PA Getaway

Historic Site · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

Eastern State Penitentiary

A long, vaulted cellblock at Eastern State Penitentiary, with peeling walls and rows of cell doors
Photo: DC Chadwick, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

A vast 1829 prison, its cellblocks left in haunting ruin, where Al Capone once served time; now a museum about American justice.

Al Capone's cell at Eastern State Penitentiary, furnished with lamps, a desk and a rug
Photo: diego_cue, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Make a day of it

Nearby

  • Rodin Museum

    Art museum · 0 miles away

    Rodin's Thinker greets visitors at the gate and The Gates of Hell frame the entrance to this Beaux-Arts museum and garden on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

  • Fairmount Water Works

    Historic waterworks · 0 miles away

    Classical temples on the Schuylkill below the art museum that once pumped the city's water, now an interpretive center about the river and its watershed, beside Boathouse Row.

  • Philadelphia Museum of Art

    Art museum · 0 miles away

    Climb the famous Rocky Steps to a vast temple of art, with masterpieces from Van Gogh's Sunflowers to Duchamp, a medieval cloister and a Japanese teahouse inside.

  • Barnes Foundation

    Museum · 1 miles away

    Albert Barnes's extraordinary collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse and more, hung as he arranged it.

  • Calder Gardens

    Public Garden · 1 miles away

    Opened in 2025 on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, a contemplative setting for Alexander Calder's sculptures, with a building by Herzog & de Meuron and gardens by Piet Oudolf.

  • Franklin Institute

    Science museum · 1 miles away

    Philadelphia's landmark science museum, home of the giant walk-through heart and the Fels Planetarium.