skip to main |
skip to sidebar
In what should be one of Philadelphia's premier pockets of culture and tourism, Centennial Park's attractions continue to elude their visitors as isolated venues. While the Philadelphia Zoo, the Please Touch Museum, and the Mann Center are geographically close to the Schuylkill Banks and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, getting there on foot is another story.
A journey that could be aided by a simple crosswalk on Kelly Drive below the Girard Avenue Bridge instead requires a Broad Street subway ride connecting to the Girard Avenue trolly or several bus transfers through West Philadelphia's less scenic neighborhoods.
Despite the restoration of Parkside's Victorian mansions and proposed improvements to Centennial Park itself, the site of the the first World's Fair might as well be in another city. And the Please Touch Museum is reeling from the separation anxiety. Since the museum opened in 2008 it has amassed more than $50M in debt and the museum's investors want them to pay.
The museum holds a lot of local oddities including a children's monorail that used to wind its way through Wanamaker's Department Store and a detailed model of the Centennial Exposition. Hop on the Phlash and get up there while you still have a chance to see what the museum has to offer. It might not be there much longer.
Perhaps unknowingly attempting to beat Paris to the punch, Philadelphia had planned a tower of our own as part of the Centennial Exposition a decade before the Eiffel Tower would be completed. Our Centennial Tower appeared on the cover of Scientific American two years prior to the fair that would celebrate America's Centennial and introduce the United States, and more specifically Philadelphia as the workhorse of the world.
This rendering featured in Scientific American shows the Centennial Tower compared to the tallest structures of the day, including the Great Pyramids of Giza.
The tower was designed by Clarke, Reeves & Co., owners of the Phoenixville Bridge Works who built the original Girard Avenue Bridge in 1875 and patented the "Phoenix Column" which would ultimately help create the first skyscrapers.
A spiral staircase with four landings would have taken visitors to an observation deck 1000 feet up. In the evening a brilliant light show would have illuminated the grounds of the Centennial Exposition held near Philadelphia's Parkside neighborhood.
At the time this would have been the tallest structure ever built. The Eiffel Tower's spire is just 63 feet taller.
