Holiday Inn Independence Mall

By : Mark Dodel, Warpstock Hotel Liaison

Click on the image for a closer view of the entrance.

The hotel has a moderately long lobby area with a few small seat groupings. There is a large lounge/bar area at one end of the lobby, just before the hotel restaurant (Benton's).

At the other end of the lobby is a bank of 3 elevators. The hotel has 8 floors and 364 rooms. Rooms may be either a single king size bed or two doubles. There are also a few suites (4) and junior suites(3) with wet bars and refrigerators. All rooms come with cable TV, a coffee-maker, clock radio, hairdryer and a phone with a data-port. Non-smoking rooms are available.

There is a rooftop outdoor pool as well as a fitness center. On the 8th floor there is a coin-operated laundry facility. On every floor there is an ice machine and vending machine. The lobby has an ATM as well as a touch screen direction/location kiosk.

The meeting rooms are off the opposite end of the main lobby, just past the gift shop. All the rooms reserved for Warpstock 2000 are off of a central hallway. A small registration desk area is on the right hand side of the hallway between the Sherman and Hancock rooms. these two rooms will be combined together for the general session and can hold up to 240 people. A dividing wall will break these two rooms, which in conjunction with the Penn and Adams rooms will allow for four separate presentations ongoing throughout the day.

This is the meeting room hallway. Click on the image for a view of the registration desk.

Along the meeting room hallway are public restrooms and both house and public phones. At the end of this hallway is a 'Pre-function area' (roughly 13x20 feet)which may be used for a couple exhibit tables or for attendees to hang out between sessions. The Franklin and Jefferson rooms together about 2494 Square feet (43'x58') will serve as the main exhibit area.

The hotel can provide screens, overhead/35mm slide projectors, VCRs and monitors, podiums, microphones, easels, dry-erase boards, chalk boards and computers and peripherals for presentations. A list of Audio Visual items can be found here.

Besides Benton's(the Hotel Restaurant, click here for menu) there are several cafe type small restaurants and also a pizza place (Olde City Pizza) within a block of the hotel. for a really inexpensive meal there are a few street vendors during the day with hot dogs, chili dogs, soda and snack foods.

If you are not driving, Philadelphia has a fairly extensive public transportation system called SEPTA, which includes subways, rail and buses. The Market-Frankford subway line station is a block from the hotel at 5th and Market. This subway/elevated line runs from North-east Philadelphia, through Center City and out to West Philly. This line intersects with the Broad Street Subway line under Philadelphia's City Hall. The Broad Street subway line runs from North Philadelphia all the way down to the sports complex (Veterans Stadium and the First Union Center) in South Philadelphia. A one-way Subway or bus fare is $1.60. Day passes are $5 for 24 hours of transportation.

There is also a downtown shuttle bus called the Philly Phlash. For $4 it provides a day of transport on the Phlash purple buses which go on a loop through South Street and Columbus Blvd.(Penn's Landing), Center City restaurants and museums on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Look for the purple bus 7 days a week, with service every ten minutes. The current hours of operation are 10a.m. - 6p.m.

Immediately surrounding the hotel are several interesting attractions starting with the Friend's Meeting House and the United States Mint across the street from the hotel's main entrance. Behind the Hotel is the Congregation Mikveh Israel Synagogue which was begun in the 1740's and is the oldest Synagogue in Philadelphia. Here you will also find the National Museum of American Jewish History. Continuing around the block you can view Benjamin Franklin's grave.

Within a couple blocks of the hotel is Independence Hall (where the Declaration of Independence was signed and proclaimed by the ringing of the Liberty Bell). Nearby also is the Betsy Ross house (Betsy being the woman credited as having sewn the first American flag); The First and Second Banks of the United States; and Christ Church, an Episcopalian church still in use today, where many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence worshiped.