[ON LOCATION] SUE PELLETIER
You may think you know Philadelphia, home of the Liberty Bell, cheesesteaks and the fictitious movie boxer Rocky Balboa, but there’s a lot more to the “City of Brotherly Love” than those iconic symbols. In an all-too-brief recent stay, I saw a few of the many ways Philly both embraces its important place in American history and gives it a fresh, vital vibe that’s much more 2024 than 1774.
Take our headquarters hotel, the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown. The recently renovated 1,408-room hotel has more than 100,000 sf of meeting space across 72 event venues between its main tower and the historic Headhouse Tower, which began its life as part of the Reading Terminal train station.
Between its own event spaces and its connection via Skywalk to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown is an obvious choice for large meetings and conventions. But it also proved to be a good fit for our small group, providing a surprisingly intimate, boutique experience and cool, innovative touches throughout its newly repurposed spaces. Three of the spaces we got to hang out in include:
• The Community Art Gallery: It’s hard to believe it used to be a sports bar—the Gallery is now a gorgeous community art showplace with floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the space with natural light and also has a large screen for group presentations and messaging. There’s also an arcade room right next door, sure to be popular with the families of those who like to blend business with leisure.
• The 1201 Chef’s Innovation Lab: There are so many neat niches to use here, including a gorgeous formal dining area, as well as a repurposed kitchen space perfect for brainstorming sessions.
• Liberty Lanes: This four-lane duckpin bowling alley/pub can accommodate up to 75 for some nibbles, drinks and a chance to knock down the pins (without having to change into bowling shoes, which is a nice plus).
Even the in-room amenity hits that perfect balance between history and innovation, with a helium balloon featuring Benjamin Franklin, tethered by a lighted string to a lightbulb-shaped container of chocolate-covered espresso beans, along with locally made truffles, a bottle of root beer and a coupon for local ice cream at the grab-and-go shop in the lobby (I learned that both root beer and ice cream floats were another Philly invention—delicious!).
We only had a few hours to tour the city, but we managed to hit quite a few of the city’s biggest must-see attractions. Though Philly is a certified walkable city, our hosts opted to shuttle us around to get as much in as we could in just a few hours. We breezed through traffic on a police-escorted bus tour past the Liberty Bell and its backdrop of Independence Hall, and the famous Robert Indiana Love statue in Love Park, aka John F. Kennedy Plaza.
Then it was on to a stop at the National Constitution Center, where we grabbed selfies with 42 bronze statues of the Founding Fathers and were able to view some rare artifacts and historical documents before heading to the Grand Hall Overlook, which can accommodate up to 700 under a 60-ft ceiling and sweeping views of some of Philadelphia’s historic landmarks. This is just one of the many event spaces available for groups.
We also were able to see the 360-degree live theatrical production, Freedom Rising; a powerful experience I would highly recommend groups add to their agenda. During a break/reception, an actor portraying Thomas Jefferson also moved me to tears with a short speech on how it is up to each generation to continually reinterpret the meaning of “We the People”—it’s exactly on point with the city’s commitment to supporting the spirit of innovation and reinvention while maintaining a reverence for the nation’s historical roots.
Our next stop was the Philadelphia Museum of Art. While I did not do the tourist thing and take a photo with the bronze Rocky statue created for the Rocky III movie, I had to run up the museum’s grand stairway’s 72 steps and dance around like Sylvester Stallone when I reached the top—as did more than a few in our group.
But the real bout of cool was inside the museum, which includes more than 240,000 pieces of Renaissance, American, Asian and impressionist art. The museum tapped architect Frank Gehry to renovate and expand its interior spaces, which features a stunning sky-lit vaulted walkway. Among the many event spaces tucked throughout the museum are the Great Stair Hall Balcony, where we had some sips and nibbles, the Art Deco building’s atrium, and the gardens, where groups can mingle with Rodin’s classic bronzes.
We finished the tour with more delicious sweets in a private space tucked into the Reading Terminal Market, an indoor food market that’s on most visitors’ must-see lists, conveniently located just across the street from the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown and the convention center. Groups of up to 5,000 can also undertake a culinary journey through the market with an interactive dining experience by All About Events.
But the biggest wow factor, even for a non-sports fan like me, was the evening event at the Lincoln Financial Field, home to the Philadelphia Eagles NFL team. Greeted by the team’s mascot Swoop and a lively band, we were whisked inside to the team’s locker room, where our group took selfies with Swoop and the team’s cheerleaders and posed in front of favorite players’ locker spaces.
A huge surprise-and-delight moment came when it dawned on attendees that it was their names, along with the Eagles logo, atop the various lockers—many delighted selfies ensued. We also had a visit to the media room and out onto the sidelines of the field for a performance of card trick magic by former Eagle long-snapper Jon Dorenbos.
I can’t wait to get back to Philly to experience some of the other areas and attractions we didn’t have time to see on this too-short trip. Philadelphia continues to be a city of “firsts,” including being the first to create a division within its CVB specifically to reach out to multicultural groups through what’s now PHL Diversity—how many places are there where the innovation you can experience today will be on the historic tour in another generation or two? That’s Philly.
marriott.com; discoverphl.com/meet