WalkPhila says mark your calendar!

WalkPhila sends the following calendar alerts for your historic preservation pleasure!

The Friends of Laurel Hill Cemetery present AN OLD CEMETERY IN A NEW YEAR: AN INTRODUCTION TO LAUREL HILL Sunday, January 17, 2010, 2:00 p.m. Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19132 $15/person; $12/members; $10/seniors and students; children are free Phone (215) 228-8200 or email tours@thelaurelhillcemetery.org more info http://www.thelaurelhillcemetery.org

An informative overview of Laurel Hill’s long and colorful history, this tour will include all of the highlights, hot spots and notable stories that afford the cemetery its WOW factor. This is the ultimate tour for first-time visitors to Laurel Hill, and anyone else who likes beautiful art, stimulating history, and just enjoying life…even amongst the dead.

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THE WOODLANDS CEMETERY — 2010 MARTIN LUTHER KING SERVICE DAY

Monday, January 18 from 2 to 4 p.m. 4000 Woodland Avenue, Philadelphia, 19104. Please RSVP to info@woodlandsphila.org

In honor of the 2010 Martin Luther King Service Day, this National Historic Landmark site invites everyone to help with clean-up and ivy trimming. We look forward to your help.

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Winterthur Museum presents DREAM HOUSE: THE WHITE HOUSE AS AN AMERICAN HOME

A Lecture and Book Signing January 19, 6:00 p.m. Copeland Lecture Hall Route 52, Winterthur DE Admission is Free. Donations appreciated.

Ulysses Grant Dietz, Senior Curator and Curator of Decorative Arts at the Newark Museum, will present a talk drawn from his book Dream House: The White House as an American Home, published fall 2009 by Acanthus Press. Dietz, a great-great grandson of Ulysses and Julia Grant, and his co-author Sam Watters have approached the White House from a perspective never before adopted in any study of the president’s home: they write about what is not there more than what is there today. They look at six distinct moments over the course of 160 years and compare the White House to prevailing notions of what the ideal home was in this country: the White House as Country House, as Villa, as Mansion, as Palace, as Suburban Home, and as Shrine. The White House and its grounds offer a microcosm of what happened with the American house and garden from 1800 until 1960. The surprise comes in the early 1960s. On one hand, Jacqueline Kennedy did exactly what every First Lady before her did: she created her personal Dream House as a setting for the American president. But, on the other hand, she also changed the White House forever. The White House most people think they know was invented in the early 1960s. Behind that Dream House lies a much bigger story of American aspiration and enterprise.

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Fairmount Water Works Interpretive Center DRINKING WATER AND PUBLIC HEALTH: CELEBRATING 100 YEARS OF WATER FILTRATION IN PHILADELPHIA

Wednesday, January 20, 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm http://www.fairmountwaterworks.com

Join Drew Brown and Adam Levine for an enlightening look at the history of water filtration in Philadelphia. Safe drinking water drawn from the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers is taken for granted in the city today. In the late 19th century, however, thousands of people died of water-borne bacterial diseases, such as typhoid fever, that were carried in the polluted river water. The construction of a massive water filtration system between 1901 and 1911 greatly reduced the incidence of such diseases, and made the act of drinking city water safe for the first time in decades.

This illustrated lecture will look at the politics, science and engineering of the filtration works that were the largest in the world at the time they were built. Drew Brown is PWD Manager of Public Education, and Adam Levine is a PWD Historical Consultant. Along with PWD Educator Ellen Schultz, they created an exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of water filtration in Philadelphia, which will be on display at FWWIC through the end of January.

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The Delaware Historical Society & New Castle Community History and Archaeology Program present READ HOUSE PALLADIAN WINDOW RE-INSTALLATION

Saturday, January 23, 2010 from 9:45-11:45 a.m., Read House & Gardens 42 The Strand, New Castle, Delaware Workshop admission is free, but space is limited, so reservations are necessary. Please contact Read House director Michele Anstine at 302-295-1002 or manstine@dehistory.org

In October 2009, the New Castle Community History and Archaeology Program (NCCHAP) sponsored a window repair workshop at the Read House. The workshop, through demonstration and commentary, focused on removing sashes as well as general historic window repair issues. During the workshop, Save America’s Treasures project carpenters will reinstall the sashes of the façade Palladian window, the most monumental in the house. The reinstallation process will be explained step by step, and participants will be able to ask questions about the repair and reinstallation of their own historic windows.