Where is fairmount park in philadelphia

Deep in the Chamounix Woods in East Fairmount Park hides this stone arch bridge that was once part of the old Fairmount Park trolley line that operated from the s to the s. It grows about 10, plants each year. The foot-wide, foot-long covered slide is more than years old and has been a family favorite for just as long. In recent years the brownstone arch has been in precarious shape, but with the help of the TreeKeepers program, a green-focused workforce development crew, a lot of the debris and rubble has recently been removed.

Just take care crossing the street to explore this gem! The latter plays host to plenty of summer concerts and outdoor movies each year. Welcome to Sedgley Woods , the second oldest disc golf course in the country. A post shared by jon rydzefski jonrydzjetskis on Sep 23, at am PDT. Behold: The only lighthouse in Philadelphia. Originally, it was powered by gas, but today it is electric and also home to the Sedgley Club, which now circles the base of the lighthouse.

In the late 20th-century, the home was vandalized and burned down. It was built in for the Centennial Exposition. It features a granite base, a statue of Moses, and several prominent Roman Catholic figures surrounding Moses.

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Philadelphia Share this story. Map View. View as Map. Feel free to share it in the comments. Read More. Concourse Lake. Carousel House Farm. Shofuso Japanese House and Garden. The waterworks ceased being the city's source of water after about a century, but the site remained a popular destination, as in this photograph from April The waterworks are the cluster of buildings at lower right, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art towering above.

Photograph by Donald D. Groff for The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia. In addition to providing a public service, the waterworks was praised for its appealing architecture and availability as a public space along the waterfront. Even after its closing in , the waterworks continued to draw visitors year-round, as it does to this day. Unlike some of the other mansions in what would become Fairmount Park, Sedgeley was not renovated and preserved as a historic home.

By the time the property was acquired by the city of Philadelphia in , the home had fallen in to disrepair. The building was demolished and the land was incorporated into Fairmount Park. However, the museum collections were divided between the Fairmount building—later renamed the Philadelphia Museum of Art—and Memorial Hall until the mids. By , the Fairmount Park Commission had moved its offices into the building, which now also housed a gymnasium and police station.

By the early s, the building was in disrepair and underwent an expensive renovation. It was reopened as the new home of the Please Touch Museum in The grounds on which it stands once housed the Nio-mon Japanese Temple Gate, which the city of Philadelphia acquired in from the Louisiana Purchase Exposition.

The gardens surrounding it were funded in by businessman and art collector John T. Morris, whose own estate later became the Morris Arboretum. In , the original temple gate, which dated to the s, was destroyed by fire. The building in place today was built in as a goodwill offering from post-war Japan to the United States. It was built using traditional Japanese materials and methods and was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York for two years.

After the MOMA exhibition closed, the house was offered to Fairmount Park as a replacement for the destroyed temple gate. It opened to the Philadelphia public in The building gradually fell into disrepair, but was saved by the Bicentennial celebration.

It is now managed and maintained by a nonprofit organization. In , artist Hiroshi Senju painted and donated twenty large-scale waterfall paintings to replace original interior elements damaged by vandals. Photograph by G. In , as Philadelphia celebrated the sesquicentennial of the Declaration of Independence, the Japanese government donated cherry trees to the city in honor of the anniversary.

Since then, over a thousand cherry trees have flourished in Fairmount Park and many Philadelphians consider their blooming and the annual Cherry Blossom Festival among the first signs of spring. Photograph by M. Though the clubhouses of Boathouse Row draw attention at any time of day, viewing the buildings at night is especially memorable.

Photograph by R. Join the discussion at a Greater Philadelphia Roundtable or add your nomination online. From to , when park management was overseen by the Fairmount Park Commission, the Wissahickon Valley Park 2, acres was also considered part of Fairmount Park.

Fairmount Park, one of the largest public green spaces in an urban setting, includes historic homes, buildings, sculptures, and institutions, including hundreds of cherry trees, some dating to a gift from the Japanese government in These trees, near the Mann Music Center, are a popular spring destination.

Visit Philadelphia. Boathouse Row , on the east bank of the Schuylkill, is an international center for competitive rowing. It was named by William Penn when he claimed it as part of his Springettsbury manor. During the eighteenth century, the Schuylkill district was celebrated for the rural estates and elegant villas that lined the river banks west of the evolving city. If you are into being assaulted, raped, or murdered, this is the best place to go. I would know - a colleague of mine was raped and murdered in broad day light in this place!

The natural beauty and wonderful plant-life also provides a refuge for the monsters that lurk within and I am not talking about the fauna. If you go, best would be to not go alone although couples have been assaulted and raped too , and do not wear headphones - be alert at all times. But, is it really worth it? In my opinion, no. If you want to tour the buildings, drive to them do not walk , and park close by.

During a recent visit to Philadelphia I spent several hours of a blustery Saturday hiking in the scenic Wissahickon Creek section of Fairmount Park. And even though I got rained on briefly , I had a great time. This part of the park is in a natural stateno basketball courts or pools or baseball fields. The creek flows through a steep, heavily forested gorge. Especially in its lower reaches, the Wissahickon is quite broad, wider than many of the bodies of water that are called rivers out West.

Residential neighborhoods, some of them quite scenic in their own right, surround the park, but you barely see any trace of them when you're walking on the winding trails.

It's like a trip to the country, in the city. I even enjoyed the drive to the park. To reach the parking area that I had chosen, I took Lincoln Dr.

This neighborhood is called Mt. Airy or maybe it's Germantown, I'm not too sure about the neighborhood boundaries. Whatever it's called, it has some very impressive houses. For someone accustomed to the flimsy, boring stucco architecture of Southern California, northwestern Philadelphia was a revelation. Affluent folks in Philly seem to have an affinity for stone, as building material for houses, and I can see whyaside from their beauty, these homes look like they'll last for hundreds of years.

Denali07 PA 99 contributions. Smith Memorial Arch - Whispering benches - just amazing. I've lived near and visited Philadelphia all my life and recently read about the whispering benches here and visited them in the fall. You can read about them on a few websites but they are really amazing to experience. It's easy to park for free right near them for a short time. I was so amazed by this that I had to write about it so others might experience it. Nice and green.

Worth a stroll after the Museum of Art. Tablo Philadelphia, PA 22 contributions. I moved to Phila a few months ago and have fallen in love with the historic houses here in the park. Most are elegant country retreats built by the rising Phila mercantile class at the end of the 18th- beginning of the 19th century. Some are run by the Art Museum, others by the park itself or private philanthropic groups. Because of this, they are in different states of repair, and are each presented uniquely.

My favorites are Lemon Hill, with its elegant oval drawing room and sweeping front staircase; Cedar Grove with its sturdy stone contruction and peek into very early America; Mt. Pleasant with its fantastic siting and amazing woodwork-wow! And if you're lucky, you'll get a tour there from a docent who tells the real story of how Fairmount Park came to be- and what was lost in the process.

Be sure to climb the stone tunnel near the Glendinning Rock. Fairmount Park is a great place for photos and biking. Climb up, go through some woods and then over the street and down to Glendinning Rock Garden for a short adventure.

Holiday tour of Fairmount Park Mansions. This year there were six Fairmount Park Mansions open for the holiday tour the first two weeks in December , from Thursday - Sunday. Volunteer garden clubs decorate each mansion and inside each house are volunteers who provide interesting information about each place.

We toured all six mansions and thoroughly enjoyed our day. There are also trolley tours of the mansions which are sponsored by and leave from the Philadelphia Museum of Art. There are morning and afternoon tours. Traveling2Disney Freehold, NJ 99 contributions. The park was well maintained and I discovered some things I would love to go back and visit. There is a Please Touch Museum, the Philadelphia Zoo and some other historical buildings and statues on the grounds.

Very lovely area and very clean!