On the weekend after Independence Day, we took young Jeremy into Philadelphia for the day. There was a Marvel Comics exhibition at the famed Franklin Institute, and I also scored tickets to the new-ish observation level about 57 flights up on the office building known as One Liberty Place. It was one of two fairly recent glass towered tall buildings, built in Philly in the last couple of decades. There was a 360-degree observation floor up there, and I’d always wanted to get high.
First, we drove up to Camden and parked at the PATCO Speed Line station, and took the high speed train into town. It zoomed along through Camden and then crossed over the Delaware River along the Ben Franklin Bridge, before scooting underground, screeching around corners by City Hall, and then ending at 15th and Locust Street, a few blocks from One Liberty Place. We passed over the curves of Interstate 95 running along the edge of town, new ramps that have been under construction since about the weekend after the FIRST Independence Day. We came up to street level in the sweltering summer heat I’d known so well when I worked in town years ago. This was, oddly, Jeremy’s first visit to a “big city” in his recent memory – we’d been here when he was about four or five for a Christmas visit but now he was mobile and not expecting the concrete canyons. We had to keep a sharp eye on him.
We walked the few blocks to the entrance of One Liberty, a big glass revolving door with a huge cupola dome overhead. The building is almost smack-dab in the center of town, right at 18th and Market Street. Once in, signage to the elevators for the observation deck was not extremely helpful, but we more or less followed the touristy looking people. It was a quick, non-stop ride from the stylized feet of Ben Franklin, up to the 57th floor and his stylized head. First thing Jeremy had to do was climb on his chin.
Once we reached the top, it was just a matter of walking the circumference and peering out the windows. Unfortunately, the cloudy and very humid day made clarity less than optimal, but it was still kind of neat to see the city from so high up. This was a new thing in Philly, as for decades the highest vantage point had been Billy Penn atop City Hall, and he was nearly always closed for renovations. It seemed they were always renovating, just in time for the next closure ceremony. First, a couple of shots looking east, towards the riverfront and New Jersey, with ol’ Billy Penn right up front.
Broad Street runs north, towards the campus of Temple University and the neighborhoods in North Philly. The large Comcast buildings dominate the view looking north. They’re the tallest in the city, and probably tallest anywhere south of Manhattan between here and the Everglades.
As we circumnavigated the floor, I did my best to wriggle around and shoot past the outside roof structural members. The other nuisance were the thousands of ruddy-cheeked nose and fingerprints left behind by our smaller brethren as the peered out into the miasma. The view west, towards the Schuylkill River, 30th Street Station, and some of the lower buildings was cool to see. Even found a couple with pools on their roofs, which I’d always suspected of being there but could never prove.
Towards the south, Broad Street and South Philly showed, and you could almost make out the southern part of the city where all the newish sports stadia sit. But clouds and poor visibility showed their ugly heads as well. 1 Liberty’s little brother, 2 Liberty Place, hove into view off to the south-southeast.
I found the Arch Street Presbyterian Church off to the northwest, zoomed into the big new FMC building over by the 30th Street Railroad Station and then we came around to the east again, looking down on the medical center area of the Jefferson Hospital, which crowded around and rubbed shoulders with the more concise Pennsylvania Hospital a few blocks to the south. The PSFS bank building has long been a landmark on the Philly skyline, even though the PSFS bank ceased to exist decades ago.
We stayed on the observation deck for about 40 minutes, but then had to head back down to street level, our tickets for the Franklin Institute were for the 5:00 admission to the Marvel exhibit. We had about a six block walk over to the F/I and I snapped some shots of the downtown, and the big Comcast building as we headed there, past Logan Circle and the dinosaur-overrun Pennsylvania Museum of Natural History. The bronze globe was dedicated to early airmen of WW I, and then the big marble statue of old Ben Himself in the lobby greeted us at the F/I.
Of course, we head to take Jeremy through the famous Heart, and then wander the Air & Space exhibits, before we headed to the Marvel Superheros. I’m not that much of a comic-book fan anymore, but Jeremy likes the Marvel universe. There were some very interesting exhibits there, especially if you’re into the early days of the Superheros. We wandered through for about an hour or so, and I got some shots the best I could given the lighting and conditions.
We exited the Superheros, grabbed a quick snack at the cafeteria, and then headed back outside. We walked over to the fountains at Logan Square, and then made our way back to the PATCO station all the way down at Locust Street. It was a hot and humid eight blocks… but back on the train, we crossed back over the Delaware and made our way home from Camden. A long, but nice day out on the town.
