Mural Arts: Too Much of a Good Thing?

This year, the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts will be helping the city celebrate the 30th anniversary of its Mural Arts Program. The success of the MAP isn't just noted for its lavish, colorful murals adorning Philadelphia's less desirable neighborhoods or vacant walls, but it's been echoed in cities around the world, a solution to profane graffiti and blight.

But in recent years the MAP's relevance has been called into question. As Philadelphia gets cleaner, as vacant lots are filled in with new construction, the MAP has found itself a divisive organization, even contentious. Once was a time when residents of our struggling neighborhoods longed for the MAP to come to their vacant corner, the MAP could propose anything, professional or amateur, and the city would oblige.

Now that the city's poorer neighborhoods are covered in murals, the MAP's mission has changed, with grand murals gracing the sides of buildings in our city's most successful neighborhoods. But while the MAP's mission has evolved, its self assigned image as necessary and welcome hasn't. There are places that don't need murals, even places where the murals themselves serve as the visual blight the program once attempted to eradicate.

The MAP has become too much of a good thing.

That fact has made itself evident in the program's most recent proposal, a pair of 100 foot wide paintings along the Schuylkill River at the base of the Girard Avenue Bridge.

The base of the bridge is nothing significant and the paintings, a tribute to the Schuylkill's rowing history, would be tasteful. But the Department of Parks and Recreation didn't simply offer MAP blind approval. Although the Art Commission was consulted in the murals' approval, Parks and Rec's deputy Mark Focht took the murals under thoughtful consideration, recognizing that Fairmount Park, even along the heavily trafficked Kelly Drive, may not need the MAP.

Although Focht noted that Fairmount Park is not devoid of art, sculptures cast in bronze or carved from native stone surrounded by boxwoods and ivy don't interfere with the natural experience our parks offer. Brightly colored paintings on the other hand, can be more distraction than complement.

The MAP had no intention to segue into Fairmount Park until veteran rower Tony Schneider offered the program $85,000 towards the paintings, so it's not clear if the precedent will encourage the MAP to creep further into the woods or if this is a one time deal.

Time will tell.

For this location, a mural may be an improvement. While the success of the Schuylkill River Trail speaks for itself, murals on the underside of this unimpressive bridge will probably do nothing to improve or hinder the trail's experience. They will simply exist.

As for the program itself, finding itself in front of the desk of resistance should signal to those in charge that their goal was never to cover Philadelphia in a coat of Duron. Philadelphia is exciting and dynamic on its own, especially in the vast panoramic views from Fairmount Park and Kelly Drive. 

Center City's Final Frontier

Reviewing past proposals for last night's blog revealed an overwhelming number of failed projects in Center City's first, yet final frontier: the Delaware River.

The wild success of the Schuylkill River continues to defy local convention with endless projects coming to fruition, and developers eagerly sidle up to the river. Why not the Delaware? Had the waterfront's industrial infrastructure not been demolished for Interstate 95, would it be an extension of Old City today? Perhaps, but we'll never know.

 
America's favorite billionaire gas bag and comb-over enthusiast, Donald Trump, didn't bring its A-game to Philadelphia, neither in location nor style, particularly when compared to those in New York or Chicago.

But even without a sunken highway separating Penns Landing from Society Hill, the Delaware River has some ills that have nothing to do with Philadelphia's grid.

The truth is, the Schuylkill is the perfect urban river. It's conveniently sailed and kayaked, it's narrow enough to stroll across one of its many bridges, and most importantly, whichever bank you're on, there's something on the other side.

Mark Mendelson's Liberty Landing was one of the Delaware River's wilder proposals, claiming to be a city in itself residents would never need to leave. Pitched around 2002, it surfaced at an overwhelmingly optimistic time.

If the banks of the Delaware were lined with its post-industrial port environment, it would likely be Old City on the river. It would be a neighborhood, still detached from Philadelphia's core by a wide boulevard. It would be packed dense with lofts and nightlife, but with little room for recreation. Had that been its fate, it would be of no concern. Joggers would take to the Schuylkill Banks and the Parkway for their daily runs, just as they do today.

Varenhorst proposed relocating a restored SS United States at Penns Landing.

Penns Landing's debacle is two fold, and its cyclical problems continue to reaffirm themselves. Developers propose condos and apartments, then walk away because the moderate development that exists doesn't succeed, leaving it desolate for future developers to do the same. Dockside and Waterfront Square attempted to bring life to the Delaware River, buy isolated themselves behind suburban landscaping, offering no way for future development to interact. The Hyatt is Penns Landing's best attempt at urban design, yet despite its height, relationship with the sidewalk, and access to one of the interstate's best caps, its guest treat it like a suburban Hampton Inn, opting to drive to Society Hill for dinner.

The waterfront's absent development isn't its only obstacle. The Delaware River itself is massive, post-industrial, and intimidating. The Race Street Pier brings some of the quaint manageability that recreationalists seek in a park, but the bank's vast nothingness stares across a wide river at even less. As it is, it just isn't a pleasant place to be. Will landscaping change that or simply paint the nothing green?

Hargreaves Associates' latest proposal for Penns Landing caps a sizeable portion of Center City's I-95, carrying a large lawn to the water. But the most important component is residential.

Parks are typically a reaction to these dire situations, but successful parks and born from demand. As much as I enjoy the outdoors, Philadelphia already has some of the best urban parks in America and many are easily accessible by foot. Although developers continue to prove they see the Delaware River as a risky investment, the best solution for Penns Landing would be to replace the built environment that was lost.

The most important component in the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation's latest proposal will be residential as it brings its own demand for public space. Fortunately it was included in the plan, but requiring private investment, it will be the hardest component to sell.

 

Changes for the Schuylkill

Carl Dranoff is eyeing a property adjacent to his own for a 21 story high rise set on the Schuylkill Banks at 25th and Locust. While the preliminary rendering is little more than massing, some have already challenged the location as the worthy site for a high rise.

Here's why it's great. The Schuylkill River Trail, particularly the Schuylkill Banks, has become wildly successful. After a decade in the making, countless grants, donations, and volunteers have finally managed to bring people to the waterfront, offering their bikes and legs a quick route to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Boat House Row, and beyond.

Why limit that to the few who already live there, and those who drive there?

Those criticizing the prospect of a new high rise on the river claim that it will disturb the setting, a setting that lies on the CSX rail line and is shadowed by 2100 Chestnut and the PECO tower. It's Center City. It's wear high rises belong. Those who adore the Schuylkill Banks stare up I awe at our skyline and enjoy the grit and relationship between the city and our river. Those seeking reprieve need only walk north, or soon, south.

Cities as environmentally integrated as Portland and Vancouver, BC have already lined there waterfront with slender, sleek high rises offering more urban residents a slice of the water and view. It's where we should build tall buildings.

One Riverside

What happens when a city produces a wildly successful riverfront park? Well turns out people want to live there. Take note, DRWC.

In what skyscraper nerds are hoping is the second of many high rise apartment buildings to line the Schuylkill Banks, Dranoff Properties hopes to join The Grove by adding 21 stories to Center City's side of the river. Architecture nerds are hoping that it looks good.

The new high rise would replace a surface parking lot at 25th and Locust near Fitler Square. The high density dwelling proposed at an already impressive location will undoubtedly raise the eyebrows of its posh brownstone dwelling neighbors. 

However, ironic as it is, Center City West residents are often less resistant to new developments than their residential counterparts in more transitional neighborhoods just outside Center City, especially when those projects erase scarring surface lots.

Until a rendering is released, most of the leeriness will probably stem from Dranoff's reputation for hokey neo-classical design and cheap materials.

The Grove will soon be the Schuylkill River's newest high rise addition.

Edgewater Expansion

Raelen Properties has proposed a 250 unit high rise as part of its Edgewater property along the Schuylkill River Trail. I'm not sure if there is any weight behind the proposal, but they've provided two renderings on their site.

In addition to the skate park and the ever growing Schuylkill Banks, the sun seems to be shining on the river!

Delaware River Debacle

PlanPhilly just reported that engineering will soon begin on a new eight acre park capping I-95 and extending to the waterfront, and the rendering looks pretty fantastic.

Unfortunately, the headline is a bit of a misnomer, and the rendering a bit misleading. By "engineering," the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation will be performing a $400,000 study to determine a master plan and to begin discussions with private developers.

Sound familiar? That's because it is.

The DRWC has been engaged in multiple studies in the ten short years I've lived here. In fact the city has been trying to solve the Delaware River debacle ever since it cut it off from the city in the 1970's.  

A quick Google search brings up countless "Master Plans" and fantastically grand renderings of a new Penn's Landing brimming with condos, amusement parks, museums, even an aerial tram carrying Philadelphians across the river to Camden's waterfront, which inexplicably remains more successful than ours.

Why the DRWC continues to tease Philadelphians with these master plans and exciting proposals (if they can even be called that) is a mystery to me. Part of me wonders if the powers that be at the DRWC want to see how long they can keep getting paid to push paper.

After all, any amateur architecture nerd with a laptop and Photoshop can put together a lavish rendering of a new and lively Penn's Landing. That gets passed around the local blog circuit, excites and pisses off neighbors, while those employed by the DRWC get paid to watch the show. A few months later, the DRWC passes off a new "engineering" effort to PlanPhilly and spends the next year working on the next master plan.

Thirty years later, we still aren't asking why?

We've managed to put tens of thousands of recreationalists on the Schuylkill River in the last decade, and while it's a much smaller river with fewer logistical obstacles, the city has been actively struggling with Penn's Landing much longer. In fact, given Philadelphia's historic reputation for pipe dreams, the successful changes on the Schuylkill River are mind boggling.

Part of that success might be in the piece meal approach taken on the Schuylkill River. Instead of an overall master plan requiring billions of dollars and speculative investment, Boathouse Row, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Waterworks, the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, the Friends of the Schuylkill Banks, and the Schuylkill River Trail are all working on smaller, individual projects and seamlessly wove them together into an organic and unintentional master plan that no CAD hack ever saw coming. 

It's true that those investing in the Schuylkill River are working with existing assets that the Delaware River lacks, but that doesn't change the fact that the approach that's failed the Delaware River for the past thirty years still doesn't work.

In fact that lack of assets is what the DRWC needs to target, not tax funded improvements to a burden no one wants to walk to. Pedestrianization and interstate caps are great, but they're supplementary improvements at best.

Parks are rarely destination attractions. The Schuylkill River's proximity to Center City and the PMA serves as its own destination attraction while the Delaware River sits isolated and sparsely populated. We need to bring Center City's built environment to the Delaware River, not just its sidewalks.

Without new residents and shoppers on Delaware Avenue, any master plan is only going to inhibit the organic creativity on the part of developers and architects who have a shot at bringing those people to the water.

WaterMagic and Lots of Tourists

The Schuylkill Banks success story is about to get a little shot of caffeine. WaterMagic is a Philadelphia installation developer that combines water screens, image projection, robotic fountains, and solar power to create visual spectacles.

In addition to solar powered fountains, a screen of water would be used to show movies for evening events on the Schuylkill Banks.

As Ride the Ducks prepares to reconfigure their route to use the Schuylkill River instead of the Delaware, the Schuylkill Banks may become more of a tourist attraction than a place for residents to enjoy a lazy, sunny day.

Unfortunately the success of the Schuylkill Banks isn't free. While Okies* might be headed to the river to watch a movie projected on a 100 foot wall of water, those Okies are paying to keep that park clean.

While cheese steak wielding tourists might not be ideal to the Fitler Square sunbathers, the harsh reality of an urban success story is that it attracts visitors.

The increasingly popular Schuylkill Banks

Nutter might be seeing dollar signs, but Ducks, movies, and magic water pay the bills. Much needed improvements to the Delaware Waterfront could one day be built on lessons learned from her little sister.

Fairmount Park is huge and the Schuylkill River Trail goes all the way to Phoenixville. An advantage urbanites will always have on our tourists and suburbanites is our ability to find hidden oases in the heart of the city. The Schuylkill Banks is an urban success story but it's not a secret one. It was only a matter of time before its popularity went viral.

Enjoy it for what it is. But if you want a place to relax, I suggest the Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial Sculpture Garden.

*An Okie is the common term for one from Oklahoma.