Parkway Museums District

The Parkway Museums District includes a concentration of major cultural, educational, civic, and historic sites in Philadelphia, among them Boathouse Row, an important center of the United States rowing community that shelters local clubs and school programs and hosts major regattas; 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 art collections spanning thousands of years and many media; Eastern State Penitentiary, opened in 1829 and once one of the world’s most influential prisons; 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 the 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 its scientific work and collections; the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, begun in 1846 and opened in 1864; Friends Select School; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, founded in 1805 as America’s oldest art museum and school; the Masonic Temple, dedicated in 1873; the Pennsylvania Convention Center, incorporating 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.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania · United States