Center City's Final Frontier

While the traditional boundaries of Center City lie between Vine and South Streets, it's easy to stray a bit north or south and argue otherwise. "Greater Center City," in fact, is comprised of blocks between Girard and Tasker. That's a stretch, but if you're walking along Spring Garden Avenue, there's no mistake, you are in the city.

But hit Broad and head east, that's another story. Whether it's councilmanic districting or a case of bad development attracting worse development, the neighborhoods of Greater Center City's northeastern quadrant are devoid of anything "central" until you get to Northern Liberties. Strip malls, sterile government facilities, and parking lots line Spring Garden with only an occasional relic to remind us of its industrial and residential roots.

The largest footprint of singular new development is suburban-styled subsidized housing awkwardly flanked by vacant and underutilized warehouses and railroad tracks. Even Callowhill - or the Loft District - with it's proximity to the literal core of the city continues to struggle with an abundance of surface parking, vacant lots, and empty warehouses. Nowhere is the crevasse between east and west more apparent than on North Broad Street, where Gilded Age mansions, churches, and theaters on the westside face unimpressive infill like car washes and auto parts stores. 

Still, the northeastern component of Greater Center City has a few gems waiting to be polished, and the future of this district - however it evolves - may depend on their revitalizations. 

You don't have to be a history or architectural nerd to be concerned with the area's most priceless resource, the Divine Lorraine Hotel. The Willis G. Hale masterpiece is one of the city's most iconic, infamous, and significant buildings, and despite countless promises, proposals, and praise, its future is still largely in question. EB Reality released a unique rendering that looks like a cartoon from Highlights Magazine, and I mean that in a good way.

Just behind the Divine Ms. L., Broad Street Holdings has proposed its own mixed use complex with a residential component. 

For now, this speculation may simply be more hype. EB Reality seems to love the media, and the media is its greatest enabler. Stories about the Divine Lorraine sell ads because we love that building so damn much. But while development has been charging east along Ridge Avenue, it comes to a grinding halt at the Divine Lorraine. It's creeping its way northwest from Callowhill but with a reserved lack of ambition. 

Massive projects are massive risks, even in Center City. But Broad and Fairmount isn't quite Center City, at least not yet, and the Divine Lorraine is a beast. There is no question that a resurrected Divine Lorraine would be a massive boon for the vicinity and certainly spawn additional development, but without that development, EB Reality knows it will have to wait for a handsome return. Right now, Philadelphia is just waiting for someone to make the first move.

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It isn't all uncertainty for this depressed pocket of the city, and it may simply be that the city needs to be the party to make that first move. And it's about to be made. Soon the city will be voting on a bill that will allow it to purchase a quarter mile stretch of the abandoned Reading Viaduct from SEPTA, after which several groups will be working together to convert it into an elevated park. 

Once a pipe dream to many and a hinderance to others, it looks as though the Reading Viaduct Park will be realized. And considering the city's recent investment in parks, and its final recognition that the improvement of public spaces actually encourages development, it could happen sooner than later. 

Sigma Sound Studios

The Sound of Philadelphia is coming down to make way for Carl Dranoff's towering SLS International Hotel and Residences on South Broad Street. Philadelphia International Records was definitely a Philadelphia institutions, and an American one. But uptown in a forgotten pocket of Center City, perhaps the last pocket to be terraformed by new condos and hotels, Sigma Sound Studios is also no-more. 

BizJournals has the skinny.

The small building that gave us Macho Man and Disco Inferno, the latter a song that never seems to end, has been sold and will be converted into apartments. It isn't clear yet whether the building will simply be renovated, grow, or like the Sound of Philadelphia, demolished for something larger. Sigma Sound Studios isn't a huge building, and in an emerging neighborhood literally steps from City Hall, its redevelopment would likely profit from additional space.

This neighborhood - the place I've called home for almost eight years - is a unique one. It's long-gone warehouses once housed films from studios like Warner Brothers and MGM throughout the 30s, 40s, and 50s. But throughout much of the 20th Century, it was also a notorious red light district. Rumor has it, in the early 20th Century, sailors docked on Delaware Avenue were forbidden from walking the streets of what was often called the Furnished Room District, so named for its abundance of flop houses, brothels, and drug dens. 

As late as the early 2000s, XXX book stores occupied Arch Street and loosely named "massage parlors" still play a part in what's left of a neighborhood clinging to its seedy past. Likely because of its history, the district bound by Broad, 11th, Market, and Vine was targeted for reconstruction in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Unfortunately its history - the good, the weird, and the untoward - has been scraped from the historical narrative of Philadelphia with very little record. 

While I'll miss my cheap rent and a garden a stone's throw from City Hall, it will be exciting to see how the neighborhood evolves and how its unique inhabitants choose to remember it. Wedged between the Convention Center and the growing Loft District, change was inevitable. Hopefully it won't soullessly embrace the convention center but also retain a little bit of its heart, however jaded. Things in Philadelphia tend to do just that.

Hanover North Broad

With speculations around Girard Square, Kmart's planned closure at the Gallery at Market East, and the proposed Market8 Casino at the Disney Hole, it's hard to forget that Market East isn't the only aging city planning disaster to plague a major Center City thoroughfare.

Lined with parking lots, North Broad Street hosts the scars of massive midcentury demolition and looks a lot like Detroit's Woodward Avenue.

The Parkway Corporation owns the two major parking lots at Broad and Callowhill. With the Hanover Design Collective, Parkway plans to develop the lots with Hanover North Broad, a large mix-use project.

Initial renderings show a sensibly scaled design that looks a lot like University City's Domus and will go before the City Planning Commission. As it is, it won't bring a lot of architectural drama to North Broad Street, although its practicality will probably help it breeze through the approval process.

The success of Tower Place and the proposed conversion of the Inquirer Building, along with the emerging Callowhill/Loft District/Eraserhood neighborhood, North Broad and dare I say North Philadelphia, may soon be part of a whole new city. Now if someone would take on North Broad's most tragic lady in wait, the divine Divine Lorraine.

Viaduct Impossible

After reading about the so called "marriage" of the Friends of the Rail Park and the Reading Viaduct Project I decided to take a look. Like many who live within spitting distance of Callowhill's industrial district, I don't spend a lot of "me time" in the vicinity.

While pricey loft conversions have sprouted up in the neighborhood between 11th and Broad, it's still a very real, working industrial zone. I've been to Prohibition Tap Room, The Trestle Inn, Café Lift, and the wildly pretentious Bufad Pizza boutique, but many in the neighborhood are still struggling to identify with what Callowhill is.

Callowhill is doing what it was designed to do, to work. Currently that's servicing Chinatown's restaurants and grocery stores and harboring outsider artists who like its grit. It's been doing that since the early 1900s.

While some of the louder neighborhood voices are fighting for a Reading Viaduct Park, and now a City Branch Park, they've done little to prove that it would ever be a viable concept.

Part of the problem comes from residents' insular view of their neighborhood. Sure, their lofts are hip and expansive, but they're fortressed behind parking lots and the echo of real estate agents spouting, "you're so close to Center City."

The Reading Viaduct Park is a great vision, but that's what it is, a vision. Aside from the complex ownership of the structure, much of the neighborhood still needs to prove they want to spend their free time there. Right now, its more upscale residents view Callowhill as a gritty Conshohocken. They're detached.

Urban enclaves are more than planned communities surrounded by tax funded freeways and parks. Urban communities, often strapped for cash, are communal.

Locked within a condominium complex in Callowhill, you'll find a lot of like minded people who wonder why the Reading Viaduct hasn't been demolished, turned into a park, or turned back into a transit line. But many of those residents moved to the city with the same resistance to urban realities that maintains a private parking space. In their mind, they're near Center City, not in it.

Callowhill, callously referred to as the Loft District by realtors, isn't that. It's not a dead industrial zone awaiting the salvation of suburban refugees blessing Philadelphia with its next hip neighborhood. Unlike the Northern Liberties' Piazza, Callowhill isn't a blank slate. Its proximity to Center City and industrial infrastructure make it a viable work horse.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in Callowhill's upscale voice is its impression that the neighborhood outside their condo is dysfunctional. Whatever they perceive it to be, that won't change because the neighborhood financially succeeds as it is.

Master plans can't be employed in a neighborhood that already works. As working urban enclave Callowhill will never be a planned community, and that means compromise. That's where advocates are lost. The neighborhood can be improved, but it means working inside the neighborhood, not above it.

Some of the more cynical residents might not see the beauty in Callowhill's gritty diversity, and parks are the canned response of shortsighted design. That's not to say Callowhill couldn't benefit from a splash of green, but starting big isn't just risky, it's illogical.

Callowhill is full of small, unused vacant lots, land on solid ground. Where is the community? Instead of transforming these small, potential oases into community gardens and pocket parks, they're illegally parking their unregistered cars on them.

It's hypocritical to defy the PPA with makeshift parking lots and then ask the city to burden itself with a park for neighbors who rarely spend time outside their own private terraces.
If Callowhill's lofty residents want their neighborhood to be lofty, they've got to do some of the legwork themselves.

Instead of proposing extremely expensive, tax funded park space they should be working to redevelop vacant property, wrangling retail and service business, and trying to make their neighborhood feel more like a neighborhood.

The combined advocacy groups operating under the name Friends of the Rail Park plan on converting the SEPTA spur into a park. Friends is certainly capable of raising the funds to transform and maintain this two block stretch of rail.

But the bulk of the viaduct's ownership is complex and uninvolved, and engineering the truly elevated portions of the rail is complicated. With all the talk from Viaduct advocates over the years, no one has formally addressed the real estate nightmare ahead of them.

For now, unless Callowhill's cushy residents are willing to put their foot to the pavement and grab a broom, this industrial neighborhood will remain unchanged.

As long as the industrial relic provides the neighborhood's backdrop one way or another, Callowhill will always feel exciting. Until Friends figures out how to transform and maintain, or more importantly buy the viaduct, they might want to try encouraging its neighbors to enjoy the neighborhood directly outside their doors.

Terraforming a Neighborhood

I've never spent much time in Northern Liberties, and my loathsome anxiety towards hipsters aside, after an evening in this unexpectedly dynamic neighborhood, I have to wonder, why? It doesn't make conventional sense. Sure, it's moderately convenient to transportation, but how did this neighborhood bound by I-95, urban blight, and the Spring Garden canyon come to rival areas that directly border Center City?

It's clear that urban newbies, artists, and starter families seeking a hip city lifestyle and low rent drove the Northern Liberties craze. Sex and the City can be praised for putting cafes on our sidewalks, and abhorred for putting the obnoxious skanks in the chairs, but this trend was carried across the nation. What's unique about Philadelphia, and Northern Liberties, is that a neighborhood at arm's length from our core, was not completely paired with successful infill in between.


Similar unexpected phenomena occurred in Graduate Hospital, Passyunk Square, and Fishtown. While young couples bought starter homes in blighted neighborhoods, opened up boutiques, pubs, and coffee shops, South Broad Street, Spring Garden Avenue, and the Loft District remain desolate, littered with surface lots, and largely abandoned.


Northern Liberties is overflowing with art studios and massive loft apartments, successfully leased as far as Cecil B. Moore Avenue, while Callowhill, within spitting distance of City Hall, sits on a half dozen underutilized or completely vacant warehouses with million dollar views. Prohibition Tap Room on 13th Street gets a great neighborhood crowd. Cafe Lift is packed for brunch. But where is the competition? Why doesn't 13th Street look like 2nd Street in Northern Liberties or Passyunk Avenue?

A number of variables have caused the splotchy development. As much as I want to think we're on par with New York and Chicago, we're not. We enjoyed moderate success from the condo bubble. Unfortunately the Callowhill's close proximity to Center City is also its crutch. Property owners are willing to sit and wait for another wave of prosperity, and with no land usage tax, the Heid Building and Divine Lorraine are allowed to sit vacant. Instead of developing prime locations like Broad and Washington with affordable apartments that attract the kind of business we see in Graduate Hospital, they sit unused.

The pot addled Reading Viaduct vision may be gaining legitimate traction. While realistic funding is still a mystery, 6 ABC has given it mainstream publicity. As it is, the rusted carcass that weaves its way through a series of surface parking lots and Bubonic meadows in Callowhill's Loft District does little more than inspire dreamers. But as a park, could it attract the kind of money Callowhill needs to be the first class neighborhood it should be?

It's hard to rationalize spending money on a park that would require the kind of maintenance needed by an elevated park. Similar parks in other cities are too new to really see how well it works. And Callowhill isn't SoHo. Its warehouses and row homes are surrounded by parking lots and vacant land that could themselves make potential parks that require little upkeep beyond community interaction and a lawnmower. The Reading Viaduct is a structure, and the city has a difficult time maintaining the structures we need and the parks that have nothing below them but dirt and bodies. Can Callowhill generate enough tax revenue to maintain another potential money pit?

Demolishing it would cost more than $30 million. A decision needs to be made. Tear it down or find dedicated funding to convert and maintain the white elephant. I would love to see Philadelphia become home to such a unique innovation. In fact, if the Convention Center attracts additional development south of Vine Street, it could even become a destination attraction.

With mayoral attention on the project, however idealistic, a Reading Viaduct park will at least receive the research needed to validate its potential success, or confirm the ugly prospect that some urban artifacts just can't be reused. One way or another, the Reading Viaduct's campaign is helping attract attention to a neighborhood that should be far more successful than it is. With or without the Reading Viaduct, its presence is bringing people north of Callowhill. Maybe some of them will stick around and signal business owners to the neighborhood's potential.

If only Broad and Washington had an industrial relic to attract a debate to tackle its surface lots and suburban fast food joints. Oh wait, it does. And it would make a great farmer's market.

Lost in the Squabble

Demanding too much or too little, preservationists have managed to leave at least two historic properties behind in the squabble. Years ago, developer John J. Turchi purchased former Mayor Richardson Dilworth's Washington Square mansion. Intending on restoring the property and converting it into his private residence, that wasn't good enough for the Historical Commission. Denied his attempt to reside on Washington Square, the Historical Commission demanded that it serve the neighborhood as nothing less noble than a museum.

Well nothing that remains of Dilworth House today is noble. Turchi did what developers do best, he went through the back door and filed an application to build a 20 story condo tower on the site of the house, which would have completely demolished Mayor Dilworth's presence in the neighborhood he fought to transform.

Neighborhood organizations did what they do best and tied Turchi up in hearings for years, demanding rendering after rendering, some so absurd that the facade of Dilworth's mansion was sitting in the lobby of the high rise.

Is this the compromise the Historical Commission wanted when they denied Turchi's use of the house as a private residence? Instead of a restored Colonial reproduction gracing Washington Square, Dilworth House, which was once a message to this former slum, now stands as a vacant testament to what the great mayor fought, not what he accomplished.

At the opposite end of well intended meddling, the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and the Callowhill Neighborhood Association had their say yesterday in one of the hearings to decide the fate of Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption. The non-profit group, Siloam, was granted the authority by the Historical Commission to demolish the church due to economic hardships. After hearing of the demolition's approval, a board member of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association quickly submitted the church for historic certification.

Amy Hooper, President of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association claims the organization was "caught off guard" by the demolition. Adding "the last thing (needed) is another parking lot". Truer words can't be spoken of Callowhill and Spring Garden, but in a neighborhood with sparse examples of historic properties, how is it that the status of this iconic building ever managed to fly below the radar? Perhaps Spring Garden's most prominent contribution to the skyline, not one voice at the Callowhill Neighborhood Association spoke out on behalf of this historic property until it was under the wrecking ball.

The property has long sat on numerous endangered lists, even catching the attention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Why then, was it not submitted for historic certification until after it was approved for demolition?

Additionally, Hooper noted that the building stands at the "gateway" to the Reading Viaduct which the group wants to convert into a park. But like their absent responsibility for the Church of the Assumption, the neighborhood sits on acres of potential community gardens neglected as urban landfills, and with numerous surface lots and barren concrete walls left from demolition, Callowhill does not have one mural in a city of more than 2000.

It's hard to sympathize with an organization that waited until the 11th hour to wrangle a bevy of witnesses, particularly when they clearly have a habit of neglecting their own potential.

Siloam isn't devoid of their own suspicions. Prominent developers like Alex Generalis have stepped forward to cite how little they knew of the organization's attempt to sell the property in lieu of demolition. Still, in the years that the Church of the Assumption sat vacant no one from the Callowhill Neighborhood Association pointed out the site's deteriorating state of disrepair.

In a neighborhood with no shortage of available land in the way of surface lots and vacant meadows, the last thing that comes to mind when a developer sees a vacant church is going to be "adaptive reuse". This is where neighborhood organizations can shine, by proactively addressing a potential loss in their historic portfolio. Instead, the Callowhill Neighborhood Association is best known for deterring the redevelopment of several surface lots and the fiercely debated reuse of the Reading Viaduct. Meanwhile, many Callowhill residents live in gated fortresses isolating their contribution to the city, and even their own sidewalks.

Sadly, Assistant City Solicitor Leonard Reuter may have made the most apt statement during yesterday's hearing, "Sometimes you have to let it go." And this fact isn't solely due to Siloam's sloppy and inexperienced respect for their property. The loss of the Church of the Assumption, an architecturally and historically significant site, is largely due to those who self-assign themselves watchdogs for our neighborhoods' best interests, and then ignore our neighborhoods' most valuable assets.

Meanwhile, like children caught up in a divorce and awaiting a custody decision, Dilworth House and the Church of the Assumption stand alone, both parents caught up in the squabble, neglecting what's truly at risk because of their own stubborn pride.

Nightmares at 13th and Wood

Those who know me know of my fascination with the Philadelphia before my time. I don't mean Ben Franklin's quaint, Colonial Philadelphia, or the Industrial Revolution's Workshop of the World.

I mean the bleak and dreary Philadelphia that can be caught in the background of Rocky. It's the weird Philadelphia that hatched after suburban flight and before the urban renaissance. This is the Philadelphia I remember visiting as a child.

In a way, the city almost felt more alive. The streets were bustling with people, but not with boutique shoppers and dog walkers. They were bustling with harried employees in a thriving business district, and strange apocalyptic characters prophesying the end of the world.

I'm sure it felt this way because my experience with Philadelphia in the 80's was as a daytime tourist. And I'm sure my farm raised upbringing made every city feel like Manhattan.

Still, there was something unique about Philadelphia. There was a darker side of the city. The city I'd love to relive for just one night.

In 1970, writer and director David Lynch lived on the southeast corner of 13th and Wood, in what is often now pegged as The Loft District, while attending the Academy of the Arts.

13th and Wood, the site of David Lynch's home in 1970 during his time at the Academy of the Arts in Philadelphia.

The site is now a parking lot for the adjacent U-Haul facility, but twenty years ago it was the fantastic nightmare of the writer and director of Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and Blue Velvet, and served as the inspiration for his first film, Eraserhead.

His former presence in what Lynch has described as "a very sick, twisted, violent, fear-ridden, decadent, decaying place" has led a number of residents to brand the neighborhood, The Eraserhood.

The Roman Catholic High School's annex was designed as the City Morgue by Philip Johnson in the 1920s. In the 1970's the morgue operated diagonally across from Lynch's home at 13th and Wood.

Although that name is as marketable to a realtor as The Gayborhood, it's also as uniquely Philadelphian. While Lynch, originally from Montana, has mostly negative things to say about Philadelphia and his former neighborhood, anyone who is familiar with his work knows that he finds beauty in the most disturbing images.

"It's decaying but it's fantastically beautiful, filled with violence, hate and filth," he has said of Philadelphia. He found an opening to another world in our city's decay, "it was fear...so magical, like a magnet, that your imagination was always sparking."

With the closure of the Reading Viaduct and the construction of the Vine Street Expressway, I'm sure the corner of 13th and Wood would now be a disappointment to a director known for his dark, sepia toned images of tortured souls and broken windows.

The Eraserhood is now gritty in a 21st Century way. Its soot stained masonry and small alleys are quickly becoming its charm, and it abandonment has become its parking. We may never see that world again, and perhaps that is a good thing.

While the unusual pocket between Broad and the Reading Viaduct, and Vine and Spring Garden may never again be part of Lynch's "sickest, most corrupt, decaying city filled with fear," its legacy will always find its place in his bizarre, dark, and beautiful films.

Why we don't need to save (all of) the Reading Viaduct

In a perfect city, the Pennsylvania Convention Center was built with respect for its neighborhood and lined with accommodating retail spaces catering to conventioneers.

Market East station moved passengers through its subway below high rise offices and apartments, and an integrated transit hub rose at 10th and Filbert as SEPTA's proud headquarters.

The Gallery Mall was surrounded by display windows and entrances below twin towers marking the gateway to Center City's north end entertainment district, the vibrant and lively Chinatown.

The Vine Expressway moved commuters and crosstown traffic under grand Vine Avenue, lined with tall oak trees and elite residences hosted by gleaming modern architecture and restored, historic landmarks.

Vine Street, before the construction of the Vine Street Expressway, could have capped the interstate and served as a grand, crosstown avenue.

At 11th Street, in the crosstown light rail that ran down the middle of Vine Avenue, you might be lucky enough to see the Culture Shuttle, a high speed train carrying tourists from Reading Terminal Station, through the Convention Center's rooftop garden, across Vine Avenue.

The bullet train would then weave its way through the Loft District, home to art galleries, film houses, and the city's non-profit art community.

The Culture Shuttle continued under Broad Street, and Pennsylvania Avenue after making stops at Philadelphia's nationally renowned art institutions, before carrying its guests to important Fairmount Park Stations and ultimately the Philadelphia Zoo and its historic Parkside Neighborhood to spend the twilight strolling through the manicured gardens of the newly restored Centennial Exposition Park.

Well, Philadelphians may know better than anyone that we don't live in Perfect.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center grazes on energy like a herd of pregnant cattle while turning its ass to its neighbors to the north.

Market East moves passengers out its station below undeveloped surface parking lots while Greyhound has usurped nearly a block of our blighted Chinatown to maneuver its buses.

The Gallery Mall is an isolated fortress with minimal respect to its pedestrians.

The Vine Street Expressway wedged a canyon between Vine Street, demolishing a number of architecturally significant structures important to the area's urban feel, resulting in a sea of parking lots that eat away at the remaining neighborhood.

The Vine Street Expressway Canyon, which divides the Loft District from Center City.

The Reading Viaduct is chopped off at Vine Street, leaving a few blocks of stone arches and a rusted, unused eyesore to weave its way through a decaying Loft District many residents jokingly call Eraserhood, paying homage to the David Lynch movie Eraserhead, which was inspired by the filth, violence, and decay he found while living amongst its squalor. According to David Lynch, Philadelphia was "the sickest, most corrupt, decaying city filled with fear I ever set foot in in my life."

A still from Eraserhead, inspired by David Lynch's home at 13th and Wood in the early 1970's.

The popular proposition is to convert the remains of the viaduct into an elevated park, like New York's High Line, and allow it to serve local residents. But I wonder, in our perfect city, would this really be the best option?

The Convention Center, the Gallery, and the Vine Street Expressway already cut through Center City isolating the Loft District from its urban brethren. Even as a park, the oppressive stone walls and metal ceilings of this minimally historic structure are, and would continue to serve, as just another visual barrier breaking up the urbanity of this area.

Reading Viaduct Today

Maybe we should let history be history. Developers routinely avoid this area specifically because of this white elephant. Perhaps portions of the stone supports and arches could be preserved for posterity, leaving behind the poetic ruins of an era of industry.

But converted into a park, much of the metal portion would be unimaginably expensive to maintain, not to mention it is just plain ugly. It is surrounded by surface parking and weed filled vacant lots. Until this area becomes so valuable that developers need to start designing buildings to fit the curvature of the viaduct, these undeveloped eyesores will be the view from any park atop the viaduct.

Reading Viaduct Today

The stone structure between Vine and Callowhill could serve some purpose, maybe even as an elevated park serving a newly renovated apartment building at 12th and Wood. The stone arches add a unique, and noninvasive element to the street scape.

But the metal bulk of the remaining viaduct is an invitation to blight. Its existence serving any purpose other than transportation is only arguably historic. Built around the same time, the Market Street Elevated is being renovated. Its steel constructed viaduct is being replaced with concrete. Removing most of the Reading Viaduct is no more an affront to its historic presence.

Not everything needs to be saved and reused. I'm ready to let this go. I'm curious to see a new vision for this area.

The Vine Street Expressway Problem

One of our largest lesions of surface parking lots sits in a forgotten corner of Center City. Parking Lot Town is boxed in by the Convention Center, the Vine Street Expressway, and a vibrant Chinatown brimming with authenticity rare to most American Chinatowns - a Chinatown consistently targeted by city officials and predatory developers, loved by locals and long time residents, and abhorred by urban newbies and Yellow Tags. Asian owned businesses continue to thrive not just along Arch and Race, but also north of Vine along Callowhill. Philadelphia's Chinatown may be one of the few which continues to grow as a traditional immigrant neighborhood while relatively untouched by development geared toward gentrification or an attempt to attract a homogenized upper-middle class market, all in spite of the casm the Vine Street Expressway cuts through this neighborhood, and the parking holes that litter it's perimeter.

Much has been said regarding the Vine Street Expressway. As one of the nation's shortest interstate highways, many simply question the need for it at all. Prior to its construction which took the better half of a century, Vine Street was a significantly large avenue. Though it carried drivers across the city much slower than the VSE, considering the width of Center City, is it absolutely necessary to carry them across it at 55 miles per hour, particularly since most will be traveling it during rush hour traffic?

But whether you like it or not, it's here to stay. The question is how does it remain, and what responsibility do we have to the surrounding communities it divided? Boston's "Big Dig" often comes up as a solution. Boston's I-95 cut through the literal core of the city and spanned a much larger distance and was ripe with problems. Philadelphia's VSE is much shorter, straighter, and not surrounded by the kind of large scale, modern development that lines Boston's I-95 so capping it between 10th and Broad would be relatively simple. Relatively.

Unfortunately capping it might only produce more parking. Look at the area that caps the regional rail lines leading from Market East Station. One thing Philadelphia doesn't seem to undertsand is that it's pointless (unless you want more parking) to cap something if you never plan on building anything above it. If we capped the VSE it could be nothing but parking lots. Philadelphia seems obsessed with parking. Too much is never, ever enough. We're one of the densest city's in the US, and in most neighborhoods where the average home is about as wide as a midsized sedan, residents feel entitled to at least two cars. While people in Los Angeles work towards creating public trasit options and reducing the need for cars, Philadelphia wants more parking. I'll save that for another time.

As for the VSE, why not look at it this way? Why was it built as a recessed freeway in the first place? There's really no reason. Recessed it is less obtrusive and less visible. Why not cover the VSE with Vine Street, probably what should have been done in the first place. Move the south side of the actual street on top of the VSE, reunite it with it's northern brother, open up the sea of parking lots that the south side demolition created, and give developers a wider plain to work with between Vine and Summer. This increases the room for parking garages to service Conventioneers and hotel guests, making the remaining surface lots unfriendly, ugly, and unecessary. With the VSE underground you unite the Loft District with Chinatown, remove the eyesore of a freeway in your backyard and give investors incentive to create a whole new neighborhood.