tourism : In The News

Philadelphia keeps reeling in the travel accolades, including a spot on this travel company's list of places to go in 2016.

Philadelphia may be one of the oldest cities in the country—UNESCO recently named it the first World Heritage City in the United States—but the wave of new eateries popping up in seemingly every neighborhood is evidence of both a food renaissance and cultural revival in the city. Formerly under-the-radar areas like Fishtown and Northern Liberties have experienced an immense revitalization with the arrival of many new breweries and beer gardens, turning these once-quiet neighborhoods into hip nightlife and cuisine hubs. Meanwhile, Philadelphia continues its rising trend of development with the stunning new Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk, as well as the soaring Comcast Innovation and Technology Center skyscraper that will house the much-buzzed-about new Four Seasons Hotel (expected to open in 2018). And, of course, the Democratic National Convention, taking place in Philadelphia in 2016, will usher in a wave of tourists and an even greater renewal of interest in this historic city.

Original source: Fodor's
Read the complete list here. 

It's an embarrassment of riches for Philadelphia art fans this season -- The New York Times profiles four shows at four local institutions. 

Rarely is it a better time than now for a trip to Philadelphia, where four of the city’s major art institutions are presenting exceptionally rewarding shows, each distinctively its own thing. ThePennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts offers a comprehensive retrospective of the career of Norman Lewis, the first such exhibition to be devoted to this African-American Modernist painter and one that invites viewers to consider Mr. Lewis’s place in the history of the country’s art. Dazzling the eyes and intriguing the mind, thePhiladelphia Museum of Art presents two centuries’ worth of American still-life paintings and sculptures, from John James Audubon’s images of birds and mammals to Andy Warhol’s Brillo boxes. The Barnes Foundation has an astounding presentation of extravagantly ornamental antique works of wrought iron from a French museum, including door knockers with demonic faces and coffee grinders that look as if dreamed up by a steampunk artist. And the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania has a solo show of delightfully offbeat works by the self-taught New York artist Christopher Knowles.

Original source: The New York Times
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The budget airline will add new flights in and out of Philadelphia International Airport. 

Spirit Airlines  is expanding in Philadelphia, adding new nonstop routes to Detroit and Fort Lauderdale.  Once the flights begin on April 29, Spirit will fly to eight destinations nonstop from Philadelphia.

"We are excited to bring more low fare choices to more places for our customers," Mark Kopczak, Spirit’s Vice President of Network Planning, says in a statement. "Spirit continues to make flying more affordable in Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, and Philadelphia, enabling customers to visit places they previously couldn't afford."

Spirit will fly one daily round-trip flight on both routes, but it will face direct competition.

Original source: USA Today
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Local food writer Drew Lazor goes deep on Stargazy, the British-style pie shop that recently opened on East Passyunk Avenue.

But what really sets Stargazy apart is the pie and mash itself, a simple but incredibly satisfying dish that has yet to have its moment here in the States. Understanding the appeal of this beloved blue-collar meal, Jacobson and others will tell you, is key to understanding the DNA of London’s working class. It’s that city’s original fast food — and if the early reaction to Stargazy is any indication, Americans are picking up on it quick.

Jacobson, who holds dual U.K./U.S. citizenship, originally crossed the pond for work ten years ago and hasn’t left. He’s cooked in a number of restaurants around the country, most notably a string of small, critically acclaimed, chef-driven restaurants in the Philadelphia area. But when it finally came time to go all in on his own place, Jacobson knew it was an opportunity to introduce something completely different. That something: an American approximation of the “proper” pie and mash shops of his childhood.

While not an everyday thing, Jacobson has vivid memories of visiting these tidy canteen-style shops with his father, who himself was raised on the stuff in London’s East End. The single-plate combination of a flaky-cased beef pie, mashed potato, electric-green parsley liquor and a right scoop of eels is the type of comfort food that sticks with you as much as to you.

“It was something I became more nostalgic for after I moved away and couldn’t have it anymore,” says Jacobson, who began poking around to learn how other pie men in the States did it. He quickly came to a realization: “Nationally, I couldn’t find a single shop. I thought, there has to be room for one.” As far as he can tell, Stargazy still holds that distinction a little more than three months in. 

Original source: Food Republic
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Bruce Springsteen has announced a 9-week tour -- and he's making a stop in Philadelphia.

On Friday the 66-year-old icon announced The River Tour with the E Street Band, which starts Jan. 16, 2016, in Pittsburgh.

Springsteen will play 24 dates and wrap the tour on March 17, 2016, at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

Tickets go on sale Dec. 11. The tour also will visit Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta and New York's Madison Square Garden.

Friday's announcement of the tour was made the day he released the four-disc "The Ties That Bind: The River Collection," which includes unreleased songs, the original 1980 "The River" album and more.

Before the tour, Springsteen will perform on "Saturday Night Live" on Dec. 19.

Original source: Associated Press via The New York Times
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The latest entry in the 'Rocky' franchise soars, and shows off a fresh Philadelphia. From A.O. Scott's New York Times review:

“Creed” is a dandy piece of entertainment, soothingly old-fashioned and bracingly up-to-date. The punches fly, the music soars (hip-hop along with Ludwig Goransson’s variations on the old Bill Conti brass) and the ground is prepared for “Creed II.” We’ll see how that goes. But for now it is sweet to have this lesson in the importance of fast footwork, brute power and brotherly love.

Reuters, meanwhile, took a look at how the depiction of Philadelphia has evolved since that original Oscar-winning film:

In the final scene of the movie "Creed," aging boxer Rocky Balboa stands atop the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and surveys the gleaming steel and glass office towers of the city's skyline.

The 72 stone steps look the same as they did when Balboa, played by Sylvester Stallone, ran up them in the famous training montage from 1976's Academy Award-winning "Rocky." But the view in "Creed," which opens on Wednesday in theaters nationwide, is clearer and brighter, reflecting Philadelphia's revival.

"In the 1970's, this city was right in middle of half a century of population decline," said Larry Eichel, director of the Pew Charitable Trust's Philadelphia Research Initiative. "In the last eight years, the city has grown by 72,000 people. That's not as much as other cities, but when you put it in the context of a half century of decline, it's an achievement."

Even the city's hipper side gets a shout-out.

In the original film, Rocky hung out in a bar so run down that in one scene his best friend struggles to comb his hair in a bathroom mirror so broken that only a fragment of glass remains.

In the new film, Adonis Johnson, the son of Balboa rival-turned-mentor Apollo Creed, leaves behind a life of privilege to walk in the footsteps of a father he never knew. The title character, played by Michael B. Jordan, hangs out in Johnny Brenda's, a bar whose 2003 renovation as a live music venue marked a turning point in the gritty Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown.

Original source: New York Times, Reuters
 

The Philadelphia Zoo's adorable balls of fur have finally been officially named.

There wasn't much suspense over the recent mayoral race in Philadelphia, but voters waited with baited breath over the results of a more recent election: what should we name the two panda cubs born at the Philadelphia Zoo this summer?

The Zoo announced the winning names on Friday, after tallying over 40,000 votes online. The brother and sister pair will now go by Betsy and Ben, and if you need that reference explained to you, go back to history class.

Betsy and Ben destroyed the competition, garnering 17,000 votes in a field of five name pairs. General Curator Kevin Murphy said he was "thrilled" to see so many people get excited about naming the cubs.

“There were some really great submissions and paring down the list wasn’t easy but we are happy with the end result. This was a great way to build excitement as well as welcome these two important cubs to the Philadelphia Zoo,” he said...

The pandas' birth isn't important just because they're so darn cute. The Philadelphia Zoo participates in the Species Survival Plan, a collaboration between zoos around the world to maintain healthy, genetically diverse populations of threatened or endangered species inside zoos.

Original source: Philly Voice
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The Travel Channel show Bizarre Foods visited Philadelphia, and host Andrew Zimmern seemed to have a blast munching on duck hearts and fishing for shad.

Check out air times and clips from the episode here. 

Opera Philadelphia has announced an ambitious new event for 2017.

Over the past few years, Opera Philadelphia has been working on becoming the very model of a modern opera company. It has explored new formats — an opera about Andy Warhol in a warehouse — while continuing its commitment to tradition. It has received grants for innovative outreach projects, such as Hip H’opera in inner-city schools, and a composer-in-residence program. It has been met with critical and public acclaim. And yet, for all of its success, it had a problem — audiences weren’t growing the way that they were supposed to...

Opera Philadelphia announced Tuesday the launch of a new opera festival at the start of its 2017-2018 season. Called O17, the festival will blanket the city with opera — seven events in 12 days, from a traditional opera at the Academy of Music (Barrie Koskie’s production of “The Magic Flute”) to a piece developed by Daniel Bernard Roumain and directed by Bill T. Jones in the Wilma Theater to a double-bill of Monteverdi and a new work by Lembit Beecher, presented in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Selling out? Hardly. Exciting? Yes.

Original source: The Washington Post
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At one point, the future looked bright for this massive ship -- currently docked in Philadelphia -- but now its supporters are scrambling to save it.

A Titanic-sized supership that once ferried presidents, Hollywood royalty, actual royalty and even the Mona Lisa has a place in the history books as the fastest oceanliner in the world. The owners are now racing to avoid having the ship, the S.S. United States, relegated to the junk heap.

A preservationist group, the S.S. United States Conservancy, saved the vessel from being scrapped a few years ago. Its members are working with a developer to give the mothballed vessel a new life as a stationary waterfront real-estate development in New York City, the ship’s home port in her heyday.

Their big dreams, however, now face a financial crisis: Short of money, the conservancy in recent days formally authorized a ship broker to explore the potential sale to a recycler. In other words, the preservationists might have to scrap their vessel...

The S.S. United States left service in the late 1960s. Today she is docked in Philadelphia, stripped of her interiors and rusting in the Delaware River across the street from an Ikea store...

The conservancy has explored many options for repurposing the ship. It discussed a hotel-and-event-space proposal in Miami, a mixed-use development and museum complex in Philadelphia, and redevelopment plans in Boston, Baltimore and Florida’s Port Canaveral. With a major cruise line, the conservancy explored the prospect of returning the ship to oceangoing service.

The preservationists even weighed the possibility, Ms. Gibbs said, of using the ship as an artificial reef — in other words, sinking it — in tandem with a museum and visitor’s center. But, she said, “I have spent over a decade trying to save the ship, not preside over her demolition.”

In recent days, as the board considered its dwindling finances, Hurricane Joaquin was threatening the East Coast, forcing the conservancy to take precautions to make sure their ship stayed safe. “A hurricane struck me as a perfect metaphor for what we were confronting,” Ms. Gibbs said.

Original source: The New York Times
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What a weekend! The pope's visit transformed Philadelphia, giving pedestrians and bikers the run of the town. This editor spent three days tooling around the open streets, luxuriating in the car-free experience -- and even cruising on the Ben Franklin Bridge.

The Inquirer's Inga Saffron raved about the experiment, and encouraged the city to incorporate the lessons learned into everyday life.

When Pope Francis spoke about joy this weekend, he probably wasn't thinking about the ecstasy that comes from being able to stroll down the center of Walnut Street without a car at your back. Or the rapture of skateboarding the wrong way on Pine Street. Or the bliss of biking 20 abreast on Broad Street. Or the pure, giddy fun of playing touch football in front of the Convention Center on Arch Street.

The unprecedented shutdown of the five-square-mile heart of Philadelphia was driven by the need for security (or rather, the perceived need for security), but it inadvertently created the kind of car-free city that urbanists dare imagine only in their wildest dreams. The virtual absence of vehicles in the sprawling secure zone, from Girard to Lombard, was a revelation. Instead of locking us in, it turned out that the much-maligned traffic box liberated us from the long tyranny of the car.
Philadelphia has always claimed to be a walkable city, but this weekend we saw walkability redefined...

While no one would advocate making the traffic box a permanent feature of the city, this carless weekend has opened our eyes to the possibilities of closing streets and limiting traffic. We've seen that closing Center City streets, far from paralyzing the town, can make it a more joyful place.

Original source: The Philadelphia Inquirer
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The Pope Ride took advantage of car-free streets and drew thousands of cyclists -- from weekend warriors in spandex to kids in cargo bikes. Philadelphia Magazine compiled their favorite social media images from the event.

Original source: Philadelphia Magazine
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As the fall leaves turn, long-anticipated restaurants are opening across the city. Are there any future neighborhood institutions in the bunch? Any trends worth tracking? Philadelphia Magazine runs down almost a dozen of the spots they're most excited for.

Restaurant Neuf
943 South 9th Street, Bella Vista
Joncarl Lachman of NOORD is opening his second restaurant, this one with a bar and the French influenced flavors of Northern Africa. Lachman is especially excited about the bouillabaisse which will be a dynamic experience with the broth presented first and the fish added. The chef, who has spent lots of time researching in North African neighborhoods of Paris is also looking forward to the braised goat leg with sweet potatoes, dried apricots, roasted vegetables, crushed mixed nuts and spiced tomato broth....The bar will be the focus after 10 pm with a menu of bar snacks and a Cornell especially wants people to try VP Chartreuse. The aged chartreuse will be available for $20 during happy hour. Half-carafes are another way to enjoy time at the bar. A bar specific menu will be offered after 10 pm as the lighting gets darker and the music is turned up....

Buckminster’s
1200 South 21st Street, Point Breeze
The team behind Café Lift, Prohibition Taproom, Bufad and Kensington Quarters is adding another name to the list with Buckminster’s—a French-Asian concept going into the space at 21st and Federal in Point Breeze. And the chef they’ve got on board? Rob Marzinsky, who did his time at Pub & Kitchen and Fitler Dining Room before taking off to wander around Asia.
Now that he’s back, he’s using the food he ate there as an inspiration for the menu at Buckminster’s. And as a bonus, he’ll be working with Kensington Quarters butcher Heather Thomason, so we know he’ll be getting his hands on some good meats to start things off.

Original source: Philadelphia Magazine
Read the complete list here. 

It's Pope madness -- and the Franklin Institute is getting into the act.

The city's science museum was hosting a blockbuster exhibit of Lego sculptures and preparing to unveil a huge display of Holy See treasures for the pope's upcoming visit when administrators got a serendipitous inquiry.

Would they like to see a model of the Vatican that a priest built entirely of Legos?

"It's amazing," said Larry Dubinski, president and CEO of The Franklin Institute, where the plastic brick structure is now on view in downtown Philadelphia. "People are in awe."

The Rev. Bob Simon spent about 10 months constructing a mini St. Peter's Basilica out of a half-million Legos. His architectural feat includes a Lego pope on a balcony overlooking the crowd in St. Peter's Square, which itself is made up of about 44,000 Lego pieces resembling cobblestones.

A colorful cast of Lego characters populates the piazza, including a nun with a selfie stick and a bespectacled figurine of Simon. All told, the display measures 14 feet by 6 feet and weighs about 100 pounds.

Original source: Associated Press via The New York Times
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With the Pope descending on Philadelphia, the city's shops and designers are creating some awesome threads and keepsakes. (Philadelphia Brewing Company is also getting into the act, producing "Holy Wooder" IPA.) 

When you attend a big concert or an event, grabbing a souvenir is a great way to remember the moment. And with the pope coming to our area there are plenty of unique items being created to mark the occasion.

You'll find a Philly-fied find inspired by Pope Francis' historic visit to Philadelphia on the shelves at Monkey's Uncle in Doylestown.

"The turning water into wine kind of jumped into my head and knowing that we love water ice - one thing led to another," said Dan Hershberg, President and Owner of Philly Phaithful.

The threads are the kitchy and creative work of homegrown Philly Phaithful.

The apparel company, based in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia, wanted to welcome Pope Francis to the "Philavatican" with a sort of South Philly-esque, modern day miracle. 

Original source: 6 ABC
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