Dicken’s Village at Macy’s

It’s the New Year, hope everyone had a happy holiday season. Christmas cheer hit me after Christmas so I won’t feel too silly posting these in January. I still have to go through my pictures from the NYC Macy’s window. They were my favorite for 2015 and will hopefully get those up in a few days. This one is about Macy’s in Philly.

The day after Christmas we drove to Philly with our cousin and his girlfriend for food and holiday stuff. Continue reading

NY Botanical Garden: Holiday Train Show

We went to the NY Botanical Garden 4-5 years ago for the annual Holiday Train Show. It was a bitter & extremely freezing cold day in December. I was super excited because I love trains but when I got there I realized the show is all about the model structures which was a nice surprise. They are made out of natural plant based resins and materials. The details were impressive. Continue reading

The Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons in Philadelphia

A long time ago Victor gave me a booklet about the Freemason lodge. It’s taken over a decade to finally get there. If you ever have extra time in Philly and are a history and architecture buff – check it out. Quite a few US Presidents have been masons: George Washington, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Gerald Ford to name a few. Continue reading

Christ Church & Burial Ground

Christ Church Burial Ground is an early American cemetery in Philadelphia. Signers of our Declaration of Independence reside here, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Russ, George Ross, Francis Hopkinson, and Joseph Hewes. The cemetery belongs to the Episcopal church founded in 1695 by the name of Christ Church. Continue reading

Shofuso Japanese House & West Fairmount Park

Shufuso is a traditional 17th century Japanese house and garden. This villa was featured at MoMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York City in 1956. 2 years later it was reconstructed in West Fairmount Park, Philadelphia. It was built in 1953 as a gift from Japan to America, a post war friendship between the two countries. It uses traditional Japanese materials and techniques. Continue reading

Camac Street

In the 1830s it was very noisy in the bustling city of Philadelphia. Camac Street is a landmark of a time when Philly was testing out new pavement. The clop-clop-clopping of horse hooves on cobble stone was the largest source of noise pollution. Local businessmen and the city government came together with the idea to use wooden blocks to absorb the sound. Continue reading

The Old City Hall Station

This is the reason why we joined the Transit Museum – to go on a tour of the Old City Hall train station. It’s a beauty to the eyes, too bad they don’t design things like this anymore. We had to hop on the 6 train at the last stop, the train stops on the turnaround and let’s you off at the old unused platform and they let us off. The first thing you want to do is stop and look up but you have to get off as quickly as possible to let the our tour members off. Being there felt like we had the keys to the city. It was amazing and totally worth our membership fee. Continue reading

Inside an MTA Substation

We still didn’t quite understand what a substation was after the tour but it was still cool. After some googling, we have our answer: “It coverts High Voltage AC current into the DC current used by the New York City subways.” Quoted from untappedcities.com. Continue reading