Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, with the two sections together totalling . Management of Fairmount Park and the entire citywide park system is overseen by Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, a city department created in 2010 from the merger of the Fairmount Park Commission and the Department of Recreation. Many of the city’s other parks had historically also been included in the Fairmount Park system prior to 2010, including Wissahickon Valley Park in Northwest Philadelphia, Pennypack Park in Northeast Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia, and 58 additional parks, parkways, plazas, squares, and public golf courses spread throughout the city. Since the 2010 merger, however, the term "Fairmount Park system" is no longer used by the Parks & Recreation department, and the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park and all other park areas are considered completely separate entities.

History

Fairmount Park, Philadelphia's first park, occupies adjacent to the banks of the Schuylkill River. Since 2010, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation divides the original park into East and West Fairmount parks. The original domain of Fairmount Park consisted of three areas: South Park or the South Garden immediately below the Fairmount Water Works extending to the Callowhill Street Bridge; Old Park, which encompassed the former estates of Lemon Hill and

Sedgeley Sedgeley was a mansion, designed by the architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe, and built on the east banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, USA, in 1799–1802. Design and construction The land where the house was located was originally o ...

; and West Park, the area including the Philadelphia Zoo, and the Centennial Exposition grounds. The South Garden predated the establishment of the Park Commission in 1867, while Lemon Hill and Sedgeley were added in 1855–56. After the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and t ...

, work progressed on acquiring and laying out West Park. In the 1870s, the Fairmount Park Commission expropriated properties along the

Wissahickon Creek Wissahickon Creek is a tributary of the Schuylkill River in Montgomery and Philadelphia Counties, Pennsylvania. Wissahickon Creek rises in Montgomery County, runs approximately 23 miles (37 km) passing through and dividing North ...

to extend Fairmount Park. The Schuylkill River Trail is a modern paved multi-use trail by Kelly Drive in the East Park. The Belmont Plateau Cross Country Course is located in Fairmount Park. The 1923 and 1976 USA Cross Country Championships were held in the park.

Growth

The park grew out of the Lemon Hill estate of Henry Pratt, whose land was originally owned by Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Purchased by the city in 1844, the estate was dedicated to the public by city council's ordinance on September 15, 1855. A series of state and local legislative acts over the next three years increased the holdings of the city. In 1858, the city held a design competition to re-landscape Lemon Hill and Sedgeley for public use as the best way to better protect the city's water supply.(Ironically the land the

mansion was built on had originally been owned by Robert Morris although after his bankruptcy it had been sold to a different purchasher then Henry Pratt). The park was the site of the 1876 Centennial Exposition and the first zoo in the United States, the Philadelphia Zoo, and was placed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1972. Wissahickon Valley Park, located adjacent to the park's immediate northwest, was included in the Fairmount Park NRHP registration document.

In popular culture

The outdoor scenes of the 2000 period art-horror film '' A Chronicle of Corpses'' were shot in Carpenter's Woods in the Wissahickon Valley Park part of Fairmount Park.

Properties

Park properties include the

Centennial Arboretum Centennial Arboretum (27 acres) is an arboretum located at the Horticulture Center, Fairmount Park, at the southeast corner of Belmont and Montgomery Drives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is open daily without charge. The arboretum contains spec ...

, a

Horticulture Center Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of plant cultivation. It includes the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and no ...

, Fairmount Water Works,

Memorial Hall A memorial hall is a hall built to commemorate an individual or group; most commonly those who have died in war. Most are intended for public use and are sometimes described as ''utilitarian memorials''. History of the Memorial Hall In the aft ...

(home of the Please Touch Museum), Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, Boathouse Row, Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, recreation centers, reservoirs, statues and other pieces of art.

Public art

Fairmount Park is home to a large collection of public art, largely attributable to efforts of the

Association for Public Art Established in 1872 in Philadelphia, the Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association) is the United States' first private, nonprofit public art organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning. The Assoc ...

, known previously as the Fairmount Park Art Association, a non-profit organization founded in 1872 to embellish Fairmount Park with outdoor sculpture, including the Medici lions known as the ''Florentine Lions'' installed in 1887. The Art Association continues to commission and care for a large number of sculptures, in coordination with the park and city. In 2007, the Art Association installed ''

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian Peoples, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Indigenous confederations in North America, confederacy of First Nations in Canada, First Natio ...

'' by Mark di Suvero near the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Historic houses

Mount Pleasant, built in 1762–65 for a Scottish ship captain named John Macpherson, is administered by the

. The Art Museum also administers Cedar Grove Mansion, a house built in 1748–50 in what later became the Frankford neighborhood of the city. Cedar Grove was relocated to the park in 1926–1928. Other historic houses in the park, listed by year of construction, include

Boelson Cottage Boelson Cottage is a Dutch and Swedish-style colonial era cottage located in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia.

(1678–84), The Lilacs (c. 1711), Letitia Street House (c. 1713), Ridgeland Mansion (1719), Belmont Mansion (1745), The Cliffs (1753; ruins since a fire in 1986), Woodford Mansion (1756), Hatfield House (1760), Randolph House (c. 1767; renamed ''Laurel Hill Mansion'' in 1976), Strawberry Mansion (c. 1783–89), The Solitude (1784–85; located within the zoo), Sweetbriar Mansion (1797), Ormiston Mansion (1798), Lemon Hill Mansion (1800), Chamounix Mansion (1802), Rockland Mansion (c. 1810), and the

Ohio House The Ohio House of Representatives is the lower house of the Ohio General Assembly, the state legislature of the U.S. state of Ohio; the other house of the bicameral legislature being the Ohio Senate. The House of Representatives first met i ...

which was built for the Centennial Exposition of 1876. Sedgeley Mansion was built in 1799 on Lemon Hill, then abandoned and later demolished after being acquired through eminent domain by the city in 1857. The Sedgeley property also included a servant's cottage constructed of stone which still exists. The cottage was designed by

Benjamin Henry Latrobe Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe (May 1, 1764 – September 3, 1820) was an Anglo-American neoclassical architect who emigrated to the United States. He was one of the first formally trained, professional architects in the new United States, dra ...

and is presently known as the Sedgeley Porter's House.

References

Bibliography

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External links

Parks and Recreation, City of PhiladelphiaFairmount Park ConservancyPhiladelphia ZooPlease Touch Museum in Memorial HallAssociation for Public Art in PhiladelphiaSculptures in Philadelphia parks
(

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...

)
Historic buildings in the Philadelphia park system
(Internet Archive) {{Authority control Municipal parks in Philadelphia National Register of Historic Places in Philadelphia Georgian architecture in Pennsylvania Federal architecture in Pennsylvania Colonial Revival architecture in Pennsylvania 1812 establishments in Pennsylvania Cross country running courses in Pennsylvania Parks in Philadelphia Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Works Progress Administration in Pennsylvania World's fair sites in Pennsylvania Centennial Exposition