Joe Boruchow
Favorite Spot: Puryear’s Pavilion in Fairmount Park near the Shofuso Japanese House and Garden.
Address: North Horticultural Drive
I am: Paper cutout artist. I make commissioned and uncommissioned public art.
Current Home: 9th and Ritner – South Philly
Emma Jacobs
Address: A walk into the trees from the back gate to the Please Touch museum
I am: A relatively new Philadelphian, who makes radio for WHYY. Saturday mornings, I try to pick a destination, or a neighborhood and bike out to see it.
Years in Philly: A proud 7 mos
Joe’s love note: Pack a lunch and ride out to Fairmount Park, past the strange sculptures from a bygone era, the once crumbling Centennial Hall, visit the Japanese House and Garden, find Puryear’s Pavilion (virtually always vacant) and have a picnic in the tree canopy!
Emma’s love note: The Pavilion in the Trees is a tree house, essentially. It’s built on stilts above a very steep slope, so you’re on level with the tops of the trees. I went out looking for it on a 90-something degree morning, and actually nearly gave up. I didn’t see any signs for it in the park and a visitors map I had didn’t line up. So, there may be another, official way to get there, but I ultimately ended up making a guess. I took this path this isn’t definitely a path, or somewhere you’re supposed to be. It goes along this wire fence and then grass grows over it, and you really thing you’re on the wrong track; but eventually it arrives at the walkway out to the Pavilion. The whole thing is all pretty modest, and very very green. Maybe because the place is so hard to find, it’s amazingly quiet – and a little surreal, too.
