Fairmount/Art Museum area: Philadelphia

In the northwestern corner of Center City lie the quaint residential neighborhoods of Fairmount and Spring Garden, known collectively as the Art Museum area. The heart of the area is Fairmount Avenue, which offers several restaurants (including London Grill and Illuminare) and neighborhood bars (like the Bishop's Collar) that are usually packed with young professionals in the evenings. North of Fairmount Avenue, you'll find small streets densely packed with brick rowhouses, with a restaurant (like Trio or Rembrandt's) or coffee shop tucked away here and there. Throughout most of the twentieth century, factory and other blue-collar workers populated this area, with several generations of families often occupying the same house or the same block. In the mid-1990's, Fairmount began to gentrify and real estate values went up; now, many of those adorable brick rowhouses cost half a million dollars. South of Fairmount Avenue, in the neighborhood officially titled Spring Garden, you'll find beautiful large homes and tree-lined streets that have appeared in several movies, including The Sixth Sense. You can also find great restaurants and bars like the Belgian Café. While the Art Museum Area is just a bit removed from Center City, there is plenty to do there. Residents love it for its quiet, neighborhood feel, as well as the fact that it is close to both the Ben Franklin Parkway (where the Franklin Institute, the Academy of Natural Sciences, and, of course the Philadelphia Museum of Art are located) and Fairmount Park. The neighborhood also witnesses seasonal entertainment, including fireworks on the Fourth of July and October's popular haunted house at Eastern State Penitentiary. © NileGuide