with champagne and divine French dishes created by culinary master Michael McNally.
For more information, please visit www.londongrill.com or call 215-978-4545.
South Street is an artistic Mecca of Philadelphia. From developers offering free and low-cost gallery space to artists with a vision, to the dozens of franchise shops that march to the beat of their own drummer, South Street is to Philadelphia what the Lower East Side is to New York City.
One of the more noticeable oddities of South Street spans the length of half a city block on the corner of 10th and South streets. "The Magical Garden" is one artist’s combination of unique, urban renaissance with a dash of psychosis. The huge, indoor and outdoor mosaic mural was made and designed by local artist Isaiah Zagar, who began tiling South Street in the 1960s and basically never stopped. He constructed the Magic Garden out of found objects, including cement, bottles, ceramic pieces and bicycle spokes.
Zagar has created more than 100 mosaic murals in Philadelphia, the majority of them within the South Philly area. Most of these hidden gems go unnoticed by the general public, but the team of people at Philadelphia’s Magic Garden is out to change that.
Philadelphia Magic Gardens recently re-launched its mosaic mural tours that will continue through September 20. Spanning as far east as 4th and Bainbridge, the tour will introduce people to rarely noticed mosaic murals around Philadelphia. Guides on the tour will discuss the materials and techniques, as the stories behind the artwork. All of this will intertwine with local Philadelphia history stories as well.
Tours cost $12 per person and are generally about an hour long. For more information, please visit the Web site at phillymagicgardens.org.
The lazy days of summer are pretty fantastic. You can soak up the sun at the beach, throw a backyard barbeque or spend it tucked away in your apartment with your dog and a good book, the air conditioning on high. But, as the musical "Grease" made perfectly clear, one of the best parts about this season are the “summer nights.”
Philadelphia understands how much you need those magical summer nights and so, beginning in August, the city's annual “Concerts in the Park” series will offer enjoyment for all. Each Wednesday, a different band will take the stage in Rittenhouse Square at 7 to 9 p.m. The lineup will be very eclectic and feature a wide variety of performances from different musical genres including jazz, R&B, and rock. All of the concerts will be free and open to the public.
This year, the promoters will even be having a contest for bands to have the chance to play at one of three concerts on either Aug. 12, 19 or 26. The judges include music experts such as POPPED! Music Festival’s talent coordinators, Rich Kardon and Jesse Lundy, and Point Entertainment’s David Niedbalski.
So make the most of your summer nights, because they’ll pass you by very quickly! Head down to Rittenhouse Square this August and enjoy live music and fantastic weather. Plan ahead!
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