Website:
www.pennathletics.com
Many say this local basketball arena is the most storied gymnasium in the history of collegiate athletics. It has been a fixture of Philadelphia sports culture since it opened in 1927, and has hosted more college basketball tournaments than any other facility. It housed the first NCAA championship in 1939 and has been the site of more than sixty years of University of Pennsylvania basketball and countless match-ups of the Big Five, a league of local college basketball teams (Penn, Villanova, Saint Joseph’s, La Salle, Temple) that compete every year. The Palestra seats 9,000 and fills to maximum capacity during Big 5 games, which draw residents from all over the city.