Fishtown's Smallest Museum Has Three Weekends Left to Make Its Case

"I think it's funny as hell," Brian Adoff told Philadelphia Magazine in August, describing the micromuseum he was about to open in his Fishtown studio. "But the museum takes it very seriously. This isn't funny at all to the museum. This is the museum doing its job."

That job is to document the booing, the thrown objects and the end of a hitchhiking robot with real museum cases and a straight face. The Museum of the Philadelphian opened at 454 E. Girard Ave. on September 25 and is scheduled to close November 1. As of today, October 12, that leaves three weekends. The room holds about twelve people at a time.

The joke is on the surface. Underneath it, the exhibits make a case that people who live a few blocks from Girard Avenue may not expect from a museum about bad manners. Nearly every offense on display comes with what happened next, and what happened next is usually kind.

What Fits Inside 300 Square Feet

Adoff calls it a "micromuseum." Per Philadelphia Magazine, the whole thing takes up 300 square feet of his Fishtown studio. He is also behind Fishtown Choir and Join Philly, and the museum's site bills it as an Architects of Human Connection experience.

Outlets counted the exhibits differently. Axios reported roughly a dozen, and the Inquirer described about 20 displays. Between that coverage and PhillyVoice's preview, here is what you'll find inside:

• A snowball from 1968, from the night Eagles fans pelted Santa, kept behind glass and "still in pristine condition," Adoff told Philadelphia Magazine.
• A preserved Dollar Dog Night bun and a replica program from a 1926 Philadelphia Orchestra performance that the audience booed.
• A lightbox of an 1866 baseball illustration showing a game between the Philadelphia Athletics and the Brooklyn Atlantics at 15th Street and Columbia Avenue, now Cecil B. Moore Avenue. Look closely and you'll find pickpocketing, a chokehold, fighting and gambling in the crowd.
• An interactive greased pole, with a can of Crisco and a paintbrush next to it so visitors can grease the pole themselves, as The Temple News described it.
• A Jason Kelce sculpture paired with audio of his "Hungry Dogs" speech, according to the Inquirer.
• A portrait gallery viewed through a View-Master and a gift shop with pole-greasing T-shirts and "Booing is my love language" bumper stickers.
• Reddit-sourced theories about why the city behaves the way it does, including one that blames the Phanatic, per Axios.

6abc added that the timeline runs from HitchBOT to the first Eagles Super Bowl parade.

Every Offense Comes With a Second Act

The list above reads like a charge sheet. The way Adoff tells the stories changes the verdict. In several exhibits, the museum puts the misbehavior and the response to it in the same case.

The Broad Street story uses a real object. According to the Inquirer, a rearview mirror from that flipped car anchors the 2008 exhibit, and the exhibit also covers the donations that replaced the car. The math is the point. A $4,000 gift became a $1,000 car, and the remaining $3,000 went to another recipient. "So underneath all the conduct, there's still the heart of that," Adoff told Philadelphia Magazine.

He described the whole project to the magazine the same way. "It's about the personality and the attitude. But really, at its heart, it's a love letter to the city and the people of the city."

The bad behavior isn't limited to sports crowds, either. Philadelphia Magazine reports that Adoff traced the 1926 orchestra episode to the U.S. premiere of Edgard Varèse's Amériques, where, according to an account the magazine attributes to the New York Times, high-society women in the audience hissed and gestured nonstop. Fans in the 700 level and the subscribers at the orchestra end up in the same case.

The Register Is Where the Argument Lands

The exhibit that makes the thesis plainest is a book. The Register of Philadelphians was started by the curators, and visitors can add to it. When the Inquirer visited for opening day, the Register listed more than 50 people, and nomination cards were set out for visitors. The red View-Master viewfinders in the Official Portrait Gallery show people from the Register, and the nomination form sits nearby, The Temple News reported.

To qualify, Adoff gave Philadelphia Magazine five traits:

1. "They don't wait for permission."
2. "They decide for themselves what's worth doing."
3. "They keep going whether encouraged or not."
4. "They don't care what anyone thinks."
5. "They believe in their heart that the work is needed."

None of the five is about bad behavior. "It could be someone who threw a battery at a rival," Adoff said, "or somebody who did something great." The same stubbornness covers both. The museum's homepage puts it in one sentence: "Because Philadelphians don't care what others think of them, the city breeds the worst behavior and its best people."

Visitors take part too. 6abc reported that visitors can mail postcards to strangers, and PhillyVoice described the postcard project as a weekly activity.

Getting In Before November 1

The museum is open three days a week. Fridays run 5 to 8 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays run noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Timed reservations through Eventbrite open every Friday at noon for the following weekend. That gives the remaining run this schedule:

1. October 16–18. Reservations opened Friday, October 9.
2. October 23–25. Reservations open Friday, October 16, at noon.
3. October 30–November 1. Reservations open Friday, October 23, at noon. This is the closing weekend.

Opening weekend sold out, according to the museum's site. Walk-ups are let in as space allows. Reservation holders go first within their half-hour window, so you may wait a bit. The museum's FAQ puts a visit at 15 to 20 minutes, "or longer if you have opinions."

A few house rules from the museum's own page:

• There are no public restrooms.
• Parking is Fishtown street parking. The site adds, "Good luck."
• The space is wheelchair accessible by a temporary ramp. Email the museum before your visit so the ramp is ready.
• Some exhibit and shop text contains profanity. All ages are admitted, and the museum leaves the call to parents, noting the language is "comparable to what a child hears at a Phillies game."
• Photography is welcome.

As for after November 1, The Temple News reported that parts of the exhibit could return in a more permanent form. That's a possibility, not an announced plan. Adoff told Philadelphia Magazine he could see a world where the museum finds a home. No later report has changed the November 1 closing date.

Two Doors Down Girard, in Either Direction

A 20-minute museum with no restroom works best with a stop on either side of it. Which stop depends on the time slot you book.

For a Saturday or Sunday visit, Milkcrate Cafe is at 400 E. Girard Ave., a short walk west of the museum. Its site lists hours of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, so a noon or 1 p.m. reservation leaves time for coffee before or after.

For the Friday-evening window, Lloyd Whiskey Bar is at 529 E. Girard Ave., just east. Its site lists Friday and Saturday hours of 4 p.m. to 1 a.m., which lines up with the museum's 5-to-8 slot. Both sets of hours come from the businesses' current websites.

If you're filling out the rest of a fall weekend, our rundown of Fishtown's two fall festivals and our Fishtown neighborhood guide cover more of what's nearby.

At The Stawasz Group, a lot of our work happens a few blocks from 454 E. Girard. If you know a neighbor who belongs in the Register of Philadelphians, nominate them before November 1. And if you want to talk about the blocks around this stretch of Girard, contact us.