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Philadelphia Zoo

1874 establishments in PennsylvaniaBuildings and structures in PhiladelphiaFairmount ParkLandmarks in PhiladelphiaTourist attractions in Philadelphia
West PhiladelphiaZoos established in 1874Zoos in Pennsylvania
Philadelphia Zoo Welcome Gate 2832px
Philadelphia Zoo Welcome Gate 2832px

The Philadelphia Zoo, located in the Centennial District of Philadelphia, on the west bank of the Schuylkill River, is the first true zoo in the United States. It was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on March 21, 1859, but its opening was delayed by the Civil War until July 1, 1874. The zoo opened with 1,000 animals and an admission price of 25 cents. For a brief time, the zoo also housed animals brought over from safari on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution, which had not yet built the National Zoo.The Philadelphia Zoo is one of the premier zoos in the world for breeding animals that are difficult to breed in captivity. The zoo also works with many groups around the world to protect the natural habitats of the animals in their care. The zoo is 42 acres (17 ha) and the home of nearly 1,300 animals, many of which are rare and endangered. Special features include a children's petting zoo, a paddleboat lake, a rainforest themed carousel, a ropes course, and many interactive and educational exhibits.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Philadelphia Zoo (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Philadelphia Zoo
MLK Drive Sidepath, Philadelphia

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Wikipedia: Philadelphia ZooContinue reading on Wikipedia

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N 39.9725 ° E -75.196666666667 °
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Philadelphia Zoo

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19129 Philadelphia
Pennsylvania, United States
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philadelphiazoo.org

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Philadelphia Zoo Welcome Gate 2832px
Philadelphia Zoo Welcome Gate 2832px
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The Solitude Mansion
The Solitude Mansion

The Solitude Mansion is a historic two-and-a-half story Federal-style mansion located in west Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, above the banks of the Schuylkill River on the grounds of the Philadelphia Zoo. The house was built sometime between 1784 and 1785, and historical records suggest that it was designed by its owner John Penn, grandson of William Penn, the founder of the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania. The mansion is also referred to as The Solitude and The Solitude House, as well as the John Penn House and simply Solitude without the definite article. The name of the house was inspired by the Duke of Württemberg's much larger Castle Solitude outside Stuttgart, Germany. The Solitude is the only extant home of a Penn family member in the United States.Located in the countryside several miles to the northwest of colonial-era Philadelphia, Penn's house served as his refuge from an older cousin's city home, where he had been lodging, as well as from an anti-Penn political faction in town. Penn lived in his new home for about three years until he left the country permanently in 1788 and sailed to England. Joseph Bonaparte lived here as a retreat from his home in society hill, and After Penn died in 1834, the house was inherited in succession by three other family members—Penn's brother and then two nephews separately.At some time after the final Penn owner died in 1869, the city bought the property and leased it to the Zoological Society of Philadelphia in 1874. The land and house then became part of the Philadelphia Zoo, which in turn is a part of Fairmount Park. The house is not open to general admission visitors, but rather only for special events. Rental information is available from the zoo.The zoo's staff along with the Philadelphia Museum of Art performed restoration work on the house in 1975–76 to prepare it for the Bicentennial celebration. A preservation group called Friends of The Solitude was formed in 1991 which has researched the house's history and continues to perform additional restoration work.The Solitude is registered on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places and is an inventoried structure within the Fairmount Park Historic District entry on the National Register of Historic Places.

Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial
Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial

The Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial is a sculpture garden located in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. The garden, located along the left bank of the Schuylkill River between Boathouse Row and the Girard Avenue Bridge, was established by the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art) and dedicated in 1961. The idea for a series of sculptures came from Ellen Phillips Samuel, a philanthropist who left a significant amount of money to the art association in her will, with the stipulation that it be used to erect public sculptures that would represent the history of the United States. Following the death of Ellen in 1913 and her husband in 1929, the association organized a committee to oversee the creation of these monuments, with architect Paul Philippe Cret developing a plan for three connected terraces with distinct themes represented by the sculptures present in them. To select the sculptors for the memorial, the association organized three international art exhibitions held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1933, 1940, and 1949, that attracted hundreds of sculptors and saw attendances in the hundreds of thousands. The final sculpture was erected in 1960 and the memorial was dedicated the following year. The memorial has received generally mixed to negative reviews from art critics, with many criticizing the relationship between the sculptures and the surrounding architecture. For example, in a review of the memorial, architect Alfred Bendiner praised the architecture, but called the choice of sculptures "a most irritating collection of uninteresting examples of the work of outstanding men and women, most of whom have done much better elsewhere". Penny Balkin Bach, an executive director of the art association, has stated that the memorial is "as much a monument to the confusion about what constituted modern public art" as it is a memorial honoring Samuel.