Penn Park

Penn Park is a 24 acre recreational space at the east end of campus, featuring playing fields, picnic areas, a multipurpose stadium, tennis courts, and walks woven within tree-lined lawns and meadows. Opened in 2011, the park is a stunning reclamation and re-imagination of a former industrial site, increasing green space on campus by nearly 20 percent, and creating a vibrant connection between Center City and West Philadelphia. Green infrastructure features, including underground cisterns, bioswales and meadows, capture rainwater and mitigate storm water overflow into the Schuylkill River. Over five-hundred mainly native canopy trees were carefully chosen for the park, including catalpa, hackberry, swamp white oak, willow, white pine, dawn redwood, larch and blue atlas cedar, among others. Paley Bridge, connecting Penn Park to Shoemaker Green, is one of the best spots on campus to view the City skyline through the trees. Designed by Michael Van Valkenburgh and Associates.



Plants in this park include:

northern catalpa (Catalpa speciosa)

common hackberry (Celtis occidentalis)

swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor)

weeping willow (Salix alba)

white pine (Pinus strobus)

dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides)

eastern larch (Larix laricina)

blue atlas cedar (Cedrus atlantica)

partridge pea (Cassia fasciculate)

little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium)

love grass (Eragrostis spectabilis)

Canada wildrye (Elymus canadensis)

black oat grass (Stipa avenaceum)

purpletop (Tridens flavus)

trumpet vine (Campsis radicans)

purple cliffbreak fern (Pellaea atropurpurea)