Spruce Street Harbor Park Philadelphia

A couple summers back, the city of Philadelphia gave a great gift to its citizens in the form of Spruce Street Harbor Park. This summer the pop up park has returned in spades, and keeps expanding on almost all its attractions.

Situated on a grassy area along the Delaware River and surrounded by historic ships, Spruce Street Harbor Park is an ideal place for anyone to relax, get some food, and enjoy a magical summer getaway.

A makeshift boardwalk is lined with shipping containers full of carnival games and arcades. Life sized chess boards and Jenga towers provide additional free entertainment and anchor the tree filled park. Hanging from the trees, the park is overflowing with hammocks and color changing lights.

Food trucks, Italian ice, and beer stands also abound in the park, but the Iron Chef run restaurant and bar is a particularly neat summer venue. The restaurant hosts a floating lounge area decorated with fun rainbow illuminated lilypads.

The outer sea wall holds a spot to rent swan boats and kayaks to paddle about the marina. Free games such as Bocce, ping pong, tether ball, and shuffleboard are also available.

Arriving a little before sunset provides a perfect opportunity to avoid most of the crowds and allows me to enjoy the dusk colors and the lighting of the tree lights. Every second Saturday (until September) the park plays a classic TV show followed by a movie. Philadelphia's ode to summer takes place at the Spruce Street Harbor Park.