Philadelphia Bricks (Not a Metaphor) and some Fancy Stuff in Sepia

Walking around Center City Philadelphia yesterday, with no particular place to go for a few hours, I found myself shooting photos of architectural details. I possess no special knowledge in this area; I was just focusing on parts of buildings I found interesting.

The icing on this cake is made of bricks.

Probably pretty old bricks on Locust Street

Yellow bricks, Walnut Street

Yellow bricks, different design, same building

Some thought went into this facade (Chestnut Street)

Holy Bricks (North Broad Street)

Paving Bricks (from Locust Street)

Painted bricks, 15th and Market Streets

A crazy sampler of brick technique at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art

Closer-up of PAFA

While bricks are there to hold up the buildings, there are some elements that exist just to be fancy. Viewed through my sepia filter, you'll be able to see the detail better than in the ordinary unfiltered shot. How many times have I walked past these gems and not really noticed them?

On Chestnut Street

Curtis Institute of Music, Locust Street

Also Curtis on Locust

15th Street (This building, which resembles the Medici Palace, has been repurposed as a gym.)

Your assignment: walk around and look for cool architectural details and shoot them! Imagine being the person who crafted this stuff and time-traveling one or two centuries into the future to see your craft still appreciated but in a whole new, modern, world.

PS Look closely at that arch: the stones alternate rough-smooth-rough-smooth. Would we notice that from the street? Hmmm.

Celebrating My Dad's 100th Birthday in Authentic Cape May

Opposing traffic in the Delaware Bay on a hazy July day

It's hard not to think about him in this house that he modified and added to, and furnished with woodworked objects he made while at sea. The fig tree (it had a rough time this winter) and the magnolia he planted are still thriving outside in the yard, but his vegetable garden is gone. Today would have been my Dad's hundredth birthday, and as he wasn't around to celebrate, I tried to imagine what he might like to do.

Albert Montet, ca. 1966

He liked ships and boats having been a career US Coast Guard guy, so I figured I should spend time on some kind of vessel. I selected the Cape May-Lewes Ferry because he liked that particular fleet of ships. He lived in Cape May before the ferry came in 1964, and enjoyed cruising on it once it started running. It was more like a bus on water then, and I think he'd be amused by the newer, more comfortable ferries that run now.

The ferry waits for me to board. (From the Skywalk)

I brought my camera because Dad liked to shoot photos (SLR) and so do I (DSLR). He'd have liked these Osprey chicks I caught at the Lewes (Delaware) Terminal--he was a nature guy, too.

4 chicks

The dolphins were out today, but not exactly posing for photographs.

Dolphins frolicking near the ferry.

One thing I wasn't able to do is swim in the Cape May Canal. Dad used to love to do this, and I remember going with him and the rest of the family. It used to be a big-deal, right-of-passage to swim across and back, but I never did that. At some point in the 1970s they widened and deepened the canal (built during World War II) and there was no more beach and no more swimming. There's way too much boat traffic anyway.

Canal traffic

It just so happened that Dad's 100th birthday fell on a full moon, and even better, a SUPER moon! The Friends of the Cape May Lighthouse (and I am one) open the lighthouse on summer evening with a full moon so that visitors can climb to the top to take in the moonlit view. I think Dad would have liked this because it's an authentic nautical Cape May thing combined with a natural phenomenon. He would not have liked the crowd, and neither did I except that two-way traffic on those narrow spiral wrought-iron stairs slows traffic down a bit, and it would have been impossible to "run" up and down as I posted (tongue-in-cheek) on Facebook. Anyhoo, without a tripod and with all of the other folks, it was difficult to shoot clever photos. I resorted to some quick iPhone snaps.

7-12-14 Super Moon over the Atlantic Ocean with the CM Lighthouse beam

Cape May Lighthouse

I think Dad would approve of his birthday festivities. In just under eight years, it will be Mom's turn: shopping and ice cream, I think (also in Cape May).

Fourth of July, North Cape May

I didn't have anyone to bring to my town's Fourth of July festivities, so I brought my camera (and lenses) instead. This was especially fun because this town doesn't just shoot off fireworks, they host a carnival down by the bay. People come from miles around and end up parking in front of my house blocks away for the rides, food trucks, entertainment, and ultimately a half hour of non-stop fireworks. I didn't stay for the pyrotechnics because Gladys the Sheltie is terrified of them: they are loud and close.

After our beachwalk earlier in the day, I spotted this ride and thought it would be fun to shoot it in action:

 

There were other rides, mostly for the kiddies...

Get your tickets here:

And then see if you can ring this bell by hitting the thing with the giant hammer (I didn't see anyone try last night):

There were a couple of bands playing while we cruised through the food trucks...

 

 

As you can see, the late-day light was tricky, so I made up my mind that this batch of photos would be experimental...

Here's that gorgeous Mimosa tree about a block from the bay through my fish-eye lens

And a view of the bay with a black & white filter

And finally, while all this was going on down by the water, and before the fireworks were set off from a barge in the water, neighborhood houses were being judged for a good ol' Fourth of July house decorating contest!

And now this morning, all of the excitement is over, house parties more-or-less cleaned up, the rides packed-up and off to their next gig, and the neighborhood seems to be back to normal. Every house is quiet, and besides the lady hanging beach towels on her clothesline and the man walking his Border Collie, there aren't any people out there. It was a late night!

The Quilt Show at Historic Cold Spring Village

I visit Historic Cold Spring Village at least once a year or so, usually for one of their weekly (in the summertime) special events. I blogged about the place back in 2011 right here, but today I'm focusing on the Quilt and Fiber Arts Show. We walked among the authentic Cape May County buildings brought to this location to form this little village and visited various vendors of fabric and fibers along the way. We saved the Country Store and its old-timey and handmade merchandise for last.

The Country Store is housed in the James Hathorn House (c. 1722/1780)

The Ice Cream Parlor was doing a brisk business this day...

The Ice Cream Parlor is located in the Ewing-Douglass House (c. 1850)

...and the Bakery offered some tempting treats.

The Ezra Norton House from Dias Creek (c. 1850) houses the Village Bakery

But we're here for fabrics and fibers, remember? Over at the Spicer-Leaming House (c.1817), a costumed interpreter was showing a visitor how the spinning wheel works. We watched.

Across the road at the Corson-Hand House (c. 1837), experts were demonstrating wool carding, and down around the corner my friends from Jersey Shore Alpacas had a tent set up where they were selling luxurious alpaca yarns and gorgeous soft things made from these fibers. This farm is right around the corner from Cold Spring, and Tish and Jim welcome visitors to their farm to visit the alpacas and browse through their store full of soft alpaca things. (Check the link above first, though.) They even offer workshops!

I like the crocheting and knitting, but quilting is my true medium of expression. The first bunch of quilts on display were hung in the 1894 Welcome Center. Visitors got to vote on their favorites on Saturday, and we got to see the winners in various categories when we were there on Sunday. As a person who has entered quilts in shows, I think they're all winners. It's not easy to put your creation out there for all to see and judge! Here are some samples:

There were quilt supply vendors at the Walter P. Taylor Octagon House (c. 1880 and formerly a chicken coop), and at the Dennisville Inn (c. 1836) where I got some red cotton velveteen for a crazy quilt I plan to tackle soon. I never seem to have enough cash for all the things I would like to buy (four or five hundred would be a good start), but that is just as well since I wouldn't have the time to actually stitch the stuff. Maybe this year I'll finish something and enter it in next year's show...but for now...more inspiration...

There were more quilts displayed by the Gazebo (see them at the top of this post) and that was also the site of the QUILT QUIZZO trivia game. Visitors were formed into groups by organizer Merry May, a respected and accomplished quilter from Tuckahoe, NJ. We answered questions on quilt history, quilting innovations, and famous quilters, for example, and after two rounds our Team C had pulled away from the pack. This was a good thing, as Round Three was all about anagrams, my Achilles Heel and my Waterloo. The scrambled words were names of classic quilt blocks, but it doesn't matter because my brain is missing the anagram figurer-outer synapse. But Oh Happy Day! We won!

Margie and Janet show off their Quilt Quizzo medals of fine gold plastic.

Lucy, the Margate Elephant

Let's say hypothetically that I won a property in Margate, NJ, in, say, a poker game. I'd start boxing-up my books right away. There are some gorgeous houses there, some with Spanish-tiled roofs, some cloaked in stucco, and almost all beautifully landscaped. The top non-beach pastimes seemed to be dog-walking and bike-riding. Nice, but it's not going to happen. I don't play poker. Nevertheless, I got to cruise through this lovely town on my way to see Lucy the Margate Elephant.

Blog-reading music:

Side-view of Lucy and the entrance to her park

Lucy used to stand where the brown building is now.

I had my heart set on visiting someplace I'd never seen before on this first weekend of summer, and I'm running out of ideas for extreme southern New Jersey. When a writing workshop brought me to Atlantic City, I remembered the giant elephant I've been wanting to visit. Lucy was built in 1881 by James Lafferty, Jr., a Philadelphian who owned property in South Atlantic City, now known as Margate. He had the elephant built of wood to attract attention, which it did and still does. Lucy has been moved from her original location about 300 feet away to make room for a condo building, and after that a group got together to Save Lucy. She was restored and entered as a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

Head on: Lucy's trunk ends in a barrel

You may have already heard of Lucy, but did you know that she had two sisters? The smaller one was built in what was then South Cape May, NJ, (and is now under water) around the same time as Lucy. This one was called the Light of Asia and succumbed to rough weather conditions around the turn of the twentieth century. The other elephant was built in Coney Island, NY, and called Elephantine Colossus. It was intended solely for amusement and burned down in 1896.

Let's go over Lucy's head...(the spots are raindrops)

This means Lucy is the only elephant you can tour. Go up the narrow circular stairway in one of her legs all the way up to the howdah on her back. This is where you can take in a nice view of the Margate beach and surrounding neighborhood. Then climb down the spiral staircase to the middle floor to see some exhibits about Lucy, and some rather nice art featuring Lucy (for sale), and look through Lucy's eyes to see what she sees.

Through the eye of Lucy

Our tour guide pointed out that this part of the elephant was built to look like a boat...and it does, with her eyes as portholes at the bow.

Inside Lucy's abdomen looks like the inside of a boat

Then head back down the spiral staircase in the other elephant leg to the ground and over to the gift shop for elephant gifts of all kinds, souvenir smashed pennies, and postcards.

Because I know you are wondering what the back looks like.