Archive for the 'history' Category

11
Sep

Tiffany in Philadelphia

Today my adventures landed me at the Curtis Center here in Philadelphia.  The building was historically the home of the Curtis Publishing Company, which was well known for publishing Ladies’ Home Journal and The Saturday Evening Post, among others.  But little did I know that the interior of this building is so grand.  The offices in the building lie on the outer edges of every floor and the huge court on the main floor has a cathedral ceiling that extends up to the skylit roof.  Obviously, it’s had some remodeling, but it’s still pretty magnificent. I was overwhelmed with the interior that I forgot to take a photo of the exterior.  Next time.

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Little did I know that also within the Curtis Building resides a huge Tiffany mosaic piece entitled “Dream Garden.”  It was designed by artist Maxfield Parrish and executed by Louis Comfort Tiffany and Tiffany Studios in 1916.  it measures 15  x 49 feet.  It uses over 100,000 pieces of favrile glass that were each hand-fired in each of the 260 colors.  I’ve lived in Philadelphia for about 14 years and had no idea that this was even here.  It is huge and amazing and I highly recommend checking it out if you live or visit Philadelphia.  Read more about the piece here.  The Curtis Building is on the corner of 6th & Walnut.  The entrance with the Tiffany piece is on 6th Street.

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19
May

Fort Mott & Supawna Meadows

In an attempt to escape the city today, we did not escape the rain. I had been wanting to check out Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge for a while now. There don’t seem to be many trails throughout the Refuge and the available maps are pretty much nil. Before realizing the correct direction to the Refuge, we stumbled upon Fort Mott State Park. Fort Mott was built in post Civil War times as part of a three-fort defense system along the Delaware River. The Fort (along with the other two, Fort Delaware and Fort DuPont) became obsolete shortly after World War I. You could only explore one of the bunkers at Fort Mott, but the structure itself was pretty cool. It started to rain again so we decided to head for the car and try to find Supawna Meadows. We took a short walk through the Refuge and very little photos. But for being under 40 miles outside of Philadelphia (in New Jersey), it was a nice escape for the day.

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