City Hall held a press conference this morning to lay out some of the details for Thursday’s parade, celebrating the WORLD CHAMPION PHILADELPHIA EAGLES.

The info:

Parade

  • starts at 11 a.m. at Broad and Pattison, heads northbound and ends at the Art Museum
  • motorcade turns LEFT at City Hall and go against traffic, loop around to 15th and over to the Ben Franklin Parkway (so if you’re on the east side of City Hall you won’t see anything)
  • the vehicles will be open air and the entire route will be barricaded, just like any parade
  • there will be three press platforms set up along the route, one on the south end of City Hall, one at the corner of Love Park, (and the third was not specifically mentioned, but I’d assume it’s at the Art Museum)
  • the stage is being built on the second level of the Art Museum
  • there will be 14 jumbotrons set up along the Parkway from Eakins Oval down to City Hall, with a fully operational sound system
  • NBC 10 and NBCSP will begin broadcasting at 10:30 a.m. Local stations will pool (share) their camera feeds.
  • the parade reaches the Art Museum at 12:12 p.m. and the ceremony begins at 1 p.m., with details to come
  • 850 port-o-johns will be set up along the parkway perimeter

Here’s my crappy version of a map. I need to triple check on that second left turn, but it sounded to me like they’re going to hang the L onto JFK and hit the parkway right where it empties out near Tir Na Nog:

Mayor Kenney went on to explain that the idea of doing the parade northbound instead of southbound makes for easier crowd dispersal. He spoke about the difficulty of having Phillies fans clumped in the stadium area trying to get on the subway after the 2008 parade.

Septa 

Independence Blue Cross is sponsoring FREE rides on the Broad Street and Market/Frankford lines for the entirety of Thursday.

There’s a SEPTA presser scheduled for a little later this morning.

Police 

Commissioner Ross basically just explained they’re going to throw a ton of manpower into the event, with Homeland Security doing outreach with the businesses along the parade route. Undercover officers will be in the crowd along with air power, bikes, officers on horseback and in vehicles.

He also mentioned that they’re actively tracking people who broke the law on Sunday night, noting that one of the people who was acting like an idiot after the Super Bowl win is expected to turn himself in later today. Ross said Sunday’s celebration morphed into something much bigger than the Phillies celebration in 2008.

Emergency Management

The city is increasing cellular bandwidth to try to accommodate all of the phone usage for Thursday.

For parade updates, you can text “readyeagles” (one word) to 888777.