Benjamin Franklin Parkway
This is the last of my Philadelphia posts. This actually represents the part of the trip I regret the most because I didn't spend near enough time here. It is a reason to go back. Not all of these photos are taken on Benjamin Franklin Parkway, but about 90% are.
{Sigh} I want to go back now.
Benjamin Franklin Parkway runs from City Hall to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It slices diagonally across the grid pattern of the city and runs through the cities museum district. The parkway is roughly a mile long and is lined with great art, buildings, museums, and fountains. It is the reason I will go back.
Some may "Heart" other cities, but I love Philadelphia...
12 comments:
Thank you so much for the pictorial tour, taken from my kind of perspective. It's always been on my "wanna go" list, but it has now moved to the "must go" list. Thank you for sharing, almost as good as the pictures from the Carson Mansion.
You are so welcome. It was a pleasure to share it.
I've really enjoyed your Philadelphia posts Greg, thank you so much for sharing. I'm thinking I'll have to visit on my next trip to the US.
Tazzie
:-)
I love Philly too. In fact, I'm surprised by how much I love living here. My 16 year old son goes to a school on the Parkway at 16th - they have an open campus policy. Can you imagine going to Love Park for lunch?
That's interesting that you should mention your son going to school. The first morning I was there I left the hotel around 7:00 AM and the first thing that struck me was the number of kids I saw on the sidewalks on their way to school. I remember thinking how cool it would be to stand on the sidewalk in front of City Hall waiting for the bus to go to school.
I live in PA and have been to Philadelphia numerous times as my son just graduated from Drexel University. Seeing it through your eyes, there is clearly much that I've been missing. Thanks to your enthusiastic portrayal, I can't wait to go as a "tourist." I've been eagerly awaiting each subsequent post and am sad they have come to an end!!
Oma,
Very flattering. Thank you. If I impressed a local, then I will consider the Philadelphia series a success!
Greg
Thank you so much for the images! I had no idea the public art along the Parkway was so impressive and copious!
Is the water lit with color? It must be, right?!
First the water was pink for breast cancer awareness, and then purple for no apparent reason.
This post is the answer to my cousin's husband, who loves to tweak with me because he knows I studied urban planning. I made a brief trip to Houston for my uncle's funeral (his FIL). He and my cousin graciously asked me to stay with them, which was great since I hardly ever get to see them and I like them a lot. But then he started going on and on about what a great city Houston is, even though there is no zoning, and it's been privately developed with little government oversight. He knows I'm a planner and he was lovin it. Let's see, I was his guest and his wife's father had just died; did I argue? Nope. But after 36 hours in Houston, just to get back and forth to the funeral home, his house, and the airport, I put over 200 miles on my rental car. That is more than I do at home in a month! In Houston, a "parkway" would be 10 lanes, 70 mph, 60 miles long, and you'd be tolled for the "pleasure" of using it. In Philly, the parkway as a mile long, a delight to the senses, designed with pedestrians (humans) not cars in mind, related to the city and its function, and free. Goodbye Houston, hello Philly. I'm sticking with my profession.
I love BF Parkway. The day I walked it it was filled with people and really very pleasant.
Oddly enough, the gentleman who gave the tour of City Hall was a retired city planner, and while it didn't really talk disparagingly about it, he did sort of see it has a gash on the otherwise perfectly laid out grid of the rest of this part of the city.
It seemed his attitude was, "I wouldn't have done it, but since it is there, I like it."
As a side note, I grew up just outside of Houston near the Johnson Space Center. You couldn't pay me to go back. I would not even want to go for a visit.
I hear you on Houston. It was a nice place in the 50's before it sprawled so badly, and I'll always love the Heights. My other grandmother lived a few blocks from 290. Her garden was amazing, and she was an old-timey organic gardener before there was a name for it. But by the early nineties, her tomato plants just wouldn't produce like before. We chalked it up to air quality. Soiled nest syndrome.
Funny about the planner's comment. Sure many things could be done better, and perhaps the parkway was done through eminent domain that killed vibrant neighborhoods. I'm not supporting that, just saying I'll take it over sam houston tollway any day. It's all relative, I mean, some of the rooms in the city hall are too strongly rectilinear in form and motif for a victorian gal like me, but I still like it a lot.
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