Cool Places in Philadelphia — Some More Places

More places that accumulated. Not recommendations, just stuff that stuck over time.

Smith Playground

Smith is a huge playground in Fairmount Park that fills this little valley. The main attraction is these massive wooden slides — I mean massive — and you ride down on rough burlap potato sacks, like the actual sacks potatoes come in from the grocery store. I don't know where they get them, but someone figured it out and it works.

My wife takes our kid there every few months. I've only been once, honestly — it was during this thing we do with about 10 to 20 other couples we've met through a big WhatsApp group. We call it the super baby play date, and we rotate locations. One month last summer we did it at Smith, and honestly most of the time was just the kids running around playing. But the highlight was the dance party at the end where a bunch of five-month-olds were wiggling around to the Baby Shark song. My wife organizes most of these — I just show up when I can.

Best part is it's completely free, and you don't expect free places to be this good. Someone in Philadelphia Parks and Rec had a good idea once and it actually stuck.

Art Museum Steps

My running route goes past the art museum, and I park the stroller at the bottom and carry my kid up the steps. He started climbing them when he was seven months old — crawling at first, stopping every level or so to look around. He particularly is interested in cigarette butts (gross) and plastic wrappers, which he picks up and hands to me to go put in the trash bins. Guess he's trying to clean up Philly already! Now he walks and holds one of my hands for balance.

Halfway up there are side paths where he tries to run away, so I chase him in circles. We're a whole production and people definitely watch us. The steps are famous from Rocky, but I couldn't tell you a single line from those movies — I never really cared about them. But my son has literally climbed them since before he could walk, and that hits different. I wrote about that first descent in The First Time He Climbed the Rocky Steps.

Spring Garden and Broad

Corner of Spring Garden and Broad is a major intersection with a Giant grocery store on one corner, an Indego bike station on another, and a Broad Street Line stop.

Here's my Philly-specific thing: I've lived here for five years and I take SEPTA buses constantly. But I've literally never ridden the Philadelphia subway because every time I've tried, the entrance was closed. Fairmount Station was closed. Spring Garden was closed. Different stations over different years, all closed. At this point it's a joke with myself — I just take the bus instead.