Portal:Philadelphia/Selected picture archive/2008
2008[edit]
- December
Calvary United Methodist Church is a Philadelphia church located on the southeast corner of 48th St. & Baltimore Ave. at 815 S. 48th St. The church was founded in 1896 as Calvary Methodist Episcopal and the current structure was completed in 1906. Calvary United Methodist Church rents space in its building to a number of churches and community groups, including the West Philadelphia Mennonite Fellowship and the Prometheus Radio Project.
- November
Mill Creek 1878, photographed by John C. Browne. Dove Lake, Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania was created in 1873 when Samuel Croft dammed Mill Creek to supply water power to his brass rolling mill downstream. The stone jetty shown above (actually the ruins of an abandoned mill) was made famous by the Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins, who posed his nude male students on it for his painting Swimming. Dove Lake is now much smaller, and this section of Mill Creek is now a township park.
- October
One Liberty Place is currently the second tallest building and skyscraper in the City of Philadelphia and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, after the Comcast Center. It is the 17th tallest building in the United States. Completed in 1987, One Liberty Place has 61 floors and stands 945 ft (288 m) tall, only two feet (0.6 m) shorter than the Key Tower in Cleveland, Ohio. Designed by Helmut Jahn of Murphy/Jahn Architects, the building's spire echoes that of the Chrysler Building in New York City. After its completion, a slightly smaller sister building, Two Liberty Place, was erected in 1990 within the same complex. Rouse and Associates, which later went public as Liberty Property Trust, developed both One and Two Liberty Place as well as the Comcast Center.
- September
Live 8 was a string of benefit concerts that took place on 2 July 2005, in the G8 states and in South Africa. They were timed to precede the G8 Conference and Summit held at the Gleneagles Hotel in Auchterarder, Scotland from 6–8 July 2005; they also coincided with the 20th anniversary of Live Aid. Among the cities Live 8 was held in was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The concert was set up on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
- August
A bronze statue of Rocky was commissioned by Sylvester Stallone in 1983. Created by A. Thomas Schomberg three 2-ton, 10-foot copies were cast. One was installed atop the steps for the filming of Rocky III. After filming was complete, a debate erupted in Philadelphia between the Art Museum and the City's Art Commission over the meaning of "art." City officials, who argued that the statue was not "art" but a "movie prop," eventually moved it to the front of the Wachovia Spectrum in South Philadelphia. On September 8, 2006, the Rocky statue was returned again to the Art Museum and placed on a pedestal in a grassy area near the foot of the steps to the right of the Museum. The unveiling ceremony included live music, the debut of the first full trailer for Rocky Balboa, and a free showing of the first Rocky movie.
- July
Independence Hall is a U.S. national landmark located in Philadelphia, on Chestnut Street between 5th and 6th Streets. Known primarily as the location where the Declaration of Independence was debated and adopted, the building was completed in 1753 as the Pennsylvania State House for the Province of Pennsylvania. The United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were both signed at Independence Hall. The image shows a rally at Independence Hall, circa 1917.
- June
The Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was the first municipal waterworks in the United States. Designed in 1812 by Frederick Graff and built between 1819 and 1822 it operated until 1909, winning praise for its design and becoming a popular tourist attraction. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and is once again in the process of winning back visitors, having now opened an Interpretive Center to aid in understanding the waterworks' purpose and history.
- May
The USS Olympia is located at the Independence Seaport Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Olympia was a protected cruiser in the United States Navy during the Spanish-American War. Olympia was laid down June 17. 1891 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, California and launched on November 5, 1892. Today a museum at Penn's Landing, the Olympia is the sole floating survivor of the U.S. Navy's Spanish-American War fleet.
- April
The Burholme estate is located in Burholme Park in Fox Chase, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The estate was built in 1859 by Joseph Waln Ryerss, a wealthy importer of goods from Asia and president of the Tioga railroad company, to be the families’ summer home. Today, The Burholme Estate still exists as a park, library and museum that is run by the Fairmount Park Commission.
- March
Rossen Milanov conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra in Clark Park, July 2007. The Philadelphia Orchestra is an orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is historically considered to be one of the "Big Five" American orchestras.
- February
The 1900 Republican National Convention of the Republican Party of the United States was held June 19 to June 21 in the Exposition Auditorium, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.The Exposition Auditorium was located south of the University of Pennsylvania. The incumbent President William McKinley was unanimously named the party's candidate for President. New York Governor Theodore Roosevelt, who was himself a delegate, was nominated for Vice President by a vote of 925 to 1 abstention, with his vote alone abstaining.
- January
Fairmount is a neighborhood in the North Philadelphia area of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The name "Fairmount" itself derives from the prominent hill on which the Philadelphia Museum of Art now sits, and where William Penn originally intended to build his own manor house. The broadest definition of the boundaries of the neighborhood place it roughly between Vine Street to the south, Girard Avenue to the north, the Schuylkill River to the west, and Broad Street to the east.