Dilworth Park

Dilworth Park — the apron of City Hall, rebuilt from a sunken concrete maze into the city’s front room

Dilworth Park is about 120,500 square feet — call it two and three-quarter acres — of lawn, fountain and paving wrapped around the western face of Philadelphia City Hall, and it is one of the most instructive pieces of recent civic design in America. It sits on Center Square, one of the five public squares that surveyor Thomas Holme drew into William Penn’s plan for the city in 1683, and the ground beneath it is a knot of subway and trolley tunnels. Legally it is a city park, but it is run by the Center City District, a business improvement district, under a long-term lease from Philadelphia — so its programming, maintenance and hours come from a nonprofit rather than from Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. It reopened on September 4, 2014 after a rebuild that removed every stair and retaining wall from a notoriously hostile 1970s plaza and brought the whole surface flush with the sidewalk.

Highlights

• Pulse by Janet Echelman — the artwork built into the fountain: as SEPTA trains pass in the tunnels below, curtains of illuminated mist about four feet high travel across the water surface along the exact paths of the lines beneath, in colors blended from several hues of light and inspired by Rothko’s paintings; the first phase, the green line following the trolley route, came alive in September 2018.
• The programmable fountain — 11,600 square feet of jets set flush into the paving, safe to walk through, with basins that shrink or expand depending on how the space is being used.
• The winter ice rink — the same fountain surface is converted into a public skating rink each November and runs seven days a week into the early spring, with a heated cabin alongside for warming up.
• The glass headhouses — two sloping glass pavilions designed as sculptural, daylit entrances down into the transit concourse, replacing the blind stairwells of the old plaza.
• Greenfield Lawn and the Wintergarden — an open lawn used for concerts and fitness classes in summer, which in the cold months becomes a decorated garden of lights, reindeer topiaries and woodland scenery.
• City Hall itself — John McArthur Jr.’s enormous French Second Empire pile, built from 1871 to 1901, still the tallest load-bearing masonry building in the world, crowned by Alexander Milne Calder’s 37-foot bronze of William Penn set in place in 1894.

What’s inside

Everything here is engineered to work over a live transit interchange, so the park is thin, precise and full of dual-purpose surfaces rather than deep landscape.

• A café pavilion with an outdoor terrace on the north side, shaded by the Air Grove, a planted stand of trees that gives the only real canopy on the site.
• Granite reclaimed from the demolished 1970s plaza, recut and reused across the new paving — the old plaza is literally still underfoot.
• Movable chairs and tables scattered rather than fixed, so the space reconfigures itself through the day.
• The Made in Philadelphia Market, a recurring open-air market of regional makers that sets up on the lawn side in warm months and again before the holidays.
• Elevators and level access at every edge, the design consequence of eliminating the sunken terraces that made the old plaza unusable for anyone with a wheelchair or a stroller.
• An events calendar that runs almost continuously — free fitness sessions, live music, seasonal markets, a holiday light show projected onto the City Hall façade that faces the park.

What to do and who it’s for

• Commuters — the fastest, brightest way in and out of the transit concourse, and a place to stand in daylight while waiting for someone.
• Families with young children — the fountain is designed to be walked through, the mist of Pulse is filtered and softened water that is safe to play in, and the rink in winter is aimed squarely at beginners.
• Office workers — a lawn and a café terrace in the exact center of the business district, with lunchtime programming most weeks.
• Design students and architects — a before-and-after case study of accessibility-driven redesign that is quoted in landscape architecture courses.
• Photographers — City Hall’s tower rises directly out of the fountain reflections, and the mist curtains give a moving subject that changes every few minutes.
• Skaters in winter — a full public rink under the illuminated tower, one of the best-set outdoor rinks in any American downtown.

Getting there and practicalities

The park is in Center City, wrapped around the west face of City Hall, and it is the single best-connected patch of ground in Philadelphia. The Market–Frankford Line, signed as the L since the 2024 SEPTA Metro rebrand, serves 15th Street Station beneath the park; the Broad Street Line, now the B, serves City Hall Station in the same complex; the subway–surface trolley routes, grouped as the T, run through the tunnels directly under the fountain; and the underground concourse links onward to Suburban Station for Regional Rail without stepping outside. Entry is free and the park is unenclosed, with the Center City District posting seasonal hours on site. The fountain runs from spring into fall, and is drained and converted to the ice rink from mid-November, when skating is ticketed and skate hire is available at the rink. Twenty minutes is enough to walk it and look at the artwork; an hour or more if you sit at the café, and a couple of hours if you skate. The entire park is step-free, including the routes down to the trains.

When to visit

Spring wakes the fountain up and fills the lawn with people eating lunch outdoors for the first time since October, with the trees of the Air Grove leafing out over the café terrace. Summer is loud and busy: free fitness classes on the grass in the morning, office crowds at midday, concerts and markets in the evening, and children running through the jets when the temperature climbs. Fall gives the best conditions for the artwork — cooler air makes the mist curtains hold their shape longer and read more sharply against the stone, and the low sun sets City Hall’s tower glowing above them. Winter is the park’s signature season: the fountain becomes a rink from mid-November, the Wintergarden covers the lawn in lights and topiary, and the holiday show throws color across the City Hall façade after dark.

Worth knowing

Center Square has been the functional heart of Philadelphia for two centuries, and Echelman’s artwork is a direct comment on that. In 1801 the square held the city’s first municipal waterworks, a pump house designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe that drew water from the Schuylkill — the site was Philadelphia’s water hub before it was its transport hub. City Hall replaced it, rising slowly between 1871 and 1901 to designs by John McArthur Jr. The plaza that Dilworth Park replaced was itself a product of demolition: the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broad Street Station came down in 1953, and the resulting open ground was eventually built out as Dilworth Plaza, completed in 1977 to a design by Vincent Kling — the same architect who had shaped LOVE Park a decade earlier. It was named for Richardson Dilworth, mayor from 1956 to 1962, who died in 1974 while the plaza was under construction; Mayor Frank Rizzo disliked the choice and insisted on calling it West Plaza. The result was a brutalist arrangement of sunken terraces and blind stairways that repelled pedestrians for three decades. Planning for its replacement began in 2007, ground was broken on January 30, 2012, and the new park by OLIN, KieranTimberlake and Urban Engineers opened on September 4, 2014, paid for with a mix of federal transportation grants, Pennsylvania state funds and private foundation money.

Visitor tips

• Wait by the fountain for a train to pass beneath — the mist curtain only appears when one does, so give it a few minutes rather than assuming the artwork is switched off.
• Use the glass headhouses rather than the street corners to reach the trains; they are faster, step-free, and the daylight makes the concourse far easier to navigate.
• In winter, book rink time online before the weekend; sessions at the rink under City Hall fill up quickly once the holiday lights are switched on.

Questions and answers

Who actually runs Dilworth Park? The Center City District, a business improvement district, operates it under a long-term lease from the city. The land is public and the park is public, but day-to-day management, programming and maintenance sit with a nonprofit rather than with Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, which is why the standards and the events calendar feel different from a typical city square.

What is the mist over the fountain? It is Pulse, a permanent artwork by Janet Echelman. High-pressure nozzles release an ultra-fine, cool mist made of filtered, softened water; colored light is projected onto it, and the resulting curtains travel across the fountain along the routes of the subway and trolley lines running beneath, triggered as SEPTA trains pass.

Is the mist safe for children to run through? Yes. The work was designed for it — the mist is filtered and softened water that evaporates almost immediately, and the fountain jets themselves are set flush into the paving so the whole surface is walkable.

Is there an ice rink? Yes, on the fountain itself. From mid-November the water feature is converted into a public outdoor rink that runs seven days a week into early spring, with a heated cabin beside it and skate hire on site. Skating is ticketed; the rest of the park stays free.

Why was the old plaza demolished? Because it did not work. The 1977 plaza was a set of sunken terraces and blind stairways with no accessible route across it, badly lit and effectively closed to anyone using a wheelchair or pushing a stroller. The rebuild eliminated every stair and wall and brought the whole surface level with the sidewalk.

Can I get into City Hall from the park? Yes. The building is working government offices with a public courtyard through the archways, and the tower observation deck beneath the William Penn statue is open to visitors by timed elevator tour, run separately from the park.

How long should I plan? Twenty minutes to cross it and watch the fountain, an hour if you take a table at the café, longer in winter if you skate or come for the light show. Most visitors combine it with LOVE Park, which is a two-minute walk away on the other side of City Hall.

Is it accessible? Completely, and deliberately so. Level access from every edge, elevators to the transit concourse, no stairs anywhere on the surface — accessibility was the organizing principle of the entire redesign rather than an addition to it.