Museum of Natural Sciences

This week we visited the Museum of Natural Sciences as part of our last museum visit for this class. I think it was one of the more interesting museums but we did not really get to see any of it. We spent a total of ten minutes in the last exhibit and were toured around the rest of the time to be shown museum setup logistics. Normally operations and logistics of any company is interesting to me but they just had to make this down right boring. Our very nice tour guides were great and I thanked them for their time, but I do not need know what type of glass they use for the eyes or what types of fake and real materials they use in the exhibit. And that was pretty much 90% of the tour. I did benefit from the new found knowledge of museums sub contracting out exhibits to firms, that is not only efficient for museums but better for the economy, allowing for profit companies to produce rather than government subsidized non-profit companies producing less efficiently for themselves. I really liked that aspect of their operations. But it's a shame that was only a 5 minute conversation in the 2 hour presentation about how dioramas are made which does not benefit anyone in the room unless you are looking to make dioramas one day.  I also really wish I could of read and looked at the exhibits rather than getting whisked to the basement dungeon to look at how to assemble these exhibits. I thought we were going to be taking in nature and science, not taxidermy and boredom. But I still think it was nice that they gave their time to give us a tour and they seemed happy about it.   I will say this, at the end of the day that place is run pretty efficiently I love the idea of all the sub contracted exhibits and the PT consultants. Here is where they lacked. Too much collaborative-ism. If everyone has a say production is always going to be inefficient. They needed more focus and a division of labor. I am not sure who there manager is but they could use a more hands on manager to focus their team and divide up their time. Collaborative-ism is not always good, and when the goal at hand is straight forward (i.e. designing a diorama that has accurate scenery) being collaborative is no good. The diorama has to be accurate, not creative and new age so all this time spent being collaborative on creativity is a waste of time.  And I'm sure none of these people think that way. Which I am slowly learning is.......ok.

The Constitution Center

Our visit to the constitution center was an interesting one. As part of our visit, we were supposed to address a simple question. Why is the Constitution Center  so much more popular than other museums we have visited? Unfortunately because of three 10 page papers due in next 10 days and piles of HW from my 3 other Economics classes and my one other CLA class, I need to hold off  until later in the week to in-depthly answer this question.
thank you
White Leon

Eastern State Penitentiary - Break that shit down yo

My visit to the Eastern State Penitentiary was an interesting one to say the least. I  gained insight on prison reform issues of the 1800’s which are still issues in our prison system today. It was nice to see the transition the prison took on from a place of repentance, solitude, and self improvement, to a place of punishment.

The facts were interesting; 2^nd most expensive government funded facility in the nation and the first penitentiary in the nation. Apparently in the 1800’s people came from all over the world to see this prison and its ideologies played out.  It’s pretty cool to think that such a historic site is in Philadelphia and we pass the building everyday not knowing some of the most interesting aspects of it.

Something I overlooked in my paper pertaining to haunted houses being a part of museum programming is the fact that after people visit the haunted house, it inspires them to see the museum at a later date. Even though the number of those return day visitors is minimal, it is still something, and I would like to see some statistics on those return visitors.

 After all that being said, I still hold true to my original idea; make money where there is money to be made even at the cost of compromising your true mission.  Our tour guide said that this museum would not exist without the haunted house revenues.

Because its owned by the city, I would like to see the sites quarry stone demolished and sold (it’s a lot of reusable stone). I would then like to see half of the land sold to various developers for condos, restaurants, and local businesses, then the other half used at a multi-level turn key paid parking structure owned by the city selling monthly parking and regular parking at  discounted rates. This would be beneficial for everyone for many reasons. That area (like manayunk) has a lot of nightlife businesses but not enough parking  which discourages out of towners from driving down to get drunk, spend their money, and get DUI’s (more city money).  If we could increase access to public parking at a discounted rate more people would flock to that area at night increasing the demand for renters and increasing property values for landowners. Also the increase in access to parking would increase rents and property equity for both COMMERCIAL and residential landlords alike. Now here is the best part, you are not cutting the competitions profits because there are no large privately owned parking lots in that area.  The goal of the city is to increase GDP growth and increase business sustainability, normally if the city is selling a product of any type at an extremely discounted rate it will completely shutout the competition. Luckily in this case, there are no large public parking lots for blocks in that area.  Also parking lots are insanely profitable in the city. 70% of them are owned by one guy. Its time for someone to brake up his oligopoly and his strong hold on fixing parking prices in the city. As far as owning a parking lot, your biggest cost by far is taxes and if your owned by the city you are not really paying  city property taxes. Parking structures have also become completely automated so by implementing the latest technologies, at most you need 1 maintenance guy working there during the day and that’s it. 

In conclusion, if you shutdown Eastern State and do what I just said, you can now take that sink hole which I am sure is being leased at a very discounted rate to a historical society that is not paying property taxes, and break it in half, make a huge (tens of millions of dollars) profit on the sale of half of the land then continue to tax the land owners for the next thousand years, while also making ongoing hefty profits with the city owned parking garage. Over the long run as property values increase the amount the property owners in the area are getting taxed increases as well, the residual profits for the city after completion of these projects could be upwards of 75 million dollars with 10 years. These are real numbers....  Do it!