Spruce Street Harbor’s Fall Festival kicks off the season.

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Spruce Street Harbor Park at Penn’s Landing is welcoming autumn with its third annual Fall Festival, which occurs over two weekends, Sept. 15 to 17 and Sept. 22 to 24. The festival offers   free admission, with varying costs for food and activities.

The park is typically a popular summer destination, but this festival transforms the area into a celebration of fall.

The Fall Festival offers family-friendly activities such as a petting zoo, face painting, magician acts and pumpkin carving. The park has outdoor games as well, such as corn hole and oversized chess. There are live music performances in the evenings, and various food trucks and local business vendors during the day.

Among the featured vendors is Greensgrow Farms, an urban farming organization that brings agriculture and fresh food to city communities. At the Fall Festival, Greensgrow representatives sell fresh fruit, apple cider and festive floral arrangements to promote their mission and showcase the products of their urban gardens.

Along with the park’s usual food trucks and stands, a variety of special fall-flavored foods are offered. These include fresh apple cider, various types of pie and everything flavored with pumpkin, from pretzels to funnel cakes.

Visitors can also enjoy the festival by relaxing in Spruce Street Harbor Park’s popular hammocks set up throughout the park overlooking the Delaware River.

The space is decorated to emphasize the autumn spirit, with displays of pumpkins, gourds and haystacks. The standout decorations are the orange lawn chairs arranged in the center of the park. The seasonal atmosphere provided by all these decorations will make visitors  forget about the 80 degree temperatures that refuse to cool down.

As the leaves on the trees begin to change colors, Spruce Street Harbor Park is a perfect place to celebrate the new season in the city. The Fall Festival also serves as the site’s final event of the year, as the park closes for the autumn and winter seasons on Oct. 1.

Spruce Street Harbor Park is not the only location ushering in an early autumn. Other fall events in and around Philadelphia include the Scarecrow Festival at Peddler’s Village in New Hope, Pumpkinland at Linvilla Orchards in Media and the Midtown Village Fall Festival in Center City.