Logan Square - Philadelphia, PA
N 39° 57.481 W 075° 10.235
18S E 485430 N 4423111
Also known as Logan Circle, Logan Square is an open-space park in Center City Philadelphia's northwest quadrant and one of the five original planned squares laid out on the city grid.
Waymark Code: WM5BHH
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Date Posted: 12/13/2008
Views: 11
Logan Square, part of William Penn's original plan for the City of Philadelphia dates back to 1682. In the 1920s, when Benjamin Franklin Parkway was overlayed onto the City street grid, Logan Square became a traffic circle.
"46. Logan Square, Benjamin Franklin Parkway from the 18th to 20th Sts., is one of the five parks included in William Penn's original plan of Philadelphia. In the center is a large fountain surrounded by three bronze figures representing the waterways of Philadelphia: the Delaware, the Schuylkill, and the Wissahickon. The fountain was designed by Alexander Sterling Calder, with Wilson, Eyre & McIllvaine as associate architects." --- Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State, 1940; page 278
Whether you follow the official plaque, which says "Logan Square," or the Wiki says "Logan Circle," the key feature of this plaza area is the Swann Fountain built in 1924. In present times, this fountain is the place where Philadelphia school children symbolically jump into the fountain to celebrate the beginning of Summer... a practice that has been discourage in recent years.
Key landmark buildings surround Logan Square: Free Library of Philadelphia, the Academy of Natural Sciences, the Franklin Institute and the Roman Catholic Cathedral-Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul.