Boathouse Row, Philadelphia

Boathouse Row is one of Philadelphia's most recognized silhouettes: a row of Victorian boathouses strung along the east bank of the Schuylkill River just below the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Their story begins in eighteen twenty-two, when a dam, completed in eighteen twenty-one, turned this stretch of the Schuylkill into a calm, sheltered lake perfect for rowing shells. By the eighteen fifties clubs were building simple boat sheds along the bank, and in eighteen fifty-eight nine of them joined together to form the Schuylkill Navy, which claims the title of oldest amateur athletic governing body in the United States.

The Bachelors Barge Club, founded in eighteen fifty-three, is the oldest continuously operating rowing boathouse in the country. Today the boathouses are outlined in lights that reflect on the river at night, a sight that has anchored the city's skyline for generations. The clubs still race, still argue, and still pull oars on the same water where American rowing was born.