Late for the Party

Philadelphia has always gone big for America’s birthday.

In 1876, to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in our “greene countrie towne,” as William Penn called it, we built a small city in Fairmount Park and hosted 10 million people from 37 countries.

In 1926, the crowds thinned, but our Sesquicentennial occasioned the construction of the Ben Franklin Bridge, the transformation of what is now FDR Park, and the opening of Municipal Stadium, which briefly became a home for the Eagles and later, as JFK Stadium, hosted Live Aid.

Even the Bicentennial in 1976, marred by Mayor Frank Rizzo’s heavy-handed security — he summoned 15,000 National Guard members — still led to the creation of the Mann Center and the African American Museum in Philadelphia, and brought Queen Elizabeth II to town.

Now, with the country’s 250th anniversary fast approaching in 2026, the organizers’ to-do list is considerably less soaring: They’re pushing for a fresh coat of paint on Independence Hall and a polish on the Rocky statue.

No one connected to the planning, to be clear, is saying Philly will throw a bad party.

Our Semiquincentennial year will include big-ticket events. Philly is hosting six FIFA World Cup matches, the MLB All-Star Game, and a pumped-up Fourth of July concert that will officially commemorate America’s big anniversary.

But all the trimmings that used to come with major anniversaries just haven’t manifested. Philly will not be radically remaking its infrastructure. The most significant change will be a $3.5 million revitalization of Lemon Hill in Fairmount Park for a World Cup Fan Festival, a requirement of the FIFA contract. The city is paying an additional $6.5 million for other World Cup costs.

Even the nongovernmental organizers who are, in large part, helming the 2026 efforts recognize that the opportunity for big legacy projects, like ambitious subway extensions or the reopening of shuttered historic sites, is long past.

“We focused a lot on past celebrations about physical transformations, and I’ve been a little heartbroken that we’re not really going to see that,” said Kathryn Ott Lovell, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corp. and a key planner.

Ott Lovell and other planners say there’s still time to throw America’s defining 250th party, even without the redefining projects of the past. But only if the money comes through.

While Gov. Josh Shapiro recently proposed nearly $65 million in funding for Pennsylvania’s Semiquincentennial commemoration, the city’s outlay to support the kind of bash that boosts long-term tourism, investment, and Philly’s national and global profile is still being negotiated.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker appointed former Visit Philly executive Michael Newmuis to head planning for the Semiquincentennial in February 2024, a month after she took office. Earlier this month Parker presented a midyear budget proposal for $40 million to cover things like security equipment and staffing. On Thursday, Council approved $45 million in funding.

“Our mayor has made 2026 a priority,” Newmuis said. “We are all hands on deck to position Philadelphia, the nation’s birthplace, to take its rightful place on the global stage. This is a pivotal opportunity to reintroduce Philadelphia to the world and ignite a new era of growth.”

The funds are critical, planners say, to ensure that 2026 programming includes every city neighborhood, not just the tourist districts. And for a robust marketing campaign to draw tourists to the city’s cultural delights. And for dollars to make sure those tourists arrive in the cleanest, shiniest possible version of Philadelphia.

“I look forward to significant investment from the city, state, feds, and private sector,” said Max Weisman, at-large City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas’ communications director, who has become an essential planner. “But this moment requires more than investment. We need an inspiring answer to the question: How will you make Philly history in 2026?”

Parker will propose more details and funding for 2026 celebrations in her annual budget, expected to be presented to Council next month, Newmuis said.

“The city plans to ensure the 2026 celebration reaches every corner of the city,” he said. “That includes investments in our commercial corridors, which are vital hubs for Philadelphia businesses and jobs.”

Now, organizers say, is the do-or-die moment to secure roughly $100 million from city and state coffers to support the more than $14 million local philanthropies have raised so far for programming and planning. Organizers say it is crucial to ensure that the city where the country was founded meets the moment.

The World Cup alone could bring $770 million of additional revenue, organizers estimate. All the 2026 events combined could potentially net more than $1.3 billion in added revenue for the region.

“We are America’s birthplace,” said Angela Val, president and CEO of Visit Philadelphia, the nonprofit that serves as the city’s official leisure tourism-marketing agency. “This is an opportunity that no other city has. It’s an opportunity we cannot pass up, and it’s going to be sitting in our backyard.”

Planners say everything from COVID-19 to a lack of sustained leadership and momentum left the city unprepared to match the extravagant exhibitions and big projects of years past.

Not that things didn’t get off to an early start.

In 2011, long before anybody was talking about the country’s 250th, Andrew Hohns, the CEO of an investment firm, created the nonprofit USA250 to kick off planning for a nationwide celebration with Philadelphia at the epicenter.

USA250 eventually floated heady plans to spur billion-dollar infrastructure improvements that would last the city until the next party in 50 years. By 2018, the dignitaries of the United States Semiquincentennial Commission, a congressionally appointed body established after lobbying by Hohns, were holding ceremonial sessions in Independence Hall.

But the efforts of the commission — and its affiliated nonprofit, the America250 foundation — fizzled in 2022 after a lawsuit alleged sexism, cronyism, and corruption in the organization.

The COVID-19 pandemic also muddied the waters. Organizers say the Kenney administration understandably pushed off planning to deal with an unfolding public health crisis.

“The wrench that really got thrown in there was COVID,” Val said. “I do think that it was not a priority under the Kenney administration. Basically those last couple years for him, he was just COVID all the time.”

Cultural institutions, too, were left reeling from the pandemic.

“We did not expect the impact that would have on the city, arts and culture, on hospitality. For two to three years, we were just focused on keeping the doors open and the lights on,” Val said. “It just got into a space where it just wasn’t on the top of everybody’s priority list.”

Meanwhile, philanthropists started making moves by 2023.

The Philadelphia Funder Collaborative for the Semiquincentennial, powered by a group of leading philanthropies, including the William Penn Foundation and the Pew Charitable Trusts, and administered by the Connelly Foundation, has so far disbursed nearly $10 million of the $15.25 million it has raised for 2026 programming.

The collaborative has gotten behind programming like the Museum of the American Revolution’s major 2026 exhibit, “The Declaration’s Journey.” It will feature such relics as Thomas Jefferson’s writing chair and the jail bench from which the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. penned his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.”

But the funders have been flooded by ideas. They have received nearly 300 requests for funding from nonprofits pitching 2026 projects, totaling $100 million.

“Without immediate investment, Philadelphia risks looking adrift, unprepared, and uninspired,” the group told City Council in testimony delivered at a November preparedness meeting.

Tim Durkin, vice president for grant making at the Connelly Foundation, a West Conshohocken private funder, said there are still a lot of good ideas to be funded.

“The requests that have been submitted to us have far outstripped the resources we have available,” he said.

Some of the projects they have funded include Visit Philadelphia’s “TED Democracy,” ArtPhilly’s monthlong, citywide arts and music festival, and the Visitor Center’s “Phambassadors” plan to activate 10,000 Philadelphians as volunteer guides and hosts. They have also helped historical societies and Penn Libraries launch major exhibits and a website on early Philadelphia, “The Revolutionary City.”

For too long, Philly lacked a ringmaster for the 250th.

But as the pandemic ebbed, efforts in the private sector resumed. Lovell was appointed last month to serve as the new head of Philadelphia250, the rebranded USA250, now chaired by former Mayor and Gov. Ed Rendell.

Now, Val and Lovell are at the forefront of Semiquincentennial planning — with less than a year before the first celebrations are slated to begin.

Both are Philly boosters in the vein of Leslie Knope, the indefatigable city official in Parks and Recreation. Lovell, a fourth-generation Philadelphian, has been dreaming of this day since she was a teenager.

“When I was little, I used to think about how old I would be in 2026,” she said, laughing.

Lovell says she’s now reframing her expectations. “Maybe it’s not about the physical transformation, and maybe more of a philosophical reckoning,” she said. ”A really massive celebration that pours out into the neighborhoods and really makes people feel inspired and have real ownership of the celebration.”

Shapiro’s state funding proposal represented a needed shot of hope for many planners, although the split state legislature has until June 30 to approve it, creating several more months of delay.

“It shows the Shapiro administration understands the importance of this opportunity,” Lovell said. “This is never just about 2026, but how do we use this event and this milestone to propel our city and commonwealth forward, and build our national and global profile?”

In recent months, Councilmember Thomas’ office has become a makeshift hub for the 250th, with interns researching past celebrations and staffers leading ad hoc planning sessions.

Thomas, elected in 2019, convened the 2026 preparedness meeting in November, after hearing from planners who were worried that the city wasn’t ready. Thomas said he, too, was late to prioritize 2026.

“We should have planned this years ago,” Thomas said. And, he said, city officials are still determining how much money they will allocate to the celebration and which organizations and events they will fund.

His office has compiled a slew of 2026 funding priorities — everything from $1 million for the Independence Historical Trust, the nonprofit partner of Independence Hall, to get Philly’s most historic building a paint job and rugs and lighting to $3.4 million for arts events at neighborhood foundations. They are also pressing for the city to ensure backdrops like the Art Museum steps and the Liberty Bell are looking their best with needed repairs and creative displays for 2026.

But it’s an open question as to just how much of the state and city funds will come through.

Thomas sees 2026 as more than just a fun time, but as a year to kick-start a Philadelphia renaissance, a chance for the city to reimagine how it tells its story.

“We expect over a billion dollars coming into the city,” Thomas said. “We see an opportunity to increase tourism and hospitality, not just for that year, but moving forward. … We think if we do it the right way, it will transform and change our city.”

Time is running short, he said. And there’s competition.

Unlike past national birthday bashes, when Philadelphia alone occupied the world stage, Boston, New York, Washington, and Charleston, S.C., are primed to host major Semiquincentennial events. In Virginia, Colonial Williamsburg jumped into the fray, hosting the country’s first 250th event in early March. Officials in D.C. are renovating and upgrading the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials for 2026, and Boston has planned two years' worth of historical reenactments, parades, and walking tours for the 250th.

Behind the scenes, Boston planners have been needling Philly organizers with the teasing slogan: “Boston is where the Revolution happened, Philly is just where they filed the paperwork.”

“We’re competing,” said Weisman, from Thomas’ office. “We’re not going to lose to Boston, but we could.”