Philadelphia and New York

Gramps had some meetings in Philadelphia, so we hitched a ride to spend a few days there. 

Our first stop was the Betsy Ross house.  M and M are standing by her grave.

Mason spend the entire tour looking up sites on his phone that said she did not sew the first flag.  He was basically able to refute much of what we were reading at her house.  Who knows for sure.  She did sew a flag for General Washington, but it may not be clear if there were others before hers.

Elfreth's Alley is known as "our nation's oldest residential street."  It dates back to the first days of the eighteenth century and it is the oldest continuously inhabited residential street in the country.

 Christ's Church is where Washington and Adams attended when the U.S. Capital was in Philadelphia.  This is the pew where he and his family sat.

M and M were less than impressed with the cemetery, but we had to go see Benjamin Franklin's grave!

The National Constitution Center was one of the highlights.  Here we are among the signers of the Constitution.

Independence Hall is where the Declaration and Constitution were signed. It was really quite neat to be in the same room where these historic events took place.

This is the room where the Declaration and Constitution were debated and signed.

Congress Hall is right next to Independence Hall.  Here is where the first Senate met.  George Washington took his second oath of office here.

 This is Carpenter's Hall. The First Continental Congress met here.

These are the actual chairs that the congress sat in.

I liked this view of the Liberty Bell with Independence Hall in the background.

Personal editorial to follow - feel free to skip if you desire.   Here I go......  As I mentioned earlier, the U.S. Capital was in Philadelphia before it moved to Washington DC.  The house where Washington and Adams lived was called The President's House.  There is only some of the foundation left to see now and it is right next to the Liberty Bell Center.  They have made a display there so that you can walk around and supposedly read all about the President's House.  As we began to do that, we very quickly noticed that EVERY single plaque/posting was about slavery.  That was the entire focus of this area.  It was all about the injustice of owning slaves.  Yes, we all agree that this is a blot on America's timeline.  However, they skipped all the history associated with this historical area to highlight this issue.  Then, we went into the Liberty Bell Center to read/hear all about the bell.  We were disappointed to find that this exhibit has also been shaped by the issue of slavery when in fact the story of the Liberty Bell had nothing to do with that issue.  The first several displays did discuss the background of the bell, but then they quickly went into "but there was not liberty for everyone."  The slave issue was first and it was followed by the fact that women could not vote.  Again, of course slavery is something that Americans are not proud of.  It would have been great if our nation had not even had slavery at its founding.  An accurate study of this issue shows that it was a widely accepted (yet deplorable) practice at the time and that many of our founders wanted to eradicate it earlier than they were able to.  It was a disappointment to see that these two exhibits had been hijacked by a group or groups with an agenda. It would have been nice to read accurately about the history of these places.   

I decided to surprise M and M and go into New York City for one day.  ( I told them what we were going to do when they were riveted by the cemetery and that perked them up a bit.)  The huge bummer was that it poured down rain the first 6 or so hours we were there.  We took the ferry to get as close to the Statue of Liberty as we could in the downpour.

After several hours of not being able to see anything from the bottom level of the tour bus, we decided to get lunch.  We were SOAKED and freezing.  Mal got some napkins at Olive Garden to wrap up her feet.

Here they are acting like they are having a good time.  Seriously though, they were great sports and still so glad that we went.

Things started looking up a bit and we had about 3 hours of minimal rain where we could walk around.  Being in Times Square with all the signs and action is an experience.

If you look closely, you can see the ball that drops on New Year's Eve.

Radio City Music Hall

Rockefeller Center

On the last day we walked back to the Philly historical area to eat at City Tavern.  We stopped by a few place for pics with Gramps.

City Tavern was a place where many of the founders went.  There is a ballroom upstairs where Washington's pre-inaugural ball was held.

I also wanted to walk down to the Delaware River.  Washington and the troops crossed a bit north of here, but I still wanted to see it.

The final place on my list to see was the house that Jefferson rented to have some peace and quiet to write the Declaration of Independence.  This is the spot, but the house has be re-created.  How could they have missed the significance and tear down the original??