Heaneyland!

I've had my Philly

So Lorinne and I recently spent a weekend in Philadelphia ("the city that loves you back"), going to museums, hanging out with my friend Laurie and her crew, deciding the line at the Liberty Bell was way too long, and so forth. Here are some photos from the trip.

We stayed in a very quaint little B&B (and we were very lucky to find a place to stay at all, since apparently there was a huge convention of hardware salesmen in town -- seriously). We had to switch rooms after the first night, and I preferred our first room, partly for its private bathroom, and partly for the way it didn't share a super-unsoundproofed wall with a room occupied by loud people who got back from a night of drinking at 3:00 in the morning. I also (pattern geek that I am) liked the way the comforter matched the carpet:

There was a (tiny) TV that we did not avail ourselves of, on top of a little TV stand with a book inside:

I assumed it was the Bible, but I was delighted to see that I was wrong:

Our B&B may have been secular, but the town was not. Apparently in Philadelphia they still adhere to a more Puritan brand of religion:

And some people are still apt to make the odd prophecy now and then:

I think a piano bar has to already exist for it to even be in contention for the title of "premier piano bar", even if the font abuse didn't disqualify it right off the bat.

After visiting the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we walked along the river, where there were benches engraved with quotations. Naturally I ignored the quotations and focused on the punctuation:

Straight quotes are bad enough, but a six-dot ellipsis? That's a little too much Philadelphia Freedom for me.

Also along the river were some signs commemorating historic businesses, like this one, which shows that patriotic symbols being used to advertise inappropriate products is by no means a recent problem:

And then there was this:

...and using this logo since the mid-1970s.

On the way back into town, we stumbled across this business, which couldn't quite settle on exactly what fashion in which to present itself as historic:

In addition to Ye Olde Cleanery and Ye Olde Clean'ry, you'll note that the awnings say Ye Olde Cleaners.

On our last morning before returning to New York, we wandered through Old Town; my favorite part was the graveyard in which Benjamin Franklin was buried (mostly because I just like graveyards). But it was interesting to see that, apparently, people consider Benjamin Franklin's grave a landmark that can grant good luck in much the same way that a fountain in a shopping mall can, or at least I assume that's the reason it was covered with coins:

There were also a lot of raised horizontal gravestones, which seemed like they might be used as card tables for when mourners got bored. Does anyone happen to know what the design was actually meant to accomplish?

Lorinne spotted this memorable gravestone:

Let's take a closer look at that third image:

Cool. This cryptic marker was my favorite, though:

And I shall leave you with an example (spotted en route to the bus station) of that old reliable standby of photographic jocularity: the misprinted sign.

Posted by Francis at 10:58 PM