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.

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. 

An Ethical Case for Preservation

When academics, preservationists, historians, and neighborhood advocacy groups rush to save sites as revered as the Divine Lorraine or as humble as the Race Street Firehouse, the discussions become endless. 

The Boyd Theatre drove the community to establish The Friends of the Boyd, a Facebook group, and managed to stall the wrecking ball for years. As the conversation charged on, blogs and articles piled up, and talk began to question the effectiveness of the Philadelphia Historical Commission, the ethics of developers and property owners, and the profound cultural impact of our most storied landmarks. 

The topic of the Boyd Theatre frequently strayed into the place of historic movie houses and their role in our modern, multiplex mentality. Or even more so, the silver screen's wavering foothold as the prime mover of Hollywood blockbusters. 

The Boyd was Center City's last "movie palace," a moniker reserved for movie theaters erected when Tinseltown was America's Silicon Valley. Where software companies sprawl and telecom towers rise today, the social revolution of the early 20th Century was proudly projected inside these Art Nouveau and Deco masterpieces. 

But the frustration raised by the demise of the Boyd wasn't rooted in cinema's history, and it quickly became evident that a lost art wasn't responsible for its demolition, it wasn't even brought on by a dispassionate Historical Commission or shameless developers. As the conversation quickly strayed to the Metropolitan Opera House, the fate of the Divine Lorraine, and the crumbling Church of the Assumption, a broader question emerged begging for an answer.

What are we missing?

Despite the abundance of press surrounding the Boyd, the Church of the Assumption, and the Divine Lorraine, the ire of preservationists tends to get shrouded in its' own rhetoric. "This is the last historic movie theater in town," "once the church is gone, it's gone for good," and "they don't build them like this anymore" are chanted from megaphones and printed on t-shirts. Advocacy groups throw legal maneuvers at City Hall, and City Hall does what it can. 

There is clearly a lot of soul and passion devoted to saving a landmark, but by the eleventh hour it's muddled by confusion, the public looses interest, and before we know it, that grand hotel, theater, or mansion is a parking lot.

So what is missing? There is one very powerful reason to preserve the landmarks that rose in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it's a reason that's impossible to debate. 

Yes, the Boyd, the Divine Lorraine, and the Church of the Assumption are showpieces that share invaluable architectural and social importance, and the same can be said for later sites like Falling Waters and the Society Hill Towers. But unlike buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and I.M. Pei, buildings designed by Horace Trumbauer and Richard Morris Hunt, buildings built throughout America's Gilded Age and Roaring Twenties, were done so with a ferocious and cash fueled disregard. 

Sites like Lynnewood Hall and Biltmore Estate are America's Pyramids, and understanding how they were built can be just as quizzical. Preserving Victorian masterpieces like the Hale Building or infrastructure like the robust stone arches of the Reading Viaduct isn't the cultural legacy of the barons that bankrolled them or the political backdoor deals that got them done. No, preserving them is a cultural obligation to the slave labor and indentured craftsmen that did the heavy lifting.

They don't build them like they used to because they can't...and shouldn't. If there's any reason to preserve every masterpiece built between the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression, that's the one.

It's easy to look at the Middle East and China and know exactly why we no longer compete for height and architectural prowess, but it's just as easy to ignore that we were once Dubai or Beijing, locking our least fortunate into servitude to build taller, wider, and ever astounding. 

Some day Eastern Nations may find themselves with the same ethical dilemma, staring up at the Burj Khalifa or across the Sheikh Zayed Bridge, wonder what's so marvelous about them. Until someone reminds them of the hundreds of immigrants that died building their cities. 

As we continue to embrace later architectural legacies of the 20th Century - International Style, Arts and Crafts, Brutalism - let's not forget that each era comes with its own, unique narrative. The Divine Lorraine, the Church of the Assumption, the Reading Viaduct, these aren't just architects and cultural movements, they're the bloodied knuckles of the Africans, Irish, and Native Americans who built them.

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.

Philly's Got Class

Philadelphia University graduate, Christopher Class, noted our city's deplorable reputation as a a filthy energy hog, stated in so many words in a report by the Pennsylvania Environmental Council. Essentially, our air sucks and we don't recycle. Does anyone else miss the 90s? When everyone recycled and toothpicks weren't individually wrapped in plastic? Boy did we lose that battle.

But Class doesn't seem ready to give in, and his experimental school, the Reading Viaduct Sustainability Center doesn't just help the environment and teach about doing so, it solves several other urban obstacles in the process.

Although the project is heavily experimental, it's more exciting than most plans released by seasoned architects and a prime example of any city's need for fresh talent.

The sprawling center runs from Reading Viaduct's Vine Street stump to 12th and Race. Pedestrian causeways branch out in multiple directions across the Vine Street Expressway, sidewalks elevated above what appear to be energy generating fans. 

Without demolishing a single building, the center transforms the undesirable real estate facing the Convention Center's loading dock into purposeful galleries and classrooms congruously to a wild building hovering over a park that anchors 12th and Race.

Reading Viaduct Sustainability Center - Christopher Class

But despite Philadelphia's poor score in one environmental survey, our city has a unique interest in sustainability. Much of our woes are the directly result of our aging and existing infrastructure. The same problems exist in London and New York. Our lack of investment in sustainable buildings is incidental. We simple have far more old buildings than new ones, or ones that can efficiently "go green."

That hasn't stopped new development from making strides in this area. When Comcast Center was built, it was the tallest "green" building in the country and Lincoln Financial Field generates so much of its own solar and wind power that it sells its reserves to the city.

There is always room for improvement and the ideas are limitless. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia so why not put a solar roof on every building in Center City? Our narrow streets cause wind tunnels on our most towering avenues. Put them to work with giant fans. Turn Philadelphia into a self sustaining power plant. Experimental theories of course, but Philadelphia is more innovative than most think. 

The Other Disney Holes

The Disney Hole at 8th and Market, a surface parking lot once home to Gimbels and the proposed site of a DisneyQuest indoor amusement park, has been a black eye on Market East's already battered face for decades. But in a city that has more parking than it knows what to do with, it isn't Center City's worst example of poor planning that defaulted to the status quo of urban real estate: surface parking.

In the 1980s, when loft living was more akin to starving artistry than wealthy yuppies, the area north of Arch Street between 11th and Broad looked a lot like Old City. It was packed with underutilized warehouses, some providing cheap housing and office space, others vacant. Interspersed with worthless trinity homes, modest row houses, and ample parking, blocks and blocks were razed for the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Vine Street Expressway's extension, and a Market East Station that allowed trains leaving Suburban Station to connect directly to the Northeast.

Unfortunately these shortsighted projects failed to recognize the potential future of Center City and the neighborhood once referred to as the Furnished Room District. At the time, Market East was lined with triple X theaters and this neighborhood was the backwater of Philadelphia's sex industry. The collateral damage was welcome, a neighborhood so disdained that little history was ever even recorded. Many buildings demolished without the posterity of a photograph.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center, despite its woes, did pull this neighborhood up. Reading Terminal Market has handsomely reaped the rewards. But its attractions and hotels cater to those who come to the city in cars, and the equal and opposite reaction to the area's success has been the Disney Holes along Vine Street that continue to chip away at what's left.

Vine Street has been a wide avenue since the 1930s, and has long since detached Callowhill from its right to truly call itself Center City. It was likely perceived that the Vine Street Expressway would be no worse. But a lack of insight and a loathing for the Furnished Room District allowed urban planners to not only introduce a freeway, but also widen Vine's existing surface streets, requiring more demolition along the east bound lanes leaving blocks too narrow to truly develop.

It was a dumb move. Interstate 676 was specifically designed to relieve crosstown traffic on Vine Street. If anything, Vine's surface components should have been narrowed. The street rarely sees the need for its six lanes and those who use it as an exit ramp to New Jersey speed. And for reasons I'll never quite understand, most Jersey bound traffic tends to use Race Street to connect to the Ben Franklin Bridge.

But as the city continues to grow, defying a post-recession logic, little has been said of Center City's final frontier. Have those in City Hall been in office so long that they still turn a blind eye to a neighborhood they fought so hard to erase? Lavish master plans have been proposed to connect Center City and the Delaware River, the Ben Franklin Parkway is still improving, and plans have been proposed as far north as Strawberry Mansion. Why has the Furnished Room District, two blocks form City Hall, been ignored?

Some have suggested capping the Vine Street Expressway, among other things. All fine ideas, but none have gotten attention from those who could make it happen. When you consider the fact that the improvements at the Pennsylvania Convention Center are already beginning to resonate, it seems even odder that this neighborhood remains forgotten. These parking lots are about as relevant to City Hall as those surrounding the Stadium District. 

And perhaps that's why. The state foolishly failed to provide any designated parking for the Convention Center and these lots wildly profit as necessary evil. The center even advertises them. All thirty six of them. Yes, thirty six. Thirty six parking lots and garages that the Pennsylvania Convention Center advertises on its website, not one owned by the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Perhaps soon the center will find enough money to cap its Race Street facade with its own garages. It has the room, and the space would generate money. Can you imagine that? A Pennsylvania Convention Center free from the confines of the Carpenters and Teamsters, with a can't-beat downtown location, and its own designated parking? Wow.

But I digress.

More hotels are coming. Once the last surface lot on Arch Street disappears, hotels will find themselves on North Broad Street, Race Street, and ultimately development will begin to replace the Disney Holes along Vine Street.

The city needs to get out in front of the progress and tackle Vine Street now. Change is happening and it's happening fast. Designating street parking on Vine Street and narrowing each side to two lanes would dramatically slow down traffic, improve pedestrianization, and expand the footprint for potential development. 

Vine Street may not even need to be capped to pull Callowhill closer to Center City. Many cities have highway trenches running through their cores, and those that succeed without a Big Dig succeed because they're surrounded by dense development. Let's start enticing that development with a better Vine Street and finish what the city started thirty years ago. 

Stream_Line

Back in October, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture announced the winners of the Steel Design Student Competition and not surprisingly, in the Building to Bridge category, local Philadelphia University students took to the Reading Viaduct with Stream_Line.

Stream_Line gracefully extends the Vine Street stump of the Reading Viaduct across the Vine Street Expressway to the sidewalk on the southern side of the street.

Not content with simply curving its way across the canyon with a pedestrian bridge, students Garrow, Martin, and Shenk housed exhibition space and other resources inside the structure itself.

With the neighborhood's investment in local artists, it's easy to imagine gallery space illuminated high above the expressway. Perhaps more importantly, Stream_Line shows us how to architecturally interact with our highways without hiding them under concrete and parks.

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.

How Low Can You Go?

The building frenzy in Manhattan isn't slowing down anytime soon. While Callowhill residents use the success of the High Line to justify their own park in the sky, New Yorkers are citing their own success to dig deeper. Literally.


It's being called the LowLine, and designers Dan Barasch and James Ramsey have secured an unprecedented $125,000 in donations.


Using modern technology to redirect sunlight they envision a subterranean park occupying an abandoned subway line, 60,000 square feet in all.

It sounds pretty spectacular, and if Manhattan was the vertical city of moving sidewalks and mile high gardens Hugh Ferriss once predicted, underground parks might sound less like science fiction and more like necessity.


But as crowded as New York is, it is just another big city. It has some of the most beautiful parks in the world, one of the biggest system of urban parks in the country, and dozens of neighborhoods lit by the sun that the streets of Bladerunner and The Fifth Element lacked.


Kudos on an exciting concept but that's what it is. If New York is blessed with enough wealthy eccentrics and a tax surplus large enough to ignore schools and services, more power to them. But most urbanites don't even like shopping indoors, and the LowLine is little more than a mall's concourse without stores. At best it's a nice quasi outdoor reprieve for joggers on a rainy day.

The Perfect Storm

A turf war is brewing in the neighborhood north of the Vine Street Expressway between Philadelphia's Chinatown community and Callowhill's loft-living yuppies. The s***showdown has spawned so many rumors and so much hostility from both sides, it's impossible to determine what exactly was proposed and where we landed. The only thing that seems to be clear is that it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with marking territory.

The Philadelphia Inquirer lauded Maria and John Yuen for going up against the Callowhill neighborhood and successfully blocking a proposed Neighborhood Improvement District. The NID would have added a 7% tax to the residents in the Callowhill neighborhood in exchange for maintenance services.

Or was it for the maintenance of the proposed but uncertain Reading Viaduct Park? Or did it exempt the park? Both sides are spewing so much propaganda, it wouldn't be clear to anyone signing a petition.

The problem at the center of the entire debate seems to be the park which was used to sell the NID to Callowhill residents, and used to oppose it to Chinatown residents. It's likely the NID would have passed if the park had never been proposed in the first place. Whether for or against to the park, neither side seems willing to admit that it's highly unlikely we'll see the viaduct redeveloped in any way anytime soon.

What is clear is that the Inquirer's headline is misleading if not downright wrong. Callowhill NID Foes Went Up Against Powerful Forces and Won. Obviously the powerful forces at play were those opposed to the NID if they managed to gather enough signatures to kill it.

In NIMBYism on top of NIMBYism, Maria Yuen even created NOVA, the North of Vine Association, to represent the same neighborhood that the Callowhill Neighborhood Association already represents instead of joining the CNA to work with them.

Some opposed to the NID have even claimed the area north of Vine to be historically part of Chinatown that was cut off when the Vine Street Expressway was built. In fact, Vine Street had divided the two neighborhoods prior to the expressway's construction. Historically the neighborhood north of Vine was known as the Tenderloin. Before the expressway divided the two neighborhoods, Chinatown was exponentially smaller. Opposition seems to be attempting to rewrite history to make its case. Chinatown's growth is great, but the direction in which it would have grown is irrelevant to history.

Unfortunately, the reluctance of both sides to compromise will ultimately harm this area. I don't think the NID is the way to clean up Callowhill. We already pay enough taxes, and there's no reason to add another layer on top of federal, state, and city taxes. The money is there to clean up all of our neighborhoods, we just mismanage it. Many in favor of the NID seem to be confusing their property value with how much it costs for it to exist. A NID may raise the resale price of their home, but unless the NID makes some dramatic improvements, the increase will be to cover the new tax, not because their property is more valuable.

Even if we want to create an Improvement District, other neighborhoods have Business Improvement Districts which tax businesses, not residents. Callowhill lacks the business for this to make any realistic impact.

I don't agree with the way this NID was defeated. Was it Democratic? Yes. Did both side abuse the hype over a pipe dream to make their case? Absolutely.

Philadelphia doesn't have to be expensive to be clean. We all want our property value to go up, but we want it to go up because it's more valuable, not more expensive. Unfortunately the voice in Callowhill seems to confuse the two. At the same time, the voice on behalf of Chinatown is willing to engage in the Democratic process, but unwilling to engage in our Capitalistic process, and the conflict at Vine Street seems to be brewing the Perfect Storm of American Ideology.

Race to Race Street

I went down to the new Race Street Pier just after it opened and I have to admit, it's beautiful. Unfortunately I went back there last weekend and it's a ghost town.

This is why I'm leery of rebranding the Reading Viaduct as Manhattan Highline's southern sister. It's a lot of money to throw at an iffy location.

I hope that the Race Street Pier invites development because that's exactly what it needs to succeed. As it stands it's a destination attraction with a bad destination.

Additionally, as I understand it, the "wood" used in its construction will all but last forever. After seeing the reconstruction of Jeanette's Pier in Nags Head, NC, this bizarre material is my only complaint in the design of Race Street Pier.

It looks like plastic. And when it comes to Philadelphia's most famous art - graffiti - traditional wood is probably a lot cheaper to replace than whatever this stuff is.

Apparently the pier has been recently adorned with "Melissa Joan Hart" in unimpressive white pen. As much as I loved Sabrina the Teenage Witch, I want to meet the hipster that decided to brand our newest landmark with this tag.

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.

Eraserhead

It seems like everyone has been catching David Lynch's cult classic, Eraserhead, On Demand. After hearing that this neighborhood was often referred to as the Eraserhood because of Lynch's residing here in the 60s and 70s, and as a Twin Peaks fan, I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about.

Like a lot of his stuff, it seemed weird for the sake of being weird. A lot of very interesting and eerie stills that might make better photography than cinema, and a story that probably only makes sense to him, if even.

Still, like most of David Lynch's more avante garde films, it's unusual visuals make for good conversation. It's an interesting bit of local flavor too. Lynch has stated that the movie was inspired by his nights in the Callowhill neighborhood in the 60s and 70s.

I would love to see the Callowhill Neighborhood Association organize a public showing of this, perhaps in one of the vacant lots or parking lots around the neighborhood. Maybe even up against the locked entrance to the viaduct.

So many Callowhill residents are always talking about the hidden potential in the Reading Viaduct, but in the mean time rarely go outside. Even if the neighborhood association wasn't interested, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to clean up a lot and power up a projector.

The entrance to the viaduct is used for nothing more than a dog park and could easily be cleaned up for an outdoor mixer. It would be a great way to get people out to meet each other. Most Callowhill residents seem to drive straight to their parking space, go home, and lock the door.

Even if one wouldn't be interested in David Lynch's nightmares, wandering out in the evening and opening their doors to migle with their neighbors would be a welcome change to a neighborhood that's been hiding in its own shadows since long before David Lynch ever set foot here.

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.