US Trip – 2024 Edition – Page 5

Day 4 – March 5, 2024 – Philadelphia

Windy, rainy and cold. Weather that makes you want to stay in bed. That’s what it looked like on Tuesday morning. So we went to nearby car rental, took a Nissan and driving through Lincoln Tunnel left New York. We would come back soon but first it’s time to discover more of the east coast.

Traffic in New York City is heavy and it’s not much better when you leave the city. Driving on highway through the Garden State is nice though, taking I-95, you pass the Newark Liberty International Airport. After taking a short stop at Thomas Edison Service Area and getting some snacks we continued our way to Princeton.

The university campus of the Princeton University consists of more than 200 buildings on 2.4 km². Nassau Hall, which is the first building, was finished in 1756. Since then, the campus steadily expanded. Some of the buildings in High Victorian Gothic and Romanesque Revival styles are now gone and at the end of 19th century were replaced by new ones built in Collegiate Gothic style for which the campus is known today.

One of the iconic landmarks of Trenton is The Bell Telephone Building. Constructed in 1913, it’s based in Downtown Trenton. It’s now being redeveloped into residential lofts.

Next up, we make our way to Trenton. Nowadays it’s the capital city of the New Jersey state, but back in 1784, it was for almost two months also the capital city of United States. Trenton is quite small with population of 90 000 people. We took a short stroll through the city and visited places like the Thomas Edison State University or Old Barracks. The house was home of British soldiers during the French and Indian War.

New Jersey’s capital city is right at the border with Pennsylvania. And so that we took the Calhoun Street Bridge, crossed the Delaware River and entered our third State of the trip.

The Battle of Trenton was a small but pivotal part of the American Revolutionary War. We visited the site of the Old Barracks which was occupied by George Washington after crossing the Delaware River. It was fitting to visit a veterans cemetery while we were in the area and so that we drove to nearby Washington Crossing National Cemetery. It serves veterans of the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area and one of the notable burials is James Moore, father of American singer Pink.

Last stop of the day was Philadelphia. Although it’s not the capital city of Pennsylvania, it’s the states most populous one with population of more than 1,600,000. The city played tremendous role in United States history. Philadelphia served as the central meeting place of nation’s founding fathers, hosted first and second Continental Congress, during which the nation’s 56 founders formed the Continental Army and elected George Washington as its commander in 1775. Independence Hall was also the place of the signature of the Declaration of Independence.

That being said, our main reason to visit Philadelphia was completely different. Roots of delicious sandwich Philly Cheesesteak are in this city. We tasted the two most famous ones, including the original Pat’s. After becoming popular in 1930s, Pat and Harry Olivieri opened their Pat’s King of Steaks restaurant and their style of serving meat is chopping it into bits. On the other side of intersection on the Passyunk Avenue, you can find the other popular brand. Geno’s has a slightly different style of serving as they slice their beef thinly.

We take our cheesesteaks and go check-in to our next hotel. It’s just for one night though as tomorrow we will continue our journey to next state. We spend rest of the day exploring the city and visiting places like Reading Terminal Market, Federal Bureau of Investigation office or the Philadelphia City Hall. Looking for some live music and food, we ended up in Chris’ Jazz Cafe. When we decided to go back to hotel, our car was gone. Through nearby restaurant and then calling police, we found that it was impounded. Due to the short time available to get there before closing, we took a taxi and made it in time.