'Dusk 'Til Dawn' Tour Asks People to Stay Up All Night in Philadelphia

Sarah Biellmer, the assistant director of Temple Contemporary art gallery, created free, one-time-only expedition that is intended to explore a simple question: What are the contours and implications of a 24-hour city? A dozen students from Temple and the Tyler School of Art, a few professors, and yes, one journalist, join her "Dusk 'til Dawn" tour. This adventure runs from 9:30 p.m. till 8 a.m.

Philadelphia recently joined New York and Chicago in offering late-night subway service and ridership ballooned by 50 percent during the weekend intervals in the initial months of a pilot program, despite an additional cost of $34,000 per day for SEPTA, the region's public transit agency. The "Dusk 'til Dawn" too looks at Philadelphia its off-peak culture.

The tour visits Philadelphia Zoo, paid "homage to an iconic diner, hunted for Civil War ghosts at Fort Mifflin along the Delaware River, and petted a three-banded armadillo," as said by Malcolm Burnley in his article about the tour.

On the bus, tour also watches a powerpoint presentation given by Michael Stanton, an architect and scholar - one of the professors in tow - that's on the European concept of flaneur, which is the 19th-century word for anyone who passionately meanders through urban streets without any utilitarian purpose. "The city asks you not to pay attention, not to recognize who's pulling the levers and releasing the clouds of colored smoke," Stanton lectures, in a reference to the Wizard of Oz. And tonight, we will pursue an overnight version, he says, by "delicately lifting that curtain and investigating the exposed flesh of the 24-hour city."

The tour also visits the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, and makes a stop at Fort Mifflin - an active base during the Revolutionary and Civil Wars now located near Philadelphia's airport - for a ghost tour. We skip a scheduled visit to a wholesale-produce facility in South Philadelphia. The tour also goes to Little Pete's in Center City for coffee and a snack, before their final stop at Wissahickon Park in northern Philadelphia. "Dusk 'til Dawn" found pockets of Philadelphia that never stop.

Read the original article here.

Photo Credit: Malcolm Burnley