Staircases & Mountaintops: Ascending Beyond the Dream

Philadelphia


Covering one side of the Martin Luther King Jr Recreation Center is this wonderful mural of the Civil Rights leader. The image is based on a photograph by William Lovelace, showing MLK and his wife, Coretta Scott King, leading a voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, AL, in March 1965.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Philadelphia attractions

1. Wagner Free Institute of Science

0.46 MILES

More than 100,000 natural-history specimens, from dinosaur bones and a stuffed saber-toothed cat to starfish and mounted butterflies, remain preserved…

2. Church of the Advocate

0.53 MILES

A fine example of Gothic Revival architecture, this 1897 Episcopal church was a center of activism during the Civil Rights movement and the site of the…

3. Eastern State Penitentiary

0.86 MILES

The modern prison didn't just happen – it was invented, and Eastern State Penitentiary was the first one, opened in 1829 and finally closed in 1971. A…

4. Perelman Building

1 MILES

This fine art-deco building, a branch of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, houses small galleries devoted to special exhibitions of costumes, textiles,…

5. Lemon Hill

1.09 MILES

This 1799 mansion is named after the lemon trees that once grew in the greenhouses that were here in the early 19th century. The Federal-style mansion is…

6. Rocky

1.15 MILES

A major Philly selfie spot is this 1980 work by A Thomas Schomberg of the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa from the 1976 Oscar-winner Rocky. The statue was…

7. Philadelphia Museum of Art

1.15 MILES

The premier cultural institution in Philadelphia, this epic art museum would stand out even without Rocky's famous antics on the east steps. Every visitor…

8. Fairmount Waterworks

1.16 MILES

A National Historic Engineering Landmark, this beautiful Greek Revival complex was built in 1815 and pumped water from the Schuylkill River for the city's…