No re-opening of Philly National Park Service sites on the horizon

Listen

Don’t expect to see Philadelphia’s tourists sites now closed by the partial government shutdown re-opening like the Statue of Liberty. 

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter says although the city technically owns Independence Hall and other historic sites, they are maintained and run by the National Park Service, so things are different than in New York. “What the feds have said is that national sites will only be able to re-open if state funding is provided and from what I saw in an announcement a couple of days ago, Gov. Corbett and the state are not going to put forward funds to get sites open like Governor Cuomo did to get the Statue of Liberty open.” Nutter says he did have some success with one Philadelphia site. “City Tavern, I did work with the National Park Service to get that open this past weekend.  The Park Service owns the building but no Park Service personnel work there and there’s no money from the park service going into City Tavern, so I had contact with local and national officials about that and they were able to re-open.” As for the Independence Visitor’s Center’s main branch, the mayor says that is partially funded by the park service and is in a park service building, so it will remain shut.

 

  • WHYY thanks our sponsors — become a WHYY sponsor

WHYY is your source for fact-based, in-depth journalism and information. As a nonprofit organization, we rely on financial support from readers like you. Please give today.

Want a digest of WHYY’s programs, events & stories? Sign up for our weekly newsletter.

Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal