Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Parkway in Philadelphia

Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Benjamin Franklin Parkway from the top of the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

"Plan for the Fairmount Parkway", published in 1917 by Jacques Gréber

Namesake| Benjamin Franklin
Maintained by| City of Philadelphia
Length| 1.0 mi (1.6 km)[1]
Location| Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
West end| Eakins Oval in Fairmount Park
East end| 16th and Arch Streets in Logan Square

Benjamin Franklin Parkway, commonly abbreviated to Ben Franklin Parkway and colloquially called the Parkway, is a boulevard that runs through the cultural heart of Philadelphia, the nation's sixth-largest city as of 2020.

The parkway is named for Benjamin Franklin, a Founding Father greatly affiliated with the city and the successful American Revolution, which led to American independence.

The mile-long parkway cuts diagonally across the grid plan pattern of Center City's northwest quadrant, starting at Philadelphia City Hall, curving around Logan Circle, and ending before the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

## History

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### 20th century

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Benjamin Franklin Parkway with the Franklin Institute in the foreground and the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the background

In a city famous for its urban planning, the Parkway represents one of the earliest examples of urban renewal in the United States. The road was constructed to ease heavy industrial congestion in Center City and to restore Philadelphia's natural and artistic beauty, as part of the City Beautiful movement.

The vision for a grand parkway came from retail pioneer John Wanamaker. Preliminary proposals for the Parkway had been produced and added to the City Plan by 1906, but the first comprehensive plan for the Parkway was commissioned in 1907 by the Fairmount Park Art Association, now the Association for Public Art. The Association commissioned architects Horace Trumbauer, Clarence Zantzinger, and Paul Philippe Cret, who created a detailed parkway design that was formally added to the City Plan in 1909. Construction on the Parkway did not begin until 1917, when French landscape architect Jacques Gréber submitted a revised plan to the Commissioners of Fairmount Park.[2]

Gréber designed the Parkway in 1917 to emulate the Champs-Élysées in Paris, France. The route was determined by an axis drawn from Philadelphia City Hall to a fixed point on the hill that William Penn called "Fairmount", now the site of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.[3] The Champs-Élysées terminates at the Arc de Triomphe, and the Parkway's terminating at the Art Museum gives the notion of "a slice of Paris in Philadelphia." The Parkway contains flags of countries from around the world.

The traffic rotary on the western end of the Parkway, at the foot of the Art Museum's Rocky Steps, is named Eakins Oval after Philadelphia painter Thomas Eakins. The traffic lanes around Eakins Oval originally formed a regular oval; this pattern was modified in the early 1960s to its present elongated circular shape, with the truncated lanes serving as staging areas for various events.

### 21st century

[edit]

On July 2, 2005, the steps of the museum played host to the Philadelphia venue of Live 8, where artists such as Dave Matthews Band, Linkin Park and Maroon 5 performed.

In Spring 2012, a new museum for the Barnes Foundation's collection of Impressionist art on the site between the Free Library and the Rodin Museum opened in Spring 2012.

The Parkway has been used for several subsequent editions of the Made in America Festival. The Parkway was also the site of Jay-Z's Made in America Festival on September 1–2, 2012, featuring Jay-Z, Pearl Jam, Skrillex, Calvin Harris, and others.

On September 26 and 27, 2015, Pope Francis visited Philadelphia for that year's World Meeting of Families; the Parkway was flooded with over a million visitors both weekend days, a Celebration of Families on Saturday, and a Holy Mass on Sunday.[citation needed]

There has been concern that the original plan of a wide, multi-sectioned, multi-lane, tree-lined boulevard, while beautiful to travel on, is not very engaging for pedestrian or other public use. Traffic along the Parkway has decreased considerably because of the completion of Interstate 676 (Vine Street Expressway), linking the Schuylkill Expressway with the Benjamin Franklin Bridge. The roadway was since narrowed somewhat and the sidewalks expanded around Logan Circle. A plan for a greener, more walkable Parkway was released by the city in 2023.[4]

As of 2023, the Parkway is part of Philadelphia's High Injury Network, the small fraction of streets on which the majority of traffic deaths and serious injuries occur.[5]

## Attractions

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See also: National Register of Historic Places listings in Center City, Philadelphia

The Parkway is the spine of Philadelphia's Museum District.

Some of the city's most famous sights are located here: Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul; Swann Memorial Fountain; Parkway Central Library, the Family Court Building, the Franklin Institute, Moore College of Art and Design, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Rodin Museum, Eakins Oval, the Barnes Foundation, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. From its northern end, the Parkway provides access to Fairmount Park through Kelly Drive (formerly East River Drive), Martin Luther King Drive (formerly West River Drive), the Schuylkill River Trail, and the Schuylkill Expressway (I-76).

The Parkway also is an outdoor sculpture garden. Works include: The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, The Gates of Hell also by Rodin, LOVE by Robert Indiana, The Ideal Scout by Robert Tait McKenzie, Three-Way Piece by Henry Moore, the three River figures in the Swann Memorial Fountain by Alexander Stirling Calder, Shakespeare Memorial also by Calder, Monument to Six Million Jewish Martyrs by Nathan Rapoport at the Horwitz-Wasserman Holocaust Memorial Plaza, Joseph Leidy by Samuel Murray, Aero Memorial by Paul Manship, General Galusha Pennypacker by Charles Grafly and Albert Laessle, Jesus Breaking Bread by Walter Erlebacher, All Wars Colored Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by J. Otto Schweizer, Thaddeus Kosciuszko by Robert Aitken, Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Memorial by Hermon Atkins MacNeil, Kopernik by Dudley Vaill Talcott, Joan of Arc by Emmanuel Fremiet, Washington Monument by Rudolf Siemering, and the Rocky statue by A. Thomas Schomberg.

## Gallery

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* Joan of Arc by Emmanuel Frémiet (1890)

* Washington Monument by Rudolf Siemering (1897)

* Civil War Sailors Memorial by Hermon Atkins MacNeil (1921)

* Civil War Soldiers Memorial by Hermon Atkins MacNeil (1921)

* Shakespeare Memorial by Alexander Stirling Calder (1926)

* The Thinker in front of the Rodin Museum (1926)

* Philadelphia Museum of Art (1928)

* Former Boy Scout Building (1929)

* General Galusha Pennypacker by Charles Grafly and Albert Laessle (1934)

* Franklin Institute (1934)

* Swann Memorial Fountain at the center of Logan Circle

* LOVE by Robert Indiana, in LOVE Park

* Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul

* Parkway Central Library (left), and Family Court of Philadelphia (right)

## See also

[edit]

* Philadelphia portal

* Academy of Natural Sciences
* Jacques Gréber
* Rocky Steps

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "Benjamin Franklin Parkway" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved July 14, 2018.
2. ^ Brownlee, David Bruce (1989). Building the city beautiful: the Benjamin Franklin Parkway and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812282213.
3. ^ Outline History of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway 1871-1935.
4. ^ "Vision of greener, more walkable Ben Franklin Parkway — with no outer lanes — released by city". PhillyVoice. August 22, 2023. Retrieved February 7, 2024.
5. ^ "Story Map Series". phl.maps.arcgis.com. Retrieved February 8, 2024.

## Further reading

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* Kyriakodis, Harry (2014). The Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Arcadia Publishing (postcard history book).

## External links

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

* Parkway Museums District

39°57′49″N 75°10′43″W﻿ / ﻿39.9637°N 75.1787°W﻿ / 39.9637; -75.1787

* v
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Benjamin Franklin

* President of Pennsylvania (1785–1788)
* Ambassador to France (1779–1785)
* Second Continental Congress (1775–1776)

Founding of the
United States|

* Join, or Die. (1754 political cartoon)
* Albany Plan of Union
* Albany Congress
* Hutchinson letters affair
* Committee of Secret Correspondence
* Committee of Five
* "...to be self-evident"
* Declaration of Independence
* Model Treaty
* Franco-American alliance
* Treaty of Amity and Commerce
* Treaty of Alliance
* Staten Island Peace Conference
* 1776 Pennsylvania Constitution
* Libertas Americana
* Treaty of Paris, 1783
* Delegate, 1787 Constitutional Convention
* Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly
* Postmaster General
* Founding Fathers

Inventions,
other events|

* Franklin's electrostatic machine
* Bifocals
* Franklin stove
* Glass armonica
* Flexible urninary catheter
* Gulf Stream exploration, naming, and chart
* Lightning rod
* Kite experiment
* Pay it forward
* Associators
* 111th Infantry Regiment
* Junto club
* American Philosophical Society
* Library Company of Philadelphia
* Pennsylvania Hospital
* Academy and College of Philadelphia
* University of Pennsylvania
* Philadelphia Contributionship
* Union Fire Company
* Early American currency
* Continental Currency dollar coin
* Fugio cent
* United States Postal Service
* Street lighting
* President, Pennsylvania Abolition Society
* Master, Les Neuf Sœurs
* Gravesite

Writings|

* The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
* Founders Online
* Silence Dogood letters (1722)
* A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain (1725)
* The Busy-Body columns (1729)
* The Pennsylvania Gazette (1729–1790)
* Early American publishers and printers
* Poor Richard's Almanack (1732–1758)
* The Drinker's Dictionary (1737)
* "Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress" (1745)
* "The Speech of Polly Baker" (1747)
* Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. (1751)
* Experiments and Observations on Electricity (1751)
* Birch letters (1755)
* The Way to Wealth (1758)
* Pennsylvania Chronicle (1767)
* Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One (1773)
* Proposed alliance with the Iroquois (1775)
* A Letter to a Royal Academy (1781)
* Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784)
* "The Morals of Chess" (1786)
* An Address to the Public (1789)
* A Plan for Improving the Condition of the Free Blacks (1789)
* The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1771–1790, pub. 1791)
* Bagatelles and Satires (pub. 1845)
* Franklin as a journalist
* Franklin's phonetic alphabet

Legacy|

* Bibliography
* Franklin Court
* Benjamin Franklin House
* Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology
* Benjamin Franklin Parkway
* Benjamin Franklin National Memorial
* Franklin Institute
* awards
* medal
* Benjamin Franklin Medal
* Royal Society of Arts medal
* Depicted in The Apotheosis of Washington
* Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence
* Treaty of Paris (1783 painting)
* Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky (1816 painting)
* Revolutionary War Door
* Boston statue
* Chicago statue
* Columbus, Ohio, statue
* University of Pennsylvania statue
* Portland, Oregon, statue
* San Francisco statue
* Stanford University statue
* Washington D.C. statue
* Jefferson Memorial pediment
* Refunding Certificate
* Franklin half dollar
* One-hundred-dollar bill
* Franklin silver dollar
* Washington–Franklin stamps
* other stamps
* Cities, counties, schools named for Franklin
* Benjamin Franklin College
* Franklin Field
* Franklin Tree
* Mount Franklin
* State of Franklin
* Sons of Ben (Philadelphia Union)
* Ships named USS Franklin
* Ben Franklin effect

In popular culture|

* Declaration of Independence (1938 film)
* Ben and Me (1953 short)
* Ben Franklin in Paris (1964 musical play)
* 1776 (1969 musical
* 1972 film)
* Benjamin Franklin (miniseries) (1972)
* A More Perfect Union (1989 film)
* Liberty! (1997 documentary series)
* Liberty's Kids (2002 animated series)
* Benjamin Franklin (2002 documentary series)
* John Adams (2008 miniseries)
* Sons of Liberty (2015 miniseries)
* Benjamin Franklin (2022 documentary)
* Franklin (2024 miniseries)

Related|

* Age of Enlightenment
* American Enlightenment
* The New-England Courant
* The American Museum magazine
* American Revolution
* patriots
* Syng inkstand

Family|

* Deborah Read (wife)
* William Franklin (son)
* Francis Franklin (son)
* Sarah Franklin Bache (daughter)
* William Franklin (grandson)
* Benjamin F. Bache (grandson)
* Louis F. Bache (grandson)
* Richard Bache Jr. (grandson)
* Andrew Harwood (great-grandson)
* Alexander Bache (great-grandson)
* Josiah Franklin (father)
* James Franklin (brother)
* Jane Mecom (sister)
* Mary Morrell Folger (grandmother)
* Peter Folger (grandfather)
* Richard Bache (son-in-law)
* Ann Smith Franklin (sister-in-law)

* Category

Authority control databases

International|

* VIAF
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National|

* United States
* Israel

Geographic|

* MusicBrainz place

Other|

* Yale LUX

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