Original Broad Street Station, Pennsylvania Railroad

Although most people did not enjoy Oscar Wilde’s January 17 lecture at Horticultural Hall (see stop #8), Joseph Pennell was “edified” and “amused” by it, according to his wife, Elizabeth Robbins, in her biography of her husband. Pennell, an artist, journalist, and follower of Aesthetic painter J. M. Whistler, put off a business trip to remain in town to hear Wilde speak during that first visit. Two days later, as he boarded his train at Broad Street Station, he found Oscar Wilde in the seat next to his! He sketched Wilde and noted to his wife, “... for more than half an hour I never heard a man talk as he did—There is no doubt of the fascination of his conversation.”