Inconvenient Truthiness

Looking into the loophole in the tour guide trivia test.

by Tom Namako

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Published: Aug 12, 2008

Shirley Nicole Fonner TAKE ME FOR A RIDE: "I'll ask people: 'You want history, or lore?'" says tour guide Brian Kane. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Brian Kane tells the fire plaque story two ways.

He starts with the background: Did you ever see those engraved pieces of metal on the walls of some historic Old City homes? They're called fire plaques. In colonial times, a homeowner bought his insurance from one of many fire companies and stuck that company's plaque on his wall. So if your house was suddenly ablaze, all the nearby companies would respond, check the plaque and the appropriate firefighters would take over.

Here's the part of the story that gets tricky. What if the homeowner didn't have a plaque?

A) The fire companies would go home, and let it burn. Hey, they've got to make a living, too.

B) One of the fire companies would extinguish the blaze and bill you later.

We're a civilized people, right? The answer is obviously B. But Kane, who is one of those horse-and-carriage tour guides in Philadelphia, has no quarrels with telling it both ways — it all depends on the customer.

"I'll ask people: 'You want history, or lore?'" Kane says.

**[Ed. Note: Since publication of this article, Kane has denied saying the above quote. City Paper stands by its reporting.] **

"Some people want to know the facts." They get option B. "Others," according to Kane, "say, 'Oh man, I've heard enough history. Just tell me a story.'" They get option A.

Is that so wrong? Yes, says Tom Rosenberg, a history teacher in Cherry Hill, N.J., and the operator of Ye Olde History tours.

Rosenberg, whose business has been booming since he started walking tours in March, says there's no reason why misinformation should make its way into historical accounts. "When people pay you for the service," he says, "there needs to be quality control."

His six-person staff, many of whom teach or have history degrees, know there are plenty of ways to elicit wide eyes and stunned responses while on a history tour. His secret? Get elbow-deep in research. Like, for example:

Did you know that, in 1776, Ben Franklin did nothing to stop the Continental Congress from labeling his son, William, a loyalist and imprisoning him in Connecticut? And when William's wife, Elizabeth, begged Franklin to help he "remained unmoved," according to several biographies?

Who's on the right side of the issue, Kane or Rosenberg? That'll be decided by a new law or the courts or maybe, just a simple loophole.

Earlier this year, City Council passed — and Mayor Nutter signed into law — a bill that required tour guides in Philadelphia to pass a history test and register with the city to do their job. The move, which has pitted many guides against city tourism officials and each other, came after many citizens and newspaper columnists noticed that some of the guides were feeding their paying customers fiction, and passing it off as fact. So Kane and Rosenberg's debate isn't just some inter-industry philosophical divide — it's already the subject of one federal lawsuit, and, if Kane has his way, it'll become the subject of two.

Right now, the city is fighting a suit filed in July by three Philadelphia tour guides — Michael Tait, Joshua Silver and Ann Boulais — who say that the new law is a violation of First Amendment rights. "This is about a simple principle — that the government doesn't have the authority to decide who may speak and who may not," says Robert McNamara, a staff attorney at the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties litigation firm in Arlington, Va., who is representing the three. "Imagine if the city set up a ministry of sports to set up who can talk about baseball, or of comedy, to say who can be a comedian."

The law is supposed to go into effect Oct. 1, but the guides have filed paperwork to delay registration until the case is settled. McNamara expects to argue that point — called an injunction — in court soon.

Kane, on the other hand, is considering filing a separate lawsuit. He's already contacted the ACLU, he says, and is waiting to see if they'll take the case. "The principle here is that the city is trying to legislate in an area they shouldn't be involved in," he says, adding later: "I'm a student of history, I study and read all the time. But I'm also an interpreter of history."

It's not sure, though, if his suit would be welcome by the other guides. "I haven't heard anything from the ACLU," McNamara says. "He certainly could file, but there's no real reason to bring a second lawsuit on the same theory."

Even though the law will live or die by the court system, there's a frequently overlooked loophole: Yes, the guides will have to take a test, and yes, they'll then have to pay to register, but no one will actually be checking to make sure they tell the truth. That leaves Kane free to still ask his patrons: Fact or folklore?

"That is true, as with any new regulation or law, there's going to be people who find loopholes and people who do not honor it completely," says Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown, who sponsored the tour guide licensing bill. "The legislative process is never 100 percent perfect. The best we can establish are boundaries and guidelines. It's not 100 percent foolproof."

(tom.namako@citypaper.net)

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