The Parkway Museums District includes Boathouse Row, a center of the United States rowing community that shelters the sculls of local clubs and school programs and hosts major regattas through the Schuylkill Navy; Fairmount Water Works, built between 1819 and 1822 as America’s first water works and later restored as a restaurant and interpretive center; the Philadelphia Museum of Art and its Perelman Building, with extensive collections ranging from ancient to contemporary art; Eastern State Penitentiary, opened in 1829 and once an influential prison known for solitary confinement; the Rodin Museum, opened in 1929 with the largest public collection of Auguste Rodin’s sculpture outside Paris; the Barnes Foundation, established in 1922 to advance education and appreciation of fine arts; the Free Library of Philadelphia, chartered in 1891 and later moved to Logan Square as the hub of a 34-branch system; the Franklin Institute Science Museum, established in 1824 and opened on the Parkway in 1935; Moore College of Art and Design, founded in 1848 as the nation’s first and only women’s visual arts college; the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, founded in 1812 and known for exhibits and scientific work; the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, begun in 1846 and opened in 1864 as the mother church of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia; Friends Select School, a pre-K through 12 independent Quaker school in Center City Philadelphia; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1805 as America’s oldest art museum and school; the Masonic Temple, dedicated in 1873 and home of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania; the Pennsylvania Convention Center, which incorporates the former Reading Railroad train shed above Reading Terminal Market; City Hall, built between 1871 and 1901 and topped by a statue of William Penn; and Dilworth Park, renovated in 2014 as a public space linked to major transit lines.
