Parkside and Centennial District Walking Tour

The Fairmount Park Conservancy is leading a walking tour of the Parkside and Centennial Districts on Sunday, October 18, from 10 AM to 12:30 PM. It starts at the School of the Future, 4021 Parkside Ave, and works its way through the neighborhood and the Centennial District, along the edge of West Fairmount Park, where the street grid meets the greenspace buffered by a boulevard of grand homes.

Much of Parkside grew up around the 1876 Centennial Exhibition. It was first settled by German-Americans and Jewish immigrants of Russian descent, and became a predominantly African-American neighborhood after the Second World War. In 1983, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its cultural legacy and its Victorian architecture.

The route takes in the Smith Memorial Arch, the Parkside Apartments—one of the city's tallest buildings when they went up—and Christ Community Baptist Church, which was built from an old synagogue. You'll also see the Lansdowne Apartment Building of 1897, Centennial Commons, and the Philadelphia Stars Negro League Memorial Park and mural. The tour is led by Michael Burch, a science educator, community organizer, and founder of the Parkside Journal.

It's a two-and-a-half-hour walk that covers a lot of ground, from the grand homes and Victorian architecture to the neighborhood's shifting demographics over the last century. The tour runs from 10 AM to 12:30 PM on Sunday, October 18, starting at the School of the Future at 4021 Parkside Ave; tickets are $10.