Philadelphia Field Trip

As the nation’s birthplace, Philadelphia is at once new and buzzing as well as historic and charming, with award-winning restaurants, outstanding museums, and entertainment options stretching from poetry readings at the Painted Bride Art Center to drama at the Freedom Theatre to concerts by the Philadelphia Orchestra, a commanding presence for more than 100 years. In fact, music echoes throughout the city, including the nostalgic sounds of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand era, gospel tunes, rockabilly, hip-hop and the latest jazz fusion. Apart from mouthwatering Philly-steak sandwiches and pretzels, Philadelphia’s finer restaurants tantalize with menus to satisfy most cravings, reflecting an array of specialty cuisines from Chinese and Japanese to Brazilian, Thai and beyond. Sports fans can have a ball in Philadelphia with Phillies baseball, Eagles football, Flyers and Phantoms hockey and 76ers basketball, plus Wings indoor lacrosse and KiXX indoor soccer. Philadelphia is also known as a city of neighborhoods, well more than 100, from Society Hill on down. Little wonder, then, that Philadelphia is home both to the late actress Grace Kelly who became a real-life princess of Monaco and Sylvester Stallone’s fictional Rocky Balboa, the Italian stallion boxer of “Yo, Adrien” film fame. All that on top of being home of the Liberty Bell.

Academy of Music
Owned by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the upgraded 2,900-seat Academy of Music is part of a new complex, Kimmel Center Inc. on the Avenue of the Arts in Center City, that includes the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts – Verizon Hall, a 2,500-seat concert hall, and Perelman Theater, a 650-seat recital theater.

African American Museum
Established in 1976, museum holdings reflect lives and contributions of African Americans in Delaware Valley and the nation.

A Man Full of Trouble Tavern
As the only tavern remaining from Colonial Philadelphia, A Man Full of Trouble was built about 1759 on banks of Little Dock Creek, long since dried up and filled in, where mariners and dockhands hung out. English Delft china, pewter and a set of Windsor chairs owned by the first Chief Justice, John Jay, are on view.

Arch Street Meeting House
Built on land William Penn gave the Quakers in 1693, the building houses history on Quaker beliefs, along with artifacts, a slide show on Penn, and a video on Quakerism.

Betsy Ross House
Betsy Ross made the first American flag here, where visitors can glimpse working class colonial-era life and bone up on American flag history. It was on the job as an apprentice flag-maker that the former Elizabeth (Betsy) Griscom, eighth of 17 children of a Quaker family, fell in love with another apprentice, John Ross, an Episcopal minister’s son. They eloped, and 21-year-old Betsy was promptly “read out” of the Quaker church. Ross died in early 1776, and shortly thereafter Betsy had her fateful meeting with three patriots including George Washington, which led to sewing of famed flag. Thrice married before her 1836 death at 84, she also has been buried in three different locations, now on Arch Street in the courtyard adjacent to the Betsy Ross House.

Carpenters’ Hall
Built and owned by America’s oldest trade guild, Carpenters’ Hall in 1774 hosted the First Continental Congress; in 1775, French and American spies gathered in Ben Franklin’s second-floor library; and in 1976, Queen Elizabeth II visited.

Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site
Constructed in the 1820s with intent to rehabilitate through solitary confinement, Eastern State’s vaulted, sky-lit cells held some of America’s most notorious criminals – bank robber Willie Sutton and gangster Al Capone, among them. Abandoned as a prison in 1971, this world of crumbling cell blocks and empty guard towers is open May through November with tours including death row.

Fireman’s Hall
This restored 1903 firehouse with a gift shop contains firefighting apparatus from 1731 to 1907, including badges, helmets, tools and a fireboat pilot house.

Franklin Institute Science Museum
As Pennsylvania’s most visited museum, the Franklin Institute has plenty to make Ben proud, including a 3D Theater, and indoor SkyBike, a giant walk-through heart and four floors of interactive exhibits.

Freedom Theatre
Rooted in African American tradition, Freedom Theatre hosts more than 40,000 each year in the historic Edwin Forrest Mansion, the northern anchor of the avenue of the Arts.

Independence National Historic Park
At America’s most historic square, arrivals can get in the spirit at the Visitor’s Center with director John Huston’s movie Independence. Park rangers and guides can help plan a route through the park to include the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, Congress Hall, Old City Hall (home of the U.S. Supreme Court between 1791 and 1800), the Second Bank of the United States and more including many fine examples of colonial homes and gardens. Less than a mile from Independence Hall is the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site where Poe lived from 1843-1844 while publishing The Black Cat, The Gold Bug and The Tell-Tale Heart.

Independence Seaport Museum
Climb aboard Admiral Dewey’s 1892 cruiser, the USS Olympia, and the World War II submarine USS Becuna, or watch a wooden boat being assembled. The waterfront museum, near Independence Hall, also has interactive exhibits.

Jewelers’ Row
Estabished in 1851 and one block from Independence Hall, America’s oldest diamond district, with some 300 jewelers and designers, also is awash in emeralds, rubies, and sapphires set in virtually unlimited styles, at 30 to 50 percent below retail.

Mario Lanza Institute & Museum
Also known as the Settlement Music School, it serves as a tribute to actor/tenor Mario Lanza, showcasing this site of his first musical education and his rise to musical fame.

Painted Bride Art Center
Groundbreaking dance, jazz, theater, poetry, gallery and performance works by internationally recognized artists unfold at this center designed to promote healing powers of the arts and an ability to affect social change.

Pennsylvania Hospital
Take a self-guided tour at the nation’s first hospital, founded by Ben Franklin and Dr. Thomas Bond, including a surgical amphitheater and medical library.

Philadelphia History Museum, The Atwater Kent
The Philadelphia story from more than 300 years ago to the present unfolds at this hands-on museum delighting children, founded in 1938 by radio entrepreneur Atwater Kent.

Philadelphia Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial
Dedicated in 1987, the memorial honors 642 Philadelphia residents who died during the Vietnam War.

Philadelphia Zoo
America’s first zoo entertains and informs with nearly 2,000 animals, featuring white lions, polar bears, elephants, reptiles, magnificent birds, plus a 42-acre Victorian garden.

Physick House
This Federal townhouse built in 1786 was home to Dr. Philip Syng Physick, “Father of American Surgery” from 1815 to 1837. Furnishings, silver and porcelain are on display within, while outside awaits a 19th century garden.

Poor Henry’s
The historic Ortlieb Brewery, founded in 1869 near the waterfront (and now Pennsylvania Convention Center), has free tours of the bottling house and microbrewery.

Powel House
This 1765 Georgian townhouse and formal garden, the residence of Samuel Powel, Philadelphia’s first mayor after the Revolution, features 18th century art, furniture, silver and porcelain.

Rodin Museum
Housing the largest collection of Rodin sculptures and drawings outside of Paris, the Rodin Museum is home to the “Gates of Hell” and “The Thinker”.

St. Peter’s Church
This Colonial Episcopal Church (1761) is virtually unchanged in its rare layout, with a wine-glass pulpit and original box pews, including No. 41, where the Washingtons sat with the Powels. The church yard is the final resting place for many national figures, among them naval hero Stephen Decatur, killed in a duel.

South Street
More than 75 restaurants, 150 stores, theaters and nightclubs make South Street, illuminated by row upon row of white lights, one of the East Coast’s major entertainment hubs. Shops are likely to have anything from modern art to souped up skateboards.

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
With an eternal flame lit in 1976, this is the only tomb in the U.S. erected to memorialize unknown Revolutionary War soldiers.

United States Mint
Self-guided audiovisual tours of the world’s largest mint feature views of the coinage operation from a glass-enclosed gallery.