June 30-July 6, 2005
cover story
Tour de Forced
Photo By: Michael T. Regan  |
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Ever wonder what tourists see when they come to visit historic Philadelphia? So did we.
Hey, you. Yeah, you with the tricorner hat and Hard Rock T-shirt. We're guessing you're a tourist. You need directions? Normally we'd make fun of you and tell you the long way to Pat's and Geno's, but not today. We just walked a mile in your velco Reeboks. We hobbled up the cobblestones, quacked in the Ducks and slept in the hostel. We're tired, sweaty and confused. In short: We feel your pain.
Since there are so many of you here this weekend, we thought we owed it to you to point out a few things.
First: Look how much better Wawa is than Circle K (but don't buy the soft pretzels, they're supposed to be dry).
Second: Sorry Independence Mall looks like ass. We blame the terrorists.
Third: Not all historical tours are created equal. Pick the wrong one, and you'll have some assclown in knickers telling you that the Rocky statue is still perched on top of the Art Museum steps. How're you supposed to know which ones are genuine infotainment and which are merely death marches and wild goose chases?
We'll tell you. See, we strapped on our fanny packs and hit the bricks with nine of the city's most popular historical tours. Secretly.
In the pages that follow, we've rated each of them on a (dry) pretzel scale of 1 to 10 in three areas: entertainment value, hassle factor and factual accuracy. The first two are self-explanatory. We asked ourselves: Would we send a visting friend (one we liked) on this tour? (Keep the lower-scoring tours in mind for out-of-town frenemies.) And finally, since history is our chief export, we wanted to do a little quality control. So we did a little fact-checking to make sure our tour guides aren't slinging bull out there.
We're happy to report that, like George Washington, our tour guides cannot tell a lie.
Kinda. Sorta …
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Hassle Factor: 5 (points off for the price) |
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Entertainment Factor: 7 (more water, less gridlock!) |
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Factual Accuracy: 9 |
(www.phillyducks.com, Sixth and Chestnut sts., $23 adults, $13 kids 3 to 12, $22 seniors/military.)
Captain Ross is standing and giving a lengthy lesson on life jackets. He concludes with "we have not had a situation yet." If he's talking about the Ride The Ducks tour company, he's right. But these amphibious vehicles have experienced a few situations — and not just in WWII when they first got rolling. There was also that incident in Arkansas in 1999 in which a duck boat sank in 15 seconds, killing 13 tourists.
But that's just nitpicking (and hardly the ideal anecdote to start a tour). Anyway, Ride The Ducks has you in and out of the water in like 15 minutes, so what could go wrong? Besides paying $23 for mostly dry Duck.
For the most part, it's not easy to fact-check a tour led by a dry-witted deadpanner like good old Captain Ross. He steers us around UPS trucks and over cobblestones while dropping jokes and historical facts with an unslick, conversational tone. In his mind, William Penn drove an SUV and used a fax machine to correspond with the Indians. (Which, if you think about it, is an antiquated line of comedy even for an anachronism.) Makes you wonder when he's wrong and when he's just effing with you.
Like, does Captain Ross mean it when he points to the Custom House and says it was the building in Ghostbusters? He probably knows better, but my fellow riders say ooh and take pictures, so, you know, either way.
Our fearless captain, who encourages quacking at policemen but never horses, seems to know quite a bit of trivia about Revolutionary War financier Robert Morris. That he signed the Declaration, went to debtor's prison and founded the bank which would one day become Wachovia. But few asides on Penn could use some Googling. He claims Big Willy was involved with the Walking Purchase of Pennsylvania (also called Ripping Off The Lenape-looza 1737), but pretty much everybody agrees that was the conniving footwork of Penn's bad-apple sons.
Generally, though, Captain Ross nails it, from Chief Tamanend to Richard Allen to the Jupiter tugboat to Larry Fine. Even more to his credit — because, really, who's going to retain anything he hears on a duckboat, right or wrong? — he runs a sweet little cruise ship. His version of the land-sea tours of Old City is sedate and comfortable. And for a boat full of fannypackers quacking along to The Village People and lumbering through South Street gridlock, it's less obnoxious than it could have been.
--Patrick Rapa
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Hassle Factor: 5 (it's pretty difficult to get tickets for this popular tour) |
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Entertainment Factor: 8 |
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Factual Accuracy: 7 |
(www.lightsofliberty.org; $17.76 adults, $16 students and seniors, $12 children under 12.)
My friends were a little perplexed when I told them my plans for the evening.
A walking tour that began at 10:30 p.m. sounded a little far-fetched. But when I called for Lights of Liberty tickets that morning, this was the only tour still available for that day.
Like my friends, I had my doubts. At $17.76 for a one-hour tour, it's both the shortest and the most expensive historical walk in the city.
Arriving early, as instructed, I was surprised by the upbeat atmosphere of the crowd. It was a little like being at the theater. The gift shop was packed; kids were running around and everyone seemed excited about the tour. Five minutes before the tour, we were instructed to pick up our headphones and were herded out into night. Our tour guide, Brendon, displayed two impressive guiding traits: a loud voice and the ability to walk backwards, briskly, across uneven pavement and cobblestones.
Philadelphia Trolley Works' Victorian Tour Trolley. Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
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We arrived at the site of Act 1: Franklin Court. This presented the only awkward moment of the tour as we put our headphones on for the first time. It seemed like half the headphones had no audio, and while the guides were well prepared with alternates, there were still people trying to get their headphones on as we moved on to Act 2.
The audio portion of the tour was remarkable. As soon as the tour officially begins, you are surrounded by the sounds of horses, and voices debating the recent Stamp Act. The aural tapestry is so well done that the first time someone made a comment "behind" you, most of the group turned to see if someone was actually standing there. And then you're into the story as the protests grow louder and Deborah Franklin appears to defend her home from the angry mob.
The tour, held together by a strong score by the Philadelphia Orchestra, unfolds like a play. You hear quotes from the man on the street as well as founding fathers. Once the audio tour started, Brendon dissolved into the background, unobtrusively moving the group from one site to the next with his flashlight as we listened to the voices for revolution grow louder.
The story is played out more for effect than historical accuracy. At one point, the crowd worries about the potential for battles in the streets of Philadelphia. You are then treated to a fictional battle near the Second Bank as smoke billows around you and gunshots ring in your ears.
The tour reaches its climax with John Nixon (portrayed by Charlton Heston) reading out the Declaration of Independence as the words scroll over Independence Hall. It ends with a stirring choral arrangement of "God Bless America."
Because it's all done with quotes and no real narration on the dates and events, you get a mostly accurate picture. Unfortunately, if you don't already know your American history, you're going to miss a lot of the basic facts. This was proven as we walked back to return our headphones, and the kids next to me pestered their father with questions that he was unable to answer.
All in all, it was a surprisingly fun tour for a local, and a real treat for visiting families who often have little to do in town after dinner.
--Mary Krause
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Hassle Factor: 7 |
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Entertainment Factor: 6 |
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Factual Accuracy: 5 (I mean, it's like they're not even trying) |
(www.superducks.com, Fifth and Chestnut sts., $15 adults, $10 kids 4 to 13.)
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and hauls around two dozen tourists, don't trust half of what the tour guide tells you.
Super Ducks Amphibious Tours guide Max started off strong. Market Street used to be High Street and the original Sassafras Street became known as Race Street after the popular horse races there. Then he started to fall off the accuracy wagon. Yup, Bourse in French means exchange, but the building was not the first steel-framed structure in the United States. There were many others, including the Drexel building, according to UPenn historic preservation professor George E. Thomas.
The Fighting Quakers formed because they wanted to support the Revolutionary War and Betsy Ross was among their members, but Max said she was married three times by her mid-20s. Not so, says the Betsy Ross House Web site. She was a two-time widow by age 30.
Other half-truths: The Rodin Museum has the original cast of The Thinker and Paris plays host to a replica. (Art Museum press officer Frank Luzi says Max must have been thinking of The Gates of Hell.) Fairmount Park is five times the size of Central Park. (The park proper is twice the size of New York's patch of greenery and Philly's entire park system, including 65 individual parks, is 10 times the size of Central Park.) Eighty percent of U.S. coins are minted in Philadelphia. (It's more like 50 percent.)
On to one of Max's favorite subjects: Benjamin Franklin. He was buried at Christ Church when he died at 84, almost double the age of the average colonial man. Fair enough. But Max must have known something Benny didn't, because he said son Sam flew the famous kite. Nicola Twilley, director of programming at the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, says there was no Sam. Scholarly opinion and evidence suggest Franklin conducted the experiment with the help of son William.
Despite the factual inconsistencies, Max kept it fresh with these gems. On the Styrofoam core that keeps the duck afloat: "It's more buoyant than Jesus, and he could walk on water." On Yuengling lager: "It's what I drink, it's what I vomit." On himself: "I'm the best damn tour guide in Philadelphia and I'll beat you up if you beg to differ."
Well, I've got some fighting words for Max. He told a boatload of tourists from as far away as Colorado that we took a 10-minute ride out Interstate 95 to launch at the public dock at Frankford Arsenal, because the Penn's Landing ramp "smelled like oil" from the spill in November. That's crap. Super Ducks was banned by court order from using the ramp built by rival company, Ride the Ducks.
--Jenna Portnoy
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Hassle Factor: 5 (points off for the price) |
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Entertainment Factor: 7 |
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Factual Accuracy: 9 |
(Fifth and Chestnut sts., $25 for 20 minutes, $25 for 30 minutes, $70 per hour.)
My girlfriend is a teacher, which means she recently completed her working year and is beginning a two-month paid vacation. To celebrate, I decided to take her on a romantic, horse-drawn carriage ride through Old City. Oh, who am I kidding? I dragged her along for work. Who wants to ride in a carriage with cars swerving by and pedestrians staring at you like a zoo animal?
The carriages line up at Fifth and Chestnut. We approached a floppy-haired, middle-aged guide dressed in an old-fashioned tuxedo, who said that the cheapest ride was 20 minutes for $25 (!!). We agreed, and, after no wait at all, were being pulled in a slow circle by Smokey the Horse.
The general theme of the carriage ride is a "past-meets-present" elan. You are pulled by a horse, but Hummers chug by; your driver dresses in 18th-century garb, but does not pretend to be anything other than what he is; you hear stories of Olde Philadelphia, occasionally contrasted with today's reality. For instance, did you know Dolley Madison was considered a hussy for wearing a skirt that revealed her ankles?
Actually, the facts are kind of interesting, and for the most part they checked out. The driver's approach — look, I'm just a guy in a funny suit, let me tell you some stuff — made me much more comfortable than I imagine I would have been talking to someone who claimed to be Ben Franklin (who, we were told, died of syphilis). And Smokey did such a great job that we barely knew he was there. All in all, the ride sucked less than I expected it to — though I'm not sure I would recommend paying $25 for 20 minutes of something that doesn't totally suck.
--Doron Taussig
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Hassle Factor: 4 (gotta go the distance --on foot to hear every chapter) |
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Entertainment Factor: 8 |
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Factual Accuracy: 10 |
(www.onceuponanation.org, 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. every day, free.)
If you happen to think history needs the dust shaken from its drapes, then Once Upon A Nation wants to talk to you — or maybe kind of at you, in dramatically loud tones. Sure, the self-guided "talking tour" manages to offer tourists a comprehensive historical overview in digestible nuggets — and for free — but you get the feeling this extensive $10 million project, now in its second month, is premised upon giving the city's drama sophomores some really excellent material to work with.
You're met by storytellers — like Gayle, a local theater grad — at one of the 13 stops on the trail (which leads completists up to 18 exhausting blocks). Stretch out on the ubiquitous semicircular bench and let Gayle talk you through the events that led to Lincoln's writing of the Gettysburg address, or head over to the American Museum of Jewish History, where a similarly enthusiastic performer enthralls you with the tale of David Salisbury Frank, a Jewish resident whose path crossed (innocently enough) with traitor Benedict Arnold's.
Perhaps it's the careful hand of local historians (who wrote the core scripts) or the fact that each dramatization spins atmospheric stories out of a few details, but I couldn't spot a single error or truth-stretching in 45 minutes of bench-hopping. And the energetic renditions — straight outta the Actors Studio playbook — fit the topics' gravitas.
--Juliet Fletcher
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Hassle Factor: 6 (tours leave frequently, but are a bit pricey) |
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Entertainment Factor: 2 |
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Factual Accuracy: 8 |
(www.theconstitutional.com; $15 adults, $12 children 3 to 12.)
As a former tour guide, I've given and taken hundreds of tours.
I generally find walking tours to be one of the best overviews of the historic district. Far too many tourists come to Philly to see the history without really knowing why they're supposed to be so impressed with sites like Carpenters Hall.
The Constitutional Walking Tour is the somewhat official tour of the area and has existed as a self-guided audio tour for some time. This year, they've upgraded to include guided tours for $15 per person.
My tour group of about 20 or so folks was gathered together at 10 a.m. and issued complimentary fans. A nice touch for the 90 degree day, although not very useful as a cooling method. Our guide was very friendly, but also incredibly scripted, making the tour more like a dull history lesson than a dramatic unfolding of events. While she had most of her dates and information right, I was a little worried that if she were interrupted we'd never find out how the Revolutionary War ended or, worse, we'd have to start over from the beginning.
At the Betsy Ross House, she dutifully informed us, correctly, of the dates the house was built and that the story of the first flag was mostly legend. But she definitively named the building in front of us as the original Ross House, something historians can't conclusively prove. Betsy Ross was described quite dully as the matriarch of the nation, rather than a quite feisty girl who married three times, gaining and losing husbands in a fairly dramatic fashion.
Likewise, Carpenters Hall was discussed as though the building itself, with its Flemish-bond brickwork, was more interesting than the events that unfolded there.
The only real flubs came when the guide was asked about sites just outside the historic district. When asked about the name "Society Hill," she commented that this was where high society lived. True now, perhaps, but it was given its name because William Penn sold the land to the Society of Free Traders. She also gave away a bit of ignorance by naming the architect of the Society Hill Towers as Ian Pei rather than IM Pei.
While the tour had a few interesting moments in spite of the guide, the general tone did little to make people forget that they were melting in the summer sun… and this was only the first tour of the day.
The Constitutional Walking Tour essentially did was it was supposed to do. If you forced yourself to pay attention, you would indeed learn what happened at the Graff House and that the Second Bank has a great portrait gallery inside. Hopefully, that would be enough to get a tourist to return to the more interesting sites for the full story instead of just the dates and bare-bones history.
--M.K.
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Hassle Factor: 7 (not quite as bad as airport security, but still annoying) |
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Entertainment Factor: 5 |
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Factual Accuracy: 7 (heavy on the happy, light on the dark) |
(Sixth and Market sts., free.)
There was a time when one could lounge in the archways of Independence Hall, sip coffee with a date on the park benches and contemplate the statue of Commodore Barry ("Just where the heck is he pointing to?"). Then 9/11 happened. Now the hall is fenced off from its true caretakers — everyday Philadelphians — and handed over to the Feds. Only tourists would be willing (and gullible) enough to suffer the wait and serpentine security one must endure to visit the birthplace of the United States.
On a rainy Monday morning, I went to the Independence Visitor Center for my free ticket. It was 10 a.m.; my tour was scheduled for 12:30, but it was strongly recommended that I report to the screening facility across the street an hour early. At 11:30 I queued with my fellow Americans, and together we waited half an hour while a punk rocker with piercings you-know-where and a huge Midwesterner with a metal hipbone set off the alarms again and again. I passed through the scanner and read the panels about the Liberty Bell. There was quite a bit about the Abolitionists who nicknamed the bell, and even a passing mention of Washington's two runaway slaves. (The Liberty Bell Center happens to stand near their old quarters.)
Next, the guards herded me across the street to the great hall itself. I joined a queue near the East Wing and soon embarked on a 15-minute tour, five minutes of which was spent in a subterranean chamber looking at a painting of the Assembly room. There, I learned about the Unknown Signer (the only member of the Constitutional Convention who left no portrait of himself) and that the building used to be the Pennsylvania State House.
The Liberty Bell Center, Independence Mall. Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
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Upstairs, I spent five minutes in the old colonial courtroom, where I learned about the true meaning of "stand in trial," then five minutes in the Assembly room itself. And then finally I was released to wander. I piggybacked other tour groups, sneaking into Congress Hall, where I learned more about our "forgotten Constitution" — the Articles of Confederation. Did you know that we Americans used to view ourselves as independent nation-states? (Oh wait, we still sort of do … )
The tour had much information as to which delegate sat where and which philosophical issue was debated by whom. However, there was hardly a mention of our nation's great original sins: the enslavement of Africans, the annihilation of the indigenous peoples, the indentured servitude of poor whites and the disenfranchisement of women. At least the Liberty Bell Center was more honest in this regard, and doesn't require the extra hour wait to get a ticket. (If you want to enter Independence Hall, you must have a ticket and go through the bell's security cordon; otherwise, you can just visit the bell.)
Yet, were it not for the concerted effort of activists over the last few years, the entire tour, start to finish, would be completely devoid of American history's dark grit. As it is, there are enough over-the-shoulder-glances at the 1700s' elitism, slavery, sexism and sectionalism to make the tour a nice intro for the wide-eyed child.
--Christopher Schwartz
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Hassle Factor: 8 |
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Entertainment Factor: 7 |
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Factual Accuracy: 10 |
(215-923-5008, www.bigbustours.com, $27 adults, $10 children ages 4-12.)
While waiting onboard the second tier of The Big Bus Company's double-decker idling in front of Independence Visitor Center, I became slightly nauseated from the wafting fumes, vibrating seats and intense Philly heat. Although Britain's space-saving exports provide spectacular views, they offer absolutely no respite from the overhead sunlight. The branches of the trees poking me through the safety bars seemed yet another annoyance, but instead turned out to be an indication of quite an unusual perspective of the city.
The Big Bus tour is a very physical experience: the Delaware's hat-stealing breeze along Kelly Drive; the reflected sunlight from the same river, various fountains and mirrored buildings; and the constant danger of being whacked in the head by overhanging trees. At two stories up, vulnerable to the elements and barraged by an unending stream of facts, every sense is heightened.
The Big Bus Company's open-top sightseeing bus. Photo By: Michael T. Regan |
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Although the wealth of information spewed by the guide was extensive, every quantifiable fact checked out with flying colors — I certainly didn't know that Chinatown was originally populated only by men due to immigration law; or that Penn's grid design also functions as a fire prevention-strategy; or that Philly newlyweds customarily have their pictures taken in front of The Gates of Hell at the Rodin Museum.
Another distinctive feature of the tour is its path through the city. Although Fairmount Park's eight scattered acres and Center City's tourist spots are the main focus, the bus also winds through West Philly, past the zoo, and ventures into some surprising outlying neighborhoods (which were annexed to the city during the 1840s to increase the tax base). In Mantua, the guide pointed out the wild iris and song of hope splashed colorfully across buildings in front of abandoned lots and spoke about Tim Spencer's work with the Anti-Graffiti Network. In Fairmount, he compared the old brownstone mansions of brewery owners and the workers' houses across the street.
With a bird's-eye view of Philadelphia's 2.1 million trees, the tour made the city seem incredibly green and lush, and by the end of the trip, I did feel proud to be a native. The tickets seemed pricey until I learned that they are good for 24 hours to provide passengers with the option of departing at 20 different stops and reboarding any Big Bus if they would like more in-depth exploration. Overall, I'd recommend the tour to out-of-towners — but not during a heat wave.
--Nicole Woods
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Hassle Factor: 8 |
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Entertainment Factor: 7 |
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Factual Accuracy: 8 |
(215-413-1997, www.ghosttour.com/Philadelphia.htm, $15 adults, $8 children ages 4-12.)
Reporting on the factual accuracy of a ghost tour is an exercise in fiction filtration, especially when Jason, the tour guide, disclaims the spook stories you're about to hear as "just that: stories."
The tour, which is based on Philadelphia Ghost Stories by Charles J. Adams III, made its first stop the American Philosophical Society building, the site of the first Free Library in America. After a tale of its founder, Ben Franklin, at his most mischievous and posthumous, we plodded over to Washington Square, accurately identified as one of five original squares laid out by William Penn. The park was correctly revealed as a mass grave, including many of the thousands of yellow fever victims of the 1793 epidemic brought on by mosquitoes. Musing about whether this so-called "candlelight walking tour," a title justified by Jason's single flame lantern, also included citronella, we trekked along to the Presbyterian cemetery on Pine, made famous in The Sixth Sense. We were spared the far more frightening fact that Nic Cage had traipsed through that same graveyard for National Treasure, in favor of a hackneyed story about some old bag called "the hag of Pine Street."
The Powel House didn't help me get my Haley Joel on, but stop No. 5, the Bishop White House, yielded some choice inaccuracies. Our tour guide said that park rangers often see shadows in this house, so they have a rule: They enter the house only in pairs. (Not true, says Park Ranger Spokesperson Frank Eidmann.)
The wrap-up, recited on the grounds of City Tavern, correctly recounted the 1834 blaze that destroyed the original building. Seemingly having been fulfilled without major fright or fallacy, the tour concluded with a rather terrifying suggestion from Jason to a tourist: Take a cab to the Hard Rock Café.
--Nick Norlen
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