Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Last updated
Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Benjamin Franklin Parkway-27527.JPG
Benjamin Franklin Parkway from the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Plan for the Fairmount Parkway by Jacques Greber 1917.jpg
"Plan for the Fairmount Parkway", published in 1917 by Jacques Gréber
Namesake Benjamin Franklin
Maintained by City of Philadelphia
Length1.0 mi (1.6 km) [1]
Location Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
West end Eakins Oval in Fairmount Park
East end16th and Arch Streets in Logan Square

Benjamin Franklin Parkway, commonly abbreviated to Ben Franklin Parkway and colloquially called the Parkway, is a boulevard that runs through the cultural heart of Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-largest city as of 2020.

Contents

The parkway is named for Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father greatly affiliated with the city and the successful American Revolution, which led to American independence.

The mile-long parkway cuts diagonally across the grid plan pattern of Center City's northwest quadrant, starting at Philadelphia City Hall, curving around Logan Circle, and ending before the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

History

20th century

Benjamin Franklin Parkway with the Franklin Institute in the foreground and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the background Philadelphia museum district.JPG
Benjamin Franklin Parkway with the Franklin Institute in the foreground and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the background

In a city famous for its urban planning, the Parkway represents one of the earliest examples of urban renewal in the United States. The road was constructed to ease heavy industrial congestion in Center City and to restore Philadelphia's natural and artistic beauty, as part of the City Beautiful movement.

The vision for a grand parkway came from retail pioneer John Wanamaker. Preliminary proposals for the Parkway had been produced and added to the City Plan by 1906, but the first comprehensive plan for the Parkway was commissioned in 1907 by the Fairmount Park Art Association, now the Association for Public Art. The Association commissioned architects Horace Trumbauer, Clarence Zantzinger, and Paul Philippe Cret, who created a detailed parkway design that was formally added to the City Plan in 1909. Construction on the Parkway did not begin until 1917, when French landscape architect Jacques Gréber submitted a revised plan to the Commissioners of Fairmount Park. [2]

Gréber designed the Parkway in 1917 to emulate the Champs-Élysées in Paris, France. The route was determined by an axis drawn from Philadelphia City Hall to a fixed point on the hill that William Penn called "Fairmount", now the site of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. [3] The Champs-Élysées terminates at the Arc de Triomphe, and the Parkway's terminating at the Art Museum gives the notion of "a slice of Paris in Philadelphia." The Parkway contains flags of countries from around the world.

The traffic rotary on the western end of the Parkway, at the foot of the Art Museum's Rocky Steps, is named Eakins Oval after Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins. The traffic lanes around Eakins Oval originally formed a regular oval; this pattern was modified in the early 1960s to its present elongated circular shape, with the truncated lanes serving as staging areas for various events.

21st century

On July 2, 2005, the steps of the museum played host to the Philadelphia venue of Live 8, where artists such as Dave Matthews Band, Linkin Park and Maroon 5 performed.

In Spring 2012, a new museum for the Barnes Foundation's collection of Impressionist art on the site between the Free Library and the Rodin Museum opened in Spring 2012.

The Parkway has been used for several subsequent editions of the Made in America Festival. The Parkway was also the site of Jay-Z's Made in America Festival on September 1–2, 2012, featuring Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, Skrillex, Calvin Harris, and others.

On September 26 and 27, 2015, Pope Francis visited Philadelphia for that year's World Meeting of Families; the Parkway was flooded with over a million visitors both weekend days, a Celebration of Families on Saturday, and a Holy Mass on Sunday.[ citation needed ]

There has been concern that the original plan of a wide, multi-sectioned, multi-lane, tree-lined boulevard, while beautiful to travel on, is not very engaging for pedestrian or other public use. Traffic along the Parkway has decreased considerably because of the completion of Interstate 676 (Vine Street Expressway), linking the Schuylkill Expressway with the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The roadway was since narrowed somewhat and the sidewalks expanded around Logan Circle. A plan for a greener, more walkable Parkway was released by the city in 2023. [4]

As of 2023, the Parkway is part of Philadelphia's High Injury Network, the small fraction of streets on which the majority of traffic deaths and serious injuries occur. [5]

Attractions

[[Image:]] The Parkway is the spine of Philadelphia's Museum District.

Some of the city's most famous sights are located here: Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul; Swann Memorial Fountain; Parkway Central Library, the Family Court Building, the Franklin Institute, Moore College of Art and Design, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Rodin Museum, Eakins Oval, the Barnes Foundation, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From its northern end, the Parkway provides access to Fairmount Park through Kelly Drive (formerly East River Drive), Martin Luther King Drive (formerly West River Drive), the Schuylkill River Trail, and the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76).

The Parkway also is an outdoor sculpture garden. Works include: The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, The Gates of Hell also by Rodin, LOVE by Robert Indiana, The Ideal Scout by Robert Tait McKenzie, Three-Way Piece by Henry Moore, the three River figures in the Swann Memorial Fountain by Alexander Stirling Calder, Shakespeare Memorial also by Calder, Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by Nathan Rapoport at the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza, Joseph Leidy by Samuel Murray, Aero Memorial by Paul Manship, General Galusha Pennypacker by Charles Grafly and Albert Laessle, Jesus Breaking Bread by Walter Erlebacher, All Wars Colored Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by J. Otto Schweizer, Thaddeus Kosciuszko by Robert Aitken, Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Kopernik by Dudley Vaill Talcott, Joan of Arc by Emmanuel Fremiet, Washington Monument by Rudolf Siemering, and the Rocky statue by A. Thomas Schomberg.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philadelphia Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Pennsylvania, United States

The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at Eakins Oval. The museum administers collections containing over 240,000 objects including major holdings of European, American and Asian origin. The various classes of artwork include sculpture, paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, armor, and decorative arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairmount Park</span> United States historic place

Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in Philadelphia and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, with the two sections together totalling 2,052 acres (830 ha). Management of Fairmount Park and the entire citywide park system is overseen by Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, a city department created in 2010 from the merger of the Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Rush (sculptor)</span> American sculptor

William Rush was a U.S. neoclassical sculptor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is considered the first major American sculptor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alexander Stirling Calder</span> American artist (1870–1945)

Alexander Stirling Calder was an American sculptor and teacher. He was the son of sculptor Alexander Milne Calder and the father of sculptor Alexander (Sandy) Calder. His best-known works are George Washington as President on the Washington Square Arch in New York City, the Swann Memorial Fountain in Philadelphia, and the Leif Eriksson Memorial in Reykjavík, Iceland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interstate 676</span> Highway in New Jersey and Pennsylvania

Interstate 676 (I-676) is an Interstate Highway that serves as a major thoroughfare through Center City Philadelphia, where it is known as the Vine Street Expressway, and Camden, New Jersey, where it is known as the northern segment of the North–South Freeway, as well as the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Highway in honor of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. Its western terminus is at I-76 in Philadelphia near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fairmount Park. From there, it heads east and is then routed on surface streets near Franklin Square and Independence National Historical Park, home of the Liberty Bell, before crossing the Delaware River on the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. On the New Jersey side of the bridge, the highway heads south to its southern terminus at I-76 in Gloucester City near the Walt Whitman Bridge. Between the western terminus and downtown Camden, I-676 is concurrent with U.S. Route 30 (US 30).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Grafly</span> American sculptor

Charles Allan Grafly, Jr. was an American sculptor, and teacher. Instructor of Sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for 37 years, his students included Paul Manship, Albin Polasek, and Walker Hancock.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairmount, Philadelphia</span> Neighborhood of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, United States

Fairmount is a neighborhood within Lower North Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Its boundaries are north of Fairmount Avenue, west of Corinthian Avenue, south of Girard Avenue and east of The Schuylkill River. While this may be the most accurate demarcation, the area's boundaries fluctuate depending how the neighborhood is defined. Several other neighborhoods near Fairmount are sometimes also collectively called Fairmount, including: Spring Garden, Franklintown and Francisville. Fairmount and neighboring Spring Garden are commonly referred to as the "Art Museum Area," for their proximity to and association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Fairmount is also the location of the Eastern State Penitentiary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Philippe Cret</span> French-American architect and industrial designer (1876–1945)

Paul Philippe Cret was a French-born Philadelphia architect and industrial designer. For more than thirty years, he taught at a design studio in the Department of Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Logan Circle (Philadelphia)</span> United States historic place

Logan Circle, also known as Logan Square, is an open-space park in Center City Philadelphia's northwest quadrant and one of the five original planned squares laid out on the city grid. The centerpiece of the park is the Logan Circle, a circular area centered on a large water feature, bounded by a traffic circle carrying 19th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with connections to 18th and 20th streets to the east and west and Race and Vine Streets to the south and north.

<i>Swann Memorial Fountain</i> Fountain by Alexander Stirling Calder

The Swann Memorial Fountain is an art deco fountain sculpture located in the center of Logan Circle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

Jacques-Henri-Auguste Gréber was a French architect specializing in landscape architecture and urban design. He was a strong proponent of the Beaux-Arts style and a contributor to the City Beautiful movement, particularly in Philadelphia and Ottawa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eakins Oval</span> Traffic circle in Pennsylvania, US

Eakins Oval is a traffic circle in Philadelphia. It forms the northwest end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway just in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with a central array of fountains and monuments, and a network of pedestrian walkways.

Bike Philly was a bicycle tour of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on a closed route cleared of motorized vehicular traffic. The tour is sponsored by the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia, and it occurs on the second Sunday of September. The inaugural event for Bike Philly was held on September 9, 2007, and consisted of two 10 mile loops, a Center City route, and a Fairmount Park route. The ride attracted 2,500 riders

SEPTA Route 38 is a bus and former subway–surface streetcar route operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Laessle</span> American sculptor

Albert Laessle was an American sculptor and educator. He taught at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts for more than twenty years and is best remembered as an animalier. He won the 1918 Widener Gold Medal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eli Kirk Price II</span> American lawyer

Eli Kirk Price II was a prominent American Philadelphia lawyer, called "the foremost civic and cultural leader in early twentieth-century Philadelphia". He was the commissioner of Fairmount Park during the planning and development of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, of which he was one of the principal planners. Later, he was instrumental in obtaining funding for the new Philadelphia Museum of Art building and was President of the museum from 1926 to 1933.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors</span> War memorial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.

All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors is a war memorial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that honors the state's African American servicemen who fought in American conflicts from the American Revolutionary War to World War I. Commissioned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1927, it was created by sculptor J. Otto Schweizer and dedicated July 7, 1934. In 1994 it was relocated from a remote site in West Fairmount Park to its present prominent site in Logan Square, along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Wilson Cary Swann was an American physician, philanthropist, and social reformer. Born in present-day Alexandria, Virginia, he moved to Philadelphia in 1847, and spent the rest of his life there. Swann held around 40 slaves, whom he freed shortly after his marriage in 1847.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Galusha Pennypacker Memorial</span> Public monument in Philadelphia

The General Galusha Pennypacker Memorial is a monument in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Located in the city's Logan Circle, the monument honors Galusha Pennypacker, a Pennsylvanian who served as a general officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Work on the memorial first commenced under sculptor Charles Grafly, though after his death in 1929, work was continued by Albert Laessle, a former student of Grafly, who completed the sculpture in 1934. The overall design for the sculpture depicts Pennypacker in classical dress descending from a stylized cannon that is surrounded by two tigers.

References

  1. Google (July 14, 2018). "Benjamin Franklin Parkway" (Map). Google Maps . Google. Retrieved July 14, 2018.
  2. Brownlee, David Bruce (1989). Building the city beautiful: the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN   0812282213.
  3. Outline History of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway 1871-1935.
  4. "Vision of greener, more walkable Ben Franklin Parkway — with no outer lanes — released by city". PhillyVoice. 2023-08-22. Retrieved 2024-02-07.
  5. "Story Map Series". phl.maps.arcgis.com. Retrieved 2024-02-08.

Further reading

39°57′49″N75°10′43″W / 39.9637°N 75.1787°W / 39.9637; -75.1787