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The cultural events and the arts are so popular in Philadelphia that the city has renamed a section of South Broad Street the 'Avenue of the Arts', with many theatres, concert halls and performing arts schools located along here. The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, 260 South Broad Street, is the city's spectacular new landmark, occupying an entire block on the Avenue of the Arts. The Kimmel Center Verizon Hall is the new home of the world-renowned Philadelphia Orchestra. The Orchestra's summer venue is the Mann Center for the Performing Arts, Fairmount Park, which also features jazz, pops, dance and musical theatre. Philadelphia's cultural history is one that stretches back quite far into America's past — the city lays claim to both the country's oldest music hall still in use and oldest theatre. The Academy of Music, Broad Street and Locust Street, opened in 1857, is the country's oldest music hall that is still in use. It is home to the Opera Company of Philadelphia, which performs many of opera's greatest hits.
Philadelphia has a strong theatrical tradition embodied by the Walnut Street Theater, Ninth Street and Walnut Street, America's oldest theatre. Other leading theatres include the Freedom Theatre, 1346 North Broad Street, an award winning African-American Theatre Company. The Forrest Theatre, 1114 Walnut Street, named after matinee idol Edwin Forrest, performs Broadway blockbusters, while the Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut Street, produces original musicals. The Arden Theatre Company, 40 North Second Street, in the Old City, stages innovative productions ranging from musicals to the classics.
The Mummers Parade, on New Year's Day, is a unique Philadelphia tradition, with string bands and extravagantly costumed 'Mummers' strutting up Broad Street, followed by the Mummers Fancy Brigade Finale at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The Greater Philadelphia Blues Fest takes place 1 June, at Irvine Auditorium on the University of Pennsylvania campus. Independence Day celebrations around the city on the Fourth of July range from parades to music to fireworks.
Philadelphia's best-known literary figure is Edgar Allan Poe, who came to the city in 1837 and lived here for ten years. Other famous literary Philadelphians include the poet Walt Whitman and the author James A Michener, who hails from nearby Bucks County — there is a museum in Michener's honour at Doylestown.
The Independence Seaport Museum is a maritime museum with interactive displays and demonstrations. The collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the most important in the country, with more than half a million paintings, sculptures and artefacts spanning 2000 years of art from Asia, Europe and America. A branch of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the nearby Rodin Museum features the largest collection of the great sculptor's work outside Paris. Founded in 1805, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was America's first art school and museum. It houses three centuries of American paintings and sculpture by the country's finest artists, including Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Eakins, William Morris Hunt and Mary Cassatt.
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