Benjamin Franklin Parkway is Philadelphia's most famous
street, fittingly named after the city's most famous resident.
As early as 1891, a proposal was submitted to the city council to create a wide
road connecting Philadelphia's administrative center with the city's large green
lung, Fairmount Park. In 1907 a plan for the new road was developed by Paul
Crét, Horace Trumbauer and Clarence Zantzinger and that same year the
first buildings were demolished to make way for the new boulevard. The official
start of the development wasn't until 10 years later, in 1917.
The original plan in 1907 called for an urban boulevard lined
by impressive buildings, much like the
Champs-Elysées
in
Paris. But in 1917 the Fairmount Park Commissioners
accepted a plan by Jacques Gréber, an urban architect who worked in collaboration
with Paul Crét.

This
new plan consisted of a wide boulevard with two different sections.
One section, stretching from Logan Square to Eakins Oval consists of one wide
avenue with park-like roads on each side. Surrounded by greenery, this part
of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway is the boulevard's most beautiful. The other
section of the parkway, connecting the
City Hall
with Logan Square is of a more modest nature.
The focal point of the parkway is Logan Square, now known as
Logan Circle. Originally one of the five squares in Penn's original plan for
Philadelphia, it was redesigned by Gréber as a large traffic circle similar
to the
Place de la Concorde. At
the center is a large fountain, the Swann Memorial Fountain. It was built in
1924, two years before the official completion of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
A number of religious, cultural and educational institutions are clustered along the parkway.
Among them the Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Free
Library of Philadelphia, the
Cathedral
of SS. Peter and Paul, the
Rodin Museum and
the
Museum of Art, which provides a majestic end
to the parkway.