| Swann Memorial Fountain | |
|---|---|
| Fountain of the Three Rivers | |
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| Artist | Alexander Stirling Calder |
| Year | 1924 |
| Type | Sculpture |
| Location | Benjamin Franklin Parkway and 19th St., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
The Swann Memorial Fountain (also known as the Fountain of the Three Rivers) is an art deco fountain sculpture located in the center of Logan Circle in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. [1]
The fountain, by Alexander Stirling Calder designed with architect Wilson Eyre, memorializes Wilson Cary Swann, founder of the Philadelphia Fountain Society. The Society had been planning a memorial fountain in honor of its late president and founder. After agreeing that the fountain would become city property, the society was granted the site in the center of Logan Circle. [2]
Adapting the tradition of “river god” sculpture, Calder created large Native American figures to symbolize the area's major streams, the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and the Wissahickon. The young girl leaning on her side against an agitated, water-spouting swan represents the Wissahickon Creek; the mature woman holding the neck of a swan stands for the Schuylkill River; and the male figure, reaching above his head to grasp his bow as a large pike sprays water over him, symbolizes the Delaware River. [3] Sculpted frogs and turtles spout water toward the 50-foot (15 m) geyser in the center, though typically the geyser only spouts 25 ft (8 m). The use of swans is a pun on Dr. Swann's name. [1] Eyre designed the basin and the interlacing water jets, including the central geyser.
During warm months, swimming in the fountain is a long-standing Philadelphia tradition. In the summer of 2006, the City of Philadelphia began enforcing a swimming ban with a nearly constant security presence, but the ban was eliminated in 2009.
Besides serving as the center of Logan Square, the Fountain also stands as the midpoint on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which includes also sculptures by two other generations of the Calder family. Stirling Calder's father, Alexander Milne Calder, designed the statue of William Penn atop the tower of City Hall at the southeast end, while, at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the northwest end, the mobile Ghosts is by Alexander Calder, Stirling Calder's son. This led to a local wit referring to the three sculptures as the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
For many years the fountain was framed by a magnificent circle of Paulownia trees, which have since been replaced.
The fountain was mentioned in songs by the pop punk band The Wonder Years. The song "Logan Circle" from their album The Upsides opens with "They turned on the fountain today at Logan Circle"; there are several references to the fountain and the city of Philadelphia in the band's lyrics. It is the subject of the song "Spit Fountain" by Philadelphia emo band Algernon Cadwallader. It is also featured in the Philly level of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 and in an episode of the television show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia , "Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life".
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.
Wissahickon Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill River in Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, Pennsylvania.
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.
Alexander Milne Calder (MILL-nee) was a Scottish American sculptor best known for the architectural sculpture of Philadelphia City Hall. Both his son, Alexander Stirling Calder, and grandson, Alexander Calder, became significant sculptors in the 20th century.
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.
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.
The Fairmount Water Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was Philadelphia's second municipal waterworks. Designed in 1812 by Frederick Graff and built between 1812 and 1872, it operated until 1909, winning praise for its design and becoming a popular tourist attraction. It now houses a restaurant and an interpretive center that explains the waterworks' purpose and local watershed history. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1976 for its architecture and its engineering innovations. It was the nation's first water supply to use paddle wheels to move water.
East Falls is a neighborhood in Lower Northwest, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It lies on the east bank of the "Falls of the Schuylkill," cataracts submerged in 1822 by the Schuylkill Canal and Fairmount Water Works projects. East Falls sits next to the Germantown, Roxborough, Allegheny West, and the Nicetown-Tioga neighborhoods. Wissahickon Valley Park separates it from Manayunk, Philadelphia.
Wilson Eyre, Jr. was an American architect, teacher and writer who practiced in the Philadelphia area. He is known for his deliberately informal and welcoming country houses, and for being an innovator in the Shingle Style.
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.
Wissahickon may refer to the following in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania:
SEPTA Route 38 is a bus and former streetcar route operated by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States.
Smith Memorial Arch is an American Civil War monument at South Concourse and Lansdowne Drive in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Built on the former grounds of the 1876 Centennial Exposition, it serves as a gateway to West Fairmount Park. The Memorial consists of two colossal columns supported by curving, neo-Baroque arches, and adorned with 13 individual portrait sculptures ; two eagles standing on globes; and architectural reliefs of eight allegorical figures.
Thorfinn Karlsefni is a bronze statue of Norse explorer Thorfinn Karlsefni, created by Icelandic sculptor Einar Jónsson. The first casting was located in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, United States, before being toppled by vandals in 2018. A second casting of the statue is in Reykjavík, Iceland, and the original plaster model is located in the Einar Jónsson Museum.
This is a history and list of drinking fountains in the United States. A drinking fountain, also called a water fountain or bubbler, is a fountain designed to provide drinking water. It consists of a basin with either continuously running water or a tap. The drinker bends down to the stream of water and swallows water directly from the stream. Drinking water fountains are most commonly found in heavy usage areas like public amenities, schools, airports, and museums.
Philadelphia Parks & Recreation (PPR) is the municipal department responsible for managing parks, recreation centers, playgrounds, trails, community gardens, and historic properties in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its inventory includes more than 150 parks and 170 recreation centers and playgrounds. It became the successor to the Fairmount Park Commission and the City of Philadelphia Department of Recreation in 2010.
Public drinking fountains in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, have been built and used since the 19th century. Various reform-minded organizations in the city supported public drinking fountains as street furniture for different but overlapping reasons. One was the general promotion of public health, in an era of poor water and typhoid fever. Leaders of the temperance movement such as the Woman's Christian Temperance Union saw free, clean water as a crucial alternative to beer. Emerging animal welfare organizations, notably the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, wanted to provide water to the dogs and working horses of the city on humanitarian grounds, which is why Philadelphia's drinking fountains of the era often include curb-level troughs that animals could reach.
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.
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