Not just another pretty face
ONE OF THE PRETTIEST GIRLS in Philadelphia can be seen almost as obviously as William Penn atop City Hall. Except the 23-foot-tall statue of Columbia, the allegorical female representation of motherland America, sits atop the green glass and iron dome of Memorial Hall in Faimount Park. In her heyday, Columbia looked over the millions from around the world who gathered beneath her during the 1876 Centennial Celebration, the World's Fair in West Philly that announced the United States as being one of the great industrial powers of the earth. Later she crowned Philadelphia's original Museum of Art and after that the Fairmount Park Commission headquarters.
During the past 130-some years, Columbia has watched over the slow decline, and equally slow rebirth of one of Philadelphia's most gracious neighborhoods along Parkside Avenue. She has been a landmark for motorists on the Schuylkill Expressway through the unlikely urban green of Fairmount Park heralding the Oz-like apparition of the Art Museum and the Center City skyline that greets travellers making the southeastern turn on the Expressway at Girard Avenue.
Today Columbia looks down at the rugby and cricket pitches in front of Memorial Hall between the North and South Concourse Drives. She is one of my favorite Philadelphia sights.
