City Hall Courtyard

The compass mural in City Hall Courtyard was recently restored by -- who else? -- the Mural Arts Program after years of being worn down by foot traffic and the elements. These pics really don't do it full justice. If I could get to one of the windows on an upper floor inside City Hall...

Billy Penn's Big Brothers...And More

UPDATE: I've added a couple more pics taken on a different occasion. They're after the jump.

The day I visited the three different festivals -- and I will get those pics posted at some point, as I'm in a bit of a catching-up mode -- I was walking from Stop #2 (in Franklin Square) to Stop #3 (Walnut St. west of Broad), looked up and noticed City Hall and the two Liberty Place skyscrapers...

The angle of the picture, because of the route I took when I left Franklin Square, just gave me the impression that Billy Penn was being guarded by his two big brothers. (It took me three tries to get the tops of all three buildings in the shot. Oh, brother.)

I'm An Exhibitionist

Tonight I went to see my picture at the opening reception for the Philly Photo Day exhibit at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. And here it is!

There were close to 900 submissions but they're helpfully arranged alphabetically by photographer's name, so mine is easy enough to find if you go. It'll be up until the 26th. It was interesting to see such a variety of photos, and yet similarities in a number of photos. City skyline shots, iconic buildings such as City Hall, the LOVE statue and the Clothespin, Pat's and Geno's steaks, a handful of shots from public transit (although I saw only one other picture showing the Market-Frankford tracks through the fence on the crossover between platforms). There were lots of quirky photos, photos of people of all ages, photos that were a bit tricked out to depict some special effect such as streaking lights, a few pictures from Occupy Philly, and so on.

And then there were two pictures of...TV screens at the moment the St. Louis Cardinals won the World Series. (One can be seen in the first picture above.) Ugh.

Occupy Philly...Why?

I need to get this posted fast because I need to go to bed earlier than usual. I somehow find myself no longer unemployed and, as such, actually have to get up early for work in the morning. Although it's only a temp job for a few months each year, I'm now one of the fortunate ones. Many millions of others are not. The people camped out for over 10 days outside Philadelphia City Hall (and for longer periods in other locations) want that to change. I can understand, to some extent, Occupy Wall Street. Certainly much of what's wrong in this country is the fault of giant corporations and their excessive greed.



But this -- Occupy Philly -- is misguided. There's very little that Mayor Nutter or anyone in city government can do about these problems. Nothing they are doing by camping out here is having any effect on Washington politics. And that is where action is needed. Corporations will not police or reform themselves. The government has to do it. Everyone who's sitting around here and in other places all need to head to D.C. and take the protest to Capitol Hill and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And, of course, they all have to vote in every election (primaries and general elections) and keep voting no matter what. Just voting for Barack Obama in 2008 obviously wasn't enough to effect real change.

Philadelphia's First Skyscraper?

When I was downtown the other day I was fascinated enough by an old building on Walnut Street to take this picture...

According to some websites I looked at, the Witherspoon Buidling is Philadelphia's first skyscraper. Not sure how official that is. It was completed in 1897. As you can see in the photo, it housed the "Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work."

I was fascinated by the fact that this building, with its intricate front, is sitting empty, at least at street level (note the sign in the window). It's close to City Hall, just down from Broad Street, and right across from IHOP. :) Seems like a great location. I wonder how much money it would take for a business to make a go of it there, especially in these hideous economic times.

Maytag Repairman, Meet The Apple Security Guard

On Saturday night I was returning to my hotel room after the Camac St. block party, part of my softball weekend. I was staying at the Sheraton at 17th and Race. Walking along Walnut St. towards 17th, I passed by the Apple store that opened up a few months ago. I couldn't help but notice it was rather bright inside the store. For a moment I thought it was open. Then I saw that it wasn't, obviously, and I noticed the one person who was inside -- the security guard. Playing around with an iPad. Now that's a job for me...if you can guarantee no one would ever try to break in and shoot me in a robbery attempt, that is.

It was a pretty fun weekend, although our team lost 4 out of 5 games -- we went 1-2 in the round-robin portion on Saturday, then lost twice more (once Saturday, once Sunday morning).

A few more odd pictures. Well, the first two pictures aren't odd, but the reason I took them is.

This is, as you can see, Suburban Station. All SEPTA Regional Rail trains pass through here (the train platforms themselves are actually underground). So you'd think it's quite a busy place.

Busy enough, in fact, that you'd think the doors would be open for anyone trying to catch a train.

You'd be wrong. At least on Sunday.