January 17, 2024
Courtesy/Independence National Historical Park
The Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site and Yards Brewing Co. will honor the writer's 215th birthday with after-hours tours and food and drink deals. Above, the basement of the Poe House, which may have inspired the short story 'The Black Cat.'
For Edgar Allan Poe's 215th birthday, the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site and Yards Brewing Co. will host after-hours tours and food and drink deals, respectively.
The Poe After Hours event will take place in Northern Liberties Thursday evening in honor of Poe's birthday, which is Friday, Jan. 19. Those who want to attend can meet at Yards (500 Spring Garden St. ) to sign up for a timed tour of the house (532 N. 7th St.), where Poe once lived. Groups will walk to the house and take part in after-hours tours led by a national park ranger. The tours will evaluate Poe's poetry and include a Poe reenactor.
Included with the $10 admission is a drink ticket for Yards' taproom and 10% off food purchases. Activity sheets will be available at Yards for those who want something to do while waiting for the tour. There will be five tours with 25 slots each; the first tour starts at 6:15 p.m. and the last one begins at 7:35 p.m. Children are welcome but the house is not wheelchair accessible, organizers said.
"I think people don't realize that we're a national historic site, so we wanted to give people a chance to see it (and) explore it a different way," said Maiti Gallen, the Independence Historical Trust's director of operations.
Yards Brewing Co. and the Historical Trust hosted a similar event last year.
"We love to work with local groups, and being only two blocks away, this was a great opportunity to do just that," Dana Martin, Yards' assistant general manager, wrote to PhillyVoice in an email.
Poe lived in Philadelphia from 1838 to 1844 at multiple properties around the city. He worked as an editor for Graham’s Magazine during that time, and while in Philly, he penned classics like "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." "The Black Cat" may have taken inspiration from a Philly basement, and it's thought that "The Raven" was inspired by his time in Philadelphia.
"We just think that Philadelphia should embrace Poe as one of our greatest things," Gallen said.
Poe fans hosted an Edgar Allan Poe speakeasy in Northern Liberties last fall.
