Posts tagged with PHILADELPHIA (PA)

5 Results | All tags »

Have a Layover? Hit the Library

Photo
The new airport branch of the Free Library of Philadelphia.Credit Philadelphia International Airport

There’s a new library in Philadelphia – and it’s in the airport.

The Free Library of Philadelphia recently opened an outpost in the Philadelphia International Airport in the form of a book-themed lounge with free Wi-Fi access to the library’s digital catalog.

Passengers are encouraged to relax in the reading room, in the concourse between the D and E terminals, and download books or author podcasts from the library’s collection of nearly 30,000 titles.

“We brought our high-speed line out to the airport in that little area. That Internet connectivity is extraordinarily robust, it matches what we have in the library,” said Siobhan Reardon, president and director of the Free Library.

The idea was inspired in part by an especially snowy winter, she said.

“We were having extensive blizzards here in Philadelphia, and we knew that there were thousands of people camping in the airport,” Ms. Reardon said. “We thought, ‘What if we put a library in?’ ” Read more…

Calendar: Coming Events in Traverse City, Mich.; Philadelphia; Düsseldorf, German

Photo
Credit Eric Raymond

Midwest Space Fest, Traverse City, Mich. The wonders of the night sky will be celebrated at the Midwest Space Fest on Oct. 4 and 5 in Traverse City, Mich. The first-time event will include films, talks, exhibitions, music with space themes and, of course, ample sun, moon and star gazing; it is timed to coincide with World Space Week. Magnetic North, the nonprofit organization that is hosting the festival, said the wide vistas and comparative lack of city lights in the northern Michigan skies are ideal for astronomy enthusiasts of all levels.

Capture the Moment: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs, Philadelphia The National Constitution Center will show more than 150 award-winning images from Oct. 11 to Dec. 31. Shots of Babe Ruth watching his number being retired at Yankee Stadium, Monrovia under siege, a family reunion after the release of a Vietnam P.O.W., and a firefighter cradling an injured infant after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 are among the photographs. The exhibition, organized chronologically and updated annually, is part of a traveling show that includes every winner since the Pulitzer board began awarding prizes for photography in 1942.

“One Night Only,” Düsseldorf, Germany Dedicated (and efficient) culture vultures who find themselves in Düsseldorf on Oct. 7 can attend an evening of music, acrobatic performance art and fine dining — all under one roof. “One Night Only,” hosted by three of the city’s cultural institutions — Apollo Varieté, a dinner theater company; Tonhalle Düsseldorf, a concert hall; and the Düsseldorf Opera — takes place in the multilevel atrium of the InterContinental Düsseldorf, where a three-course meal prepared by the hotel’s chef is served while the show goes on. Tickets for the event cost 139 euros (about $178).

A New Benjamin Franklin Museum

The new Benjamin Franklin Museum opens on Saturday in Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, with 21st-century hands-on exhibits and computer simulations designed to animate the character and wisdom of the 18th-century sage.

In an underground space originally built for the 1976 bicentennial, the 9,500-square-foot museum covers the life and times of the founding father, including his contributions to science, diplomacy and politics. It is next to Franklin’s original home, indicated by a skeletal “ghost house.”

Extensive computer animation covers Franklin in aspects from active to reflective; for example, flying a rooftop kite to test electrical conductivity and writing his autobiography. Personal artifacts include a chess piece and the hand-carried “sedan chair” he used during the 1787 Constitutional Convention when he was too ill to walk. Matching games, touch objects and flip books encourage interaction.

Franklin “was wealthy enough to retire at age 42 so that he could pursue his goal of being ‘useful,’ ” Cynthia MacLeod, superintendent of Independence National Historical Park, wrote in an e-mail. “Although never president of the United States, his accomplishments and advice probably have had more widespread and long-lasting impact than any other figure in our country.”

In Philadelphia, a New Campaign to Attract Gay Travelers

Ten years after producing the first American television commercial to promote a city to the gay community, Philadelphia is reinforcing its appeal to LGBT travelers with a new campaign video.

The new video builds on the city’s memorable 2003 “Get Your History Straight and Your Nightlife Gay” campaign by showing the flamboyant female impersonator Miss Richfield 1981 touring some of Philadelphia’s best-known sites, including Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Dressed in a red-and-white striped skirt and a tight blue bodice, Miss Richfield poses with Betsy Ross — the Betsy Ross House is in the city — and runs the “Rocky Steps” at the art museum but is distracted by the muscular torsos of a quartet of young male joggers on the banks of the Schuylkill.

Philadelphia’s combination of culture and a gay-friendly atmosphere has proved to be a strong draw for the LGBT community, which has made the city one of the top 10 gay destinations in the United States, said Meryl Levitz, chief executive of the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation. Read more…

Bastille Days the World Over

Photo
French Gendarmery troops during a rehearsal on Tuesday in Paris for the Bastille Day parade.Credit Francois Mori/Associated Press

The 14th of July is a huge national holiday in France, and in Paris this year’s festivities begin the night before with dance parties hosted, per tradition, by municipal fire stations across the city.

The revelry is followed the next morning with a time-honored military parade down the Champs-Élysées and then a massive fireworks display above the Eiffel Tower.

But Bastille Day is by no means confined to France — le quatorze juillet has become a global celebration — and it seems the farther-flung the fête, the funkier its flavor.

It makes sense that London would have a sizable Bastille Day celebration, since there are as many as 400,000 French nationals living there — a larger French population, in fact, than that of some actual French cities like Strasbourg or Bordeaux. This year’s event centers around Borough Market in the Bankside neighborhood and includes a bilingual children’s story time, snail races (they’re very slow), “La Marseillaise” singalongs and pickup games of pétanque. Read more…
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/philadelphia-pa/
intransit.blogs.nytimes.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2014-41
166194
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:K7O6AFTW7FEPWLU6X2AG7JA5STXLTKNJ
<urn:uuid:a8a4dd55-115a-433a-b96b-04b347a1fc4a>
2014-09-23T04:20:13Z
170.149.159.153
sha1:WDJAEXO2YGTAJL55UP5IMSOZRJJTFEHY
<urn:uuid:4cfb9f50-4f95-4c37-9c68-bffab1d3f2a5>
http://intransit.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/philadelphia-pa/
length
response
<urn:uuid:77055e9e-22c3-4cb4-ae86-cedadb6f41d4>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-234-18-248.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-41
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for September 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf