Philadelphia Is One Big Please Touch Museum

The Please Touch Museum is the name of Philadelphia’s famous kids’ museum, which gives young visitors an actual bus to drive, a supermarket to navigate and a Mad Hatter tea party to attend among a day’s-worth of fun for the under-7 crowd.

The Museum recently moved to the historical 38,000-sq. ft. Memorial Hall, located in sprawling Fairmount Park, near a noteworthy neighbor: the Philadelphia Zoo. 2009 marked the 150th birthday of America’s first zoo, which today boasts the award-winning exhibit Big Cat Falls, a new bird center & the famous Zooballoon that takes riders up 400 ft. for a spectacular view of the city.

The Please Touch Museum and Philadelphia Zoo could equally describe Philadelphia itself for everybody — a place steeped in history but a living, vibrant world-class city where restaurants, nightclubs, even hotels put new life into elegant old buildings.

The British Empire’s second largest city in the 18th century has evolved into a comfortable place to live and visit. There are historical buildings at every turn that have been adapted to modern life while still giving the feel of what it was like to live back then. The new-world city that started out as the Paris of the Americas has invented its own blend of hip historical reconstruction, respect (if not reverence) for its own past, and relaxed but sophisticated living.

Riding and Walking

Visitors to Philadelphia will be surprised at the growing pride the city has in its own past. If you take a Philadelphia Trolley Works tour for an hour-and-a-half’s overview of the city, which also comes with complete on-and-off privileges for a day or two, you will be amazed at the number of other Trolley Works buses that cross your path. Very informative and helpful guides have a lot to show.

The historic district includes Independence Hall & the Liberty Bell. The city also boasts the country’s oldest art museum (the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), the country’s oldest continuously inhabited street (Elfreth’s Alley), and Benjamin Franklin’s post office (still in use with its own cancellation stamp). The Trolley Works bus, or any ride through the city, passes numerous movie settings, such as City Hall (Philadelphia), the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps (Rocky) and 30th Street Station (Witness).

The city provides a special visitors’ bus called Philly Phlash, which circles the city. But part of the charm of Philadelphia is how walkable it is.

Thomas Jefferson rented a room from a bricklayer on the outskirts of the city to get some peace and quiet to write the Declaration of Independence in the hot summer of 1776. Seeing that house at 7th and Market Streets, just two blocks from Independence Hall, is a reminder of just how convenient a colonial city was — and remains more than two centuries later.

The Lights of Liberty’s sound and light show projected on the walls of Philadelphia’s old buildings recounts in headphones the American Revolution from the French and Indian War through the Declaration of Independence. It takes an hour of dramatic narrative by Walter Cronkite for adults and Whoopi Goldberg for kids (with Charlton Heston reading the Declaration of Independence at the end). But the walk covers barely three blocks even though it starts at Benjamin Franklin’s post office and passes through Benjamin Franklin’s house, Carpenter’s Hall, the American Philosophical Society, the Second Bank of the United States and Independence Hall.

Venerable Institutions

As an old city, Philadelphia has institutions of remarkable quality and longevity. The city’s science museum, The Franklin Institute contains the national memorial to Benjamin Franklin, the country’s first polymath, whose scientific experiment with electricity almost killed him and whose failed diplomacy in London paved the way for national independence.

Franklin bequeathed funds to his native city of Boston and his adopted city of Philadelphia, which were to grow for 200 years before being used. His gift to Philadelphia was fittingly applied to expand the Franklin Institute, which houses, besides a walk-through beating heart, the Fels Planetarium and IMAX theater, and a KidScience exhibit to teach 5- to 8-year-olds about light, water, earth and air.

The Academy of Natural Sciences next door has a world-class dinosaur collection and its own “please touch” live animal exhibit called Outside-In. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has art and armor from all centuries and whole-room interiors from Europe and Asia to match the huge, splendid Greek-style building at the end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts near City Hall has a spectacular collection of American art, while the Masonic Temple across from City Hall has free hourly tours. Its seven rooms designed in famous historical architectural styles include Gothic, Romanesque, classical Greek and ancient Egyptian. Nearby is the Reading Terminal, a famous farmers’ market featuring fresh foods brought by Amish people from Lancaster County to sell to city folk for eating at the Terminal or cooking at home.

The Independence Hall area includes, besides tours of the building where the United States Constitution was debated and passed, the Liberty Bell and Independence Visitor Center. This information center hosts Breakfast with Ben Franklin on Saturdays, offers tickets for tours and attractions, and has a large gift shop.

The historic area’s newest museum, the state-of-the-art National Constitution Center provides interactive lessons on the American Constitution and its role in the country’s history. The nearby waterfront includes the Independence Seaport Museum with Admiral Dewey’s cruiser Olympia and the World War II submarine Becuna that can be boarded and numerous modern restaurants filling the fashionable Old City area.

But those anxious to revel in the colonial experience can repair to the City Tavern, for its beef and Yorkshire pudding and other colonial food served by staff dressed in colonial long dresses and bonnets or britches, as only Philadelphia can muster in its cheerful blend of historic and modern.

Philly Food

For Philadelphians themselves, the city exudes excitement from the sheer number of restaurants that seem to open every month. For a city of more than 100 neighborhoods, each area (nearly each block in some areas) wants to have more restaurants than the next.

The ethnic blend would shock any colonial revisiting the city today, from the Ethiopian and Indian restaurants of West Philly to the fashionable Asian-European blends of Center City. South Philly now mixes its famous Italian trattorias with modest Thai and Vietnamese restaurants that have spread there from Chinatown near the Reading Terminal.

Kids, of course, would probably prefer Philly’s internationally famous cheese steaks, served indoors and out throughout the city. Well-known Pat’s Steaks and Geno’s are both located in South Philly at 9th St. and Passyunk Ave. Others include John’s Roast Pork at Weccacoe St. and Snyder Ave., and Tony Luke’s at 39 E. Oregon Ave. 

Philadelphian Frank Lipsius is contributing writer to MetroKids, a parenting magazine serving Philadelphia and its suburbs, Delaware and southern New Jersey.