Day 269 of Firsts: Free Museum Day

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.  ~Pearl Buck

I was anchoring the news this morning and was intrigued by a story about free museum tickets. All you had to do was go online and get a free ticket from the smithsonian website and pick a museum near you.

I picked the Fireman's Hall Museum in Philly on 2nd Street.  I'd never been and Philly has some great firetruck antiques and firefighting history.  I was most struck, though, by the little display on the firefighters who lost their lives in 911.  Every one of their pictures are there.  It hits you.

As I was about to leave I realized a place that's always free and historical is right next door: Elfrith's Alley.  I've never walked down this street amazingly preserved from 1702.

It was not the home of anyone famous. It was a street where common working people lived and eventually was considered a slum until historians saved it from the wrecking ball and a plan to put I-95 right through it.

Anyway, a free ticket was a wonderful idea to get folks into museums and history and I had a great time playing tourist in my own city.