The sign in front of the Annenberg Public Policy Center construction site

Walking down Locust one day, I noticed the usual group of naive tourists taking pictures with Benjamin Franklin and his pee-stained bench.

But something seemed out of place this time. No, it wasn’t the nationality of the tourists. They were Asian. Nor was it the color or the bench. It was still pee-stained. Instead, there was a little red sign planted next to Benny’s bench.

Having never noticed this sign before, I took a closer look. Apparently, if I called 215-525-1562 and entered a number from one to ten, I would Discover Penn. Interesting.

A little Googling led me to a site from Facilities and Real Estate Services that shows a map of all the sites that have a Discover Penn sign. I decided to call the number and listen to the descriptions of all the locations if not to learn more about Penn, then to listen to Amy Gutmann’s smooth voice.

On my fiber-optic travels, I discovered that the Fisher Fine Arts Library was Penn’s main library before Van Pelt, Penn engineers created the first large scale electronic digital computer (ENIAC) and that students have installed two wind meters in Hamilton Village to see if the “wind tunnel” produces enough energy to power wind turbines effectively.

I also found an interesting slip-up. While narrating the description of the Palestra, Governor Eddy Rendell said the Penn basketball team won their third consecutive Ivy League title last year. Not so fast, Govnah. Cornell won the Ivy title last year. Time for an update.

It also turns out that tourists are not the only people who have shared a seat with Ben Franklin ignorant of its past defacement. In his description of “Ben on the Bench”, the president of the class of ‘62 said that Hillary Clinton had her photo taken on the bench in 2003. Maybe its bad luck rubbed off on her. He went on to ironically encourage people to take their own pictures with Ben.

I really hope people don’t listen to him.

This post was edited on Nov. 6, 2008 at 1:22 a.m. to fix a typo and thus hopefully discourage further boring typo-fixing comments. The computer does indeed go by ENIAC and not ELIAC.

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