Benjamin Franklin Parkway is Philadelphia's Champs Elysees — or its Pennsylvania Avenue.
True, there is no Arc de Triomphe or White House, but there are such fine buildings as the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Rodin Museum and the Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul. Fountains, small parks, statues and monuments all lend a formality that gives the Parkway its own special aura. This, of course, was not an accident. Photographs of the area before World War I show the cathedral and a stretch of road from Logan Square to Fairmount Park and a mass of buildings with no space at all between them extending from Logan Square to what is now LOVE Park.
In the beginning the Parkway was an architect's and a planner's dream — something breathtakingly bold for the staid old city. Then it became a cultural mecca — a center for museums and educational institutions. Today the Parkway stands as a triumph in urban planning.
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