Tourism : In The News

The New York Times spends 36 hours in Philadelphia

The New York Times Tuesday, January 15, 2013

A writer from the New York Times spends "36 Hours" in Philadelphia, hitting up the Philadelphia History Museum, Johnny Brenda's, 13th Street and one particularly spicy spot:

Across the Schuylkill in University City, the newest location of the locally beloved Han Dynasty (3711 Market Street; 215-222-3711; handynasty.net) has a wide-open dining room with modern lines, rough-hewn wood and a kitschy cocktail list. Bucket-size drinks like the Scorpion Bowl and Singapore Sling are $5 during happy hour. But the food is the real attraction. Plates come one after the other in family-style portions — dan dan noodles ($7.95), double-cooked fish ($17.95) and spicy, crispy cucumbers ($6.95), each rated 1 to 10 on Han’s hot-or-not index.

Original source: The New York Times
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The Wall Street Journal celebrates Rosenbach Museum & Library

The Wall Street Journal Tuesday, December 04, 2012

The Wall Street Journal highlights the Rosenbach Library & Museum, an amazing private collection of books and manuscripts located on a gorgeous, out-of-the-way street near Rittenhouse Square. Gems include the manuscript of James Joyce's Ulysses, early editions of Chaucer and a huge collection Maurice Sendak's paintings, illustrations and editions (including original drawings of Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen).

To handle scholarly materials, the Rosenbach requires not the usual white gloves demanded by other libraries but a good old-fashioned hand-washing (latex can do more damage to delicate paper than clean, oil-free hands). I couldn't resist asking to see and touch one piece that stopped my heart and brought tears to my professorial eyes. It was the manuscript whose purchase got A.S.W. Rosenbach started on the final, and greatest, chapter of his buying career. In London in 1885 Sotheby's had sold at auction the manuscripts of six letters of John Keats. Oscar Wilde, enraged by the salacious intermingling of art and commerce, wrote a protest sonnet. Thirty-five years later, at Manhattan's Anderson Galleries, Rosenbach bought the poet's penultimate letter to Fanny Brawne, his fiancée, dated July 5, 1820, before his departure for Italy, where he died of tuberculosis seven months later. The great poet was also a typical, temperamental 24-year-old young man who, finding his girlfriend flirting with his roommate, wrote to her with envy, jealousy, rage and sadness, "I will resent my heart having been made a football."

Original Source: The Wall Street Journal
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Business Insider admires Philly's murals

Business Insider Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Business Insider takes a self-guided tour of Philadelphia's Mural Mile and walks away impressed. Their slideshow offers a great run-down of some of the city's most visible public art pieces.

The program has grown into a thriving network of muralists, youth, local businesses, and Philadelphia residents all seeking to add more beauty to the City of Brotherly Love. More than 3,000 murals have now been painted all around the city, and many more are in progress. We've heard some incredible praise for the program, so we decided to go see it in person. We took the self-guided walking tour of Mural Mile in the Center City neighborhood, and thought it was astounding.

Original Source: Business Insider
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Art Museum among those dabbling in digital

The New York Times Monday, October 29, 2012

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is highlighted by The New York Times as one of several art institutions across the country that are utilizing digital platforms to engage audiences.

or example, next summer the Philadelphia Museum of Art is planning five simultaneous exhibits oriented to families, including an interactive watercolor project inspired by the award-winning artist and author Jerry Pinkney as well as an environment using fancy dress costumes from the early 20th century for children in a setting designed by the artist Candy Depew. “There is a small amount of technology, but that is not the focus of what we do with kids,” said Emily Schreiner, associate curator of education for family and community learning at the museum.

Original source: The New York Times

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Tracing Prohibition's maddening journey at the National Constitution Center

The New York Times Monday, October 22, 2012

With 120 artifacts and plenty more multimedia displays and activities, the National Constitution Center's "American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" exhibit gets a solid review from The New York Times.

The show’s curator is Daniel Okrent, who (aside from having been the first public editor of The New York Times) wrote an excellent, nuanced history of Prohibition, “Last Call,” a book whose details also informed Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s 2011 documentary, “Prohibition.”

The exhibition, like the book, touches on important themes in its narrative, but there is almost nothing dry about it, except that in the mock speakeasy at its center, the bottles are empty and nothing is served. In that gallery, you are served up Prohibition as a form of unlicensed and licentious play. A giant video screen shows film footage of the Charleston, while on a dance floor, foot markers teach visitors the moves.

Original source: The New York Times

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Barnes becomes first major art institution to go LEED-Platinum

The New York Times Monday, October 01, 2012

The New York Times writes about the Barnes Foundation's recent LEED-Platinum rating, making it the first institution of its kind to earn such a designation.

“From diverting 95 percent of construction waste from landfills as it redeveloped this brownfield site to a building with anticipated energy savings of 44 percent over a traditionally designed equivalent, it’s a marquee project not only for Philadelphia but the country,” the council’s president and chief executive, Rick Fedrizzi, said.

Original source: The New York Times

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Toronto's love song for Philadelphia's art scene

Toronto Globe & Mail Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Toronto Globe & Mail absolutely gushes about Philadelphia and it's proximity, affordability, easy-to-navigate grid and art attractions.

A friend had told us not to miss the massive mural in the Curtis Center building. Luckily, the doors were still open so we stepped into the deserted foyer to soak in Dream Garden – 100,000 pieces of hand-blown glass that were installed in 1916 by by Louis Comfort Tiffany, who based the design on a painting by Philadelphia-born Maxfield Parrish.

We were almost back to our hotel on Rittenhouse Square when we found Parc, a French bistro with sidewalk tables, and couldn’t resist stopping for a kir royale and some people-watching before turning in.

Original source: Toronto Globe & Mail

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Nutter: Hospitality holds keys to city's challenges, assets

Huffington Post Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Mayor Michael Nutter writes in Huffington Post about the Philadelphia hospitality sector's ability to transform the city.

And so while tourism attracts new people to our city, it is a major source of jobs for the Philadelphians who live here. Construction jobs each time a new hotel or museum is built; executives, managers, customer service staff and maintenance employees operating each new hotel; skilled tradesmen and women setting up and taking down every convention stage and showroom; concierges, tour guides and marketing professionals hired as new attractions come online; chefs, servers and bartenders hired when restaurants open their doors to new customers.

Some 56,000 Philadelphians are employed in the hospitality industry, and so a major priority of our city is to keep that machine running smoothly.

Original source: Huffington Post
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Six things you can get only in Philadelphia

Saveur Monday, August 20, 2012

Thankfully, Saveur's story goes beyond the cheesesteak to find six things you can only get in Philadelphia.

It was raining buckets when SAVEUR senior editor Gabriella Gershenson and I rolled into Philadelphia for a whirlwind 36-hour, 8-restaurant, million-calorie tour of the East Coast's most exciting emerging food town. This was a good thing: It meant that there was hardly a wait at all at Federal Donuts, the blazingly popular doughnut-and-fried-chicken emporium tucked away on a Pennsport side street where out-the-door lines and midafternoon sellouts are de rigueur. The sun came out for the rest of our trip, and so we criscrossed the city on foot, making our way from farmers' markets filled with jewel-like Amish produce to hushed, leafy terrace restaurants to the riotous 9th Street Italian Market, where century-old, family-run pork stores vie for space with Vietnamese produce stands and Mexican groceries. Through it all there was a continuous thread of something ineffably Philly: bright and optimistic, entirely unpretentious and yet exacting in quality. When it comes to eating, this city is operating miles beyond the cheesesteak.

Original source: Saveur

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Frugal travel: Philadelphia as a midweek deal

Washington Post Monday, August 20, 2012

The Washington Post writes about a city that "more or less belonged to" its travel section as it went in search of some midweek travel deals.

We found ourselves alone in a museum, befriended bartenders and shopkeepers who had nothing better to do than share their life stories with us, stumbled upon some sweet weekday-only deals and happenings, and never waited for a drink or a table. Our only regret: that we hadn’t also been there for Monday and Tuesday.

Original source: The Washington Post

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Going global: Philly ranks 71st in the urban revolution, circa 2025

Foreign Policy magazine Monday, August 20, 2012

You've been reading in Flying Kite for some time about the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia-led World Class Greater Philadelphia initiative, which aims to establish our region as a world-class city by 2026. The folks at Foreign Policy magazine have created a list of the most dynamic cities of 2025 that represent the coming urban revolution, and Philadelphia ranks 71st behind the likes of Atlanta, San Diego and Ankara, Turkey.

Developed using McKinsey Global Institute's Cityscope database of 2,600 cities, the index represents one possible scenario of the urban world's evolution. Cities refer to integrated metropolitan areas, aggregating neighboring cities into a single urban center where appropriate. Estimates are based on underlying demographic and GDP per capita growth projections, and subject to significant uncertainty in evolution of everything from population and migration patterns to per capita GDP growth and exchange rate outlook.

Original source: Foreign Policy magazine

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Embracing Philadelphia's 'front porch' at 30th St. Station

National Resource Defense Council blog Friday, August 10, 2012

The National Defense Resources Council likes what's happenin gin Philly, citing The Porch, a placemaking creation of the University City District, as a welcoming entryway to the city.

What a great idea. The space is adjacent to the country’s third busiest train station and within easy walking distance of over 16,000 jobs. UCD’s executive director, Matt Bergheiser, says that 1,800 pedestrians on average stroll along the sidewalk every hour on weekdays. With some nine acres of developable land now covered only by surface parking lots, the area also has the potential for further walkable development linking Center City, the station, and University City.

Original source: National Resources Defense Council blog

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Esquire declares Philly 'late-night capital'

Esquire Friday, August 10, 2012

Good brew and food for hungry fellas in the wee hours puts Philadelphia on Esquire's radar as the late-night capital of the U.S.

Once referred to as the "workshop of the world," the great factory city of Philadelphia still has a third-shift appetite: It gets hungry after midnight. And it doesn't hurt that the local love for microbrewing, dating to the late 1600s, shows up on beer lists so intricately compiled they'd be described as curated in more pretentious cities. (Yes, Brooklyn, I mean you.) Epic jukeboxes and random dartboards, roasted meat and melted cheese, super-hard-to-find beers and whiskey neat — all served up without judgment in an American stronghold for going big into the wee hours: Welcome to the dark side.

Original source: Esquire

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Pizza Brain's Kickstarter campaign will 'increase the piece' from Fishtown HQ

Tecca Monday, July 30, 2012

Fishtown will be home to the world's first pizza history museum when Pizza Brain opens in August, reports Tecca.

The brainchild of Brian Dwyer and his friends, Pizza Brain -- with its delicious slogan, "Increase the Piece" -- will open its doors next month thanks to the power of Kickstarter, where Dwyer was able to raise enough dough earlier this year to turn his dream into a reality. The combination museum and restaurant will house hundreds of pieces of pizza memorabilia that Dwyer has amassed over the years -- a collection which got him recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records last July.

Original source: Tecca

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Philadelphia leaders take to Toronto to share and 'steal'

Yonge Street Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Greater Philadelphia Economy League Executive Director Steve Wray talkes to Flying Kite sister publication Yonge Street about his organization's Greater Philadelphia Leadership Exchange, which visits Toronto this week.

One the focuses of the Economy League is what it means to be a world-class region and what it would take for Greater Philadelphia to attain status as a world-class region. As we select places to go, we look for regions that are world class or striving to be world class. Clearly Toronto has attained the status in the global community as a city and region on the rise, as a global financial capital and as an international city. We thought there were a lot of lessons we could bring back to Philadelphia from Toronto that would serve us well.

Original source: Yonge Street

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