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Find the best places to watch the
2015
Philadelphia 4th July fireworks and
Philly 4th July Jam live
here
This
year, Philadelphia’s main parade
fittingly takes place in Historic
Philadelphia. This will be followed
by fireworks at the Philadelphia
Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin
Parkway. The fireworks display will
begin around 10:30 p.m. The
fireworks display marks the
culmination of the city's famous
Wawa Welcome America! festival,
which lasts for 10 days in total.
For the best viewing, park your lawn
chair on Lemon Hill, Benjamin
Franklin Parkway, Boathouse Row,
Kelly Drive, Martin Luther King
Drive, or in Schuykill River Park.
Benjamin Franklin Parkway is a
scenic boulevard that runs through
the cultural heart of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. Named for favorite son
Benjamin Franklin, the mile-long
Parkway cuts diagonally across the
grid plan pattern of Center City's
Northwest quadrant. It starts at
Philadelphia City Hall, curves
around Logan Circle, and ends before
the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The
Parkway is the spine of
Philadelphia's Museum District. Some
of the city's most famous sights are
here: Basilica of Sts. Peter and
Paul, Swann Memorial Fountain, the
Free Library of Philadelphia, the
Franklin Institute, Moore College of
Art and Design, the Academy of
Natural Sciences, the Rodin Museum,
Eakins Oval, and the Philadelphia
Museum of Art. From its northern
end, the Parkway provides access to
Fairmount Park through Kelly Drive,
Martin Luther King Drive (formerly
West River Drive), the Schuylkill
River Trail, and the Schuylkill
Expressway.
In a
city famous for its 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.
French
urban planner Jacques Gréber
designed the Parkway in 1917 to
emulate the Champs-Élysées in Paris.
The route was determined by an axis
drawn from City Hall Tower to a
fixed point on the hill that William
Penn called "Fairmount", now the
site of the Philadelphia Museum of
Art.[1] 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 also has an international
flavor by being lined with flags of
countries from around the world.
Like Broad Street's nickname,
"Avenue of the Arts", or Market
Street's, "Avenue of Technology",
the Parkway is also called the
"Avenue of Remembrance".
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