Memo to meeting planners: try Philly for skeletons
Some popular meeting venues such as New York City and Chicago tout their museums, particularly their free ones. But when it comes to oddities, Philadelphia can come up with some of the most unusual venues anywhere — take the Mutter Museum.
Thomas Dent Mutter managed to collect a boatload of unusual items before his death in 1859.
These include a plaster cast of Siamese twins Chang and Eng, the country’s tallest skeleton at 7 feet and six inches, and an extensive skull collection.
Meeting groups can also have their meetings on site.
“We get all types of groups, including weddings and bar mitzvahs,” said J. Nathan Bazell, communications director for the museum. Groups of up to 800 can meet here.
But when it comes to places to go after the meeting, Philadelphia has other things to do you won’t find just anywhere such as the Eastern State Penitentiary. It opened in 1829 as a prison and lasted until 1971, housing such well-known “penitents” as Al Capone and Willie Sutton.
The “Pennsylvania System” of incarceration was practiced here where silence was strictly enforced. English novelist Charles Dickens once visited the prison and was horrified at its isolation, which led to many suicides and some inmates going insane. It has been a tourist attraction since 1994.
About a two hour drive away are the half dozen ghost tours that have grown up since the famous Civil War battle of Gettysburg. This was probably the most famous and bloodiest battle of the war with up to 51,000 Americans killed on both sides in just a few days and today, naturally, there are ghosts still around. Many buildings also survived the war and are worth a trip by themselves.
By David Wilkening
David
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