Ah, irony

[ckd]

So hr_macgirl and I went to Philadelphia over the weekend, and while there, visited a number of sites.

Which of the following had the least intrusive security?

• National Constitution Center
• Independence Hall
• Liberty Bell Pavilion
• Eastern State Penitentiary

Yup, you got it: Eastern State Penitentiary. No bag search, no magnetometer, nothing at all. (It stopped being an actual working prison 35 years ago.) Heck, they even had a display of various improvised weapons (in a locked case, true)!

NCC? A cursory open-the-bag-and-look-in search.

Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell Pavilion? "Empty your pockets. Take off your watch and belt. Put everything through the X-ray machine as you walk through the magnetometer." If they just add shoe checks and liquid bans, they can be a strict superset of the checks at PHL. (At Independence Hall, someone asked the "security" folks why watches had to be removed. The answer? "I don't know, that's just what they told us to do." Hooray for critical thinking.)

Comments

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

A couple years ago, da_lj and I were in Philly for a Queker event. It turned out that he'd never seen the Liberty Bell before, nor Independence Hall. (I grew up 60 miles from Philly, so of course, I had.)

I did ask my friend who works for the Park Service (which runs the historic sites in Philly) if she didn't think it was ironic that the Liberty Bell had such requirements. She said that we should know that all of the security that had been added to it had been extremely controversial within the Park Service, as well.

That said, they've done a lot to make the Bell's pavilion less stupid than I remember from the '80s; the photos with Mandela, for example, and with the Dalai Lama, made me very happy.

[ckd]

The screening points were being run by contract folks and not Park Service personnel, as far as I could tell. The NPS staff we dealt with were wonderful.

The last time I'd seen the Bell, it was still in Independence Hall.

[gjules.livejournal.com]

Philadelphia is very into security. There was one municipal office (PUBLIC office, mind you, open to the public, of which I am a member) which I couldn't get into because of the security. And another set of offices where they check your ID and then take your picture and make you a little badge with it to wear.

I have to go down to Philly later this week, which will involve visiting those offices again. Not looking forward to it.