Philadelphia and Longwood Gardens 2011

Though I have been to Philadelphia before, this time I really felt I got to know it a bit. I was there for the Association of College and Research Libraries Conference that was held in the Pennsylvania Convention Center in the heart of town. The Convention Center itself was nice, the session rooms not too scattered. The keynote speakers were in the ballroom, and to get to that we had to go through a huge hall. I just didn't get what one would do in such a high ceiling space - maybe show off sailboats, so I asked someone about it and found out it was the old Reading Terminal. 13 sets of train tracks pulled into it at the second story level (this last according to the Wikipedia) up until 1984. Then it stood empty for 10 years until they chose to re-purpose it and invested over $500 million. The first floor has the great Reading Market - a cross between a farmer's market (or Central Market in Riga for my Latvian friends) and a food court. It was packed at lunch with a huge choice of food options. On the corner there is a Hard Rock Cafe. Above - conference rooms, the ballroom and huge hall. On the floor they have inlaid the original track locations in steel. The roof is the original, the oldest and one of the largest single-span arched-roof structures in the world and the only one left in the U.S.

The city, including the Convention Center, was full of art, including murals and sculptures. Underneath one set of stairs an artist had covered the whole wall with white cups, bowls and spoons. Another was a huge dinosaur bone and mega pods. another was a riff on parachutes. In the city I saw Ben Franklin with a press, the LOVE square, a rusty clothes pin and much more. With the clothes pin I was wondering if my son's generation even knew what that was.

I had some events outside the convention center, plus walks to the parking garage or the train to New Jersey, so I covered an eleven by eight block area around the convention center quite thoroughly. One of the first buildings I ran into was the imposing City Hall with William Penn on top. South of that Broad Street is called the Avenue of the Arts with a nice mix of old and new buildings like the Union League and the Kimmel Center for Performing Arts. I liked the sky scraper tops peeking out every once in a while.

China Town is right next to the convention center, where I went to eat lunch with Dianna and Carrie one day at a restaurant that was suggested by our colleague Ed. Great food! The convention center itself was very secure - you had to have a convention badge to even enter the building, but the street behind it was a little dicier.

I did like the mix of old and new. One day, when my brain could not absorb one more library fact, I walked to Independence National Historical Park. I looked into the National Constitution Center, but wasn't willing to pay $12 for what I could see for free later that night at the reception (but didn't , because I was too exhausted.) I went on to the Visitor Center to get a lay of the land and get a stamp for my National Park passport. I realized that there was way more in this park than I could even hope to explore in the hour I had alotted, so I just went to se the Liberty Bell, since I remembered it from a third grade field trip. Our bags were checked closely and they made us show the back of our waists - I presume to check for weapons. I read most of the history of the bell and then went to see the cordoned off, but otherwise open bell. It had shrunk! I remember it being much larger. Though its historical significance is a bit sketchy, it is an important symbol of liberty and I stood there briefly its presence.

When I first saw Independence Hall across the green, its well known form looked normal, but as I approached it closer, I realized the tower was just a clever drawing covering the scaffolding as it is being repaired. To enter the Hall you needed a time stamped ticket and the tour was a half hour long. Next time. According to my map, there are 22 buildings in this national park, so there is plenty to explore some time in the future. I did walk through what was called the Presidents House site, a place where a house stood that presidents Washington and Adams lived in during their time of governing. Recently they were digging and found some old foundations, which have been partially left open for visitors to see.  I was staying with a friend who works with national park interpretive departments to lead them through long range planning and help them come up with the unique message they want to get across for each park. Interestingly the exhibit within the semi-walls is devoted to Washington's slaves and the role of slavery in the early years of our country.  I think there is still a lot to learn here, so Philly, I will be back!

Longwood Gardens

After the conference I drove out to Longwood Gardens, about an hour west of Philly, on the recommendation of my friend Mark. This is a huge 1000 acre site purchased by Pierre duPont, when the arboretum was going to be cut down for lumber. In 1908 he hired his first gardener,  developed different types of gardens and built a conservatory.  I overheard someone say that they now have a staff of 400 plus 700 volunteers. Wow!

Though this area of Pennsylvania seems to be a couple of weeks ahead of us in spring and there were some daffodils blooming, most of the garden was quite dormant, though it was a beautiful sunny day and there were quite a lot of people out strolling around. The woman at the entrance suggested starting with the conservatory.

As I walked into the conservatory, my winter starved senses were assaulted with color and delightful smells. The entrance held white lilies and beyond was the East Conservatory with water flowing through the middle and elaborate blooming flower beds surrounding it. It seemed like every inch of the flowerbeds throughout the conservatory was full of lush, blooming plants. I can name only some of them, and there were some I had never seen before. I have a couple of large old clivia plants in my house, but here were mounds of light yellow clivia that I had never seen before.  Hopefully the attached pictures will give some sense of this beauty that surrounded me.

Two of my favorite flowers are the lupine and delphinium, especially the deep blue ones, and there were plenty of those delphiniums throughout the different gardens. They have an orchid house, but orchids were displayed everywhere. I especially liked a brown variety of orchid that was in the fern passage and looked like luscious chocolate just there for the picking and eating. The silver garden was sort of a dessert room with lots of silver cacti, but there were also dusty millers and other plants I know - I have found dusty millers to be very hardy, even surviving Michigan winters at times. I am not too fond of roses, as I felt my father spent too much time and energy on our rose bed when I was growing up, but the Rose House contained enormous hibiscus plants as well as some yellow bougainvillea that I found interesting.

The only remaining fruit trees in the conservatory were some citrus trees in the main exhibit halls and a few espalier peach trees trained to grow flat along a fence taking up little room, but bearing more fruit. There was a room full of huge palm trees, and at the opposite end in size - bonsai trees, one over 100 years old.

As I was leaving, a volunteer asked if I had seen the green wall that has 47,000 plants growing in it. I had to check that out and was delighted - then it turned out that the curved hall with the green wall also contained rooms to individual bathrooms. Very nicely done.

Obviously I will have to return sometime and see the rest of these gardens later in the spring or summer. The only area that was easily visible outside was the topiary garden, and the flower garden had tulips coming up, but nothing was blooming yet. Thank you Mark for telling me about this delightful place!

For those of you who are my friends on Facebook, I have put up more pictures there.