This annual event provides an extraordinary opportunity for visitors to enter more than a dozen private historic homes on the Nation’s oldest residential street. Like the house interiors themselves, some boast traditional decorations and others feature their owners’ own artistic imaginations.
The celebration typically features festive caroling on the alley, refreshments, story telling, our upside-down Christmas tree, and a visit by Benjamin Franklin himself (he had friends on the Alley).
The Elfreth's Alley Association is a 501(c)3 nonprofit educational organization that uses the Alley as a lens to interpret the lives, lifestyles, and livelihoods of ordinary Philadelphians from the time of the City's founding through to the present day. The Association preserves the Elfreth's Alley National Historic Landmark District as a rare example of a once commonplace working class community from the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
