Smooth Traveler:
Under the radar
By Renée & Barry Gordon
My friends always tease me about my telephone message, “If you recognize this voice you know I could be anywhere.” The message is true, I will go everywhere because I have never been anywhere that was totally devoid of attractions and activities but I will admit that sometimes you have to seek them out. This week I decided to give you a ‘heads up’ on some places and events that are currently not registering on most people’s radar. The list is in no particular order but to qualify as a truly “smooth traveler” you will have to check them out.

On Saturday, May 17th and Sunday, May 18th the Free Library of Philadelphia will host the second annual Philadelphia Book Festival. Barbara Walters, Eric Jerome Dickey, Bernadette Peters and James McBride are just four of more than sixty writers participating in book signings, readings and discussions, but Philly’s homage to the written word does not stop there. The festival is designed to satisfy your inner bibliophile and engage your outer fun seeker.
Everyone loves a parade and the weekend opens with a Vine Street promenade of fictional characters that have delighted the young and old including cuddly Winnie-the-Pooh, beasts from “Where the Wild Things Are” and heroes from “Star Wars.” The parade begins at 11:30 AM at 19th & Vine.

The area surrounding the library will be filled with nearly one hundred kiosks enabling visitors to get up close and personal with authors and publishers and a Gaming Gallery and open mic are unique features of this year’s festival. Spoken word artists and more traditional poets will have an opportunity to present their works to a live audience. Cutting edge video and virtual reality games will be available in the Gaming Gallery.

Throughout the festival international artists will present a series of World Music concerts. The musicians, from around the globe, will perform blues, jazz, Brazilian dance and swing. Highlights of the live music concert are Emeline Michel, the reigning Queen of Haitian song and Québecois performer Benoit Bourque. More information on this free event is available at www.freelibrary.org/bookfestival.

Though only open to those in the beauty industry, the third annual New York Makeup Show, being held on Sunday, May 18th and Monday, May 19th at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W. 18th Street, is a mandatory event. Speakers and exhibitors are drawn from all aspects of the make-up industry from modeling to special effects artistry, print media, film and theater.

The daily schedule of events includes speakers, seminars, discussion groups, demonstrations and interactive workshops. Products are available for purchase. The event is only open to members of the industry and students. Information is available on the website.
www.themakeupshow.com

Due to open shortly, the National Museum of Crime & Punishment will be Washington, DC’s newest museum. The NMCP is a project of the host of “America’s Most Wanted,” John Walsh and will trace the history of crime, punishment and societal and judicial responses throughout the ages.  

 
Five thematic galleries, “A Notorious History of American Crime,” “Punishment: The Consequence of Crime,” “Crime Fighting,” “The CSI Experience” and “America’s Most Wanted: John Walsh’s Personal Story,” take visitors from the country’s first crime and criminals to high-tech villains and state-of-the-art forensic science. Presentations are enhanced with interactive displays, simulators, artifacts and interpretive plaques. Highlights will include an electric chair, gas chamber, CSI lab and interactive experiences such as computer hacking. 575 7th Street NW.
www.crimemuseum.org  

   In 1986 the American Women’s Heritage Society was organized to restore and operate the 18th century Belmont Mansion in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. They remain the sole African American organization managing a historic park estate.  

A lawyer, William Peters, originally constructed the home in the 1740’s but by the onset of the American Revolution ownership had passed to his son Richard who would become a state senator, a judge and a member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. Records indicate that Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison and Washington visited and the house served as a station on the Underground Railroad.

Today the mansion features an Underground Railroad Museum and the history of African Americans in the colonial era. The tour includes rooms in the house noted for their decorative plaster ceilings. The gift shop on the premises has wonderful handcrafted dolls and small quilt squares in UGRR patterns.
Belmont Mansion is also available for rental for weddings and private functions. 2000 Belmont Mansion Drive.
www.belmontmansion.org

In January of 2000 Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman announced their $15 million dollar gift to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This support facilitated the museum’s acquisition and renovation of the 1927 Fidelity Life Insurance Building, renamed the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, located on a two-acre site bordered by Pennsylvania Avenue, 25th Street, Fairmount Avenue, and 26th Street in Philadelphia.  Adjacent to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, it is among the most distinctive architectural structures in the Franklin Parkway area.

The “Squirrel of Thrift” and the “Pelican of Charity,” two gilded terracotta figures by sculptor Lee Lawrie, cap the towers of the Art Deco façade and the Dog of Fidelity as the central motif, guards the monumental entrance. The lobby, original to the building, retains its Art Deco fixtures and marble flooring.
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has amassed one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of costumes and textiles in the world and the Department of Costume and Textiles, and the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photography are now housed in the Perelman Building. Additionally it provides a new home for three of the museums’ major areas of conservation, with fully equipped laboratories for treatment of paintings, costumes and textiles.

The collection, which ranges in scope from Chinese Han Dynasty textiles and renaissance fabrics to Grace Kelly’s wedding dress, will now have a greater opportunity for more comprehensive displays. Current exhibitions include “Fashioning Kimono: Art Deco and Modernism in Japan.”

The Wachovia Education and Resource Center is located on the second floor of the building.  It is a high-tech resource site for curricular planning and provides educators the means to make connections combining the visual arts with mathematics, science, history, language arts, and other subjects. The center is staffed during and after school hours and on weekends for teachers.
www.philamuseum.org.

One of the most recognized landmarks in Fairmount Park is Memorial Hall.  Erected in 1876 as the only permanent structure for the world’s first World’s Fair, it remains one of Philadelphia’s most magnificent buildings. On October 18th it will re-open as the new, $88 million dollar, home of the Please Touch Museum.    

Entry will be through the Great Hall, a marble marvel, dominated by Lady Liberty’s torch comprised solely of toys. The wings of the museum are thematic. The West Wing featuring real world experiences and the East Wing exploring the possibilities of wonderland and creative play. Highlights of the collections are endless and include a SEPTA bus,  a shoe store, the Cloud Hop, Rainforest Rhythms, Wanamaker’s monorail and an exquisite 1924 Dentzel Carousel.

   Please Touch will be open daily at a fee. Reservations for school groups are being accepted. There will be no admission charge for public, private, parochial or home-schooled students.
www.pleasetouchmusem.org

   Remember, next time you are looking for something to do or somewhere to go check out all the options. Something wonderful may just be flying under the radar.

I wish you smooth and astounding travels!