A Travel + Leisure list ranking the nation’s 20 most popular city parks has placed Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square at a respectable number 10.
The compilation is based on the number of Foursquare check-ins at parks across the country between Aug. 2011 and Aug. 2012. Overall, the magazine found that Foursquare users checking in at green spaces tended to be between the ages of 25 and 34 and that men were slightly more likely to use the social networking app than women, though the ratio was nearly fifty-fifty.
Home to the most voracious Foursquare users, New York City took the list’s top six most popular parks, with Central Park clocking in at number one, followed by Union Square Park, Bryant Park, High Line Park, Madison Square Park and Washington Square Park. The city that never sleeps also houses the 16th and 20th most popular parks: Battery Park and Tompkins Square Park. Combined with the borough of Brooklyn, which has the 13th and 18th most popular parks – Prospect Park and McCarren Park, respectively – New York dominates the list, home to 50 percent of the most popular urban green spaces.
Of Rittenhouse Square, Travel + Leisure writers said:
Set in the ritzy Philly neighborhood that shares its name, this seven-acre park is a hub for block parties and festivals (as well as a handful of hotels, which bring crowds and check-ins). On any given day, you’ll spot residents hanging with their dogs, artists sketching, and musicians strumming guitars.
Don’t Miss: The Rittenhouse Square Flower Market, an annual two-day festival held each May, the oldest continuous event in the space.
The non-New York parks that beat out Rittenhouse are Chicago’s 24.5-acre Millennium Park, ranked at number seven, followed by college student favorite Boston Common and Mission Dolores Park in San Francisco. Rittenhouse Square is trailed by the National Mall and Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C., Piedmont Park in Atlanta and Zilker Park in Austin.
