PA Getaway

Historic waterworks · Philadelphia, Philadelphia County

Fairmount Water Works

Fairmount Water Works
Photo: Jack E. Boucher, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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.

What you will find

  • Historic features
  • Museum or exhibits

Make a day of it

Nearby

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Eastern State Penitentiary

    Historic Site · 0 miles away

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

  • Calder Gardens

    Public Garden · 0 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.

  • 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.

  • Schuylkill River Trail

    Rail trail · 1 miles away

    Beginning in Center City, a long riverside trail runs past Boathouse Row and Manayunk to Valley Forge and beyond, paved through the city and busy with cyclists, runners and walkers.