Running tour · Philadelphia

The River Loop

8.0 mi run

Open in Stride Stories

The stories on this route

1. The Joan of Arc statue

   Look up at the plaza below the Art Museum: Joan of Arc, in armour, on horseback, gleaming gold on a tall stone pedestal.

2. The Fairmount Water Works

   Look at the row of white pavilions along the water, all columns and porticoes, with the Art Museum rising behind. They're Greek Revival buildings. Inside was the machinery that watered a city.

3. Lemon Hill

   Look up the wooded bluff above the river. That pale mansion on top is Lemon Hill, named for the lemon trees once grown here. This land belonged to Robert Morris, the 'Financier of the Revolution'. Then Morris went broke. He tried to hide from his creditors out here, but they followed him to his gate.

4. The Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial

   Look at the three stone terraces along the river, with steps, benches and big figures facing the water. This whole stretch was one woman's idea.

5. The John B. Kelly statue

   Look at the bronze rower in his single scull, oars in hand, facing the course. That's Jack Kelly. Harry Rosin's statue went up in 1967, near the finish line of the course Kelly rowed.

6. Memorial Hall

   Look at the long granite front, the three tall arched doorways, and the glass-and-iron dome with Columbia on top. This is Memorial Hall, the art gallery of the 1876 Centennial, and the only large building left from that fair.

7. The Philadelphia Zoo

   Look at the main entrance: two Victorian gate houses of grey stone and red brick, with steep dormers and iron gates between them. Frank Furness and George Hewitt designed them in 1876.

Stories researched October 2026 · every fact checked against a source