Phillyist's Favorite...Place to Contact the Dead

I don't deny that Franklin is my favorite Founding Father (it's hard to grow up in Philadelphia and have him not be), but it's not simply because it's Franklin that I often return to this small patch of land between Chestnut and Market and 3rd and 4th Streets. It's true that I'm perpetually amused by the "Ghost House" - the white structure that outlines the place where Franklin's house once stood before being cleverly razed to the ground by his progeny (although it seems less a monument to Franklin and more a hollow reminder of the place where he addressed letters to his stalwart wife while he was sowing the seeds of our country and liberally playing the romantic field over seas. Just because he's my favorite Founding Father doesn't mean I won't call a player a player). And it's also true that I like to browse the gift shop in the Postal Museum (although last time I went, I noticed Fart Proudly! was not among the books for sale. An oversight, I'm sure). However, what really draws me there again and again is the mysterious lure of the Underground Museum - and it's continued dedication to the high tech of yesteryear.

Something about going into the cool, dark (and slightly damp) entryway makes me six years old again. I find I am tempted to run down the several ramps it takes to reach the museum (stopping just short of the Park Ranger - because even though I'm a grownup now, my inner child still doesn't like to get hollered at); and it's not to see Franklin's family portraits, nor his palanquin, not to be dazzled by the neon in the mirrored room nor to see the the glass armonica (an instrument invented by Franklin, and on which a Park Ranger played show tunes on my most recent visit), and not even to watch the somewhat stated Franklin on the World Stage doll show which I strangely love. It's the Telephone Exchange. I can't get enough of it.

If you haven't been, the Telephone Exchange area of the museum is a large bank of phones situated across from an international phone directory. Dial a number on the board and hear what people of note have had to say about Franklin throughout history....in slightly exaggerated accents, including French (Balzac), Southern (Mark Twain), and Boston (John F. Kennedy). Normally, I detest talking on the telephone, but I could stay on those phones all day. When I stop by the museum, I call no fewer than ten of those numbers each time. And I always call Mark Twain. He's so sassy.

There's something comforting in the fact that the museum hasn't changed since I first went there as a child; but there's something sad in that too. The museum likes to point out that Franklin was not only a statesman but an inventor and innovator - and yet the museum is technologically light years behind. The push button phones in the Telephone Exchange make dial noises like a rotary, and if that's not enough to convince you that the museum is behind the times, consider this: the Telephone Exchange requires that you dial the appropriate International or Area code for every individual listed on the directory except for those who lived in Philadelphia. It's been ages since any Philadelphian could be reached by dialing a mere seven numbers.

Part of me wishes that someone would dump loads of funding into the museum, so it could be upgraded with exciting and new interactive features, that the Franklin on the World Stage might be upgraded, that the push buttons which are obviously missing from the quotation section would be restored, and that even the Telephone Exchange being updated with new technology - or at the very least with an updated list of telephonees. (Surely Kennedy is not the last person in history to have had something to say about Franklin.) And yet - I would be devastate to come back one day to find Mark Twain's voice changed or a different quote from Kennedy, or DH Lawrence bumped from the phone list, superseded by Madonna or Christina Aguilera . I find myself worried that the museum will stop being Underground and simply go under. It's rarely crowded, and I worry that it's lack of high tech might make it less palatable to today's youth. After all - I keep hearing how short my generation's attention span has become - I can only imagine that the children of today have an attention span about as long as a blink.

However, when I was in this weekend past, calling up my old friends in the Telephone Exchange, a father stood nearby dialing the phone for his young son. Each time the father handed him the phone, the son would give an expectant, tentative hello, and then he would glow at his Dad and say, "Dad! I said, 'Hello' and he said 'This is George Washington!'" or "Dad, it was Harry Truman!" - and with the very same glee I've always felt. (Need I tell you that I called George Washington just after he did? It took him ages to answer too - you'd think after hanging up with the lad he'd have been standing right by the phone, but oh no, mister Father of Our Country took his sweet old time.) So maybe I'm wrong about the Franklin phone appeal and the youth of today. Just because the technology is as old as I am doesn't mean the experience is irreleveant. At least it's not for me. Admission to the museum is free - so if you find yourself in Old City - you can check it out and decide for yourself.

Although - I can't help but wonder - do you think those recordings are available on MP3?

Image by Star Foster