FYI Philly | Emerging from the pandemic
PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- We hit a sky high restaurant back after a 2 year shutdown. Check out some blockbuster shows and a place to find your inner child. Plus, it's time to spring into shape. We meet one woman using fitness for grief relief and another designing her cure for depression.
Remember you can catch FYI Philly every Saturday at 7pm on 6abc or wherever you stream.
New Museum of Illusions opens in Old City
if you've ever wanted somebody's head on a platter, the new Museum of Illusions offers that chance.
Einstein will appear to follow you everywhere you walk. There is an Elfreths Alley building that gives the illusion you're hanging from a windowsill, and the vortex tunnel will fool your brain and your vestibular system.
The Museum of illusion started in 2015 in Zagreb, Croatia, and now there's over 35 locations worldwide.
It's a big draw for the Instagram and TikTok generation but it's also an all-age space with grandparents bringing their grandchildren, families, friends and couples on a date night.
Optical illusions give you a lot to talk about.
The museum is only about 5000 square feet but there are lots of immersive experiences packed in, with more than 50 mind bending illusions.
The rotated room is a take on a Philly diner but with the chairs bolted to the ceiling, giving the illusion that you're defying gravity
In the Ames room, guests will appear to grow and shrink as they walk from one corner to the next.
It's part education /part entertainment, as you have fun while learning a thing or two about vision, perception and the human brain.
Museum of Illusions Philadelphia | Website | Facebook | Instagram
401 Market Street, Philadelphia, Pa 19106
(312) 722-6780
Pinball Gallery attracting gamers to Malvern
The Pinball Gallery brings an arcade vibe to Malvern with more than 100 games to play. The Gallery has been open since 2009 and is one of the few spaces in the area holding monthly pinball tournaments and pinball leagues for competitive pinballers. Inside you will find games that date back to 1932, classic arcade games that have been around for decades and newcomers to the gaming scene. Gamers pay a flat fee to play for an hour, 2 hours or all day. They also have games that require coins to raise money for MS Research.
Pinball Gallery | Facebook | Instagram
81 Lancaster Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355
Finding grief relief through fitness with GetMoPhit
Most people know that fitness can help with many aspects of life, but have probably never made the connection between fitness and grieving. Twenty-five year old Morgan Maria Burrell has started a platform to help women who have suffered a loss build themselves back up, both inside and out. Morgan is a professional certified trainer at Germantown's WC Fitness, but her platform GetMoPhit is able to be done virtually. Although Morgan had been into fitness her whole life, it wasn't until she lost her mother Maria Burrell to cancer that she developed the program targeting loss. She believes she is proof that fitness can help get you through grief, and she says the program is built around the fitness principals and practices that helped her. (pictured: Morgan Maria Burrell, founder of GetMoPhit)
GetMoPhit | Instagram | Facebook
267-858-2189
email: getmophit@gmail.com
6769 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19119
215-438-3488
Mutter Museum's "Designing Motherhood"examines arc of maternity care, honoring women this March
As we celebrate Women's History Month, the Mutter Museum has an exhibition on motherhood and the history and future of maternity care.
The exhibition is called Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births.
"It is examining the arc of human reproduction through a design history scope," says Nancy Hill, Special Museum Exhibits Project Manager at the Mutter Museum.
With a look at everything from midwives' literature to all kinds of tools.
"We have breast pumps, all the way from the Victorian era up until today. Three different speculums. We've got nipple shields and forceps," says Hill, "The thing that I see most of our visitors most drawn to would be the display of IUDs. They look almost like jewelry."
Most of the items on display are part of The Mutter Museum's collection.
"I think the earliest one we have in here is a replica of an instrument from Pompeii. It's a speculum," says Hill.
It's big and made out of iron with four prongs.
"Today, when you'd go to an OBGYN, you would most likely see something with two, that's surgical steel and much more comfortable," says Hill.
The show is part of a larger project with Maternity Care Coalition.
"Maternity Care Coalition's mission is really about bringing reproductive care to people who need it, sort of culturally and trauma informed," says Hill.
By reevaluating the past medical standards, the hope is to improve the future of care.
"This is a taboo subject, an uncomfortable subject for a lot of people," says Hill, "will help us unpack those sort of not so great aspects and really improve on the things that aren't working well."
With a focus on the next generation of design and innovation.
"One of my favorite objects in the exhibition is actually a brand-new speculum that's not even available on the market yet, called the Yonis Speculum. It's designed by an all-female team," says Hill.
Hill says the exhibition offers a deeper way to honor women in March.
"Because it shows them that their experiences really matter, everyone gets born," says Hill.
Designing Motherhood is on view now until May 31st. Reservations are required.
Mutter Museum | Facebook | Instagram
North 33rd Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19130
Designing Motherhood: Things That Make and Break Our Births on display through May, 31st, 2022, reservations required
Modest Transitions in Fishtown offers "natural dye" workshops
Modest Transitions is a textile studio that specializes in creating sustainable fashion using all natural dyes. Founder and designer, Melanie Hasan, sources ingredients from her own pantry. For Melanie, art started as a form of therapy after battling postpartum depression three years ago. Now, she sells her creations and offers an array of workshops for others interested in learning how to transform food and flowers into wearable art. 6abc's Alicia Vitarelli drops by to chat with Melanie and creates a scarf of her own while trying out the Bundle Dye Workshop.
Modest Transitions | Instagram | Facebook
312 East Girard Avenue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19125
Boxer goes from incarceration to inspiration
At the boxing fitness gym that carries his name, Maleek Jackson holds group classes and one-on-one training sessions.
He offers the chance to train like a pro boxer for everyone from weekend warriors to elite athletes like former Eagle and now New York Jets safety, Will Parks, who says boxing makes him a better football player.
If your body feel's beat up, there's a sports recovery room with everything from massage to acupuncture.
And every evening at 5, he holds classes for kids.
It is, Maleek says, his pain. He trains kids because he lost three of his brothers to gun violence.
Maleek grew up at 17th and Christian Streets, in the fast gentrifying graduate Hospital neighborhood. He saw his brother, Pud, get shot when he was just 7 years old. Pud was shot dead a year later. By the time Maleek was 12, he says, he was caught up in a life of crime.
He spent 10 years behind bars, from age 16 to 26.
He'd taken up boxing as a young child and he returned to the structure and discipline it gave him while behind bars.
He also lost 2 more brothers to gun violence while incarcerated, including his younger brother, Azzim, who was killed the age of 17.
Maleek, worried he'd been a bad example and, when he got out of prison, he opened his open boxing fitness gym and started the Azzim Dukes Initiative to carry on his brother's legacy
Those daily classes for kids are free for children who, Maleek says, come from households like he did-where their parents can't afford the classes and the kids may be vulnerable to gun violence.
After class he gives all of the children tokens for free snacks and his paying clients are invited to sponsor a child with a $5 donation.
He says he now interacts with both people of means and those who are underserved in life, and he's on a mission to bridge that gap.
He also offers violence prevention programs in hopes of curbing gun violence and says he sees Azzim in every child he trains.
Everyone, he says, should aspire to have an impact on their world in some way.
Maleek Jackson Fitness Boxing Gym | Website | Facebook | Instagram
926 N. 2nd Street, Philadelphia,Pa. 19123
(215) 964-9201
Jean-Georges reopens high in the Center City sky after 2 year shutdown
Jean-Georges Philadelphia reopened on March 10th, the 33rd birthday of the restaurant's new chef de cuisine, Cornelia Sühr
59 stories up in the air, the restaurant offers breathtaking views and a 6 course tasting menu. One is from the land and the sea, and the other, a selection of vegetarian dishes, is from the earth.
Choose the land and the sea and you'll start with an amuse bouche unlike anything you've ever had. It is, Chef Cornelia says, the first ever caviar bubble tea.
It is the happy accident invention of the chef and the Jean-Georges team.
The seasonal menu also includes a scallop crudo with a bit of a show, a dish your server will make smoke.
Pea potstickers, made with local peas, toasted sesame, scallions and mint, are a highlight of the vegetarian tasting menu.
Cornelia grew up in Germany and quickly rose through the ranks of high end restaurants
Her first job outside of Germany was at a French restaurant in the UK, and she couldn't speak English or French so she taught herself English watching movies with subtitles every Sunday.
She was working in New York when the pandemic hit and had to go back home and live with her parents.
In Philadelphia, she's found there's a whole new language to master-from jawn to hoagies.
And with most high end kitchens managed by men, she's breaking the glass ceiling from atop a glass tower.
She says Jean-Georges is a place to come celebrate something special and create lasting memories. And post-pandemic, every seat is at the window with a stunning panoramic view of the entire city below.
Jean-Georges Philadelphia| Website | Instagram | Instagram
1 N. 19th Street, Philadelphia, Pa. 19103
(215) 419-5057
FYI Extras
Weavers Way is selling Ukrainian chicken soup and pirogues to raise money for Ukraine
The green borsht comes from a Ukrainian recipe, and it's filled with all kinds of vegetables and topped with sour cream and a chopped egg.
All proceeds are going to chef and humanitarian Jose Andres and his non profit, World Central Kitchen, which is helping to feed Ukrainians on the front lines of the war.
The soup is at all locations; the pirogues at the Ambler store only, for now.
Weavers Way Coop: Support for Ukraine | Website | Facebook | Instagram
217 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, Pa. 19002
(215) 302-5550
Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection is on exhibit at the Delaware Art Museum through June 5th. There are more than 60 objects on display, covering more than 3 decades of Tiffany's career. You'll see the stained glass windows and lamps that Tiffany was known for but also furniture and blown glass lamp shades and vases. Curator Heather Campbell Coyle says the Jack in the Pulpit vase, in particular, is a don't miss, must see it in person experience
Louis Comfort Tiffany: Treasures from the Driehaus Collection | Website | Facebook | Instagram
Delaware Art Museum
Through June 5
2301 Kentmere Parkway, Wilmington, De. 19806
(302) 497.3511
