July 16 -- still more historical stuff

.

It was hot.  I went in the Second Bank building, which is nice and cool (and has nice bathrooms in the basement, and, for the icing on the cake, a refrigerated drinking fountain!).

My mom grew up in Kosciuszko County, Indiana.  I've always got my eye out for Tadeusz.

Remember good old Bishop White?  Here he is.

John Marshall, chief justice of the Supreme Court.  One of the exhibits in the Constitution Center talked about his importance in bringing the judiciary branch up to be level with the congress and executive branches of our balance-of-power government.

When I left the portrait gallery in the Second Bank building, I found another Once Upon a Nation bench behind the bank.  The story teller offered a tale about "the first bank robbery in the United States."

It seems unlikely to me that this was really the first bank robbery, but I can believe it was the first spectacularly big one.....

Digression:  Two other people heard the story with me.  At the end of the story, the performer/educator asked the three of us where we were from, and why we were in Philadelphia.  I said I was from Ann Arbor, and that I was being a tourist in Philadelphia while my husband played bridge.  The other two were from Sweden, and the woman said she, too, was playing bridge.  Small world.  Especially as my brother and sister-in-law lived in Sweden for two years in the middle of the '80s, and we visited them there, so I've been to Sweden!  End of Digression.



The back of the Second Bank building.

Carpenters' Hall, where the bank robbery went down, was very near this location.  I decided to go have a look. 

It turned out that it wasn't open on Mondays.  Sheesh.

I walked beyond the Carpenters' Hall to another building marked on the map as part of the National Park, and it was offices, rather than open to the public.  Sheesh.

Looking directly east of that employees-only office building.   Reflections and murally stuff, with an older building behind (and a really new edifice at the left edge of this image).

Here's the building with the offices, same reflection as above.

 It was toooo hot to enjoy walking around to this stuff just for the walk.  I was annoyed at climbing steps up to doors, only to find out the place was closed.

I visited the National Park Service gift shop (air conditioned, yay) and bought some postcards, including one with the portrait of Kosciuszko seen above.

This building houses the gift shop.

When I walked around the gift-shop building and found these cobblestones, you know I walked on them.

There were benches along here.  A guy was feeding a flock of sparrows.  He looked up as I walked by.  I remarked that he had a lot of friends.  He said he always fed them.  He said he liked them -- they took what he gave them and didn't fuss to have more.....

I found another bench, in the shade, and took some pics.

That is Carpenters' Hall.  It's in the shape of a plus sign.  And made of bricks......

More Carpenters' Hall.

The park behind the benches had a few flowers.

Stargazer lilies.

I decided it was too damned hot to be walking around, spending only 10 or 20 minutes in the various places of note, especially as the ones that were actually open were not that thick on the ground.

I headed back toward the hotel.

Here is Robert Morris, "Patriot, Statesman, Financier."

I visited the building where Jefferson lived while he was working on the Declaration of Independence.  He rented two rooms, and those two rooms were furnished -- one as a bedroom, and one with a table and chairs.  It looked like the sort of place where a small group of people would be working on something.....

There was nothing on the ground floor (but a small gift shop!).  When I found the stairs, a grandfather and granddaughter were sitting on the stairs.  I asked what was upstairs, and was told Jefferson's rooms were up there.

I decided to go up, since I was there, and all.

When I came back down, the grandfather asked me if it was worth it.

I told him "Well, I'm hot, and I'm tired.  It was a room with a bed, and a room with a table.  Maybe if I wasn't hot and tired I'd have thought it was cool.  But............"

(I don't know if there was any indication that any of the stuff was actually TJ's -- or even if any of it was period.  Who knows.)



Interesting building, with hot blue sky.  At least there was a breeze...........

.