History

Although Philadelphia may conjure up thoughts of William Penn and the Revolutionary period in the minds of most Americans, it was in fact a tiny group of Swedish settlers that first established a foothold here in the 1640s. Where does William Penn fit in? Well, his father had been an admiral and a courtier under Charles II of England. The king was in debt to Admiral Penn, and the younger Penn asked to collect the debt through a land grant on the west bank of the Delaware River, a grant that would eventually be named Pennsylvania, or "Penn's forest." Penn's Quaker religion, his anti-Anglicanism, and his contempt for authority had landed him in prison, and the chance for him to set up a Quaker utopia in the New World was too good to pass up. Since Swedish farmers owned most of the lower Delaware frontage, he settled upriver, where the Schuylkill met the Delaware, and named the settlement Philadelphia -- City of Brotherly Love.

Colonial Philadelphia -- When Philadelphia celebrated its 300th anniversary in 1982, Penn's original city plan still adequately described the Center City, down to the public parks and the site for City Hall. Penn, who had learned the dangers of narrow streets and semidetached wooden buildings from London's terrible 1666 fire, laid out the city along broad avenues and city blocks arranged in a grid. As he intended to treat Native Americans and fellow settlers equally, he planned no city walls or neighborhood borders. Front Street, naturally, faced the Delaware, as it still does, and parallel streets were numbered up to 24th Street and the Schuylkill. Streets running east to west were named after trees and plants (although Sassafras became Race St., for the horse-and-buggy contests run along it). To attract prospective investors, Penn promised bonus land grants in the "Liberties" (outlying countryside) to anyone who bought a city lot; he took one of the largest for himself, now Pennsbury Manor (26 miles north of town). The Colonies were in the business of attracting settlers in those days, and Penn found that he had to wear a variety of hats -- those of financier, politician, religious leader, salesman, and manufacturer.

Homes and public buildings filled in the map slowly. The Colonial row houses of Society Hill and Elfreth's Alley (continuously inhabited since the 1690s) near the Delaware docks were the earliest homes. Thomas Jefferson, when he wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776 almost a century later, could still say of his boardinghouse, on 7th and Market, that it was away from the city's noise and dirt!

Around 1800, the city spread west to Broad Street. Philadelphia grew along the river and not west as Penn had planned. Southwark, to the south, and the Northern Liberties, to the north, housed the less affluent, including many sailors. These were Philadelphia's first slums -- unpaved, without public services, filled with taverns set up in unofficial alleys, and populated by those without enough property or money to satisfy voting requirements.

Although Philadelphia was founded after Boston and New York, manufacturing, financial services, excellent docking facilities, and fine Pennsylvania farm produce soon propelled it into the first city of the Colonies. It was the largest English-speaking city in the British Empire after London. Colonial Philadelphia was a thriving city in virtually every way, boasting public hospitals and streetlights, cultural institutions and newspapers, stately Georgian architecture, imported tea and cloth, and, above all, commerce. The "triangle trade" shipping route between England, the Caribbean, and Philadelphia yielded estimated profits of 700% on each leg.

One man who will always be linked with Philadelphia is the multitalented, insatiably curious Benjamin Franklin. Inventor, printer, statesman, scientist, and diplomat, Franklin was an all-around genius. It sometimes seems that his influence appears in every aspect of the city worth exploring! Colonial homes were protected by his fire-insurance company; the post office at 3rd and Market streets became his grandson's printing shop; and the Free Library of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th and Spruce streets, and the American Philosophical Society all came into being thanks to Franklin's inspiration.

From Revolution to Civil War -- Like most important Philadelphians, Franklin considered himself a loyal British subject until well into the 1770s, though he and the other colonists were increasingly subject to what they considered capricious English policy. Colonists here weren't as radical as those in New England, but tremendous political debate erupted after Lexington and Concord and the meeting of the First and Second Continental Congresses. Moderates -- wealthy citizens with friends and relatives in England -- held out as long as they could. But with the April 1776 decision in Independence Hall to consider drafting a declaration of independence, revolutionary fervor gained a momentum that would become unstoppable.

"These are the times that try men's souls," wrote Thomas Paine, and they certainly were for Philadelphians, who had much to lose in a war with Britain. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams talked over the situation with George Washington, Robert Morris, and other delegates at City Tavern by night and at Carpenter's Hall and Independence Hall by day. On July 2, the general Congress passed their declaration; on July 8, it was read to a crowd of 8,000, who tumultuously approved.

Your visit to Independence National Historical Park will fill you in on the Revolution's effect on the City of Brotherly Love. Of the major Colonial cities, Philadelphia had the fewest defenses. The war came to the city itself because British troops occupied patriot homes during the harsh winter of 1777 to 1778. Woodford, a country mansion in what is now Fairmount Park, was hosting Tory balls while Washington's troops drilled and shivered at Valley Forge. Washington's attempt to crack the British line at Germantown ended in a confused retreat. The city later greatly benefited from the British departure and the Peace of Paris (1783), which ended the war.

Problems with the new federal government brought a Constitutional Convention to Philadelphia in 1787. This body crafted the Constitution that the United States still follows. In the years between the ratification of the Constitution and the Civil War, the city prospered. For 10 of these years, 1790 to 1800, the U.S. government operated here while the District of Columbia was still marshland. George Washington lived in an executive mansion where the Liberty Bell is now; the Supreme Court met in Old City Hall; Congress met in Congress Hall; and everybody met at City Tavern for balls and festivals.

After the capital moved to Washington, Philadelphia retained the federal charter to mint money, build ships, and produce weapons. The city's shipyards, ironworks and locomotive works fueled the transportation revolution that made America's growth possible. Philadelphia vied with Baltimore and New York City for transport routes to agricultural production inland. New York eventually won out as a shipper, thanks to its natural harbor and the Erie Canal. Philadelphia, however, was the hands-down winner in becoming America's premier manufacturing city, and it ranked even with New York in finance. During the Civil War, Philadelphia's manufacturers weren't above supplying both Yankees and Confederates with guns and rail equipment. Fortunately for Philadelphians, the Southern offensive met with bloody defeat at Gettysburg before reaching the city. With the end of the Civil War in 1865, port activity rebounded, as Southern cotton was spun and shipped from city textile looms.

Philadelphia became the natural site for the first world's fair held on American soil: the Centennial Exposition. It's hard to imagine the excitement that filled Fairmount Park, with 200 pavilions and displays. There's a scale model in Memorial Hall, one of the few surviving structures in the park; it gives a good idea of how seriously the United States took this show of power and prestige. University City in West Philadelphia saw the establishment of campuses for Drexel University and the University of Pennsylvania, and public transport lines connected all the neighborhoods of the city.

Into the 21st Century -- Philadelphia's 20th century was checkered, but the city entered the 21st century with great optimism. Philadelphians are extremely proud of their two brand-new sports arenas: the delightful, open-air Phillies baseball stadium Citizens Bank Park, and Lincoln Financial Field, the stunning modern home of Eagles NFL football. The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, just a few years old, continues to astonish with its sound quality and steel-and-glass beauty, and the National Constitution Center and the gleaming new home of the Liberty Bell have added new life to the historic district downtown, which buzzes with visitors from all over the world. Many of the problems that plague urban centers throughout America -- homelessness, drugs, crime, and inadequate resources for public services -- are receding in Philadelphia, with the number of homeless in Center City down from nearly 1,000 10 years ago to about 150 in 2004. Philadelphia's marketing efforts and inventive hotel and tourism packages have raised the number of visitors per year to nearly 23 million people flocking to the city and the surrounding countryside, and 10 million of them stayed overnight.

If you go to the top of the freshly restored City Hall and look around, you'll see a panorama of factories, the old Navy Yard, warehouses, and docks. The places are virtually all turned to other uses, or about to be redeveloped as office buildings, retail, or condominiums. But you'll also see block after block of row houses built a century ago by new immigrants, whose more successful descendants have left for greener pastures. In terms of urban homeowners -- an area in which Philadelphia led the world for decades -- many successful citizens have left the city for more pleasant suburban areas, although the urban-renewal projects at Society Hill, the boom period of expansion along the northeast and Parkway, and the establishment of Independence National Historical Park have combated the migration somewhat. Although port and petroleum-refining operations bolstered the city's position as an industrial center until the 1980s, manufacturing in general has moved out of the city and the region. Half of the city's workforce was once employed in manufacturing. This figure has shrunk to 9% today. As industry moves out, the city is developing its service businesses to replace the revenue, and specifically aim at tourist business.

The opening of the $522-million Pennsylvania Convention Center in 1993, only minutes from both historic and business districts, was a tremendous boon for the city. The hundreds of conventions, millions of visitors, and billions of dollars projected in revenues from the center over the next decade are crucial, after some lean years, to keep the restaurants, hotels, sights, and entertainment that we recommend afloat. Most convention managers have found the labor costs and operational frustrations at the Convention Center a turnoff for future business, so change is necessary although not assured.

Pennsylvania Convention Center dollars also tie into greater safety and great infrastructure improvements, with lots of repaving, new lighting, and curb cuts along lower Market Street, Columbus Boulevard and the waterfront, and the Italian Market. A dark blue "Direction Philadelphia" signage program that's clear and coherent can guide you on and off a reconstructed expressway system, now connecting I-95 and I-76 (along the two rivers), with plenty of easy entrances and exits. The burgeoning airport, now a US Airways hub, has undergone a $1-billion capital improvement, with the new international Terminal A West, a state-of-the-art shopping mall, and new runways. The nation's second-busiest Amtrak stop, 30th Street Station, has completed a $100-million restoration, with a new bakery, charcuterie, and rejuvenated shops. Hot areas in town have radiated out from the city core. The Northern Liberties district, north of already-red-hot Old City, is becoming the cool place for 20-somethings to live, sip espresso, dine at bistros, and dance late into the night.

Corporate headquarters punctuate the northwest quadrant of Center City, and conventions throng Market Street east of City Hall. Major corporate headquarters in Philadelphia now include SmithKline Beecham (pharmaceuticals); Aramark (food and hospitality); Advanta (financial services); and CIGNA (insurance). With all those universities to train entrepreneurs and scientists, plenty of Internet and biogenetic firms are sprouting with local financing.

But tourism and hospitality are even more critical for revenue replacement, as evidenced by the coordination of public and private efforts in Center City under recent mayors Ed Rendell and John Street. The city looks ahead with a keen sense that visitors are the key to a vibrant urban core.