Blame the Victim and Privatize the Grief

If You're Wrong, Go with the Big Lie

June 3, 2018. I got my t-shirt at 22nd and Spruce.

There's a well-worn playbook that's been used by the tobacco and asbestos industries and now seems to be an integral part of virtually any reactionary movement that deals with ideas. The basic principle is quite simple: Deny the premise. If scientists are saying that tobacco causes cancer, find some scientists who are willing to disagree. If argument doesn't work, go buy some scientific research that backs your side. If the war goes on long enough, found think tanks and give your best propagandists fancy, academic-sounding titles. (For background on this topic, see Wendell Potter, Deadly Spin, 2010, chapters 2 and 3. See also Jill Lepore, "The Lie Factory," The New Yorker, September 24, 2012.)

There's another template that came to my mind recently, after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Back in the 1920s, a new-fangled contraption called the automobile was busy slaughtering children in the streets of our nation's cities. And many people were unhappy about that, and they protested - there were marches, all kinds of things. (See Peter D. Norton, Fighting Traffic, 2011.)

The auto industry and its allies were taken aback by this uproar, and so they organized on a number of fronts. In particular they got state legislatures to change the traffic laws to make it illegal for pedestrians to cross in the middle of the street. This was a novel idea, and so "motordom," as it was called, didn't just sell it to the lawmakers. It also mounted a huge public relations campaign, even inventing the term "jaywalking."

With the law on their side, the auto lobby could then blame the victim. Little Johnny shouldn't have chased that ball out into the street. Or, what was he doing wearing dark clothes at dusk? On it goes, and it still goes on today. When a Duck boat driver killed a pedestrian down by the Reading Terminal Market, here in Philly, there was much tsk-tsking about how the pedestrian lacked sufficient situational awareness.

I wish I could say that the media have not been complicit in all this, but they are. Let's face it: Car ads are a huge category for print, television, and online media. Last year, for instance, a local television station did its best to blame a 14-year-old girl who was hit by a car while walking in a crosswalk in suburban Abington. (For a story on this, click here.)

In the end that driver was charged. In the Philadelphia Duck case, it was the insurance companies that finally shut the company down.

Okay, so blaming the victim is the setup punch. And here's the money punch. Motordom can say, with a straight face, that death on our roads is a private matter, not a concern of public policy. Mothers just need to do a better job keeping their children inside, playing violent video games and getting fat. The government doesn't need to do anything. Shouldn't do anything.

And by the way, speed limits are an un-American infringement of citizens' God-given rights. So our political class needs to balance freedom and death.

And the same thing happens with guns. Here the NRA has the advantage of the Second Amendment, which the Supreme Court has obligingly interpreted in a profoundly screwy way. So they've got the law.

But I don't think they're doing very well on blaming the victim, and we need to make sure that that continues to be the case. Because if they ever do get traction on that, then I think they'll have a good shot at privatizing the grief and removing the issue from the public agenda.

Fortunately, I think the NRA is playing a weak hand. Wayne LaPierre's famous statement that "The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun" is problematic on a number of levels. First, we now have many instances where a good guy with a gun was present and failed to prevent mayhem. Second, there are alternatives, like seeing that the bad guy doesn't have a gun. In a school setting, LaPierre's dictum also conjures the image of giving guns to kindergartners. Even the idea of arming teachers takes many people to a place they don't want to go.

At its core, the NRA's vision is profoundly dystopian, and their argument for irresponsible freedom only appeals to certain people.

That leaves them with raw power. But power in America almost always comes cloaked with virtue. Naked, it's a tough sell.

I think that leaves a very large gap for the kids from Marjory Stoneman Douglas to rush through, and I think the rest of us should follow. Call us the Utopians, or maybe the Shining City on a Hill Mob.

See also Cars and Bikes - the Back Story, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Guns Without Responsibility

A Larger Story Coming On

Rescuing the West Side of Philadelphia's City Hall

Pedestrians not cowering behind the parapet. No parapet.

I feel a larger story coming on, but let me steal my own thunder and sketch it out here.

People are complaining about the new Love Park, and still complaining about the new Dilworth Park, and not complaining at all about the old plaza around the Municipal Services Building, and its defensive ramparts.

All three of these areas were rebuilt in the years after World War II, and in each case that design was a reaction to the takeover of our streets by motor vehicles. Love Park and Dilworth Park have been rebuilt more recently, and I think the criticisms of these rebuilds may, in certain cases, be overlooking the very serious deficits that have been remedied.

I think the area west of City Hall, in the center of William Penn's 1682 plan for the city, is a Petri dish for what happened to cities after World War II (although things were definitely getting started well before that war).

Basically, planners were trying to figure out how to keep motorists from killing pedestrians. If you think the casualty numbers are bad now, you should have a look at what they were back then, and then remember that the country's population was much smaller than it is now.

So what did planners do west of City Hall? They ceded the streets to motor vehicles. Pedestrians were allowed on sidewalks, and possibly tolerated at crosswalks, as long as they ceded priority to the cars and trucks. Failure to do so could easily result in death, or serious injury.

But what about people gathering in public spaces? This was of course, the civic center of the city of Philadelphia, birthplace of the nation and presumably a place that should value people gathering together and exercising their Constitutional right to free speech. Well, okay, we'll have some places for people to get together, and we'll make sure they won't be run down by an errant drunk in a Ford Model T, or possibly a Mack truck.

So we'll create defensive positions around these public spaces that would make the Wehrmacht proud. Those of you who have seen the movie Saving Private Ryan will probably recall the landing on the beach. Well, those defenses were rather unambitious compared to what we erected on the west side of City Hall, and around Love Park, and up around the Municipal Services Building.

And so that's what they did. And very few motorists seem to have found their way into these spaces (except the north apron of City Hall, which became a parking lot for city officials and frankly, was easy to get into compared to the west side of City Hall).

And the people huddled in their designated gathering areas, presumably grateful that they could do this without getting killed.

As I look at the only remaining piece of this architecture of defense, surrounding the Municipal Services Building, I continue to see what I saw throughout this area - very good machine gun emplacements and rifle pits, and the occasional mortar pit.

I personally don't think that military architecture is a good model for civic architecture, but that's what we had here. And it's going away. And I'm grateful for that.

See also Transportation Should Not Trump Destination.

The Future of Christ Church Park

Looks Like This

Billy the Goat and some friends in Rittenhouse Square.

Steal Billy! No, just steal the kids. They don't have to be these exact kids. They might even live close to Christ Church Park, at Second and Market, instead of over by Rittenhouse Square. But children and their moms and dads are crucial to the future of Christ Church Park.

There was a wonderful design workshop on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 8, on Church Street, between the church and the park. The workshop simply took half a tent in the regular Wednesday farmer's market, and it blended well, people trading in vegetables, handiwork, and ideas.

It was a warm day, but a lot of people found the time to stop by and put stickers on a sheet to show their preferences for various things (it turns out the park's walls and fences are not terribly popular). They could also write a comment on a small slate board and be photographed with their comment. Then the slate board would be erased for the next customer. And they could draw on tracing paper over a plan of the park and its environs, showing where they wanted new gates, new paths, more trees, etc.

All this will be processed and reported by the appropriate authorities. My immediate takeaway is that a lot of people do care about this park and see that it could function better than it currently does.

I spent several hours at the park during the design workshop. I watched and chatted, got an iced latte from Old City Coffee, took pictures, and spent some time with the park's official storyteller, whose bench is very near the grave of Founding Father James Wilson. Wilson signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, he served as an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, and  he became the first professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania. Christ Church Park is officially named James Wilson Park.

The official storyteller told me and a couple from Virginia about Benjamin Franklin's wife, and we compared notes on literature. She told me Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City was one of her favorite books. It turned out she is from Delaware, so we also got to talk about Caesar Rodney and his famous ride through a thunderstorm to sign the Declaration of Independence.

All this was in the afternoon. In the morning I went to Sister Cities Park, in Logan Square, to take some pictures of the water features there. I have no idea whether Christ Church Park could pull off something like what's going on at Sister Cities Park, but I sure hope it can.

The wading pool and the rock garden.

The wading pool and rock garden are to the north of the cafe; the sprinkler field is to the south.

Sprinklers. Kids.

One thing that Christ Church Park doesn't need is a cafe. Old City Coffee is happily taking care of business at 221 Church Street. You can crawl there from the park, and that's almost what I did. It was a hot day. They do have air conditioning in addition to latte.

Old City Coffee.

See also The Invitation.

The Invitation

Christ Church Park, An Underperforming Asset

The corner of Second and Market. No gate.

So maybe we should ask people to come into the park. Just a thought. It's a nice park - I've often admired it walking by, on either Market or Second, on my way to somewhere else. I've hardly ever gone inside the park, and when I have I wasn't quite sure what to do there.

Let's face it: I've been coddled by Rittenhouse Square, where there are benches, other people, yadayada. Oh, yes, and there are ways into Rittenhouse Square.

How do you get into Christ Church Park? It's almost a secret. Is there an entrance at or near the corner of Second and Market? No. Think about Rittenhouse Square and the corner of 18th and Walnut, with massive quantities of pedestrian commuters in the morning and evening rush, bike messengers hanging out all day, socializing and waiting for their next call, various solicitors for religious, political, and other causes. The occasional odor of marijuana. Nothing like this happens at Second and Market. There's no gate there, you know.

Gate on Market Street, recessed in midblock.

There are two entrances to Christ Church Park, and frankly they're almost hidden. There's one on Market in the midblock, at the southwest corner of the park. The other one is at the northwest corner of the park, near the entrance to Christ Church. The two gates are connected by a brick walkway, the only path in the park.

The Market Street gate and the walkway.

Gate on Church Street.

Urbanist Jan Gehl likes to talk about the invitation. If you want people to come into your park, you need to invite them in. (See Jan Gehl, Cities for People, 2010, pp. 15, 17, 21, 236-237.)

View from Church Street gate, Christ Church across the street.

Okay, so let's assume you're in Christ Church park. What do you do then? Good question.

I'm a simple guy. My main park activity is hanging out. I don't need rope courses or zip lines. A place to sit would be nice. The park currently has five stone benches strung along the walkway. They do not have backs or armrests, but they are backed by a brick wall. Here's a picture.

Four of the five stone benches. The walkway. The brick wall.

Behind the brick wall, by the way, is a parking lot. It is virtually invisible. I wish all the parking lots in Philadelphia were as demure as this.

This parking lot is on line with American Street. 

Given the configuration of the park as essentially a pilgrim's path to the church, it is perhaps not surprising that park utilization leaves something to be desired. Dog-owners walk their dogs here, and even that has its ins and outs. This is a National Park Service park, and the Park Service requires dogs to be on-leash at all times. It's in the Code of Federal Regulations:  36 CFR Chapter 1, Section 2.15(a)(2).

Reimagining the Park
I picked up these tidbits at a July 18 meeting in Christ Church's Neighborhood House, next door to the church itself. On the fourth floor, in an auditorium that used to be a gym (there are still basketball-court markings on the floor), I watched and listened as various speakers discussed various aspects of the park.

All this gabbing was in service of a project sponsored by the Old City District: Reimagining the park at Second and Market Street.

Ideas? Yes, I Have a Few
Here are a couple of ideas off the top of my head.

My top priority. Figure out how to get little kids and their moms and dads into the park. You definitely want them in the mix of park users. They bring a whole new and very positive vibe.

Just look at the statue of Billy the Goat in Rittenhouse Square. The goat is the center of a seating area largely but not exclusively occupied by small children and their parents. This place is so popular with kids that, after a century, a literally worn-down Billy is retiring to a nice pasture across the street in the Philadelphia City Institute Library. He will be replaced by Billy Jr., an exact replica.

Second idea. Plan for a mix of uses. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (pp. 96-97), Jane Jacobs explains the secret of Rittenhouse Square's success. Because it borders a residential district and a commercial district, the park draws different people at different times of day. Aside from small children and their parents, and the old people who like to sit on benches and watch them, you have pale-faced office workers who come to get some sun and exercise while walking on the park's ring path. The benches welcome people eating takeout lunches.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

So here are some physical changes that would undoubtedly make Christ Church Park more popular.

- More gates, better placed.

- Diagonal paths. These would encourage people to shortcut through the park. A valid use to my mind (I certainly do it a lot myself), and some of the people passing through may sit down for a few minutes, rest their feet, and look around.

- A water feature. Philly has lots of great water features, none better in my estimation than the two at Sister Cities Park by Logan Square (talk about child magnets). I personally think the water feature at Christ Church should include a watering trough for horses.

- Interpretive plaques. And here's why we should have a horse trough. Somebody needs to step up and educate tourists and locals about the history of the nineteenth-century city they are standing in the middle of. Explaining to people what a horse trough is could be a good place to start.

Why All the Low-Hanging Fruit?
As I learned at the information session, Christ Church Park is a child of the 1960s. The Park Service wanted to create a view shed for the church, so it pulled down the buildings where the park now is and created a very pretty space that would allow tourists to stand at Market Street, where the sidewalk has been widened and a raised planting bed with low walls appropriate for seating has been provided. (These walls currently sport a don't-sit-on-me rail running along the top.) Tourists could view Christ Church from a distance and then possibly walk on the walkway at the west side of the park to view the church exterior close-up and possibly even go inside the front door, just a few feet from the park's northern gate. Any other uses by pedestrians do not seem to have been in the program.

That's simply how people were thinking then. Take Mies van der Rohe's iconic Seagram Building, on Park Avenue in Manhattan. A product of the 1950s, it stands in magnificent isolation behind a very effective view-shed plaza. Later on, people did get the idea that maybe there should be, you know, people in the plazas, but in the beginning it was definitely look but don't touch. It might be a step too far to say that the only pedestrians welcome were architectural photographers. Or it might not be a step too far.

The view of Christ Church from Market could actually be improved by lowering the fence. New York City's parks department has a program called Parks Without Borders; it does advocate in certain situations for taking down fences entirely. I wouldn't do that here because I think the moms and dads will want some perimeter definition to help keep their little ones from wandering out into the middle of Market Street.

Learning from Love Park
Part of Old City District's reimagining process will be looking at ways to further civilize the streets adjacent to the park.

I watched this mission civilisatrice (as the French would call it) fail at Love Park. I love the new Love Park itself, but nothing was done about the surrounding streets despite promises and hints.

I'm still angry about Love Park, but I'm working resolutely to set that anger aside and focus on the opportunities presented by Christ Church Park. I think, with a little help from well-meaning people, the park could raise its game significantly without spending a lot of money.

There's an open design workshop at the park Wednesday, August 8, from 2 to 7 p.m. The workshop will be at the farmer's market, which is next to the church.

There is naturally a page on the Old City District's website. Linked from the page are a survey and the slide deck from the July 18 presentation. Click here to view.

See Do We Secretly Want Ugly Cities and Dangerous Streets? Also Road Diet by Love Park - a Natural Experiment.

An Inflection Point

I could feel some tectonic plates shifting after the meeting in Helsinki between Putin and Trump. Some are calling Trump a traitor, which in my opinion is probably true. Others are asking what actually went on behind closed doors for two hours, since Trump is well known to have an attention span of about 18 seconds. The idea of him carrying on a sustained conversation for two hours with no aides to prompt him is laughable. So there will be the inevitable jokes about the Putin-Trump tryst. Was there spanking? Were there whips?

All of this is amusing, but I think it's not the main point. And I don't think that Trump's childishness or his petulance are the main point.

I think the main point is that Trump showed weakness. His painfully servile performance can be indicative of a number of things. Perhaps there really are pee tapes. More likely, the Russians have been financing Trump for many years, after the New York banks gave up on him, and so the Russians have the ability to ruin him financially, politically, any way you wish to name.

But we live in a world of carnivores. Putin is not alone. There's an old line about never showing weakness to a wild animal, because when the wild animal senses weakness, it automatically attacks.

The wild animal Trump needs to fear, more than Putin, is the American people. Right or left, we see ourselves as a great power, and when questions arise about what Mr. Trump was doing on his knees in front of Mr. Putin for two hours, I think the worm may just turn.

See also Bannon and Co. Aren't Very Good at Being Evil, Fascism, What Can Pierre Laval Tell Us About Donald Trump?

Second and Chestnut

200 block of Chestnut, the interesting side.

As regular readers probably know, I get to Tuesdays with Toomey as often as I can. Which is pretty often. Our venue, at Second and Chestnut, is on the southern border of Philadelphia's Old City, and I've fallen in love with it.

You may also know that I'm fond of color in buildings, and as the picture above shows, there's quite a bit of color in the architecture of Old City.

Here's a picture of what our meetings are like.

Tuesdays with Toomey, June 5, 2018.

We've been meeting here since Toomey moved his office to the well-fortified Custom House in early 2017. Before that, he was up on JFK near the Comcast building, and those Comcast folks would come pouring out at lunchtime and join the rally. I once estimated our crowd at 700. Today, it's more like thirty, sometimes fifty. When John Fetterman showed up, we were over 100.

So the crowd is smaller, but guess what? The snowflakes didn't melt in the spring of 2017. We have persisted.

I'm not terribly fond of Pennsylvania's junior senator, but I am grateful to him for bringing me to this neighborhood. And, as a bonus, I'm quite certain that I will never, ever see him here.

I've had the opportunity, before and after our rallies, to wander around the neighborhood. In the 200 block of Chestnut there are two little streets, Strawberry and Bank, that run north to Market. And, if you're in the mood, you can do some time travel. But this is also a very modern, hip locale that is using its old bones well. Here's a view down Strawberry to the Custom House, where Toomey's office is.

And here's a shot north on Strawberry, showing the spire of Christ Church on the other side of Market.

Here's the view north on Bank.

Strawberry Court, Bank Street facade.

Okay, let's walk up Elbow Lane to Bodine Street and have a look at the beer garden there.

A different take on parking.

Strawberry Street and Trotters Alley. A parking lot and Second Street are reflected in the windows.

In the days before electricity, vault lights were used to let the sun shine in to basements, which typically extended under the sidewalk. Here's a vault light on Chestnut Street.

The shot below is for my friend Justin Coffin, who has been photographing real Arctic Splashes for years. The rendering here is part of a large and pleasantly incoherent mural on a wall that helps to define an utterly unremarkable parking lot.

Strawberry and Trotters Alley.

Sticking with the monochromatic approach, here's something I stumbled across in a little alley next to the Ritz garage. Aside from the poorly maintained Belgian block pavement, this was literally the only point of visual interest on the entire block. Calling Isaiah Zagar.

Ionic Street.

Back to color: How about some orange?  Here's the sidewall of the European Republic restaurant on Strawberry. Decent food.

Strawberry at Chestnut.

See also Senator Skedaddle, Senator Toomey Called My Son A Burnt-Down House, My New Favorite Alley.

The Last Man Who Knew Everything

Joseph Leidy of Philadelphia

Joseph Leidy at the Academy of Natural Sciences.

Joseph Leidy (1823-1891) is best known as a pioneer in the study of dinosaurs. In 1868, he guided a team that erected "the first fully articulated dinosaur skeleton display in the world." The skeleton was put on display at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, which at the time was located on the northwest corner of Broad and Sansom, and it revolutionized the concept of a natural history museum.

In addition to attracting visitors to museums - lots of visitors - dinosaurs were also instrumental in getting people to think seriously about the then-novel concept of evolution. Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection had only appeared in 1859, and it would be an understatement to say that the guardians of received wisdom were not very receptive. Leidy, in a letter, wrote of the importance of dinosaur displays: "They break up old and rather fixed views about the world being created just as we now see it. Nothing tends so much to lead people to believe in the existence of former races of animals, as such restorations."

(See Robert McCracken Peck and Patricia Tyson Stroud, A Glorious Enterprise: the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia and the Making of American Science, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, [2012], pp. 136-138, 140.)

Leidy was also a pioneer in the use of the microscope, which he called his "first love." His work in this area included parasites (he found the source of trichinosis in pork and later recommended more thorough cooking as a preventive measure) and his beloved rhizopods, tiny creatures some of whom are better known as amoebas, which he lovingly reproduced in illustrations that showed a very considerable artistic talent. (See Leonard Warren, Joseph Leidy, The Last Man Who Knew Everything, New Haven, Yale University Press [1998], pp. 65, 69, 166-169; and Henry Fairfield Osborn, Joseph Leidy 1823-1891, City of Washington, National Academy of Sciences, 1913, pp. 351-352. This last is available online.)

Leidy was probably the first in America to use the microscope in forensic medicine. Shortly after he graduated from medical school, the coroner of Philadelphia hired him as a part-time assistant coroner. It probably didn't hurt that the coroner was his cousin Napoleon B. Leidy. During his four years on the job (1845-1849) Joseph showed that nepotism could have an upside. In 1846 a farmer was murdered in north Philadelphia, and a day later a man was arrested because of the blood on his clothing and also on the hatchet he was carrying. This fellow would probably have benefited from watching a few noir movies, but of course movies hadn't been invented. Anyway, he claimed that the blood came from chickens he had killed. Leidy threw some samples under his microscope, and declared that he was not looking at chicken blood. The suspect, apparently lacking any plausible plan B, wound up confessing. (Warren, pp. 59, 72.)

But perhaps the thing about Leidy that most astonished his contemporaries, from students in the hallway to colleagues in the faculty lounge, was the simply amazing amount of stuff he knew about the natural world. From dinosaurs to clinical pathology, botany, zoology, rocks and gems, "if Leidy didn't know, no one knew," in the words of his biographer Warren (p. 192).

Leidy had a happy life and many friends, and he was a pillar of three major institutions in Philadelphia: Penn's medical school, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the Wagner Free Institute of Science. He received the M.D. degree from Penn's medical school in 1844 and in 1853 was appointed professor of anatomy at the medical school, a position he held for nearly four decades. He also served as dean of the medical school, curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences and, in the 1880's, president of that institution,  and as president of the Wagner Free Institute. And he taught natural history at Swarthmore for many years.

It seems that just about everybody liked Leidy. The few who didn't like him seem to have been annoyed that, even though he was a really nice guy, you couldn't push him around.

Leidy was born at his parents' home, 312 North Third Street, which was conveniently next door to his father's hat store. In 1864 he married Anna Harden, daughter of the Reverend Robert Harden of Louisville, Kentucky. In 1876 the couple adopted Allwina Franck, the orphaned daughter of a Penn engineering professor. Leidy was raised as a Lutheran, but migrated in later years to Unitarianism. His funeral was held at Frank Furness's First Unitarian Church at 2125 Chestnut Street. (Warren, pp. 1, 143, 145-146, 221, 225.)

Leidy was a part of the western migration of Philadelphia during the nineteenth century. He grew up on Third Street, and in 1859 he purchased a house at 1302 Filbert Street, where he lived for many years. In the last year of his life he lived at 2125 Spruce. (Warren, pp. 19, 173, 221, 270.)

The Dr. Joseph Leidy House at 1319 Locust Street was the home of Dr. Joseph Leidy, Jr., who was Professor Leidy's nephew. It was built several years after Uncle Joseph died. Penn's online biography of Leidy gets this wrong in the last paragraph.

The site of the Filbert Street house later became part of the City Hall Annex, which is now a hotel. Across Filbert today is the city's criminal justice center.

Things obviously looked a bit different when Leidy was living there. For several decades he got to watch the construction of City Hall, a block away. Although the Reading Terminal was not built until after his death, there were markets on 12th Street before the Reading Terminal arrived.

A student who lived with the Leidys, Charles S. Dolley, tells us that Leidy "did most of the marketing and I frequently accompanied him to the 12th St. Market and carried home the basket of meat, fish or vegetables which he selected." At the time hucksters would also walk the streets, calling out their wares. Fresh crabs were frequently on offer in the summer, and when Leidy heard the soft-shelled crab men "crying 'crabs, crabs,' he would take some change from his pocket and say, 'Charlie, suppose you run down and get some crabs and a pitcher of beer from the corner saloon' - a very respectable place on the corner of 13th and Filbert - in fact, right next door. Then we would have a jolly snack." (Warren, pp. 143-145.)

Although not a great traveler, Leidy did get to Europe four times. And from time to time the world came to him. A Glorious Enterprise has a wonderful photograph on page 275 that shows Joseph Leidy standing with Edgar Allan Poe in the Academy of Natural Sciences at Broad and Sansom, during the winter of 1842-1843. The authors report that Poe spent time at the Academy researching mollusks; the photograph - a daguerrotype - is "the oldest known photograph of an American museum interior."

Much later in life, Leidy served on the committee at the University of Pennsylvania that supervised the work of Eadweard Muybridge, who was conducting photographic studies of human motion. (Warren, p. 240.)

While Leidy was slowly moving westward across Philadelphia, his two main employers were doing the same thing.

From 1751 to 1801, the University of Pennsylvania's college was located at Fourth and Arch. The medical school was founded in 1765 and located in Surgeons' Hall, on Fifth near Walnut.  (Because the site of Surgeons' Hall is in the Independence National Historical Park, there is a plaque.) In 1801 the college and the medical school moved to Ninth and Market, where they stayed until the move to West Philly in 1872.

The Academy of Natural Sciences held its first meeting in 1812, in a private residence near the northwest corner of Market and Second. It was soon renting a meeting space above a milliner's shop at 94 North Second Street, and in 1816 moved to purpose-built quarters on Arch between Front and Second. The building was presumably designed by William Strickland, who was on the building committee. In 1826 the members, moving the collections themselves, to save money, occupied a former Swedenborgian church (which was definitely designed by Strickland). This structure was located at 12th and George (now Sansom) streets. In 1840 the Academy continued its trek west, to Broad and Sansom, where it stayed until 1876, when it moved to its current location on Logan Square, at 19th and Race. (Peck and Stroud, pp. 2, 6, 13, 30, 32, 43, 144, 149, 154 fn. 69, 410.)

Warren (p. 207) says the Academy moved to Broad and Sansom in 1826. I believe he is mistaken.

Warren does have one significant criticism of Leidy. It's an interesting point, with which I happen not to agree, but it is well worth discussing.

Leidy lived at a time when modern science was really beginning to take off, with the experimental method becoming more and more important.  Leidy, though well aware of these developments, continued to work throughout his career in the more traditional vein of descriptive science. Warren thinks that Leidy should have jumped on the experimental bandwagon. (Warren, pp. 6, 41, 92, 105, 236, 252.)

(Think of Louis Pasteur saying, "Look at all those microbes in the fresh milk." And then saying, "I wonder what happens if we heat the milk." The first is observation. The second is the beginning of an experiment.)

I have several reactions. First, the idea of looking very carefully, and then reporting precisely what you have seen, lies at the base of modern science. Today we may take this approach for granted, but it was not always so.

For example, maggots seem to have the ability to appear out of nowhere. In reality, they come from very tiny eggs, and later in life they turn into flies. Leidy spent a good amount of his time, over the years, dealing with people who sincerely believed they had witnessed the spontaneous generation of life. (Warren, pp. 106, 116, 122, 130.)

Second, there is no guarantee that Leidy would have been half as good an experimenter as he was an observer, reporter, and illustrator. I'd say Leidy knew what he was good at, and he stuck to it. There's a really bad John Wayne movie from 1968 called Hellfighters, in which the veteran character actor Jay C. Flippen says to Katharine Ross, "Your father is the best there is at what he does. No man can walk away from that."

Third, observation continues to be in considerable demand even today. A recent article in the New York Times carries the title "The 8 Million Species We Don't Know." In it, the eminent entomologist Edward O. Wilson suggests that biodiversity is a good thing, estimates that there are currently 10 million species on the planet, of which only 2 million have been described, and argues that we can't save species if we don't know they're there.

If Joseph Leidy were alive today, his services would definitely be in demand. Eight million species to go. He'd be a happy man.

The statue of Leidy is by Samuel Murray (1870-1941). It was originally installed at the west front of City Hall in 1907 and moved to its present site in front of the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1929.