Rittenhouse Square (9/9/2023)

Saturday, September 9, 2023

Going into Philadelphia, we took the SEPTA Regional Rail Media-Wawa Line train from Wawa to 49th Street, then Trolley Route 13 to 22nd Street.

First stop was the Mütter Museum (1909)

In respect to human remains, no photography is allowed
in the museum, only in the lobby and garden;
Tamiko and Kent with an Iron Lung (BAS)

The Grand Staircase to the Historical
Medical Library and Collections for research

The Mütter Museum of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia began as a donation from American surgeon Thomas Dent Mütter, MD. He had collected specimens to improve and reform medical education. This building is the second home of the expanded collection, but continues to display the  anatomical specimens (skulls, skeletons, preserved organs, medical anomalies), models, and medical instruments in a 19th-century “cabinet museum” setting. 

The Benjamin Rush Medicinal Plant Garden
(1937) exhibits plants that have historical
and contemporary medicinal value

We remember Dr Rush as having trained Meriwether Lewis in the medical arts before he and William Clark led the Corps of Discovery Expedition (1804-1806). The doctor provided his Bilious Pills that were essentially laxatives to rid the body of "bile." Called "Thunderclappers" by the men, the pills also contained mercury. Through archaeological findings of mercury deposits, historians have located some of the camps used by the expedition.

Allium sativum/Garlic

Sarracenia spp/Pitcher plants

White Garden with Phlox paniculata 'David'

White Garden with Anemone hupehensis 'Honorine Jobert'

23rd Street Armory (1901, by Gillette
Woodman) is home to the First Troop
Philadelphia City Cavalry

Organized as the Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia in 1774, the First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry was the first organized group to defend the colonies from the British, and it is the oldest continuously operating mounted military unit in the nation. Today’s members are part of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard and are appointed by election only.

The former Church of the New Jerusalem
(1881, by Theophilus Parsons Chandler) of the
Swedenborgian church, is now offices

First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia (est 1796,
this 3rd bldg 1883-1886, by Frank Furness,
in modest English country church Gothic style)

Th hammer-beam ceiling is an open
timber roof truss; here it is painted rust red
stenciled with gold-leaf daffodils

One of a pair of stained glass windows
designed by Louis Tiffany & Company
for the Lewis Memorial Windows (1908)

The second Lewis Memorial Window

Tiffany also designed the rose window titled
Blessed are the Pure in Heart (1889)

The opposite rose windowis titled Isaiah 
(1891, by John La Farge)

Concert-grade Casavant pipe organ (1966)
with 3 manuals and 50 ranks

The First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia is known for its first minister, William Henry Furness, an abolitionist famous for his anti-slavery sermons and Underground Railroad activities. He had the body of executed John Brown brought to his church for a private vigil. It was also here that seminary student Martin Luther King, Jr attended and was inspired by a lecture of Dr Mordecai Johnson on how "Mohandas Gandhi integrated Henry David Thoreau's theory of non-violent civil  disobedience."

Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion
(1880, by Isaac Pursell in Richardsonian
Romanesque style for St Paul's Reformed
Episcopal Church, sold in 1903)

First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia
(est 1692, 1872 by Henry Augustus Sims
in French Gothic style, tower 1901 by
Frank Furness in English Gothic style)

Marie Louise Weightman Faries Memorial
Window (c 1898, attributed to Fannie Sweeney)

Emily B McFadden Window
(1914, signed by Tiffany Studios)

The Prophet Windows (c 1906, also by Tiffany) represent
Abraham, Joseph, Samuel, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and Daniel

The Rev Dr J Ernest Somerville Window (1988, by
Willet Studios) in memory of a minister who served
for 30 years, and the Dove Window

We hurried through the First Presbyterian Church because a wedding was about to begin; however, a very helpful church associate pointed out the significant stained glass windows.

Church of the Holy Trinity (1859, by
John Notman in Norman or Neo-Romanesque
style) was closed for a rehearsal

Street lamp and planter of Rittenhouse Square,
one of the five original open-space squares
planned by William Penn and his surveyor,
Thomas Holme in 1683, and named in 1825 for
astronomer and clockmaker David Rittenhouse

Lion Crushing a Serpent (1832, by Antoine-Louis Barye,
cast in 1890) is an allegory of the 1830 French revolution

Neptune Fountain and Children's Pool

Duck Girl (1911, by Paul Manship) was first
exhibited in 1914 at the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts, went in storage in 1956,
then relocated here in 1960

Billy (1914, by Albert Laessle)

The back of the Neptune Fountain

Giant Frog (1941, by Cornelia Van Auken Chapin)

Evelyn Taylor Price Memorial Sundial
(1947, by Beatrice Fenton)

Flower-filled planters at the NE corner of Rittenhouse Square

Boyds luxury department store (est 1938,
1990 moved into Oliver H Bair building,
1907 by John T Windrim in
Renaissance Revival style)