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Think Outside the Cheesesteak

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28 comments

Think Outside the Cheesesteak

POSTED: Wednesday, March 17, 2010, 5:53 PM

City officials have been trying to attract conventioneers with a campaign called “Philadelphia, The Complete Package,” which pictures the usual suspects — Independence Hall, the Rocky statue, the Liberty Bell — rising over the gleaming skyline.

Here’s another idea, courtesy of George Thomas, an architectural historian at Penn: Think outside the cheesesteak.

Philadelphia banks on its central role in the American Revolution to draw visitors. Why not, Thomas asks, capitalize on its role in seven other revolutions? He could see a pitch called, “Philadelphia, birthplace of the modern world.”
Let’s look at this chronologically.

The first revolution took place well before 1776, when Billy Penn eyed these sylvan woods as a place where Quakers could settle peacefully. They believed God was within everyone, so men and women of all races and creeds were equal.

Tough to find a building from that era, but Thomas suggests starting at the corner of Fifth and Race where Catholic, Methodist and Quaker houses of worship are within shouting distance. That sort of diversity was radical 300 years ago.

There was another trendsetting innovation before Independence, and for that credit Boston-transplant Ben Franklin, who reimagined the way colonials were educated. The elites of New England were schooled in Latin and Greek and prepared for careers as ministers and lawyers. Franklin’s College of Philadelphia taught courses in natural history, emerging sciences and foreign languages that were actually still spoken somewhere. You could tell this story at Franklin Court, at Third and Market, or at Franklin’s school, now called the University of Pennsylvania.

The third revolution would be the American Revolution. We’ve got plenty of places around that interpret that event, so let’s move on.

The fourth, like the third, owes something to the first, the one begun by those tolerant Quakers. Because they believed in personal responsibility, they expected their children to work, not just cut coupons. In the 1860s, a Quaker mechanical engineer named William Sellers (pictured) established industrial standards, so a machine made in Philly could be repaired in Chicago. Celebrate Sellers at the Franklin Institute — he was its president.

For revolution No. 5 check out the buildings of Frank Furness and the paintings and sculptures of Thomas Eakins (FURN-ess and ACHE-ins for those, like me, who get confused). Local industrialists hired them and encouraged their development of organic forms that followed functionality, their notion that art reflects the contemporary world. Thomas would start this tour at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

Extra points if you can name the sixth revolution started here. Frederick Winslow Taylor analyzed how people worked and achieved tremendous increases in productivity. His scientific management method made it possible to double salaries and increase time for leisure. This Exeter grad worked as a laborer at Midvale Steel, now an empty space under the Roosevelt Boulevard. Plant a plaque for the father of all management consultants.

This led to revolution No. 7, what Thomas’ partner, Susan Snyder, called the age of consumption. Workers in the 1880s could now buy their own homes, keep their kids in school and wives at home, and still have enough cash for a week at the shore. We could honor this civilized improvement on Market Street, where 14 department stores once served the masses.

That leaves one last revolution. For that, visit Penn’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering, which in 1946 ushered in the computer age with the invention of ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer. It was the world’s first electronic digital computer, a monstrosity that filled an entire room. A half-century later, a Penn group recreated ENIAC on a microchip the size of a pimple.

The question Philadelphia ought to ask itself isn’t how do we fill hotel beds or convention rooms. It’s “How do we recapture our creative mojo?” Thomas said, “be a place that is about the future?”

Daniel Rubin @ 5:53 PM Permalink | 28 comments

28 comments

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Comments (28)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:22 PM, 03/17/2010

what's to market other then being the home of independence? The Phillies? The city itself is disgusting...There's nothing cosmopolitan about Philly. Go hold your convention at a city that has some life to it! Your attendees will thank you!

— jmg7738

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:28 PM, 03/17/2010

We could always pass that testimonial out to potential visitors. You need someone to show you around.

— Blinq

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:28 PM, 03/17/2010

We could always pass that testimonial out to potential visitors. You need someone to show you around.

— Blinq

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0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:45 PM, 03/17/2010

"phlash Mobs" for starters...

— billypencil

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:47 PM, 03/17/2010

I prefer to think of us as New Orleans North.

— DJR

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:47 PM, 03/17/2010

I like the Detroit of the east I would vote for that. or The city that thugs you back. or The city where the brothers and cicters are running the city-----into the ground

— bobg1812

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:48 PM, 03/17/2010

Philly has a lot of great things to see and do,but the negatives are hard to overcome in any city.Nobody wants to see the sights and risk being mugged or murdered.Too bad.

— oakster

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:57 PM, 03/17/2010

There's no doubt that Philadelphia carries a highly valuable baggage of culture, history and progress. Pity that we squander it by electing the worst politicians in the nation to run its government. I often picture Penn's statue on top of City Hall crying for shame.

— DonQ

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:18 PM, 03/17/2010

George Thomas is right - and the people commenting on this post prove his point. There is much willful ignorance among Philadelphians (or here, I suspect, people who long ago left for the suburbs and harbor deep hatreds), that we always fall back on the idiotic and obvious cliches: Rocky (a fictional character!), cheesesteaks, the Liberty Bell. As a resident of the city, none of these items affects my life on a daily or even monthly basis. Yet, the city that created the modern world is all around us: in every abandoned factory, in every home, in every street - this city invented consumer culture, it invented the American dream of homeownership, it created the America that we know. Problems are everywhere, sure, but Philadelphians have been solving problems for 400 years, and continue to do so today in every neighborhood from northeast to southwest. If only people would take their eyes out of the gutter, peel away the worn out stereotypes, and see the city for what it is.

— phils08

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:22 PM, 03/17/2010

"Philadelphia - Not as bad as you've heard"

— Bobphxville

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:25 PM, 03/17/2010

Philly-"We don't suck quite as much as you think we do"

— oswaldoctopus

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 7:29 PM, 03/17/2010

Birthplace of the modern world? This city is anything but modern. Try visiting Hong Kong, Tokyo, or Toronto. Philly is at least 30 years behind those cities. This city is a joke.

— Fire Eddie Jordan