Is Philadelphia Walkable? Not According to Smart Growth America

From the world of irrelevant lists comes Time's latest pile of misinformed shit that branded Miami, Atlanta, and yes, even Pittsburgh, more walkable than Philadelphia.

Sometimes I wonder if those in the national media have ever been to Philadelphia. Then I remember, no, most still think Philadelphia is a less fortunate Baltimore somewhere in either Pennsylvania or New Jersey, a city that was once good at manufacturing...or something. 

Media snobs have watched Atlanta, D.C., and New York evolve because they work there. When they vacation in South Beach they confuse it with a downtown Miami they've never seen, and they love it. 

But when Philadelphia is nodded for a national article, it's easier to write about it from a Manhattan cubicle than waste a short Acela ride south. National journalists have been peddling the same tripe about the City of Brother Love since the last time they visited, sometime around the M.O.V.E. disaster or Budd Dwyer's on air suicide, the kind of aged tragedies with which Philadelphia is synonymous, whether or not they happened here.

To them, "Philadelphia (still) isn't as bad as Philadelphians say it is," and we still throw snowballs at Santa.

But reputation can't skew statistics despite how journalists may interpret the numbers to boost their own cities. Data is data, and according to Smart Growth America at George Washington University, Philadelphia is only the thirteenth most walkable city. 

The fishiness of the survey comes from the fact that New York isn't ranked the nation's most walkable city. No, it's George Washington University's own Washington, D.C., followed by New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Chicago.

Smart Growth America advocates for the kind of development Philadelphia mastered over two hundred years ago and continues to deliver. Like many advocates for pedestrianization from newer and emerging cities, they've reinvented the horse and claimed it their own, forgetting how many American cities were built around the animal that moves only slightly faster than a harried pedestrian.

The irrelevance in these surveys comes from the fact that not all cities are created equal. Comparing New York to Seattle, number six on the list, is like comparing a Wharton graduate to a third grade honor roll student. Sure, Seattle is excelling at accommodating 600,000 residents with a decent bus system, but New York is continuing to supply a multimodal network to eight million. 

The same applies to Philadelphia, particularly when you consider a city is more than the residents made up within its limits.

If you've ever visited D.C. as a tourist you've likely marveled at its expansive subway system and its walkable downtown. But if you've ever lived there you've seen through the facade. Metro, which is more comparable to Philadelphia's regional rail network than a traditional subway, travels neighborhood to neighborhood within the city. Without a traditional downtown, walkability usually includes busses or trains between neighborhoods that tourists rarely see. 

In the suburbs it's even worse. SEPTA's regional rail network was largely developed before cars became popular and thusly most stations occupy hubs of walkable, 19th Century pedestrianization. 

Metro was developed in the 1970s when commuters wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible. Its suburban stations are black holes of pedestrianization, miles from residential enclaves developed at a time when mixed use planning was deemed outdated. Many beltway suburbs aren't even serviced by D.C.'s regional bus system, and when they are, you're stuck walking through your 80s era cul de sac community. 

What D.C. has in one of its only walkable suburbs, Old Town Alexandria, Philadelphia has tenfold in Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, Media, and Doylestown. 

The reason D.C. fared better than New York is the same reason Miami and Atlanta fared better than Philadelphia. We're big cities, some of the biggest in fact. While Miami and Atlanta comfortably cater to a relatively small population only recently interested in walkability, Philadelphia has been doing it steadily since the 17th Century. A more apt analysis would be walkability amongst metropolitan areas or even a survey of perceived walkability, number of cars per resident, or percentage of those without cars.

Has Gehry Given Up?

What's perhaps worse than a bad idea is an idea that makes absolutely no sense. A video from Action News 6abc shows a detailed, illuminated model of Frank Gehry's proposed alterations to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Earlier photographs and renderings only showed bird's eye views of the plans, making it unclear exactly how it would look from Eakins Oval or the Parkway, you know, where people would see it. And surprise, it's as ugly as anyone could imagine.

Sorry, not ugly. Ugliness has merit. It takes effort. Someone has to try to design something truly ugly. 

Gehry's alterations look more like something a child might dream up with a coloring book from the PMA's gift shop. They're senseless. At best, juvenile. 

He's haphazardly placed skylights within the museum's plaza, four square, one round, geometrically flanked by two recessed entrances. Meanwhile the picture window and seating area within the Great Steps provide natural light to the underground gallery space, but no entrance where one would assume. 

Timothy Rub, the museum's director wants people to keep an open mind about the plans yet stated, "its an interesting idea that has some merit." Some merit? Those aren't the confident words we want coming from those in charge of such dramatic changes to our city's greatest cultural asset.

Gehry, who seems fixated on skylights is replacing the seven unfinished pediments with, yes, more skylights. Has Gehry, an octogenarian who's practiced architecture for more than fifty years, simply given up? For all the support the Philadelphia Museum of Art is trying to raise for Gehry's proposals, they seem more interested in the man himself than looking at the designs he's presented. Would there be the same fan fair if these plans were submitted by anyone not branded a starchitect? 

Where are the preservation activists and the Historical Society? Inga Saffron who's made no bones in the past about criticizing popular opinion called Gehry's steps "controversial," but went on to grant a pass stating the "museum should be allowed one daring move." Has our champion of Philadelphia's best buildings, past and future, been mesmerized by this celebrity as well?

The powers behind this decision have their heads buried elsewhere when they need to be looking at what they are allowing to be done to this historic landmark. Ignore the architect and independently examine the merit of the designs. 

Suggest alternatives. Why can't Gehry replace the stone steps with glass ones? They've given the man carte blanche when they should be surveying those in cities with a Gehry, asking them how the feel about it. Los Angeles' Walt Disney Concert Hall was so poorly designed that it acted as a concave mirror scalding pedestrians like ants. Do we want that touching a museum that holds priceless art?

Would New York allow Gehry to transform the Guggenheim? Absolutely not and we should hold ourselves to the same standard. Philadelphia is on the brink of many great things. Don't lose sight of the things that already make us great.

Last Call for the Please Touch Museum

In what should be one of Philadelphia's premier pockets of culture and tourism, Centennial Park's attractions continue to elude their visitors as isolated venues. While the Philadelphia Zoo, the Please Touch Museum, and the Mann Center are geographically close to the Schuylkill Banks and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, getting there on foot is another story.

A journey that could be aided by a simple crosswalk on Kelly Drive below the Girard Avenue Bridge instead requires a Broad Street subway ride connecting to the Girard Avenue trolly or several bus transfers through West Philadelphia's less scenic neighborhoods. 

Despite the restoration of Parkside's Victorian mansions and proposed improvements to Centennial Park itself, the site of the the first World's Fair might as well be in another city. And the Please Touch Museum is reeling from the separation anxiety. Since the museum opened in 2008 it has amassed more than $50M in debt and the museum's investors want them to pay.

The museum holds a lot of local oddities including a children's monorail that used to wind its way through Wanamaker's Department Store and a  detailed model of the Centennial Exposition. Hop on the Phlash and get up there while you still have a chance to see what the museum has to offer. It might not be there much longer.

Laura Palmer's House is for Sale

I loved the 1990s. People recycled, music meant something, and you could smoke at Starbucks. But around the time I was practicing five speed on my dad's "Farm Use Only" Ford Ranger, I discovered the most 90s thing of all time: Twin Peaks.

Dated for sure - right down to Audrey's saddle shoes and Laura's hair - the show that had all of America asking "Who Killed Laura Palmer" was decades ahead of its time. In fact, given the uncompromising weirdness that is the show's co-creator, David Lynch, Twin Peaks may have not simply been ahead of it's time, but out of this world.

Now for about $550,000 you can own the house where it all began. Used in the pilot and the prequel film, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the Palmer "home" in Everett, WA is for sale. 

The house is largely unchanged. The pink carpet and dated wallpaper are gone, but the wicker chair where Laura sat to write torrid secrets in her infamous diary remains in its place more than twenty years later.

Considering the notoriety this prime time drama received and the cult following it has since amassed, perhaps a fan will do what Brian Jones did with The Christmas Story house. At more than half a million dollars, it's a little pricy for a movie museum, but I hope the new owners decide to reinstall the ceiling fan that haunted Sarah Palmer's waking nightmares.

Fueled by internet speculation, rumors of David Lynch and Mark Frost revisiting Twin Peaks routinely come and go from time to time. Unfortunately it seems that long time fans of a show that lasted only two short seasons are left with endless questions and disturbing images burned into our minds. Exactly how Lynch wants it.

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David Lynch studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts on North Broad Street in the late 1960s. He lived in a house on 13th and Wood, diagonally across from the morgue, now part of Roman High School.

He described Philadelphia as "decaying but...fantastically beautiful, filled with violence, hate and filth," crediting the city for the inspiration to make his first film, Eraserhead. Prior to PAFA's upcoming David Lynch exhibit, he returned to the city in 2012. He said, "I remember when the city was gray and dirty and deteriorated and ugly and a real mess and had real character, and now it’s all bright and shiny just like every other city."

His former neighborhood, dubbed Eraserhood by many, is now an odd mix of pricy lofts, an expanding Chinatown, sprinkled with abandoned warehouses, older row homes, and the defunct Reading Viaduct. 

As plans solidify to convert the viaduct into an elevated park, so does the neighborhood's prominence. But like Laura's wicker chair that still adorns the Palmer residence, David Lynch's soul is still in Philadelphia, a city that evoked nightmares in the modest Montanan, ever present in his haunting works of art.

Gizmodo on Gehry

Geoff Manaugh published a hilarious article on Gizmodo on why "Frank Gehry is Still the World's Worst Living Architect."  That says a lot in a world where Michael Graves and Robert Venturi still practice. 

Although Manaugh doesn't mention Gehry's proposed alterations to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (the changes are more offensive to the history of the institution than they are outright ugly), he does a fine job of conveying how little those running our cities actually know - or even care - about the aesthetics of our built environment. 

They simply want a Gehry.

Between comparing Gehry's architecture to Guy Fieri's hair and Phyllis Diller mid-stroke, Manaugh points out how expensive and time consuming Gehry's work can be, and how poorly constructed they are. But the most interesting point he may have made is that these buildings are grand illusions, bizarre facades hiding dull warehouses wedged within the space available. 

Despite what you may see in front of you, it's just not significant architecture. Many architectural theorists applaud him for using unconventional software to design, but there's a reason he's the only one who does it. Software intended to design airplanes isn't intended to design buildings because buildings don't fly. 

You know who does use this sort of software to design architecture? Walt Disney Imagineering. 

Gehry has essentially redesigned Cindarella's Disneyland castle - repeatedly - by using software capable of incorporating functional mechanics inside a sheath that looks like something else.

The only brilliance in that is the gimmick. 

But to those running cities that want a Gehry, his buildings are a shiny set of keys jingling above a crib. And those running the Philadelphia Museum of Art are no exception to the rule. Loving art for art's sake, the powers behind the museum don't understand Gehry's work anymore than they seem to understand the artistic significance of the museum itself. 

They don't see a big, wet turd on the steps of the Museum of Art, they see a name.

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The unfortunate obsession with starchitects, particularly when they impact our hallowed institutions, is that it outsources to those who know little about our cities and civic pride. Horace Trumbauer, one of the main architects who designed the Philadelphia Museum of Art, was an architectural legend, but local. He understood the city, our people, and as a Philadelphian, he knew he would have to answer to his design every single day.

Philadelphia is a hotbed of emerging architects, some of them amazing. By extending a fat paycheck to a Canadian architect who clearly doesn't get Philadelphia, the museum doesn't just offend its own architectural heritage, it insults the Trumbauers of today, those currently practicing in Philadelphia, accountable for the buildings they're designing for their own city.

Making a Classic Modern

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has finally released Frank Gehry's master plan for renovations to the world renowned art museum. In "Making a Classic Modern," the PMA displays Frank Gehry's indoor renovations gracefully complementing the catacombs formerly unseen by guests while downplaying what Gehry intends to do with perhaps the museum's most visited, free attraction: the steps.

Ironically Gehry, an architect known for bending metal like Magneto, hasn't executed his signature style on his exterior elements at the PMA. Instead, perhaps in an effort to respect the reverence of the building, dumbs his exterior renovations down to a picture window wedged in one sixth of the Great Steps.

Of course modern is relative, particularly in terms of an architect who's been practicing his craft since 1962. His most iconic works, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, were designed in the late 90s, both completed more than ten years ago. 

Gehry's relevance as a modernist is only in the sense that he's still building. What we're left with is a Starchitect recognizable in name only, one who has chosen to reinvent his unique, metallic curvatures with a sunken picture window desecrating one of Philadelphia's most visited attractions. 

If the PMA were less concerned with pomp and more concerned with preserving its place in history, we might see what a truly modern firm could do with this space. After all, history will remember what it looks like, not an architect's status in 2014.

Strategically, no rendering of what this will look like from Eakins Oval is available. 

When I. M. Pei completed his Pyramid at the Louvre in 1989 it was not without contention. Many still revile the structure as a scar upon Paris. While the large plaza facing the Louve shares some of the architectural elements as the vast steps facing the Philadelphia Museum of Art - namely, the humbling nature of vast and subtle architectural intentions - the steps of the PMA add a humbling journey one must embark upon before reaching greatness.

It is truly Philadelphia's Acropolis.

"Making a Classic Modern" is not just irrelevant, it's irresponsible. The cohesive collection of architecture that makes up the Philadelphia Museum of Art is about as astounding and godly as one can get. Deliberate or not, Horace Trumbauer and other architects created one of the most spiritual places on earth.

After the daunting task of tacking the steps, an optical illusion created by the width and curvature of each individual step, visitors are cleared of mind, body, and spirit, cleansed of the world they left behind at Eakins Oval to truly embrace the collections they are about to experience.

Afterwards, they can explore the nature that awaits them along the Shuylkill River, the eclectic architecture comprised within the Waterworks, Boathouse Row, and the winding trails leading them through the rocks on which our Parthenon sits, contemplating the spiritual and artistic journey they just took.

Inadvertent as this collection of architecture may be, what we have is rare. If Gehry intends to alter that experience in any way, he needs to compliment that journey.

The Great Steps are where our journey begins. This is where we embark on our quest for solitude and spirituality through art. For the same reason that Central Park was never developed, the Great Steps to the Philadelphia Museum of Art are a place for contemplation, not clutter. 

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Somewhere, Gloria Steinem Weeps

Whether you're conservative or liberal, religious or secular, if you've been on Facebook - or just online - in the past week, you haven't missed out on the fact that this Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood thing is kind of a big deal.

The ruling essentially treats for profit companies like private individuals with religious ideals (even when the company profits on cheap crap manufactured in China), allowing them to refuse to cover medical procedures they unscientifically deem synonymous with abortion.

Displaying the evangelical extreme of these corporations, and the ignorance of the men on SCOTUS, these companies may now choose to exempt certain forms of contraception in their health care plans. Plans provided by informed health insurance companies, not the medical brainiacs selling silk flowers and yarn.

The most disturbing image of the Hobby Lobby Movement may be this one, of a young woman clearly possessed by the spirit of religious indoctrination, proudly proclaiming her freedom from a lifetime of choice.

Somewhere, Gloria Steinem weeps.

While the ruling only affects certain forms of contraception provided by health care companies tied to companies who wish to file the proper paper work, the women on SCOTUS recognized the slippery slope this precedent sets. Namely Justice Ruth Bater Ginsberg who stated that the court "has ventured into a minefield."

Specific or not, no ruling can control a precedent. We've seen precedents aid progress in the gay marriage movement, beginning with Civil Unions and state recognition eventually leading to full and equal representation.

In an era of sweeping progress across America, both in LGBT rights and affordable healthcare, this could be the beginning of the extreme Right's attempt to retaliate, a step towards evangelical relevance, at least in terms of political presence. 

But it may also hurt moderate Republicans and the overall GOP. Like fringe extremes on the Left, the evangelical movement has been a black mark on the Right. Prominent Republican candidates typically dodge evangelicals despite their willingness to vote for the Right ever since Pat Robertson ran for the White House.

Even Christians have criticized Hobby Lobby for referring to itself as a "Christian business," noting its thousands of products manufactured in China where child labor and abortion abound. There is bipartisan stink around this ruling and it will undoubtedly impact voters' decisions in November, particularly women voters in both parties.

Unfortunately, the precedent has been set for corporations to deny coverage for vaccines, blood transfusions, and life saving treatments that deviate from extreme Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Mormon, even Dianetic beliefs.

Corporations are now people and the evangelicals have rolled the dice. When your boss asks that you wear a hijab because your hair offends your employer's religious beliefs, just remember, religious zealots brought this on themselves.