Scranton, PA (11/29/2019)

Friday, November 2019
Heading north the day after Thanksgiving...

The Electric City mural as we entered Scranton

Scranton is the sixth largest city in Pennsylvania, and the seat of Lackawanna County. It was dubbed the Electric City in 1886 when the first streetcar system to be powered only by electricity began operation. It was also one of the first American cities to have businesses lit by electric lights in 1880. Long a center of anthracite coal mining, Scranton now is home to five colleges and universities. Many of us know the city as the location of the Dunder Mifflin Paper Company of the televisions series, "The Office."

Coopers Seafood Restaurant, which is mentioned in at least
five episodes of "The Office"

Coopers Seafood has many "The Office" themed souvenirs/gifts;
Kent stands between Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute

Every booth has a porthole

Coopers Seafood Restaurant has a few
different collections, such as Transformers

Next we drove to Nay Aug Park, the largest park in Scranton.

Brooks Coal Mine, a model mine (1902, by Reese Brooks, general
superintendent of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Company,
of Scranton),  now permanently closed

The Pioneer, a gravity railroad car, used by the Pennsylvania Coal
Company Railroad on the line from Hawley to Pitton from 1850 to 1884

A gravity railroad is on a slope to allow gravity to pull loaded cars to its destination. Empty cars are then pulled back to the starting point by animal power or a cable hooked to a stationary engine.

Battleship Maine Memorial (1918)
with a 10-inch shell and bronze porthole cover

Everhart Museum of Natural History, Science and Art (1908, by
Harvey J Blackwood and John Nelson, 1928-1929 two wings
were added and all was wrapped in a stripped Classical façade)
is the first and largest public museum in Northeastern Pennsylvania

Statue (1911) of Dr Isaiah Everhart who had the museum
built to house his various collections as a gift to the city

Isaiah Everhart was a medical doctor and ornithologist who was also a skilled taxidermist. He assembled a collection of Pennsylvania's native animals and birds, as well as fossils, rocks and minerals, Americana and folk art, decorative arts, ancient and ethnographic artifacts, and 19C fine art.

Conuropsis carolinensis/Carolina Parakeet (Extinct)

In Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, I misread that the last stuffed Carolina Parakeet was lost by the Cincinnati Zoo. And yet, here was a stuffed Carolina Parakeet! What Bryson actually said was that the last known living Carolina Parakeet died at the Cincinnati Zoo, was stuffed, then was lost.
The taxidermied bird collection now has specimens from far beyond Pennsylvania.

Mercury Metal (2016, by Hunt Slonem),
is actually oil on wood...

The 1920s... The Migrants Cast Their Ballots
(1975 serigraph, by Jacob Lawrence) (KSS)

Burst (2014) in the Special Exhibition:
The Essence of Color: The Art of Victoria Lowe

Scranton, Looking North, by John Willard Raught,
one of the featured Northeastern Pennsylvanian artists

Dorflinger glass (1908-1920), champagne punch cups
and punch bowl on plate, etched in Kalana Poppy design

Christian Dorflinger was born in France and apprenticed in glassmaking. He moved the the United States with his mother and siblings, and settled in New Jersey to work at a glass factory. When kerosene oil was discovered, he was assigned to fashion an appropriate glass chimney for an oil burner. Due to his success, he started his own glass making company. Later in 1865 he opened the
Dorflinger Glass factory in White Mills, PA.

Dorflinger glass pens with lampwork beads (KSS)

Visible Storage Gallery (KSS)

Hey, another Carolina Parakeet!

Another Special Exhibition was:
Another Way of Remembering

Another Way of Remembering was a research project using artifacts from the museum to inspire creativity in patients with early-stage Alzheimer's disease, hoping to evoke memory and cognitive functioning.

Another sample from
Another Way of Remembering

We drove to the Marketplace at Steamtown/formerly Steamtown Mall.

Opioid Epidemic Mural (2019, by Eric Bussart) seeks to raise
awareness while dealing with a serious issue, features a
fast food worker caring for a grandchild, a child of addicts

Kent with the famous "Scranton Welcomes You" sign
seen in opening credits of the TV series, "The Office"

A short walk to Courthouse Square reveals that the "Electric City"
sign (1930s) atop the Board of Trade/Electric Building at the far end;
closer are the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1900) and the
Lackawanna County Courthouse (1884, in Romanesque Revival style)

Next: Rockwell Museum, Corning NY