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![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-06-11-p-crimmins-philadelphia-sister-cities-park-playful-learning-installations-square-arches-1.jpeg\")
The tunnel of square arches at Sister Cities Park is the \u201dlaunching pad\u201d of 11 new Playful Learning installations in the Center City and Old City neighborhoods. (Peter Crimmins\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n\u201cThese are not destinations. We\u2019re not asking kids and families to go to a particular place to engage with this,\u201d Playful Learning Landscapes Executive Director Sarah Lytle said. \u201cThey\u2019re really integrated into their daily routine.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Lytle said most Playful Learning installations have been in Philadelphia\u2019s outer neighborhoods. But for America\u2019s semiquincentennial summer of 2026, the organization pushed to get 11 Playful Learning installations in the center of the city, from Eakins Oval to Elfreth\u2019s Alley.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had not historically done any work in Center City,\u201d Lytle said. \u201cBut given all of that traffic that we anticipate this summer for the [nation\u2019s] 250, for the World Cup, all of that, we wanted to bring Playful Learning into Center City.\u201d
\nThe tunnel of square arches at Sister Cities Park is the \u201dlaunching pad\u201d of 11 new Playful Learning installations in the Center City and Old City neighborhoods. (Peter Crimmins\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n
The Sister Cities Caf\u00e9 is the \u201claunching pad\u201d of the downtown installations, with a sampling of Philadelphia\u2019s firsts: Signs highlighting Philadelphia firsts, like the nation\u2019s first public library, first movie screening and America\u2019s first circus are posted on a curved tunnel of squared arches that represent the movement of a revolving door, also a Philly first<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n The new Playful Learning installations are placed at 2200 Pennsylvania Ave. near Eakins Oval, as well as outside the Rodin Museum, the Franklin Institute, Shakespeare Park near the central branch of the Free Library, Sister Cities Park, Love Park, Dilworth Plaza and Reading Terminal Market. Three more are forthcoming at Franklin Square, the National Constitution Center and Elfreth\u2019s Alley.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThese are not destinations. We\u2019re not asking kids and families to go to a particular place to engage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[62496,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-216842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-early-education","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}