Looking for Colonial history? You can't do better than Philadelphia, where a new museum and a treasure trove of sites beckon.
When walking the streets of the Old City area in Philadelphia, it’s easy to imagine being back in the late 18th century. A small 8-by-10-block section was where so many of the famous names of the period — George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Betsy Ross, John and Samuel Adams, Dolley and James Madison and, nearly everywhere, it seems, Ben Franklin — lived and socialized.
Many buildings they passed by remain, the city having long ago taken to preservation. Philadelphia is a place where ideas, agreements, arguments, animosities and friendships were clearly part of the fabric.
“Philadelphia owns this story,” said Michael C. Quinn, president and chief executive of the Museum of the American Revolution, a $119 million edifice scheduled to open in April 2017, two short blocks east of Independence Hall. “It is an incredibly compelling story, and it created some of the most inspiring and lofty ideals the world has known. We have to keep telling it in as many ways as possible...”
“This is not Disneyland, but a real place,” said Meryl Levitz, president and chief executive of Visit Philadelphia, the city’s main nonprofit tourism promotion agency. “This is where America began. I don’t think you can have too much of that. The population keeps expanding, so there are always more people to attract, and from what we know, those people want more, better and newer.”
Original source: The New York Times
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