Jake Rose
Illustrations by Various Artists
20 Places to Visit and Color
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Liberty Bell
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Carpenter's Hall
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American Philosophical Society
16
National Constitution Center
Independence Hall
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Museum of the American Revolution
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First Bank of the United States
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Historical Society of Pennsylvania
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Philadelphia City Hall
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B Free Franklin Post Office
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Please Touch Museum / Memorial Hall
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Eastern State Penitentiary
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Betsy Ross House
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Ben Franklin Museum
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Masonic Temple
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Elfreth's Alley
5
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
10
Declaration House
15
Christ Church
20
Academy of Natural Sciences
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1. Liberty Bell Bearing the message: "Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land Unto All the Inhabitants thereof", the Liberty Bell is one of America’s greatest symbols of liberty. Pennsylvania Assembly Speaker Isaac Norris ordered a bell for Independence Hall’s tower in 1751 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of William Penn's 1701 Charter of Privileges, Pennsylvania’s first constitution. When it cracked, John Pass and John Stow melted it down and casted a new one in 1753. It's this bell that summoned citizens in 1776 to hear the Declaration of Independence’s first public reading. In the early 1800s, abolitionists gave the Bell meaning by adopting it as an anti-slavery symbol. Though Anti-Slavery Record referred to the bell as Liberty Bell in 1835, that name was not adopted until George Lippard's 1847 story Ring, Grandfather, Ring. The Bell traveled across America in the late 1800s to help the nation recover from the Civil War and remind Americans of when they fought for independence. Now a global symbol, the bell's message of liberty is still relevant today.
Photo by Carol M. Highsmith
2. Independence Hall Risking their lives, fortune, and honor, 56 men gathered at the Pennsylvania State House in 1776 and defied the King of England. Eleven years later, representatives from 12 states gathered to shape the U.S. Constitution and create one unified nation. Today, Independence Hall is an UNESCO World Heritage Site that is part of the U.S. National Park Service and an Independence National Historical Park. George Washington’s “rising sun� chair dominates the Assembly Room, which is arranged as it was during the Constitutional Convention. In the West Wing, the inkstand used to sign the Declaration of Independence and an original draft of the Constitution is displayed.
Photo by R Hood Photography
3. Philadelphia City Hall Referred by Walt Whitman as a majestic and lovely show in the moonlight, Philadelphia City Hall has stood as an architectural wonder in the city's center since 1901. Built by John McArthur Jr. and Thomas Walter from 1871 to 1901, the 548-foot tower is the world’s tallest masonry structure without a steel frame, as well as the United States’ largest municipal building with over 14 acres of floor space. City Hall is an architectural treasure inside and out, as its lavish rooms complement its sculpture-covered exterior that is topped off by Alexander Milne Calder’s 37-foot statue of William Penn. That statue towered as Philadelphia’s tallest point until 1987, when the 945-foot One Liberty Place opened. Designed in the French Second Empire style, City Hall was derided for decades due to its archaic aesthetic. But over time, Philadelphians came to appreciate this historic beauty. A National Historic Landmark, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976 and was cited as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2006.
5. Pennsylvania Academy of The Fine Arts Founded by Charles Peale and William Rush in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts promotes the cultivation of the Fine Arts in the United States by exciting artists to invigorate the talents of its Citizens. PAFA’s collection explores the history of American art from the 1760s to today, while the museum shows works by regional artists and features annual displays of work by PAFA students. Designed by Frank Furness and George Hewitt in 1876, PAFA’s Historic Landmark Building is a Victorian Gothic masterpiece that provides the museum with a marvelous setting for its collections, exhibits, and events. The building is bedazzled with bricks, floral motifs, basrelief friezes, and a gothic window. For its 200th anniversary in 2005, PAFA opened the Samuel Hamilton Building next to the historic museum building. Designed by OLIN in 2011 between the Historic Landmark and Samuel Hamilton buildings, Lenfest Plaza features Claes Oldenburg's gravity-defying Paint Torch and Jordan Griska's transformative Grumman Greenhouse.
7. Museum of the American Revolution Across from the First Bank of the United States and a few blocks from Independence Hall lies the brand-new Museum of the American Revolution. Designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects, the building features sculptural reliefs of Washington crossing the Delaware and the Declaration of Independence’s signing. Drawing on decades of scholarship that highlight the Revolution’s conflicts and paradoxes, the museum displays 500 objects, from muskets and uniforms to teapots and shoes. Infusing history with spectacle, the exhibits create a sense that one is walking through a movie. While the museum hits the major historical beats from 1775 to 1789, the real subject is how a fight for British liberties morphed into a war for independence. Yet there are reminders that not all citizens were equal and that liberty was not the same thing for everyone, as panels explore the meaning of events for Native Americans, African-American slaves, and other ostracized groups. As people leave the museum, they will realize that they all swim in the same stream of history.
13. Please Touch Museum / Memorial hall Built by Hermann Schwarzmann for Philadelphia's Centennial Expo in 1876, Memorial Hall is the only major surviving building from the event and is considered to be one of America's best examples of Beaux-Arts architecture. After the Expo, Memorial Hall housed the Pennsylvania Museum of Art until 1928. Since 2008, Memorial Hall has housed the Please Touch Museum – a children’s museum that utilizes learning through play in their exhibits to help kids learn about creativity, teamwork, interactions and critical thinking.
15. Christ church
Founded in 1695, Christ Church is the birthplace of the American Episcopal Church. “The Nation’s Church” has hosted such colonial icons as Presidents George Washington and John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Betsy Ross, and signers of the Constitution and of the Declaration of Independence such as Robert Morris and Benjamin Rush. At Christ Church, the nation’s first black priest Absalom Jones was ordained, a school was created to educate slaves, and over 25% of Philadelphia’s Africans were baptized during the colonial era. Dating to 1744, the current building has been cited as one of America’s finest Georgian structures. An active Episcopal parish, Christ Church gives inspiration and hope today as it did to the founding fathers centuries ago. The tour guides link tales of early American lives with the interests of visitors who can sit in George Washington and Benjamin Rush’s pews. Visiting Christ Church will enhance your understanding of the nation’s history and its relevance to today. See and feel historical artifacts as you hear stories on religious freedom and tolerance.
Photo by Carol M. Highsmith
18. Eastern State Penitentiary When Eastern State Penitentiary opened in 1829, it changed the world. Known for its grand architecture and strict discipline, Eastern State was the world’s first penitentiary, a prison designed to inspire regret in prisoners through solitary confinement. Completed by John Haviland in 1836, the building was an architectural wonder, as it had high-tech plumbing and sewage systems as well as 450 centrally heated cells. Eastern State soon became one of the United States’ most copied buildings, as governments around the world modeled prisons after Eastern State. Some of Eastern State’s most notorious inmates include capture-free escapee Leo Callahan, Chicago gangster Al Capone, and bank robber Willie Sutton. After closing in 1971, Eastern State went on a restructuring phase until it reopened for daily tours in 1994. A federally designated National Historic Landmark, Eastern State was the backdrop for the films 12 Monkeys and Return to Paradise. Eastern State remains one of Philadelphia’s most interesting institutions.
Photo by Kjetli Ree
19. Elfreth's Alley
Nestled between Second Street and the Delaware River, Elfreth's Alley is made up of Federal and Georgian homes that stand as reminders of Philadelphia’s early days. As Philadelphia became a major city, artisans and merchants bought property near ports, which lead to overcrowding. Thus, landowners Arthur Wells and John Gilbert combined their properties to open Elfreth’s Alley as a cart path in 1706. From the 1930s to 1960s, Dolly Ottey helped preserve the Alley as a colonial street. Ottey fought the alley’s deterioration by forming the Elfreth’s Alley Association in 1934. In 1966, the EAA secured National Historic Landmark status to ensure that Interstate 95 construction did not destroy Elfreth’s Alley. Today, Elfreth’s Alley is a great example of early American structures built between 1720 and 1830. A celebration of America’s working class that helped build this nation through sweat and commerce, the alley is still a thriving residential community that is home to artists, artisans, educators, entrepreneurs, and everything in-between.
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