During the Gilded Age, Rittenhouse Square was home to Philadelphia's high society, with more millionaires per square foot than any other American neighborhood except New York's Fifth Avenue. Established by William Penn in 1682 as the South-West Square and renamed after astronomer David Rittenhouse in 1825, Rittenhouse Square and its environs changed from an isolated district of brickyards and workers' shanties into the city's most elegant and elite neighborhood between 1845 and 1865. The brownstone and marble mansions on the square itself were inhabited by the city's wealthiest and most...

Philadelphia, the birthplace of America, is the final resting place of some of the nation's greatest citizens. The burial grounds of Christ Church hold the remains of Benjamin Franklin and six other signers of the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia pioneered the development of the rural cemetery with the establishment of Laurel Hill, eternal home to Gettysburg hero George Gordon Meade and thirty-nine other Civil War-era generals. In Philadelphia's Jewish, Catholic, and African American burial grounds rest such notable figures as Rebecca Gratz, model for the Jewish heroine of Walter...

Chestnut Hill, in northwest Philadelphia, is one of America's most beautiful urban villages thanks to the fusion of a magnificent physical setting, notable architecture, historic preservation, and careful planning. During the Colonial period, Chestnut Hill was a rough-hewn village of farmers and millers. After the railroad reached the area in 1854, Chestnut Hill's natural splendor and healthful atmosphere made it a popular spot for Philadelphia's wealthy. Soon, it was ringed by magnificent estates designed by Frank Furness, T.P. Chandler, and Horace Trumbauer. Living side-by-side with the...