Philadelphia Freedom

...sorry about that. But your intrepid Barrymore-researcher is in Philadelphia these few days in the first week of October (my birthday week!) and I'm having a heck of a time. Here are some pics of special and historic moments on the trip thus far:

Yes, I did see some pretty historic sights--Independence Hall...

Christ Church in "Old City", a really beautiful little church with quite a few historic bones about. I'm a little surprised about PA's apparent cavalier treatment of many cemeteries, but that's another post for another day.

This is an amazing market we had breakfast at the first morning. Note the address too, because the coming pictures generally follow a story:

This is the closest intersection to where "The Tomb of the Capulets", the childhood home of Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrrymore, once stood. The home was owned by their grandmother, the formidable Louisa Lane Drew, and was not very far from her theater, the Arch Street Theater.

And about 200 feet or so from this corner, underneath the huge edifice of the convention center, lies the dust of the Barrymore/Drew home, the place all three of the children agreed was their most stable environment as youngsters. Lionel and Ethel meditate on it in their biographies, John less so. Lionel perhaps hit a nail on the head when he said that Jack's troubled life may have been sparked or provoked quite a bit by the death of Mrs. Drew when he was still a teen.  The children did not spend much time together after Lionel was about 15 and Ethel 14 or so. All had very fond memories of 140.  North 12th Street, Philadelphia, however.

To hell with repining, as the poets said, though! I wandered until I found one of the very few public acknowledgments in Philadelphia's city center of the Barrymore/Drew family, at 6th and Arch streets, very close to the present site of the Liberty Bell and the National Constitution Center:

It was a beautiful, shiny day in the City of Brotherly Love, too.

So of course, I had to take a pic or five! :) It was really very neat, even though I'd been to Philadelphia before and quite like it (as I do all historic cities), I hadn't bothered to work out Barrymore-tourism like I did this time. I plan on adding a few more images later as I come by them.

At 6th and Arch streets, where Mrs. Drew's Arch Street Theatre once stood.

So thank you, John, Ethel, and particularly for me, Lionel, for all the lovely work you left in the world, and thank you Mrs. Drew for being so damn kickass back when women just didn't run theaters, dammit. Because had your husband run it...well, John Drew was not apparently a very sound business person. Perhaps that (and their dad) is where all the Barrymore kids got their profound inability to manage money.

With luck, I'll find more clues and pics later--the home John was born in is gone and only a vacant lot next to a park marks it, across the river from the Tomb of the Capulets. St. Stephen's Church and whichever Catholic church Georgie took her wee converted children to await!