One of the best movies ever set in Philadelphia, The Sixth Sense, featured a boy who could see the ghosts of dead people walking around as they did in life. If you’ve ever wished you had that gift, and tried to imagine Revolutionary Philadelphians striding the brick sidewalks of Old City, you should check out the Portrait Gallery at the Greek-Temple-like Second Bank, at 420 Chestnut Street.

Inside, you’ll find an large collection of arresting portraits, most of [...]

The Philadelphia-Poland connection is not an obvious one. Chicago and Pittsburgh both have larger Polish populations; and Philly doesn’t, for example, have a well-known polka dedicated to its football team, like the Steel City does. But if you visit the Polish American Cultural Center at 308 Walnut Street, you’ll see that the links between Polska and Philly are old and historically important.

The museum is a one-room exhibit that earnestly celebrates the political and cultural contributions of [...]

On July 3 at 8 pm, Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross got married. Decked in colonial garb, the couple exchanged vows in a public ceremony at Independence Hall. In reality, Ralph Archbold, the city’s nationally recognized Ben Franklin re-enactor, fell in love with Linda Wilde, who often portrays Betsy Ross, and they decided to get married. Mayor Michael A. Nutter officiated the ceremony, and the Grammy Award-winning Peter Nero [...]

Before the invention of smoke detectors and pressurized hydrants, few sounds were more terrifying than the hollered call of “Fire!” The very thought troubled William Penn, who had fresh memories of the devastating 1666 Great Fire of London. When he began to plan his new American town of Philadelphia in 1682, he specified that he wanted the houses to be built of brick, not wood. But as the settlement grew rapidly in the early eighteenth century, little [...]