PHILADELPHIA — Not every street in America deserves a birthday party, but this city chose to honor its 100-year-old Benjamin Franklin Parkway on Thursday with a mesmerizing centennial celebration.

Hundreds gathered at sunset to catch a public art performance by the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang that filled the grand boulevard, originally modeled after the Champs-Élysées in Paris, with a fleet of rickshaw-style pedicabs festooned with 1,000 handmade paper lanterns. They appeared as flying fireflies, as the bicyclists bobbed and wove in choreographed patterns.