Under Wonderland

Nothing anchors a neighborhood of a certain type like a new Whole Foods. Just ask the town behind SoDoSoPa. Directly across the street from the Dalian that hosts the upscale grocer, Tom Bock received approval to build a sleek mid-rise of 33 condos behind the Rodin Museum. The site has long been a literal hole in the ground, a gaping maw that exposes parking accessed from, well...I honestly have no idea how those cars get down there.

It's led at least one person to call this corner Hole Foods. 

The premier Parkway-adjacent address at 21st and Hamilton, and the already-excavated land, offer something the Dalian doesn't have: underground parking. A former project abandoned after the Great Recession had already begun construction, so aside from some concrete and rebar, the site is prepped. The Dalian greets Hamilton Street with a glassy facade, but hovers over 21st and buildings along Spring Garden with a hulking and uninviting parking garage. Tom Bock's condominium tower, designed by Cecil Baker & Partners, stands to be far more dynamic with the kind of sunken and unseen parking that should be the rule for all urban developments. 

Although Curbed and The Inquirer both mentioned the Rail Park's master plan, which runs through the defunct railroad tunnel that would become this project's parking garage, Friends of the Rail Park have yet to comment. 

They might not. The first phase of the Rail Park is scheduled to open this spring and the second phase hasn't been fleshed out. As mapped on the Friends' site, "The Cut" is the mostly-open rail canyon that ends near 22nd and Hamilton. "The Tunnel," easily the most ambitious piece of the park, runs under Pennsylvania Avenue before traveling parallel to the freight tracks that separate the Poplar neighborhood from Lemon Hill. The latter is a favorite of urban explorers and photographers attracted to its vaulted roof and unusual lighting, and easy access to something off-limits. That's also why it's on the Rail Park's site map. 

It is a stunning sight to behold, especially in its current state. But the Rail Park itself is a gamble, and how Phase 1 pans out will dictate how it moves forward. Often compared to Manhattan's High Line Park, the Reading Viaduct runs through a more rough-and-tumble part of town. Although Callowhill and Spring Garden are gentrifying rapidly (the Callowhill ZIP code is the forth fastest gentrifying in the country), it will be a long time before the Rail Park offers views of much more than parking lots. It's appeal, like its subterranean western extension, has always been in nature's reclamation and the excitement of trespassing. Sanitized as it will become as a park, it may simply become a place for neighborhood residents to walk their dogs once the novelty wears off. 

Even Manhattan's High Line, though lauded and popular, is new. Elevated parks aren't traditional and require structural maintenance, not just seasonal gardening. Time will tell if they're sustainable or if, even in Manhattan, they become the target of inevitable budget cuts down the road. The Rail Park's underground component is a greater gamble in that it's largely untested. While it's fascinating in its current state, it's a one- or two-time destination. As a recreational trail it's just long, dark, and monotonous. Once you leave "The Cut" you're essentially walking into an abandoned subway tunnel, and the westernmost end past the vaulted ceiling is not particularly interesting. In fact, it's western entrance is a bit frightening, coupled by the fact that you'll be walking through the massive, concrete catacomb alongside an active freight line. No amount of lighting will make anyone want to push a stroller through it for a mid-morning walk. 

Short of a mandatory Civic Design Review, Tom Back has what he needs to move forward with or without consensus from the Friends of the Rail Park. Given the infancy of the park, it would be hard for Friends to argue such a premier address remain a hole in the ground on the off-chance that they may someday find the means and need to open the tunnel to recreation. It may be for the best, too. Closing the hole will allow those vested in the Rail Park to focus all their efforts on the assets above the ground. Perhaps someday, "The Cut" will connect Callowhill to the heart of the Parkway District. In the meantime, the subterranean tunnel beneath Pennsylvania Avenue will remain the realm of the adventurous looking for more mystique than a park, deep beneath the confines of SoDoSoPa.

Could the Low Line Actually Work?

About six years ago, PRA Development and Management Corporation began construction on The Residences at the Rodin in the pit behind the Rodin Museum. After the economy collapsed, the site was abandoned. Rusted I-beams still rise out of the construction site which now provides parking for the Ninth District Police Department.

But the recent uptick in development that followed the relocation of the Youth Study Center, a juvenile detention center situated oddly on our cultural corridor, has begun transforming the vicinity into something more than "that other neighborhood above the Parkway."

Investment in both the Logan Square neighborhood and nearby Callowhill have also spurred an interest in some of these communities' aging relics, most notably the Reading Viaduct and the City Branch Line. Both unused, the Reading Viaduct is steaming towards redevelopment as an elevated park similar to New York's High Line. 

But Friends of the Rail Park have also expressed interest in the unused City Branch Line which begins westward at Broad Street. The unique idea would connect residents from Callowhill and upper Logan Square to the Philadelphia Museum of Art by a greenway, ending at Pennsylvania Avenue near the Pearlman Gallery.

The proposed Low Line Park isn't necessarily an underground park, rather it treats an urban space in a three dimensional manner, utilizing the same principles from the early 20th Century that developed a network of underground rail lines. Although SEPTA is intent on retaining control of the land, the width of the space and public ownership can accommodate its future place in public transportation. In fact, renewed interest in the forgotten space and the residents and tourists it will attract could provide the demand this space needs for a light rail to be developed along the Low Line.

It's innovative, namely because the trail would utilize a defect rail line that could have served the same purpose. The Reading Viaduct was abandoned when Market East Station negated the need for Reading Terminal to act as a head house. Market East Station linked Suburban Station to neighborhoods in the northeast and a transfer was no longer necessary. 

When the Pennsylvania Convention Center was constructed and the Vine Street Expressway completed, the Reading Viaduct was demolished south of 11th and Vine. Although the Reading Viaduct is truncated at a stone stump along Vine Street, the proximity to hotels, Market East, and Chinatown provides the potential to carry droves of tourists along its line, provided the City Branch Line were to be opened to recreationalists. 

But is it too experimental? The Low Line, which would occupy the City Branch line would be unchartered territory. New York proposed a similar venture, also called the Low Line, retrofitting a defunct trolley tunnel in the Lower East Side as an underground park. Even with the success of New York's High Line, its own Low Line has yet to gain traction or the same level of excitement. 

The proposed Reading Viaduct Park would provide public greenspace in an industrial neighborhood devoid of parks. Connecting various apartment buildings above the street it would also introduce foot traffic at Broad and Noble, a block currently experience a rebirth in residential presence with Tower Place and the proposed Inquirer Building apartment conversion. 

Philadelphia's Low Line would be vastly different than New York's, with much of the tunnel already exposed to the sky and portions along Pennsylvania Avenue likely to be opened. Our Low Line would feel less like a dead mall and more like a long sunken garden.

Unfortunately for fans of the Low Line, SEPTA has yet to give any indication that it wants to relinquish the property. Despite the fact that SEPTA has no active plans to reopen the City Branch Line, Transit Agency Planner, Jennifer Barr points out a legitimate concern: the City Branch Line is an enormous asset to the city's transit network, even if it's unused. 

Right of way through dense urban cores is something newer cities like Seattle and Portland only dream of, which is why much of the rail oriented public transportation in newer cities exists as light rails and trollies that share the road. Unloading any piece of a network of underground rail lines is something the city will never get back and will no longer have if and when SEPTA wants to expand. 

Expansion may seem unheard of, but with new residents driving the demand for development between Logan Square and Girard Avenue, there may come a day when connecting the Broad Street Line to the Art Museum north will actually make sense. 

Until then, the City Branch Line will likely remain as it is, sparsely exposed to the city above and an attraction for urban explorers. But the absence of a Low Line isn't bad news for its overall objective of connecting Callowhill to the Art Museum. 

Parking lots are being replaced by apartment buildings throughout Logan Square, including the Latter Day Saint's proposed high-rise at 16th and Vine. Neighborhoods both east and west of Broad are shoring up the kind of density befitting a true extension of Center City. That in itself will play a pivotal role in encouraging people to walk the streets north of Center City that they would otherwise ignore or breeze through in a car.

David Blumenfeld, Eric Blumenfeld's brother, of Cross Properties has proposed a new mixed use apartment project for the abandoned site of PRA's Residences behind the Rodin Museum. The rendering released by architects Barton Partners is a simple massing study and doesn't look that exceptional. But Blumenfeld is awaiting input from Logan Square residents before releasing anything solid.

While preliminary, Blumenfeld noted that a greenspace perpendicular to the street will offer restaurants a view of the Rodin Museum through a publicly accessible park. Parking will be provided underground eliminating the need for a parking podium and SEPTA's right of way will be preserved. 

However none of this necessarily negates the potential for the Low Line, it just alters the logistics of an already lofty proposal. If the Low Line Park were graded upward at 20th Street it could open into a garden behind the Rodin Museum and return underground at Pennsylvania Avenue. 

It's no crazier than the notion of an underground park.

Friends of the Rail Park

Some new renderings have emerged from OLIN Studio for Callowhill's should-be Reading Viaduct Park as well as some for a City Branch Rail Park, this time opening up City Branch's tunnels to the sky.

Commissioned by Friends of the Rail Park, formerly ViaductGreene, the renderings are highly conceptual, integrating the School District Administration Building and former Inquirer Building.

OLIN Studio

At this stage in the process, this gives us a clever idea of what a rail trail park through our historic industrial district might look like. However, park advocates shouldn't get too excited about the potential reuse of property that private developers don't really control.

Friends of the Rail Trail should be commended for their recent strides, and advocates are finally headed in the right direction. In the past, ViaductGreene has been a loosely knit organization comprised of members with AutoCAD skills and a knack for getting people talking. While they managed to get neighbors involved in the discussion, they never really managed to rally any key decision makers.

Obviously, a large chunk of the neighborhood supports the project. So much so, many were willing to approve a tax increase for the Callowhill neighborhood to support park maintenance well before anything would have happened.

At this point, the property's piece meal ownership poses the biggest obstacle, particularly the portion owned by the mysterious Reading Company. The Reading Company owns the elevated portion that snakes its way through the neighborhood east of Broad. While the company largely exists as a portfolio of defunct rail lines, it's unclear whether ownership even knows of the plans for their property.

OLIN Studio

While the Inquirer Building's owner, Bart Blatstein is open to the idea, he has acknowledged SEPTA's vested interest in the property as well.

The City Planning Commission has expressed some resistance to the concept, citing the potential return of transit to the City Branch portion of the rail. It's a reasonable concern, one Leah Murphy, board member of Friends of the Rail Park acknowledged as well.

Even if it takes fifty years for transit to return to the City Branch line, these lines were established when the surrounding environment was being developed. Subways and dedicated rail lines are hard if not impossible to build in an established city, which is why newer cities opt for surface rails. The City Branch line and even the Reading Viaduct is a unique asset that, despite the fact that we don't use them, would be difficult to reestablish as a rail line after they find alternate use.

OLIN Studio

The Planning Commission has mentioned using the land as a bus line, which Murphy points out could run in tandem with a City Branch park. Park advocates remain optimistic that the line could be used as a park, at least until the city drafts realistic plans to establish some form of transit in the vicinity.

A City Branch Park and a Reading Viaduct Park remain highly speculative, although City Branch's once experimental proposal for an enclosed, underground park, now open to the elements seems more realistic than plans for the Viaduct. Not necessarily because it's more or less desirable, but because it's clear where advocates stand with the land, and who actually owns it.

Until the Reading Company becomes more than a Wikipedia page, the Reading Viaduct, at least its elevated portions east of 12th Street will remain a place reserved for those with a trespassing sense of adventure.

Leah Murphy and Friends of the Rail Trail are moving in the right direction, even if an uphill battle lies before them. Working with adjacent development, the City Planning Commission, and SEPTA, as well as a willingness to work with other potential ideas is the way to go.

Another subway surface line carrying passengers from Center City to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fairmount Park, Centennial Park, and the Philadelphia Zoo is a dreamy proposal, but one that simply isn't in the cards at the moment.

Why not open it up as a park for now? Bring more people to this colorful, sometimes bizarrely forgotten pocket of what is practically Center City, entice residents with something more than parking lots and weeds, and put some pedestrians on the ground who might someday look for a train to take them beyond.