Philly Plain Dealer

This Sunday the Eagles beat the Washington Commanders in the NFC Championship, and the City was wholly prepped for the celebration that would ensue on Broad Street under that circumstance. 

However, this is the first time we’ve been able to see Mayor Cherelle Parker and her team attempting pre-coordinated crowd control at this large of a scale. South of Broad Street, here’s what the City did:

• Erected barricades preventing people from entering the street South of Pine Street.
• Created a full stop barricade at Pine Street and Broad to allow one-way traffic, only allowing people to leave the street area, but redirecting people attempting to enter the crowd at Broad and Pine.
• Redirecting the flow of the crowd to go around the Kimmel Center on 15th Street to re-enter the crowd on Spruce and Broad.
• Erected barricades preventing people from accessing the sidewalks from Pine St. to Market St

In essence, if you marched up to City Hall from Tasker St, you were told to remain on the sidewalk until you reached Broad and Pine where Philadelphia Police and other city government agencies created a barricade and redirected people around the Kimmel Center back onto Broad from Spruce Street. 

The NFC Championship was over between 6:30-6:40pm, but by 7:21pm the Police were airing a recorded message over speakers announcing “Everybody on South Broad Street disperse immediately.” This message was met with resounding boo’s and were the only source of tension that I could spot in the crowd. After the Police message aired, an inebriated man suggested loudly to the crowd “we should fucking charge them,” which garnered laughs and cheers but was ultimately unfulfilled. 

There were uniformed police officers, as well as some very easy-to-spot undercover police officers mixed throughout the crowd. 

My recommendations are, if you’d like to get to City Hall quickly – from Broad turn left on Lombard then take 15th up to Locust and bypass most of the foot traffic bottle-necking at Pine and Spruce. 

There were a few incidents on Broad, a man shot a gun in the area, a vehicle plowed through a crowd, and a man fell off of a street sign. When the Eagles win the Super Bowl, party responsibly.