{"id":51511,"date":"2025-12-03T22:38:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/51511\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T22:38:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T22:38:15","slug":"artists-will-celebrate-a-year-of-philadelphia-firsts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/51511\/","title":{"rendered":"Artists will celebrate a year of Philadelphia \u2018firsts\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before looking at the list, Saxmore did not know either of these things were Philly firsts.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMy family are in health care and now I work with children, so I thought it would be fun,\u201d she said. \u201cI can relate to it personally.\u201d
\n\"AlanaArtist Alana Saxmore paints the co-creators of the first Ronald McDonald House that opened in Philly in 1974. (Peter Crimmins\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

Some of the firsts are fundamental to the nation, such as the first constitution, the first art school and museum, and the first gay rights demonstration.\n<\/p>\n

Others firsts are less well-known: the first pencil with an eraser on the end, the first public screening of a movie and the first ice cream soda, which was made in 1874 during a street fair out of desperation when a vendor ran out of regular cream for cream sodas.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a little partial to the signing of the Constitution,\u201d said Stango, out of professional due diligence. \u201cBut aside from that, the one that I can keep coming back to is the first selfie. I just assumed that selfies started with the iPhone.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

The first selfie predated the iPhone by 168 years. In 1839, Robert Cornelius took a picture of himself with a homemade camera.\n<\/p>\n

One of the more significant items on the list of 52 firsts is the first children\u2019s hospital. In 1855, the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia opened. It is a place artist Aaminah Rasheed knows very well, having frequented CHOP as a child.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI had a severe case of asthma at the time. Was in and out for that,\u201d Rasheed said. \u201cAlso treated for pneumonia.\u201d
\n\"AaminahArtist Aaminah Rasheed chose to represent Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia as a Philly First because she frequented CHOP as a child. (Peter Crimmins\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n

Rasheed said she wanted her design to be inviting, using bright colors to depict children and their families interacting with doctors in the hospital. The top of the number 1 is sky blue with puffy clouds.\n<\/p>\n

At the bottom, the base of the sculpture is an aerial view of roads and cars, representing a rug pattern that doubles as a play surface.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is representative of a nostalgic thing for me. The road map carpet is like a staple of my childhood,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve seen this in hospitals. I\u2019ve seen it in day cares. I\u2019ve seen it in a dentist office. I wanted that to be the base.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Each \u201cfirst-ival\u201d has been scheduled for 2026. Dates and locations are available on Visit Philly\u2019s website<\/a>.
\n\"AaminahArtist Aaminah Rasheed paints a #1 sculpture representing Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelpha, the first children\u2019s hospital in the United States. (Peter Crimmins\/WHYY)\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before looking at the list, Saxmore did not know either of these things were Philly firsts. \u201cMy family…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[29269,69,4001,71,70],"class_list":["post-51511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-mural-arts","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-250","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}