If You're Traveling Into Philadelphia...
Some helpful information from the Wikipedia:
Philadelphia has a major sports scene with teams from the NBA, NHL, NFL, and MLB as well as soccer, lacrosse, and arena football. Philadelphia has a long history of professional sports teams, and is one of thirteen U.S. cities to have all four major sports. The last major professional sport team to win a championship was the 76ers, which won the NBA Championship in 1983. The failure of Philadelphia's major professional sports teams to win championships since that date is sometimes attributed, in jest, to the so-called "Curse of Billy Penn". The curse supposedly began with the March 1987 addition of the One Liberty Place skyscraper, which exceeded the height of William Penn's statue atop Philadelphia City Hall. This curse has gained such prominence in Philadelphia that a film by the same name, The Curse of William Penn, was produced in 2006. The Oakland Athletics and Golden State Warriors were originally from Philadelphia. Philadelphia also is home to professional, semi-professional and elite amateur teams in other sports, including cricket. Philadelphia also hosts major amateur sporting events, including the Penn Relays, Stotesbury Cup, Philadelphia Marathon, and Philadelphia International Championship bicycle race.
Philadelphia has become notable in various arts and culture. Philadelphia has had a prominent role in music including its own sound known as Philadelphia soul. On July 13, 1985, Philadelphia hosted the American end of the Live Aid concert at John F. Kennedy Stadium. On July 2, 2005, Bob Geldof, who organized the Live Aid concert, chose Philadelphia as the American host of the Live 8 concert. This time the show was held as a free concert on the Ben Franklin Parkway. The city is home to many art galleries, many of which participate in the First Friday event. The first Friday of every month galleries in Old City are open late and for free. Annual events include film festivals and parades, the most famous being New Year's Day Mummers Parade. In cuisine the city is well known for its hoagies, soft pretzels, water ice, and is home to the ever popular cheesesteak. The cheesesteak, known outside of the city as the Philadelphia cheesesteak, Philly cheesesteak, or steak and cheese is a sandwich principally of thinly sliced pieces of steak and melted cheese on a long roll. A cheesesteak without cheese is locally called a steak sandwich, or a Philly Steak in other parts of the country. It was invented in the city in 1930 and is considered to be a city icon.
Philadelphia contains many national historical sites that relate to the founding of the United States. Independence National Historical Park is the center of these historical landmarks. Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the Liberty Bell are the city's most famous attractions. Other historic sites include homes for Edgar Allan Poe and Betsy Ross and early government buildings like the First and Second Banks of the United States.
The city also contains many museums such as the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Rodin Museum, the largest collection of work by Auguste Rodin outside of France. The city’s major art museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is one of the largest art museums in the United States and features the steps made popular by the film Rocky. Philadelphia's major science museums include the Franklin Institute, which contains the Benjamin Franklin National Memorial, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. History museums include the National Constitution Center, the Atwater Kent Museum of Philadelphia History, the National Museum of American Jewish History, and the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia is home to the United States' first zoo and hospital.
If you're looking for some fun after sundown, then look no further. Areas such as South Street and Old City have a vibrant night life. The Avenue of the Arts in Center City contains many restaurants and theaters, such as the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, which is home to the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Academy of Music, the nation's oldest continually operating venue, home to the Philadelphia Opera.
. . . Transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Philadelphia is served by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA), which operates buses, trains, rapid transit, trolleys, and trackless trolleys throughout Philadelphia and the four Pennsylvania suburban counties of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, and Montgomery. One of the seven SEPTA Regional Rail lines (the R1) offers direct service to the Philadelphia International Airport. Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is a major railroad station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, which offers access to Amtrak, SEPTA, and New Jersey Transit lines.
Two airports serve Philadelphia: Philadelphia International Airport, straddling the southern boundary of the city, and Northeast Philadelphia Airport, a general aviation reliever airport in Northeast Philadelphia. Philadelphia International Airport provides scheduled domestic and international air service, while Northeast Philadelphia Airport serves general and corporate aviation. As of March 2006, Philadelphia International Airport was the 10th largest airport measured by traffic movements, and is also a primary hub for US Airways.
Interstate 95 runs through the city along the Delaware River as a main north-south artery. The city is also served by the Schuylkill Expressway, a portion of Interstate 76 that runs along the Schuylkill River. It meets the Pennsylvania Turnpike providing access to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and points west. Interstate 676 is a link between I-95 and I-76, and runs below street level through Center City. Roosevelt Boulevard and the Roosevelt Expressway (U.S. Route 1) connect Northeast Philadelphia with Center City. The Woodhaven Road (PA Route 63), serves the neighborhoods of Northeast Philadelphia, running between Interstate 95 and the Roosevelt Boulevard (U.S. Route 1). The Fort Washington Expressway (Pennsylvania Route 309) extends north from the city's northern border, serving several suburbs to the north. Interstate 476, commonly nicknamed the "Blue Route" through Delaware County, bypasses the city to the west, serving the city's western suburbs, as well as providing a link to Allentown and points north. Similarly, Interstate 276, the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Delaware River Extension, acts as a bypass and commuter route to the north of the city as well as a link to the New Jersey Turnpike to New York.
Philadelphia is also a major hub for Greyhound Lines, which operates 24-hour service to points east of the Mississippi River. Most of Greyhound's services in Philadelphia operate to and from the Philadelphia Greyhound Terminal, located at 1001 Filbert Street in Center City Philadelphia. In 2005, the Philadelphia Greyhound Terminal was the third busiest Greyhound terminal in the United States, after the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York and the Los Angeles bus terminal. Besides Greyhound, six other bus operators provide service to the Center City Greyhound terminal - Bieber Tourways, Capitol Trailways, Martz Trailways, Peter Pan Bus Lines, Susquehanna Trailways, and the bus division for New Jersey Transit.
The Pennsylvania Railroad and Reading Railroad operated competing commuter rail systems in the area, known collectively as the Regional Rail system. The two systems today, for the most part still intact but now connected, operate as a single system under the control of Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, the regional transit authority.
Philadelphia is one of the few North American cities to maintain streetcar lines. In addition to "subway-surface" trolleys, the city recently reintroduced trolley service to the Girard Avenue Line.
Today Philadelphia is a hub of the semi-nationalized Amtrak system, with 30th Street Station being a primary stop on the Washington-Boston Northeast Corridor and the Keystone Corridor to Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 30th Street also serves as a major station for services via the Pennsylvania Railroad's former Pennsylvania Main Line to Chicago. It is also a terminus of New Jersey Transit's Atlantic City Line.
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