Visiting Elfreth's Alley
Stroll down Elfreth's Alley's historic cobblestones, and step back into America's past. Located in the heart of Old City Philadelphia, Elfreth's Alley is a block-long street that opened in 1702 connecting two blacksmiths' shops near Philadelphia's busy waterfront with Second Street, one of the growing colony's busiest thoroughfares.
The thirty-two buildings along Elfreth's Alley were built between the 1720s and 1830s, and today they reveal the fascinating stories of everyday life, the spaces that America's founders knew. You can hear the house-by-house story of the Alley's early residents through our free cellphone tours, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Elfreth's Alley Museum tells several unique stories about early Philadelphia. The Museum is located in 124 and 126 Elfreth's Alley. Guided tours begin in the giftshop (number 124), and tell the amazing story of two dressmakers whose sewing business in house 126 reveals the lives of early American women, workers, and the transformations that came with the age of factories and industry.
Only houses 124 and 126 are open to the public. Elfreth's Alley hopes to add House 128 to the museum complex as an education, sales, and program center in the days ahead. The other houses remain private homes where Philadelphia families have lived in the same spaces for 300 years. Alley residents open some of these homes every year, as part of the Fete Day and Deck the Alley celebrations.
related topics
Elfreth's Alley Museum | house 126
Museum Gift Shop | house 124
House 128 -- future education, sales, and program center
