It's called an "un-gala," because instead of gowns and cheese trays the fundraising event for Cradles to Crayons involves old jeans and comfortable shoes. The process is much like building a car on a production line, as volunteers at different stations inspect donated clothes, books, and toys; arrange them into care packages; and load them onto trucks to distribute to community agencies around Philadelphia.

Executive director Michel Smith said in three hours, the volunteers will prepare four thousand packages — each tailored for a specific child.

"Those 450 partnering agencies enter orders online, describe with a name, the age, any specific requests like a birthday or an interest," said Smith. "Anything that we can select additionally to make it personal for the child."

About 300 families are expected to participate in the packing session. They're paying for the privilege, to the tune of $300 for a family of four.

From a distance, the building looks protective – like it's wrapped in a steel mesh. But upon closer inspection visitors can see the exterior is made from sheets of glass with thousands of tiny bits of ceramic baked in. It's called "fritted" glass, and architect James Polshek says the building juxtaposes glass, terra cotta and granite.

"In some ways it's a minimal piece of sculpture," said Polshek. "The story of a discourse is so fundamental to Judaism – with not a clear answer to anything. The dialogue is between opaque and translucent."

Polshek is quick to point out that he created a spiritually neutral design that has nothing to do with Judaism directly. It's a historical museum, not a religious one, but the secular and the reverent can't help but overlap.

The museum uses sound and video to immerse the visitor in the story of the Jewish experience in America, beginning before there even was an America. The first Jewish immigrants arrived in 1654.

This is an interactive display letting museumgoers stand in the shoes of a 19th century immigrant being vetted by an American customs official.

Curator Josh Perelman uses interactive technology wherever possible to present multiple perspectives of the Jewish experience.

"We didn't want to do a top-level esoteric thing." said Perelman. "We wanted people to get emotionally into the story.

The main exhibition areas are crammed with screens and displays and artifacts: in a mockup of a 1950s suburban kitchen, even the refrigerator has a tiny TV embedded inside, showing home movies of mid-century Jews. The experience is dense – and a little overwhelming.

"There are moments you are immersed in a subject, and when you come out it's a burst of light. It allows for a moment of relaxation and decompression," said Perelman.

Perelman is talking about that glass wall on the front of the building. As visitors exit the exhibition area, they enter a four-story atrium fed with sunlight from the fritted glass walls and a skylight. The building itself manipulates light to emotionally guide visitors through the experience.

After the crush of historical information in the exhibition, visitors can walk out on the balcony and through the veiled glass see one of the best views of Independence Mall, where American democracy was first drafted.

"Think about freedoms we enjoy in this country – they are intoxicating," said Michael Rosenzweig, museum president. But he said freedom can be a double-edged sword.

"It's limitless – including the freedom to abandon your traditions and heritage," he said.

Museum executives and curators had long discussions about how much Judaism to embrace in the historical exhibition, and how far the institution itself would comply with Jewish law. It got complicated.

"Were we to comply with Jewish law it would be simple – we could close on Saturdays – Shabbat – and close on all Holy Days. We needed to embrace a policy that would not comply with religious law but show attention to the tradition," Rosenzweig said.

He and his board came up with a tricky set of rules. The museum will close on Holy Days but only the major ones – Yom Kippur, two days of Rosh Hashana, two days of Passover. It will be open on Saturdays, but no money will be exchanged: tickets for that day will have to be bought in advance or off-site. The gift shop will be open but no cash will be accepted on Saturdays – only credit cards. Those electronic transactions will be processed after sundown.

"The most important aspect is all of this will be overtly communicated with visitors'" said Rosenzweig. "We do make this a teachable moment – the mission of the museum is to educate."

It's all about dialogue — which visitors can join. The museum has video recording booths allowing people to add their own stories.

Todd Barkhouse and Megan McNamara, who live in Nova Scotia, have been dating for a long time. They were planning to visit family in France, and Barkhouse wanted to move the relationship to the next level.

"I was thinking maybe I should propose when I'm in France – that's a typical thing to do," said Barkhouse. "I was worried that was trite, a little cliched."

He bought plane tickets with a long layover in Philadelphia so they could take the "Love Letters" tour. That's a special ride on the Market-Frankford line along a series of murals created by the Mural Arts Program. The Mural Arts Program liked the idea so much they lined up the Penn Light Opera Company to serenade McNamara on the train.

"First, I was impressed that everyone was singing. I wanted to get it on tape," McNamara recalled. "Then everything started to connect that they were singing to me. I turned to Todd and thought, 'You don't seem surprised by all this!' "

The online video shows McNamara tearing up.

The couple plan to wed in the summer of 2012.

Gehry roared to international fame in 1998 with the Bilbao museum in Spain, a playful riot of free-form curves that defined contemporary architecture. Philadelphia can now boast it has its own Gehry, but it's all underground.

The architect was treated as royalty Tuesday as he entered a grand vaulted hallway that has been shut off and unused since 1975. Running underneath the terrace atop the museum steps, the hall will be remodeled by Gehry into an area to store and prepare art for exhibition. He said the "ferocity" of the original architectural designs allows the building to be changed without compromise.

"A community seems to need art museums," said Gehry. "When they are built people come. There's a basic human need. I've been talking to neuroscientists about that recently, trying to figure out how basic is the need. It's pretty powerful."

The Museum's long-term goal is to dramatically expand its gallery space. But because the building cannot be built upward or sideways, it will go downward. After the new art-handling facility is finished in 2012, work on new underground galleries will begin.

John Henry Brown agreed to paint a portrait of the future president, but would not vote for him.

When did the Civil War start?

When the first shot was fired?

When did the South secede from the Union?

The Rosenbach Museum starts the clock the day Abraham Lincoln was elected president, Nov. 6, 1860. During the next five years, a few times each week, the museum will post images of original documents created on that day, 150 years ago.

Curator Kathy Haas says the blog begins with a journal entry by a Philadelphia-based portrait painter who voted against Lincoln in favor of Democrats John Breckenridge and Joseph Lane.

"Breckenridge and Lane being the only true representation of the equality of all the states, and also how the Republican's fundamental principle is opposition to the further extension of slavery," says Haas of the entry. "So it's a nice one to get started on because it lays out the facts, the issues, and his own personal position all in one paragraph."

Haas says the blog project will allow people to watch the events of the Civil War unfold day by day. She will draw on the Rosenbach's extensive collection of presidential speeches, military correspondence, and personal letters by soldiers to their loved ones.

The First Person Arts Festival begins next week. It's a series of autobiographical performances and films from local storytellers and documentarians. The festival will kick off with an exhibit of common objects.

A heavy steel pot used to make traditional stews from the Dominican Republic.

An old fishing license.

A hand-drawn map showing a lost person how to get back home.

These objects and about a dozen others make up the Memoir Museum, on display at the Painted Bride Art Center. Each one has a story behind it.

Beth Pannell donated half of a blue, knitted sock, which she describes as "scary." The sock was being knitted by her friend Amy, but Amy died before she could finish it. Pannell will finish what her friend started, but the stitch is very complicated and she doesn't want to mess it up.

"I don't know how to do a yarn-over, and Amy's sock is very intimidating to me. It's a challenge – to keep doing projects that are scary. That sock is going to stand as a symbol for me," said Pannell.

The half-sock and other objects are displayed under glass, next to their written stories. It gives a museum-style treatment to common objects.

While Olmsted never personally worked on any park in Philadelphia, he laid the foundation which almost every landscape architect draws from. Olmsted wanted his parks to address many issues including storm-water management, the psychological health of city residents and aesthetic beauty. Filmmaker Rebecca Messner said he wanted his parks to be contemplative more than athletic.

"A long open space – a meadow or a lake where you can stand and look out over it. The idea was to walk around it on these really winding, sinuous paths and just observe," said Messner. "Since then, it's been a struggle and debate surrounding it – Olmsted purists say these parks should not be played upon. They shouldn't put goal posts up on either end."

Much of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia follows Olmsted's ideals for open green space. Some landscape architects say even though newer urban green spaces look nothing like Olmsted's work – like Pier 11 in Philadelphia or the High Line in Manhattan – they express his goal to create respite from urban life for all the city's residents.

Richard Roark, a landscape architect with the Olin design firm, said Olmsted's ideas were rooted in nature.

"We're always attuned to natural world no matter who we are. No matter who you are, there's a commonality there, in that space," said Roark. "That's extremely tough to do – that he did it at the start of the profession is unthinkably brilliant.

The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society will present the film.

Most of the stories in "Philadelphia Noir" start slow and sweet. But lean in for a kiss from the City of Brotherly Love and you'll find it on the business end of a hot, wet fist. Laura Spagnoli's story set in Rittenhouse Square begins with a lady's broken heel and ends with blood on a white cashmere sweater.

"It can be good when telling a story – especially one that draws you in and makes you afraid of what's going to happen next – if you have a character who is undergoing a transformation," said Spagnoli. "In this case, her transformation is not very positive."

For her story, Spagnoli used the recent local case of a young couple who stole IDs to pay for their lavish lifestyle. Editor Carlin Romano, former literary critic for the Inquirer, says he wanted the stories to use the city as a supporting character.

"A lot of the writers nailed place. Chestnut Hill was good," said Romano. "In the Frankford story, you get a sense of being on the El and dreading the person sitting next to you."

Romano, who says he has never been a big fan of noir, said he mixed up the city's experienced crime writers with young literary writers. His own stab at noir finds grist in a West Philly real estate transaction.

A coffee shop on Baltimore Avenue in West Philadelphia was open early for the pre-commute crowd, with many voters making the decision of whether to get their caffeine before or after doing their civic duty.

Ann Kringle opted for voting first. She was disappointed by the campaign season.

"The amount of negativity and the sheer number of non-informative ads is difficult to take. I think there's a lot of money flooding into the races and that worries me."

Joanna Walker says she avoids campaign advertisements as propaganda.

"I'm always torn – I always feel I'm voting for the lesser of two evils. But at the same time I come out and vote – I don't know how I really feel when it comes down to it."

According to the election watchdog group The Committee of Seventy, there have been some mishaps so far, including distributing campaign material inside a polling place, arguments among polling inspectors, and a broken lock at a voting station in West Philly that required workers to break down the door with a sledgehammer.

A gallery space at the Painted Bride Center in Old City was being set up Monday for an art exhibit opening on Friday. Meredith Doby was tacking cards to a wall right next to a polling machine. Tuesday, Election Day, she will stop work on the displays and go to another part of the building.

"I don't know – something seems sacred about polling stations. You're not supposed to influence anybody," said Doby. "It is art – it can be political."

Putting a polling station inside an art space is legitimate by election standards. The Painted Bride is the only dedicated gallery in the city to do so. Associate director Lisa Nelson-Haynes said art does not affect voting, and vice-versa.

"Everyday activities are still happening – drums beating, dancers dancing. All types of things going on while voting happens," she said.

The only compromise the Painted Bride staff will face is getting up early to open the building at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday. Nelson-Haynes says artists usually don't get going until around 10.