Week 4
This week, I had the chance to see the new movie about Mr. Fred Rogers, entitled "Won't You Be My Neighbor?". It was an AMAZING movie, and I think most people had tears in their eyes as they walked out of the theater. If you haven't seen it, I think it's definitely worth watching. I might get it on DVD when it comes out.
I also visited the Fireman's Hall Museum (remember how I said in Week 2 that everything was named ___ Hall?).
There was quite a bit of history about firefighting. Did you know that Ben Franklin was one of the earliest "firefighters" by starting a fire brigade and also helped design Philadelphia with certain green spaces so that fires didn't spread as quickly?
Also, early firefighters had to mix acid with baking soda in order to make the water shoot high enough to put out fires. Just imagine trying to rush to a fire knowing you had a bottle of acid in the back seat!
In the early days, firefighters responded wearing a "parade hat". Just imagine wearing a parade hat and running into a burning building.
Have you ever seen those old fire alarm boxes in places like San Francisco or the one on Lincoln Street at W&J? Well, they might have worked like this:
If you can't tell from the picture, yes, that is indeed ticker tape. Anyone remember ticker tape from physics class?
Okay, time for a shift in gears. I ended the day visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The weather seemed to reflect the mood- it started to rain. I didn't have an umbrella. Needless to say, the run to the subway station was not fun.
I also visited the Fireman's Hall Museum (remember how I said in Week 2 that everything was named ___ Hall?).
There was quite a bit of history about firefighting. Did you know that Ben Franklin was one of the earliest "firefighters" by starting a fire brigade and also helped design Philadelphia with certain green spaces so that fires didn't spread as quickly?
Also, early firefighters had to mix acid with baking soda in order to make the water shoot high enough to put out fires. Just imagine trying to rush to a fire knowing you had a bottle of acid in the back seat!
In the early days, firefighters responded wearing a "parade hat". Just imagine wearing a parade hat and running into a burning building.
Have you ever seen those old fire alarm boxes in places like San Francisco or the one on Lincoln Street at W&J? Well, they might have worked like this:
If you can't tell from the picture, yes, that is indeed ticker tape. Anyone remember ticker tape from physics class?
Okay, time for a shift in gears. I ended the day visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The weather seemed to reflect the mood- it started to rain. I didn't have an umbrella. Needless to say, the run to the subway station was not fun.
And finally, a picture from the sign in front of CHOP:
By the way, a few weeks ago I introduced you to my neighbor, Xavier. He and a few other neighbors of mine, Idris and Yoshi, are going to Cuba for 9 days! They are going for a "humanitarian mission" to stimulate their economy. I thought I'd take a picture with them before they left. No worries, you'll likely see them again in a future blog post.
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