Top city for historical tourism (crime, Chicago, restaurant, live)

[a75206]

most people do that, it seems. they don't become tourists in their own town, as it were. But sometimes it's actually fun when you do that. I've done it in various places I've lived, and it is often an eye-opener as to what all stuff there is in your own town (or nearby).

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by a75206

yeah, I am realizing Philly hasn't been a great town for many decades and hasn't marketed itself quite like Boston, so it doesn't necessarily draw people in. The Liberty Bell is just one attraction, perhaps the most famous and popular one in that town. It's places like Eastern State Penitentiary, Mutter Museum, Longwood Gardens, Academy of Music, Wanamaker Organ, the squares in Center City (Rittenhouse, Washington, Franklin, Logan), the elevator ride up City Hall tower, etc etc... that almost any other city would kill to have, and would market as tourism marvels. Philly, OTOH, barely registers on people's tourism maps in places like Texas or out on west coast.

True, Philadelphia has issues. On the way to the Zoo, I made a wrong turn on a nearby block and was in a neighborhood where the houses had no windows or boarded-up windows yet it was obvious people were living in them. I would like to go back and see more of the historical sites, though, and your posts have reminded me of that. If it ever stops snowing up here...

[a75206]

Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801

True, Philadelphia has issues. On the way to the Zoo, I made a wrong turn on a nearby block and was in a neighborhood where the houses had no windows or boarded-up windows yet it was obvious people were living in them. I would like to go back and see more of the historical sites, though, and your posts have reminded me of that. If it ever stops snowing up here...

If you love history and want to check out something off the beaten path, check out the early history of Germantown section of Philadelphia.

[CENTER][SIZE=4]The pious [/SIZE][SIZE=4]Krefeld[/SIZE][SIZE=4]ers who had accepted William Penn's invitation and arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683 aptly called their place Germantown, today a part of Philadelphia. After initial hardships, the guidance provided by [/SIZE][SIZE=4]Francis Daniel Pastorius[/SIZE][SIZE=4], their organizer and first mayor, and the skills of carpenters, weavers and tailors created a prosperous community that grew with new arrivals. As early as 1684, Pastorius set up the first country fair in Philadelphia. The Krefelder's cloth then soon found markets in Boston and New York. [/SIZE][/CENTER]
[SIZE=4]Ten years after its founding, the "German Township" covered 5,700 acres, divided into four sections: Germantown; Kriegsheim--named after the Palatine Quaker's home; Sommerhausen--after Pastorius' Franconian birthplace; and Crefeld--from where the majority of the settlers had come. Recalling their difficult beginnings, Pastorius wrote that some equated their "Germantown" with "Armentown" (town of the poor). [/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]Closely connected to the growing importance of Germantown was William Rittenhouse [Wilhelm Rittenhaus], a 1686 arrival. This first elected Mennonite pastor and bishop also made economic history by founding America's first paper mill (1690). His paper was then also used by another famous Germantowner, [/SIZE][SIZE=4]Christopher Saur[/SIZE][SIZE=4], the printer of the first American Bible (1743). This 1,272 pp. German volume antedates by 40 years the printing of the first English-language Bible in America. The versatile Saur also manufactured printing type and ink, invented optical instruments, improved cast iron stoves, and succeded Ben Franklin's shortlived German-language newspaper with his Hoch Deutsch Pennsylvanischer Geschicht Schreiber (1739). [/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]Pastorius and his Germantowners were appalled by the incompatibility of slavery with Christianity. They are credited with the first protest against Negro slavery as early as 1688. Even though this did not change the fate of Afro-Americans in general, it set the standard for German religious communities. None of them would ever engage in slave-holding, and almost all secular German communities lived up to the Germantown declaration as well. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]By Profs. E. Reichmann and LaVern J. Rippley in Bert Lachner, [/SIZE][SIZE=4]Heimat North America[/SIZE][SIZE=4], (Glen Ellyn, IL:1997) Landmark Books Unlimited, p. 17 [/SIZE]

Text of the Germantown Protest:
The Germantown Protest (1688)

There is a museum where you can check out more things. Washington Post did a great article on the topic. Check it out:

Escapes: Philadelphia's Germantown Neighborhood; the Mennonites' Slavery Protest - washingtonpost.com


I have not gone there yet myself, but perhaps in my next trip up there.


And indeed...the this winter has been crazy up there with all that snow. More is coming your way in a few days, I heard. Blame it on the El Nino Effect and global warming!

[Mightyqueen801]

New York City is steeped in history, but unlike other cities that have a specific historical section, its history is often hidden. Here's some stuff I know just because I'm weird and enjoy history:

The entire town of New Amsterdam was recruited to build a wall of wooden posts on and east-west line across the island of Manhattan sunk four feet deep into the ground and ten feet high above the ground to mark the northern boundary of New Amsterdam and keep out the Native Americans. I have a book with a map from the time showing in all 300 or so of the buildings that existed in New Amsterdam at that time. The wall had to be constantly repaired, because the Native Americans would come at night and steal the posts for firewood. The place where this wall once stood is now called Wall Street, of course.

In 1654, 23 members of Shearith Israel, the first Jewish congregation in the United States, arrived in New Amsterdam. They were Sephardic Jews who left Recife, Brazil, after the Portguese took Recife from the Dutch and brought the Inquisition with them. Their first cemetery, dating from 1683, still exists in what is now Chinatown.

In the 18th century the Dutch drove out a village of Native Americans from an area along a marshy creek called the Minetta. Since some of their slaves had helped them fight the Indians, the slaves were freed and given that land to live on (but their children yet unborn would still be slaves). Eventually the City of New York bought the land and used it first for a potter's field to bury the poor, and then later to bury victims of yellow fever around 1800 to keep the diseased bodies out of the main part of the city. That plot of land was also used for hangings for a while. The last hanging took place in 1800. This area is now Washington Square Park, which is almost surrounded by New York University. There are approximately 20,000 bodies buried under the park.

In the mid-1800's, the NYC waterfront was a source of scorn to other harbor cities because its marshy, mucky Hudson River shoreline meant that ships had to drop anchor well out into the river and bring people and cargo in on smaller boats. In 1870, the Chief Engineer of the Department of Docks began construction on a granite block wall to hold back the river so that docks could be built. The Chief Engineer was General George McLellan of Civil War fame. The wall took until 1915 to complete. Part of it was exposed in 2008 when the portion of it now lying under West Street was removed to facilitate the building of the underground tunnel that will connect the World Trade Center with the World Financial Center (the WFC is built on landfill from the original WTC, so the shoreline has now moved substantially and the wall is no longer on the river line).

There was a pool of water called Freshwater Pond where City Hall now stands. Sump pumps run 24-hours-per-day underneath City Hall to keep water out of the basement.

And here's a history trivia question for New Yorkers (and anyone else who thinks they might know): What was the name of the city in Germany from which NY real estate tycoon John (Johann) Jacob Astor emigrated? The name is familiar to you.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by a75206

If you love history and want to check out something off the beaten path, check out the early history of Germantown section of Philadelphia.







Text of the Germantown Protest:
The Germantown Protest (1688)

There is a museum where you can check out more things. Washington Post did a great article on the topic. Check it out:

Escapes: Philadelphia's Germantown Neighborhood; the Mennonites' Slavery Protest - washingtonpost.com


I have not gone there yet myself, but perhaps in my next trip up there.


And indeed...the this winter has been crazy up there with all that snow. More is coming your way in a few days, I heard. Blame it on the El Nino Effect and global warming!

Can't rep you again, but this is great! Thanks so much. I am particularly interested in the history of slavery in the north and abolitionists, so this is right up my alley.

[a75206]

Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801

New York City is steeped in history, but unlike other cities that have a specific historical section, its history is often hidden. Here's some stuff I know just because I'm weird and enjoy history:

The entire town of New Amsterdam was recruited to build a wall of wooden posts on and east-west line across the island of Manhattan sunk four feet deep into the ground and ten feet high above the ground to mark the northern boundary of New Amsterdam and keep out the Native Americans. I have a book with a map from the time showing in all 300 or so of the buildings that existed in New Amsterdam at that time. The wall had to be constantly repaired, because the Native Americans would come at night and steal the posts for firewood. The place where this wall once stood is now called Wall Street, of course.

In 1654, 23 members of Shearith Israel, the first Jewish congregation in the United States, arrived in New Amsterdam. They were Sephardic Jews who left Recife, Brazil, after the Portguese took Recife from the Dutch and brought the Inquisition with them. Their first cemetery, dating from 1683, still exists in what is now Chinatown.

In the 18th century the Dutch drove out a village of Native Americans from an area along a marshy creek called the Minetta. Since some of their slaves had helped them fight the Indians, the slaves were freed and given that land to live on (but their children yet unborn would still be slaves). Eventually the City of New York bought the land and used it first for a potter's field to bury the poor, and then later to bury victims of yellow fever around 1800 to keep the diseased bodies out of the main part of the city. That plot of land was also used for hangings for a while. The last hanging took place in 1800. This area is now Washington Square Park, which is almost surrounded by New York University. There are approximately 20,000 bodies buried under the park.

In the mid-1800's, the NYC waterfront was a source of scorn to other harbor cities because its marshy, mucky Hudson River shoreline meant that ships had to drop anchor well out into the river and bring people and cargo in on smaller boats. In 1870, the Chief Engineer of the Department of Docks began construction on a granite block wall to hold back the river so that docks could be built. The Chief Engineer was General George McLellan of Civil War fame. The wall took until 1915 to complete. Part of it was exposed in 2008 when the portion of it now lying under West Street was removed to facilitate the building of the underground tunnel that will connect the World Trade Center with the World Financial Center (the WFC is built on landfill from the original WTC, so the shoreline has now moved substantially and the wall is no longer on the river line).

There was a pool of water called Freshwater Pond where City Hall now stands. Sump pumps run 24-hours-per-day underneath City Hall to keep water out of the basement.

And here's a history trivia question for New Yorkers (and anyone else who thinks they might know): What was the name of the city in Germany from which NY real estate tycoon John (Johann) Jacob Astor emigrated? The name is familiar to you.

I knew the origins of the Wall St name but not of the other details. This is awesome! And yes, it seems back in those early days of America as a new country, a lot of cities used their green spaces as potter's fields.

In Philadelphia, Washington Square was used as a potters field in 1790s during the yellow fever epidemics that decimated the city, pretty much similar to Washington Square in Greenwich Village/NYC.

In fact, there is a theory that states that Philadelphia lost out to NYC and D.C. because of the horrid effects of multiple epidemics running through the city back in those days. America's wealthiest man at that time was Stephen Girard, a banker. He single handedly saved the American government by financing its war bonds during 1812. As the eventual proprietor of First Bank of the United States and Second Bank of the United States, he ended up having a lot of power and authority on things in the new country. Seeing how Philadelphia was devastated with those urban diseases, he sought to pressure the U.S. government into moving to D.C., and its financial and business sector to NYC. He wanted Philadelphia to be a small village in between...he himself preferred a bucolic life and sought it outside of then boundaries of the growing city in an area even now called Girard Estates.

Girard ended up willing his immense wealth to charity. Girard College, a private prep school in North Philly that provides free room and board and full scholarship education to all its students (and has been forever) is named for him because he wanted to set up a school for "poor, white boys".

By some estimates, he is the 4th wealthiest American to have ever lived. But not a lot of people know about him or his legacy.


Coming back to Washington Square, it was also the location of graves for the poor, as well as graves for many colonist soldiers from the time of the Revolutionary War. That is why there is now a Grave of the Unknown Soldier in that Square, along with a statue of Gen Washington with his quote:

"In unmarked graves within this square lie thousands of unknown soldiers of Washington's Army who died of wounds and sickness during the Revolutionary War."

Tomb of the Unknown Revolutionary War Soldier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Washington Square (Philadelphia) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[a75206]

Waldorf ASTORia, anyone?!

[Rachael84]

NYC really does have a lot of hidden history. The show Cities of the Underworld is fascinating, and especially for NY. I found the episode online, and I recommend watching it. No other city in the world like NY

Part 1:
YouTube - COTUW - New York 1/5

Part 2:
YouTube - COTUW - New York 2/5

Part 3:
YouTube - COTUW - New York 3/5

Part 4:
YouTube - COTUW - New York 4/5

Part 5:
YouTube - COTUW - New York 5/5

[EastSideMKE]

I voted for Philadelphia. It was more important during the Revolutionary War than Boston or NYC. My only question is, where's New Orleans?

[tmac9wr]

Originally Posted by jjacobeclark

I voted for Philadelphia. It was more important during the Revolutionary War than Boston or NYC. My only question is, where's New Orleans?

Umm, I'm pretty sure Boston was more important during the Revolutionary War...with Philadelphia being more important post-Revolution. Though both were very important in both of those periods.