[4] Proposing a center square, Holme designed the street to be roughly 100 feet (30 m) across and 13 miles (21 km) long.

[4] During the American Revolutionary War, Broad Street was often settled by Continental Army troops moving in and out of the city.

As the city's population grew, Broad Street was extended both north to Vine and south to Dickinson, eventually reaching the Delaware River waterfront, where today's Philadelphia Naval Shipyard stands.

[6] At the turn of the 20th century, Broad Street transformed from a bustling boulevard to a cultural magnet for music and the arts.

By the 1950s, Broad Street residential areas had been replaced with skyscrapers as well as the newly developed Penn Center.

Using $100 million in public funds, Broad received new lighting and streetscaping, theater restorations and new restaurants and cafes.

[7] In 2015, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter introduced a $8.7 million project to brighten North Broad with 41 stainless steel light masts.

The parkway consists of the central median landscaped area including the bordering east and west tree lined sidewalks and various sized green spaces which separates opposing lanes of traffic, and roadway intersections.

In 1912, the city's director of public works, Morris Cooke, engaged Olmsted Brothers, an architecture firm, to produce designs for League Island Park, Oregon Plaza[10] and the stretch of south Broad Street from Oregon Avenue south to Pattison Avenue and southward to League Island.

The unifying medial green space including the tree lined sidewalks on the east and west connected the two parks developed from river swamp lands that were filled and regraded.

The intended result was to create a Suburban Village by blending the countryside with the urban environments and developing an organization of open space, views and providing the advantages of increased health benefits of purity of air and facilities for quiet out-of-door recreation.

This original concept design facilitated surrounding development in the next century of a thriving urban residential community, countryside recreation and the focal location point for regional metropolitan spectator sporting events.

Open green areas, parking, and huge exposition buildings flanked the Boulevard lined with linden trees and flowering crab apple trees, individual obelisks as the 13 columns for each of the original Thirteen Colonies known as the "Founders Pylons", various standards, banners, and a huge 80 foot high 27 ton replica of the Liberty Bell at the gateway of Oregon Plaza.

The development pattern continued with the construction of two venues for Philadelphia's four primary professional athletic teams, the 76ers, Eagles, Flyers, Phillies.

Joe Frazier's Gym, the personal training gym and home where former heavyweight boxing champion Joe Frazier lived and trained in preparation for his fight against Mohammed Ali and George Foreman, is located at the corner of Broad St. and W. Glenwood Ave champion boxer; it has since been turned into a furniture store.

During the Phillies 2008 World Series victory parade, an estimated two million people lined Broad Street.

[15][16][17] Since the 1980s, residents and visitors have often parked illegally in the striped median strip of Broad Street, which is paved in the same way as the road surface and is not raised, particularly in South Philadelphia, with the city and parking authority rarely enforcing the law against doing so except during major events such as the Broad Street Run.