Philadelphia was drawn before it was built. In 1682 William Penn had his surveyor Thomas Holme lay out a grid between the Delaware and the Schuylkill with five public squares, wide straight streets and generous lots — explicitly so that it would not burn the way London had in 1666 and would not become the crowded warren Penn had left behind.
It is the first planned city in North America and the grid is still legible. Four of the five original squares survive as public parks — Rittenhouse, Washington, Franklin and Logan — with the fifth, Centre Square, holding City Hall.
The hat
City Hall was completed in 1901 after thirty years of building and is still the largest free-standing masonry building in the world, with load-bearing granite walls up to seven metres thick at the base. It was briefly the tallest habitable building on earth.
On top of it stands a bronze William Penn, and for most of the twentieth century a gentlemen's agreement held that nothing in the city would rise above the brim of his hat. Developers observed it until 1987, when One Liberty Place broke the line. The Phillies, Flyers, Eagles and Sixers then failed to win a championship for twenty-one years, and when a small Penn figurine was welded to the top of the Comcast Center in 2008, the Phillies won the World Series that October.
The squares and the quarters
Rittenhouse Square is the most desirable: a park ringed by nineteenth-century townhouses, with the best restaurants and most of the good hotels.
Old City and Society Hill, east toward the river, hold Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and the largest concentration of eighteenth-century architecture in America.
Center City and the Avenue of the Arts have City Hall, the Kimmel Center and the theatres.
Fishtown and Northern Liberties, north, are the converted industrial quarters where the music and food scenes moved.
The Benjamin Franklin Parkway, cut diagonally through the grid in the 1910s, is the museum row — the Philadelphia Museum of Art with its steps, the Barnes Foundation and the Rodin Museum.
The nine below are grouped that way.
Rittenhouse Square
The best address.
Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center occupies the top thirteen floors of the Comcast Center with a pool on the fifty-seventh floor, a restaurant at the top and the widest view in Pennsylvania. It is the best hotel in the city.
Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia at Comcast Center
Center City · 5★ · $$$$
The top thirteen floors, with a pool on the fifty-seventh
Check availabilityThe Rittenhouse Hotel sits on Rittenhouse Square itself with large rooms, a spa and a bar that has been the city's meeting place for forty years.
The Rittenhouse Hotel
Rittenhouse Square · 5★ · $$$$
Large rooms on the square with the city's meeting-place bar
Check availabilityThe Bellevue Hotel occupies a 1904 beaux-arts building on Broad Street, once the grandest hotel in America, with a spa and a lobby of considerable scale.
Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square sits near Rittenhouse with a rooftop, contemporary rooms and rates below the landmarks.
Warwick Hotel Rittenhouse Square
Near Rittenhouse · 4★ · $$$
Rooftop and contemporary rooms below landmark rates
Check availabilityLogan Square and the Parkway
The museum row.
The Logan Philadelphia occupies a building facing Logan Square with a rooftop bar, a spa and the Barnes and the Art Museum a short walk along the Parkway.
The Logan Philadelphia
Logan Square · 4★ · $$$
A rooftop bar with the Barnes along the Parkway
Check availabilityKimpton Hotel Monaco Philadelphia sits on the Parkway with a pool, a spa and contemporary rooms.
Kimpton Hotel Monaco Philadelphia
Independence Mall · 4★ · $$$
A rooftop facing Independence Hall
Check availabilityOld City and Center City
The eighteenth-century quarter and the civic core.
W Philadelphia occupies a converted 1926 bank building near Independence Hall with vaulted ceilings and the historic quarter outside.
The Notary Hotel sits in the former City Hall Annex, a 1926 building, with rooms in the old municipal offices.
Fishtown
The converted industrial north.
Lokal Hotel Fishtown occupies a restored corner building in Fishtown with a handful of rooms above a bakery and a bar, and the music venues nearby.
Lokal Hotel Fishtown
Fishtown · 4★ · $$$
A handful of rooms above a bakery and a bar
Check availabilityWhat we have left off
The apartment rentals across Center City and Fishtown are excluded. They are apartments rather than hotels.
What to do
Go to the Barnes Foundation. Albert Barnes assembled one of the great collections of Renoir, Cézanne and Matisse and hung it in ensembles of his own devising with ironwork and furniture, and his will required the arrangement never be altered — so when the collection moved into a new building in 2012, the rooms were reproduced exactly. It is unlike any other museum.
Do Independence Hall with a timed ticket and see the Liberty Bell, then walk Elfreth's Alley, continuously inhabited since 1703.
Eat at Reading Terminal Market, which has been operating since 1893 under the old train shed, and get a cheesesteak somewhere without a queue of tourists.
Run or walk the Art Museum steps, and then go inside, because the collection behind them is genuinely major.
See a mural. The city's mural arts programme has produced more than 4,000 works since 1984 and is the largest public art programme in the country.
Practical notes
Philadelphia's airport is twenty minutes from Center City by rail. New York is ninety minutes by train and Washington under two hours.
Spring and autumn are best. Summer is hot and humid, winter cold. The city is walkable end to end in about an hour.
Rates are substantially below New York for comparable quality, which is a large part of the argument for coming.
Every hotel bookable in Philadelphia
What is Penn's grid?
A 1682 plan of straight streets and five public squares, designed so the city would not burn like London. Four of the squares are still parks.
What is the curse of Billy Penn?
The convention that nothing rise above the statue on City Hall held until 1987, after which no local team won a championship for twenty-one years.
Which square should you stay on?
Rittenhouse for restaurants and quality, Logan for the museums, Old City for the eighteenth century.
How many nights?
Three. One for Independence, one for the Parkway museums, one for the neighbourhoods.
If you only book one
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