Sunday in Philly
Monday, 10 September 2007 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daSunday morning: Quaker Meeting at Central Philly. Lovely seeing our friends C. and K. again. Lots of familiar faces. After Meeting, the announcements went on long enough that d. had to run off to his conference. I stayed behind for lunch with C. and K. and chatted about how their committees are set up (yes, that's interesting to a Quaker geek. :) C. and I also talked about how she's coming to Toronto in two weeks, and while it's unlikely, perhaps I could go down for an evening session she's leading. After warm g'byes, I went off to wander my afternoon away.
I walked up the Franklin Parkway, stopping in a Catholic Basilica (gloomy and slightly creepy, to be honest- not a reaction I usually get from big churches!), past the Free Library (closed), a quick stop at the Rodin Museum long enough to look at their outdoor casts of The Thinker and The Gates of Hell. (Their literature made claims about being the originals- what kind of false advertising are they trying to get away with? I mean, even if I hadn't paid attention when the paper had articles a few years ago about Rodin authenticity claims and counter-claims- are they just assuming people won't care that there are many "originals"?)
My real destionation was the Fairmount Water Works, billed as North America's first municipal water works. Those civic-minded 18th-century Philadelphians!
It's a neat story. Nobody had ever built a steam-powered water pump big enough for a city, but it was clear that Philadelphia needed help before the turn of the 18th century. Philly had been the country's largest city, but yellow fever epidemics were convincing the planners they really had to do something about potable water.
Their first steam-engine designs worked great for a decade, then blew up twice. They redesigned, dammed the Schuylkill, and used water-wheels to pump the city's water to a reservoir. The water works went from a money-sucking boondoggle to the most profitable business in the city, and became one of the leading city tourist attractions for most of a century.
The interpretive center did a great job: the half-hour movie had fairly good video of how the different turbines worked, and they spent a while talking about water pollution, and how the success of the water works led to such city growth that they'd totally fouled the Schuykill by 1900. ...Now, the site is restored to its former grandeur (I didn't cross the river to see it from the other side, though). It's a restaurant (which looked too well-dressed for me in shorts and a teeshirt) and an interpretive center (which, obviously enough, I recommend!)
Then, d. and I met up at the hotel, went to the airport, took our flight, and got home just a bit after 10. I was so glad to sleep in my own bed!
I walked up the Franklin Parkway, stopping in a Catholic Basilica (gloomy and slightly creepy, to be honest- not a reaction I usually get from big churches!), past the Free Library (closed), a quick stop at the Rodin Museum long enough to look at their outdoor casts of The Thinker and The Gates of Hell. (Their literature made claims about being the originals- what kind of false advertising are they trying to get away with? I mean, even if I hadn't paid attention when the paper had articles a few years ago about Rodin authenticity claims and counter-claims- are they just assuming people won't care that there are many "originals"?)
My real destionation was the Fairmount Water Works, billed as North America's first municipal water works. Those civic-minded 18th-century Philadelphians!
It's a neat story. Nobody had ever built a steam-powered water pump big enough for a city, but it was clear that Philadelphia needed help before the turn of the 18th century. Philly had been the country's largest city, but yellow fever epidemics were convincing the planners they really had to do something about potable water.
Their first steam-engine designs worked great for a decade, then blew up twice. They redesigned, dammed the Schuylkill, and used water-wheels to pump the city's water to a reservoir. The water works went from a money-sucking boondoggle to the most profitable business in the city, and became one of the leading city tourist attractions for most of a century.
The interpretive center did a great job: the half-hour movie had fairly good video of how the different turbines worked, and they spent a while talking about water pollution, and how the success of the water works led to such city growth that they'd totally fouled the Schuykill by 1900. ...Now, the site is restored to its former grandeur (I didn't cross the river to see it from the other side, though). It's a restaurant (which looked too well-dressed for me in shorts and a teeshirt) and an interpretive center (which, obviously enough, I recommend!)
Then, d. and I met up at the hotel, went to the airport, took our flight, and got home just a bit after 10. I was so glad to sleep in my own bed!
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Date: Friday, 14 September 2007 03:11 pm (UTC)It's so cool you had a good trip to the Waterworks. The new museum wasn't up and running yet when we moved, and there had been -- you guessed it -- a fire there not long before that. So much money (and hope) got poured into it, I'm really glad it's turned out well!
Hey, I'd love to talk Quaker committee structure sometime, b/c I am definitely amused and bemused by the differences among the Quaker groups (meetings and otherwise) with which I am involved.
Cheers!