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Philadelphia will put on one of the biggest anniversary wingdings of them all: 200 special events costing $200 million and 58 public-works projects costing $172.4 million. The city expects nearly 60 million visitors in 1976. The major exhibit will open next year. It is a $13 million Living History Center that depicts 200 years of U.S. history through a series of world's fair-style exhibits and films. In addition, the National Park Service is renovating the area around Independence Hah1, building a pavilion for the Liberty Bell and painstakingly reconstructing five houses once owned by Benjamin Franklin.
Other Eastern states have restoration projects but on a much smaller scale. The National Park Service is rebuilding Fort Stanwix at Rome, N.Y., where American forces in August 1777 repulsed a British invasion. New York City is restoring nine blocks of 18th and 19th century buildings near the South Street Seaport Museum, which exhibits ships dating from the late 19th century. Joining them by July 4, 1976, will be a number of sailing ships from a fleet of about 60 that will leave Plymouth, England, on May 2, 1976, and stop at Portugal, the Canary Islands, Bermuda and Newport, R.I.
Among other Eastern activities:
Rome, N.Y., is building a tomb to house the bones of eight unknown Revolutionary War soldiers whose remains were unearthed during a sewer construction project.
THE SOUTH: The Georgia State Chamber of Commerce has been urging people to "stay and see America in Georgia." In the same spirit, many of the region's Bicentennial activities are intended to emphasize that the South's contribution to colonial and Revolutionary America was just as important as the North's. On June 28, 1976, Charleston will mark the battle of Fort Sullivan, one of the first major colonial victories. North Carolina is rewriting its eighth-and ninth-grade history textbooks, using as major source materials the Halifax Resolve, in favor of independence, which its provincial assembly voted on April 12, 1776, and other historical state documents.
Virginia plans special exhibits at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, George Washington's Mount Vernon, and Williamsburg, which was the colonial cap ital. In addition, the state has established historical centers at Alexandria, Charlottesville and Yorktown, where a victorious Washington accepted the final British surrender.
New Orleans is restoring five buildings in the market area of the city's 18th century French Quarter. New Orleans and St. Louis are sponsoring a paddle-wheel steamboat that will take theatrical productions to small towns along the Mississippi River; it will arrive at New Orleans in time for a July 4, 1976, Bicentennial ceremony. Alabama has laid out a 2,000-mile route that will take visitors to 200 historical sites, including the George Washington Carver Museum in Tuskegee and the capital of the Confederacy in Montgomery.