.
The Queen's Bell and or the Bicentennial Bell. (above)
It's Jubilee time in Britain and I
recall a gift from their Monarch and the Brits to the Yanks for the Bicentennial
in 1976.
The Bicentennial Bell BTW is an
exact sized replica of the Liberty Bell and cast in the same foundry in London
as the Liberty Bell, Whitechapel Foundry http://www.whitechapelbellfoundry.co.uk/.
They still have some dirty industrial stuff
over there in Britain. Not everything in
the world is an abstract computer services industry thing like in America. People still get their hands dirty making a
living in other parts of the world unlike all our debt-ridden cookie cutter college grads etc.
The above three year old
newspaper article is all the news I could find of the fate of a bell that was supposed
to ring on special public occasions and the odd British Coronation.
Turns out, it is not functioning
with a broken automated bell clapper for the past seven years. The U.S. Parks Department does not have the
funds to fix it etc. The tower and
building it is housed in is obsolete and will likely be torn down and rebuilt
as yet another Revolution museum in the City of Brotherly Love.
It might be a good idea to send
the bell around the country as a gesture of good will to our only ally left in
Europe etc. I doubt it can be
anonymously sent back to Windsor Castle. They might notice. It has writing on it. I think that country can still read.
Raiders of the Lost Ark storage? Probably. And or the scrap heap? (They got the statue of Diana by St. Gaudens in the Philadelphia Museum of Art off a scrap heap BTW.) Hope the next owner of the bell appreciates it more than the present history slackdivists in Philly.
For a city like Philly that
claims to be so into history, its recent history is totally ignored. A grand gesture and a gift from a direct
descendent of King George III, out last king, and it gets a present day yawn.
Ho hum.
(Above) Queen Elizabeth II - Dedication of Bicentennial Bell - Philadelphia - July 6, 1976
.
