Hidden City Festival routes: now with bike options!

Last week, when we offered up a suggested driving route and Market-Frankford El/walking route, we neglected to offer up a bike route. Our bad! Now, thanks to the ever resourceful Brian James Kirk of Technically Philly, we’ve got one. Brian has selected seven of our nine sites that can be knocked out in one day, on a single festival day pass. Click the map above to see the route in detail on Google Maps.

You’ll note that one of the sites not covered is the seemingly inaccessible Fort Mifflin. And to that we offer you this challenge: the Hidden City Bike Ride. Led by our creative director Lee Tusman and starting at Rittenhouse Square, we’re putting our meddle to the petal and heading the 10 miles to the Fort to see the Ruins at High Battery.

We’ve got a ton of events, all of which you’ll find on the Festival Calendar, but here are just a few of the highlights of this, the third weekend of the Hidden City Festival 2013. Be sure to purchase your passes HERE.

Tide comes in, tide goes out; you can’t explain that | Photo: Peter Woodall

Hilary Iris Lowe: Poe’s Rose Covered Cottage and Philadelphia’s Haunted Palaces
Thursday, June 6, 5:30PM–6:30PM (Today!)
The Athenaeum of Philadelphia, 219 S. 6th St. (on Washington Square)
While Poe lived only about 6 years in Philadelphia, what can his house, and other writers’ homes and haunts, tell us about the history of this literary city?

Hidden City Bike Ride
Saturday, June 8, 11:00AM–1:00PM
Billy, the Goat Statue at Rittenhouse Square
Come join us on a Hidden City bike ride through the summer streets to Mud Island to view the Ruins at High Battery. We’ll take an adventurous, urban, ten mile ride from Center City through Southwest Philly to reach the site.
NOTE: Meeting location is at the Goat statue in the Southwest Corner of Rittenhouse Square, adjacent to 19th and Locust. The ride is free, but you must purchase a festival pass to visit the installation at Fort Mifflin once we arrive. (Single site passes are available there for $5.)
SECOND NOTE: If it rains (60% chance as of this writing), a rain date is planned for the following Saturday, June 15.

Sunday Morning Speaker Series: “Radical Jewish Philadelphia”
Sunday, June 9, 10:00AM–12:00PM
Shivtei Yeshuron Ezras Israel, 2015 S. 4th St. in South Philadelphia
Featuring Counter Culture Coffee, fresh bagels, and speakers on topics of Jewish South Philadelphia. Food and refreshments at 10, followed by speakers at 10:30. This week’s speaker is Temple University Professor Billy Yalowitz on the history of radical Jews in Philadelphia.

Open House: The Ruins of High Battery
Three dates from June 9–June 23
Fort Mifflin, Fort Mifflin & Hog Island Roads, adjacent the airport
Come meet the artists behind The Ruins Of High Battery. Learn about building methods, a history of improvised swamp dwellings in Southwest Philadelphia, and scrounge up driftwood and washed-up materials for future building. This open house is free for festival pass holders.

Take a spin down to John Grass | Photo: Bradley Maule

West Philly Hidden City Festival + Mural Tour
Sunday, June 9, 1–3PM
We’ll start the tour at the Kelly Natatorium at Fairmount Park and meet the artists of the art collective Camp Little Hope and visit their installation Bibotorium. Next we’ll travel to West Philadelphia to visit the Society of Pythagoras inside Hawthorne Hall, a mysterious multi-storied club built on ritual and exploration. In between, we’ll visit and talk about murals around Powelton and Center City.
NOTE: This tour is led by Mural Arts and includes a one-day pass to all Hidden City Festival sites in the cost of admission: $35. Click HERE to purchase. A second, South Philly festival + mural tour is coming in two weeks.

John Grass Woodturning Demonstrations
Friday & Saturday, at 2PM, 2:30PM, 3PM, and 3:30PM
Joe Klepka, Sefton Vergano, Walter Palmer, Jim Hobson, and Michael Zickler are professional woodturners. Stop by and hear them talk about their craft and watch them make objects as ornate as bannisters and balustrades and as simple as a spinning top and bowling pins.