Philadelphia City Hall

This is a truly strange building with some interesting and exciting activities for kids like the elevator ride up the tower. On one blustery day, we could see the wind turning a crane on top of a nearby skyscraper.

You could easily overlook City Hall because it's a seven-story building designed to look like a three story building: the elongated two-story windows helped maintain the context of low houses in which City Hall was originally built. Even so, Philadelphia City Hall was designed to be the tallest building in the world, and, at 88 million bricks, it is still the world's highest masonry load-bearing structure.

Milne Calder, the grandfather of artist Alexander Calder, created over 250 sculptures which adorn the building. While these are from the "low period" of sculptory which contained actual faces and recognizable symbols, I found the sculptures strikingly beautiful and the tour guide's explanations quite interesting. It would not be politically correct to admit what my nine-year-old son enjoyed about the sculptures. One council chamber contains keystones on each side of the room with visages of the four seasons of life: a young boy, a young woman, a middle-aged woman, and an old man, each compelling in its own way. You'd never know this stuff could be on a ceiling in the middle of Philadelphia.

Special features: City Hall, decorated with external clocks to inform the citizenry, contains a large, prominent, broken clock in the City Council chamber. The tour guide maintains the City Council Chamber is larger than the House of Commons. From the beginning, the history of cost-overruns on this building is stupendous: City Hall is a great place to teach children that government really knows how to spend money on itself. Also, many beautiful rooms and a great statue of George Washington in "Conversation Hall."

Phone: 215 686 2840 To get a tour brochure: Foundation for Architecture 215 569 3187
Scheduling: City Hall Tours: Mon-Fri 12:30 at the Information Center. Tower Tours: Mon - Fri 9:30 until 4:30. Tours leave every 15 minutes. Call ahead to reserve a spot -- it's a small elevator (6 people).
Cost: Parking in Philadelphia. Tours are free.
Directions: Take 95 from Lawrenceville south toward Philadelphia. Steer your car toward that big guy standing in the middle of the city on top of City Hall. Park underground nearby and take the free tour of this unusual building.

Suggestions for the proprietors: Open up on Saturdays. It's hard to get kids there during the week. Stay open later one night a week so non-custodial parents can take kids on the tower tour.

Fort Mifflin

I first noticed this Revolutionary Fort when taking off from Philadelphia Airport. It's practically a ghost, though: you think you've seen it, but nobody knows anything about it. One day, the kids and I had some serious time at the airport and a ticket lady gave us directions. Basically, you drive through industrial warehouses until you get to this big revolutionary war fort.

This was THE place to protect Philadelphia, and they used to sink specially-designed barges with oversized spikes in the channel to block enemy ships. In 1777, the Siege of Fort Mifflin saw "the mightiest bombardment of the 18th century in North America." The British bombed all day, and the Americans rebuilt every night. After seven weeks, the British destroyed the Fort, and the fleeing Americans burned what was left on their way to Fort Mercer across the river. Fort Mifflin may have actually saved Washington's Army by preventing General Howe's naval support from reaching Philadelphia before winter set in.

Special Features:
• Fort Mifflin demonstrated a gigantic baking soda torpedo for the nation's centennial in 1876. Explain to your children that this is the same advanced technology used to make papier mache volcanoes.
• Zigzag entrance into munitions vault prevented powder room from becoming giant cannon in case of mishap.
• Lots of stuff to run around and see. Since almost nobody seems to go to Fort Mifflin during the day, it's like having your own private fort.
• Boot camp for kids during the summer.
• Really nice park rangers.

Cost: $4 for adults, $3.50 senior citizens $2 for students with ID and children from 2 to 12.
Phone: Recording: 215 685 4192 Live: 215 492 1881
Scheduling: Call ahead for special events and times to see people in old clothing. Open 10 to 4 April 1 to Nov 30. Closed Mon and Tues. Father's Day - Pop's and Patriots: Dads are free. Mother's Day - Moms are free. April 27, 1997 Sea Battle - Midieval Day. May 10, 1997 Volunteer cleanup day. May 17th and 18th, 1997 Cival War Artillery Program.
Directions: South on 95 to Exit 13 (Enterprise and Island Ave). At end of exit, go left at Stop sign. You're on Island Ave, then follow signs for 1.5 minutes to Fort. Signs are on right of road.
Suggestions to proprietors: Call Church & Dwight and get them to sponsor baking soda torpedo demonstrations, perhaps include Fort Mifflin in commercials: "If baking soda can protect a nation, imagine what it will do for your teeth."

Train Trip to Lancaster

1. Take the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the McDonald's just before Valley Forge. This is the train-themed McDonald's with toy trains running overhead and a good setup next to the gift shop. This also appears to be the only McDonald's in the world where each serving is made-to-order. Fresh but very slow.
2. Continue to the Red Caboose Motel in Strasberg near Lancaster, PA. Call ahead for your own full-sized caboose. The "family" caboose has a shower and toilet in the middle, four bunk beds on one end, and a large bed and TV in the other. No phones. Lots of fun horsing around in bunk beds. If your kids bring friends, you can't beat $57 a night to sleep 6 people.
3. Have breakfast in the Dining Car at the Red Caboose Motel.
4. See the Train Museum up the road. Huge in-door train warehouse of full-sized trains. You can get under them, over them, in them. Even see a replica of the John Bull, and learn that this first American train was tested in Bordentown, NJ. (See the commemorative plaque on main street there.) On Saturdays, activities for kids include getting a certificate for operating a model layout and learning to draw trains with a train artist.
5. You can also ride a real train across the street from the Museum or visit the Toy Train Museum with eight operating layouts.

Special Features: The first night at the Red Caboose, I wanted to take the kids out, and the only place open was the Sight & Sound Theater with the popular stage show, "Noah!" Tickets were sold out months ahead, and we watched buses of the faithful unload. "Daddy, let's get OUT of here! I HATE waiting around to see this STUPID show!" my son screamed. "Ah, ye of little faith," I instructed. "Someone will sell us their tickets." And they did! This is not an historically correct (or even scripturally correct) show to be enjoyed by atheists, and it's even a little weird for Presbyterian-Methodists like me -- Christ himself makes an appearance at the end of the show -- but it is a grand production. My daughter is still convinced that there were elephants in the theater. At the beginning of the second act, curtains rise around the side walls to create the illusion that you are actually inside the ark. The show contains 350 actual or animatronic animals. Call now for tickets to the big Christmas spectacular.

Phone: Red Caboose 717-687-5000
Scheduling: Open all year round.
Directions: To the Red Caboose Motel: PA Turnpike to Exit 21, Route 222 south to Route 30 East to 896 South. Go to light in Strasberg (Route 741). Left onto 741, then left at crossroad. Suggestions for Proprietors: Tell Dale at the front desk that if someone calls from another state to ask about the history of the hotel that he refrain from suggesting that they buy the 99 cent book he has in his hand.
Suggestions for Readers: Call the front desk, ask for "Dale", and insist that he answer questions like "How many cabooses do you have there?", "Why do you call it the Red Caboose Motel?", and "Do any of the cabooses ever get loose in the middle of the night?"

Herr's Potato Chip Factory

Herr's gets a 10 on the friendliness scale: the people on the phones are helpful with directions, the tour guides are friendly, even the factory workers seem friendly. Not far from Lancaster, you'll pass horse and buggies driving nearby Route 272.

Kids seem to enjoy the goofy movie at the beginning of the tour about Chipper, Herr's stuffed mascot with a propensity to fall into the food. What's amazing about this place, though, is that you can run such a large factory with so few people. Herr's is a private company, but the guide mentions that they turn their $3 million inventory every 3 days, so you can figure at least $320 million for that factory (8500 pounds of potato chips an hour). Every once in a while, you'll see a machine operator wander through a room, but, for the most part, the spuds and pretzel dough are on their own. Depending on your political bent, you can point out to your child that (1) machines are taking our jobs! or (2) here's how American ingenuity can compete with slave wages around the world. Of course, Malaysians would also have a problem getting fresh potato chips to us here in New Jersey.

It's also interesting to note how little is wasted: water and heat are recycled, even bad chips are fed to cows.

The tour takes about an hour with the movie -- then you can take your two complimentary chip bags and buy a hot dog in the visitor's center. Prices are reasonable, and the dining room clean and pleasant.

Special Features:
• You get to eat hot potato chips right off the line
• Mr. and Mrs. Herr give away a book called "Chips of Wisdom" in a stand near the gift shop. It's kind of interesting to see how people are drawn to the collection of traditional plastic gift shop items versus actually picking up a free pamphlet of wisdom promoted by a couple of people who have erected a mammoth private enterprise. During our second trip to the factory, I was glad to see that there were a number of takers for the book.
• The amazing brown chip machine: its takes 245 pictures a second to spot brown chips and blow them off the high-speed production line with a blast of compressed air.
• The way they get potatoes out of trucks by picking up and dumping the entire tractor trailer.

Philadelphia Visitors Center