skip to main |
skip to sidebar
The government may be shut down, but Philadelphia sure isn't. Honestly, take a look at the list of attractions that are open and the ones that aren't. Which ones would you recommend?
Aside from Valley Forge, the list of shuttered attractions looks like an insider's guide on where not to go.
The National Constitution Center, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Barnes Foundation, all open. The Mutter Museum is so open it's not even on the list. The Franklin Institute, the zoo, the Betsy Ross House, Atwater Kent, open. Fairmount Park? Yep, it's a city park, with over a dozen house museums and the historic site of the Centennial Exposition, all open. The Schuylkill Banks are open. Penn Treaty Park is open. Franklin Square is open.
Sorry, the Declaration House and the Second Bank of the United States are closed. Did you know they were ever open on idle Wednesday? Do you even know where they are?
Okay, maybe, but I've never been inside.
While you might not be able to grab a $3 cup of coffee at our multimillion dollar brochure kiosk otherwise known as the Independence Visitor Center, were it not for a few barricades and security guards, you might mistake Philadelphia's participation in the shutdown for a Sunday afternoon.
In fact, it would benefit Philadelphia's tourism industry to start advertising itself as such, especially if the shutdown lasts much longer.
With major destinations like the Statue of Liberty and the White House closed for the duration of this Congressional hissy fit, Philadelphia's closed Liberty Bell Pavilion pales in comparison to the Barnes Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, each with collections that the National Gallery can't rival.
City Hall is open and its tower is just two meters shorter than the Washington Monument. Did you know that? Probably not because William Penn's phallus is surrounded by a sea of skyscrapers that puts the view from Good Old George's obelisk to shame.
If the shutdown continues as long as the nation's last, Philadelphia could find itself more than a brief diversion from DC or NYC, but an entire alternative. Visit Philly should seize this opportunity to plaster DC's Metro and the New York City subway with posters reading "Philadelphia: Still Open."
With more outdoor artwork than any city in the world (I dare you to argue), this is a prime opportunity to point visitors to a Philadelphia that is more than just dusty stacks of Colonial history, telling a shutdown America that Philadelphia's abundance of city parks and museums are open, maybe even encouraging tourists to stick around long enough to see private attractions like Penn's Anthropology Museum, Reading Terminal Market, and Boathouse Row, attractions a cranky federal government can't touch.
It may seem counter-intuitive to criticize a charitable organization, particularly one aimed at feeding the city's many homeless. But that's what makes Food Not Bombs and its informal President so reprehensible. Food Not Bombs doesn't feed the homeless, but rather exploits the homeless in an effort to make loosely related political statements.
Recently the organization has been asked to discontinue its feedings in front of the Family Court Building and 20th and Vine, an action FNB immediately used to slander the city, claiming prioritizing tourism was a soulless act.
The decision had nothing to do with tourism. The truth of the matter is the city has no way of insuring that the feedings are safe because FNB refuses to get a permit, which they proudly profess on their website:
We refuse to get a permit for our servings; we believe nobody needs permission to share food with those in need.
If you're sitting in your dorm smoking pot, this premise might sound nice enough, but this permit is required for any large gatherings in a public park from protests to family reunions.
The group's motives don't sound quite as idealistic when you consider they admittedly parade the homeless in an effort to protest issues entirely unrelated to hunger, including funding for the police department.
Most recently the group, along with Occupy Philadelphia, protested the opening of the Barnes Museum. Only they weren't protesting the same drama the museum is accustomed to, they were protesting the gala itself.
Somehow philanthropy is now sinful. As those who helped bring one of the world's most astonishing museums to the Parkway dined (with the proper permits from the city), the FNB and Occupy Philadelphia illegally fed a line of homeless across the street in an attempt to gross everyone out.
Again, there isn't anything inherently wrong with feeding the homeless, if you are genuinely dedicated to helping the homeless. But 20th and Vine is only equipped to exploit the homeless and there is nothing humane about that.
There are no public facilities, it is no where near a shelter, and FNB is affiliated with no organizations that attempt to rehabilitate the homeless. FNB feeds them, makes what they perceive to be a point, and then releases them to sleep along the Vine Street Expressway, Sister Cities Park, or the steps of the library.
FNB is a Homeless Advocacy Group in every sense of the phrase, literally advocating for homelessness.
Should we just be a city of satiated homeless? Should we snub grant money and donations earmarked for museums and fountains because one group thinks it's better to spent elsewhere? Remember when volunteering or donating to a charitable organization was a good thing? Remember when it was politically correct to be happy?
We can't help everybody, and we certainly can't help them by dwelling on the fact that the most obvious improvements are going to be those that make the biggest tax payers happy to live here.
Protesting a fundraiser that helped bring priceless art into the eyes of millions of Philadelphians who would never otherwise see such a space, that is a soulless act. Using the homeless - living people - to make that point, that is barely human.
There are hundreds of charitable volunteer organizations in the city dedicated to helping the homeless, most of which not only feed them, but offer them the tools to feed themselves. FNB is associated with none of these.
If you don't know what the Barnes Museum is, you've probably heard about the litigated sideshow that led to its anticipated relocation.
In short, here's what happened:
Rich guy had a lot of art. Rich guy put the art in a big house. Rich guy died. Rich guy's will said the art couldn't move.
Simple, right?
Well the will that didn't account for inflation, allow the museum to profit, or predict that the internet would be a better investment than railroads. So there we were. A big house was full of priceless art that no one could see.
Whether or not you agree with the legal outcome allowing the art to be moved to a new museum on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, the hearing is over. But on the Main Line, wealth and old money don't like to take "no" for an answer and have little sympathy for the cash strapped burdens of its neighbors to the east.
Although tax payers invested millions in a new museum under the court ordered decision that the art be moved, the Friends of the Barnes Foundation are back in court, and its costing us money.
You don't have to be an art buff for this to piss you off.
The Barnes collection is astounding. With more Cezannes than Paris, people should be fighting over this. But the fight should be over.
What these activists fail to recognize is the threshold of Barnes' will. Long-term wills often come with an expiration date. I could put a billion dollars in a trust, freeze my head, and ask to be reanimated in 2000 years, but technology and money don't guarantee anything.
Under the governance of Barnes' will, the museum is not sustainable in its current location. Even with grants and donations, following the technicalities of a decades old and hastily drawn will, eventually this art would find itself locked away in an abandoned mansion.
An odd place for a Juvenile Detention Center, the Youth Study Center, at what is now the construction site of the Barnes Museum, was designed in 1948 by Carroll, Grisdale, and Van Alen.
The impressive (or depressing) International Style structure shared the Parkway with museums, fountains, and monuments. Two sculptures by Waldenmar Raemisch, an escapee from a Nazi prison, add one of the only human elements to the foreboding edifice. The Great Doctor and The Great Mother shared a wall with a camp for the city's homeless, and have since been moved to the Microsoft School.
It wasn't always bad. The Youth Study Center of 1948 was hardly the revolving-door juvenile prison system we know today. True, our cultural avenue is hardly the first place one would expect to find any sort of correctional facility, but perhaps its proximity to our vast houses of free knowledge was part of the city's reason behind choosing its location.
Was the Youth Study Center cold? Yes. Much like the PSFS Building and a number of other early or mid-century designs, International Style attempted to strip architecture of the irrelevant decadence of a past that led us into the Great Depression. And on some levels these architects were right. But is it ugly? That remains debatable. Sure, the uncleaned walls and dirty windows only complimented the homeless that lined its windowless facade, but as a design, it's wasn't bad. It respected its space and surroundings, it had a message, it served a purpose, and as a product of its time it can be appreciated aesthetically. It's ugly the way the works of Frank Furness or Willis Hale were ugly.
Given time, and a new purpose, the city's Youth Study Center could have seen popular praise. Certainly someone will one day be scouring archives of our old 20th Century City and come across its picture, and like we so often say of the Victorian and Colonial losses of our history, they will wonder why we didn't appreciate something so unique.
Some protesters appeared today at the site of the Barnes Museum's groundbreaking ceremony on the Ben Franklin Parkway criticizing the Barnes Museum so called pork barrel spending, some going as far as to say it is a playground for the "rich and famous".
I'm not sure how the Barnes Museum can be labeled a playground for the "rich and famous", or even criticized as wasteful spending. If anything, relocating to the Parkway makes it more accessible to everyone, and not just those poised to drive to Lower Merion.
If the "rich and famous" are the only ones visiting the Barnes museum, the only ones to blame are the "poor and unknown". In a city more likely to invest in block parties for baseball fans than libraries and textbooks, any investment in culture and education is an investment in everyone.
Art and culture become invaluable in economic hard times. As families are less able to invest in wasteful gadgets and expensive trinkets that retain children's stunted attention for a matter of days, artwork has the potential to become a reluctant but enlightening source of entertainment.
Jumping on the Robert Venturi bandwagon, a hack of a different sort has come out against the relocated Barnes Museum. This time in the form of the condescendingly elitist New York Times' architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. Say what you will about Inga Saffron (Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic and Pulitzer Prize Nominee), but she will tell you what she likes and why and spends the bulk of her articles discussing aesthetics rather than dwelling in the politics of "art". She engages all of her readers, allowing them to understand design instead of pretentiously trying to make those outside the art circle feel like slack jawed troglodytes for disagreeing. She's real.
Ouroussoff not only dislikes the design, he dislikes that the collection is being reloacated from Lower Merion. Apparently such a collection serves our culture better when limited to a knowledgeable art community rather than available to the urban public and tour busses. Aside from which he's clearly done no research into the reasons behind the move, and the problems between the current museum and the county. He's also done no research into the philosophy behind the design of the building in the grounds, meant to replicate the entire experience in the original location, a replication mandated as a requirement with the move.
This article reeks of jealousy more than anything.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/arts/design/07barnes.html?_r=2&hpw
Robert Venturi - one of a handful of late 20th century architectural hacks including Graves and Gehry - has thrown himself in as the latest thorn in the ass of moving the Barnes Museum to the Parkway. Is it just bad timing that he waited for the release of the rendering to express his grievance over the museum's move from Lower Marion or is something else going on. Where was he for the past five years? Could his pride be just a little hurt at the release of Tod Williams and Billie Tsien's graceful design for the new Barnes Museum on the Parkway?
I will admit, in the face of a recession, library closings, and a potential arts and culture tax, $200M does seem a bit excessive. And from the looks of the building, I can't see where the bulk of the expense lies. On the other hand some of our greatest cultural and architectural gifts are granted by public funds during economic down times.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2009/10/architect-robert-venturi-slams-proposed-barnes-foundation-move.html
