Philadelphia: 4000 Murals, the World Largest Pipe Organ and the Wissahickon Gorge
Join a mural arts trolley tour through the city with the world largest outdoor mural collection, skate or photograph the LOVE sculpture in LOVE Park beneath City Hall William Penn hat, watch sculls race past Victorian Boathouse Row on the Schuylkill, hear the 28000-pipe Wanamaker organ at a daily free concert, climb the Manayunk Wall and descend into Wissahickon forest trails, and decode how Philadelphia 50 neighborhoods still hold distinct identities.
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Philadelphia Murals and Mural Arts Program
Philadelphia has over 4,000 murals across the city, making it the largest outdoor mural collection of any city in the world, and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, founded in 1984 as an anti-graffiti initiative by Jane Golden, is the largest public art program in the United States. The program began when Mayor Wilson Goode asked Golden to channel graffiti writers energy into sanctioned murals. The program has produced work with artists from around the world and employs local residents in the production process. The City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection mural on Broad Street and the Common Threads mural series in North Philadelphia are among the most photographed. Mural Arts offers guided tours by trolley, on foot, and by train throughout the year. The program has expanded to include restorative justice work, creating murals with prison populations as part of rehabilitation programming.
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LOVE Park and Center City Grid
LOVE Park, formally John F. Kennedy Plaza at 15th Street and JFK Boulevard in front of City Hall, contains Robert Indiana 1976 aluminum LOVE sculpture, one of the most photographed artworks in America, originally created for a 1964 Museum of Modern Art Christmas card. The plaza was a legendary skateboarding destination from the 1980s through 2002 when the city banned skating and replaced granite ledges with concrete. The redesigned park reopened in 2016 with a restored granite surface that welcomed skaters back. City Hall on Broad Street, completed in 1901, is the largest municipal building in the United States and for 88 years was the tallest structure in Philadelphia under a gentlemens agreement not to build above William Penn statue at its peak. One Liberty Place broke the agreement in 1987. The Penn statue remains the most recognizable silhouette of the Philadelphia skyline.
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Fairmount Water Works and Boathouse Row
The Fairmount Water Works on the east bank of the Schuylkill River below the Philadelphia Museum of Art, completed in 1815 and expanded through 1851, was one of the engineering marvels of 19th century America, pumping water from the river to reservoirs above and supplying the city. The Greek Revival buildings became a tourist destination while operational and are now a museum and event venue. Boathouse Row, a series of 15 Victorian boathouses dating from 1860 to 1906 along the east bank of the Schuylkill, is home to the oldest rowing clubs in America and outlined at night in white lights reflecting on the river. The Schuylkill Navy, founded in 1858, governs collegiate rowing on the river and the Dad Vail Regatta held annually is the largest collegiate rowing regatta in the United States. The stretch of river through Fairmount Park has been a competitive rowing venue since before the Civil War.
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Wanamakers Grand Court Organ
The Wanamaker Grand Court Organ inside the former John Wanamaker Department Store at 13th and Market Streets, now a Macy flagship store, is the largest functioning pipe organ in the world, with 28,482 pipes in six divisions and a console the size of a small room. The organ was built for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, purchased by department store founder John Wanamaker in 1909, and expanded over the following decades. Wanamaker hired organists to perform twice daily and the tradition continues to this day with concerts at noon and 5:15 PM. The grand court of the store, a six-story atrium topped with a skylight, also contains the Wanamaker Eagle, a nearly 2,500-pound bronze eagle that has served as a meeting place for Philadelphians since 1911. The phrase meet me at the eagle remains common in the city. Wanamaker pioneered the price tag and money-back guarantee in American retail.
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Manayunk and Wissahickon Valley
Manayunk, a former textile mill town 6 miles northwest of Center City along the Schuylkill River and the Manayunk Canal, retains its 19th-century canal locks and mill architecture and has reinvented itself as a neighborhood of restaurants, boutiques, and cycling culture. The Philadelphia International Cycling Championship, a major professional race held annually on a circuit that includes the steep Manayunk Wall climb, draws international competitors. The Wissahickon Valley Park preserving 50 miles of trails through a forested gorge along Wissahickon Creek is within the Philadelphia city limits, making it one of the largest natural areas inside an American city. The stone Rittenhouse Town, the oldest paper mill site in North America established in 1690, is at the southern end of the valley. Valley Green Inn, a restaurant serving since 1850 within the park, offers one of the more unexpected dining experiences of any American city, accessible only on foot or horseback.
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Philadelphia Neighborhoods and Demographics
Philadelphia is the sixth largest city in the United States with 1.6 million residents and is unusual among large American cities for the stability and distinctiveness of its neighborhoods, many of which retain strong ethnic and cultural identities across generations. South Philly remains closely associated with Italian American culture despite demographic change. The Northeast holds large Ukrainian and Russian Jewish communities. West Philadelphia near Penn and Drexel has a significant African American middle-class history. The Northern Liberties and Fishtown neighborhoods gentrified rapidly after 2000 and anchor the young professional creative-class population. Germantown, founded in 1683 by German Quakers, contains the oldest surviving German American architecture in the United States. The city population declined from a peak of 2.07 million in 1950 to a low of 1.44 million in 2000 and has recovered modestly since, driven by immigration and a small return of younger residents from suburbs.