Bastille Day archive

Terry McNally
Libert, Egalit,Twinkies
By KAREN HELLER
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer
Published: 2002-07-07
Section: INQUIRER MAGAZINE-in person
Being queen for a day isn't exactly a piece of gateau. Especially if you're Marie Antoinette. A woman, even Antoinette impersonator Terry McNally, can lose her lovely head.

Co-owner of the London Grill and founder of the Art Museum Area Restaurant Association, McNally, 43, originated the neighborhood's unique Bastille Day celebration. Commemorating the fall of the famous Paris prison on July 14, 1789, the free event is staged at the Eastern State Penitentiary (1829).
On July 13, for the eighth time, McNally will assume her accustomed role: climb the guard tower, scraping her knees in a corseted gown, a wig with birds atop her head, howling to the proletarians below, "Let them eat Tastykake."

Twinkies, actually - by the thousands, tossed by Marie and her 30 "guards."

"No cardboard," she says. "One year we tossed bits of baguettes. People got hurt."

For half an hour, McNally yells to the crowd. Fluent in culinary French, she often cries Vichyssoise! Foie gras! She may also blame "my stupid husband," a reference to Louis XVI, who was widely viewed as a weak, dumb cuckold.

McNally then descends to a real guillotine. The year a dummy queen was executed, activists against capital punishment protested. Nowadays a watermelon is sacrificed.

The witnesses then enjoy champagne, creampuffs and other French fare served at peasant prices at the London Grill and three other area restaurants. Last year the event attracted 6,000 revelers.

A longtime resident of Fairmount, McNally has co-owned London since 1991 with her now ex-husband, the restaurant's chef, Michael McNally. She conceived the Bastille Day shenanigans to celebrate the neighborhood and attract more people to its restaurants.

"We want to make this a destination, not a place to drive through on the way to the Art Museum," says McNally. "There are other places besides Manayunk."

Exhausting though the planning for the event may be, McNally always looks forward to being Marie on Bastille Day.

"I've learned a lot from her," she says. "I'm really kind of shy, but she's helped me grow."

Bastille Day celebration: Eastern State Penitentiary, 22d and Fairmount, 5:30 p.m. Saturday, July 13.

Karen Heller writes the magazine's Intuition column. Contact her at 215-854-2586 or kheller@phillynews.com.
Illustration/Photo: Terry McNally (Photography by Michael Bryant)

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