|
|
|
27 June 08: Welcome to the
As the solstice came and went last Friday and weekend long with overnight Goodtimes Quizos and Plan Grillys and sunrise drum circles, Philly Skyline's summer solstice
was pushed back a few days to . . . right now this second! Happy Summer of the Delaware Solstice, friends.
What is the Summer of the Delaware? Well . . . to be honest, that's what we're here to find out. We're looking for an answer, and to find the answer, we're
going back to the dawn of the city. William Penn and the Quakers, the Swedes and the Lenni Lenapes, Ben Franklin and his London Coffee House cohorts, George
Washington, Stephen Girard, the US Navy . . . the very reason for Philadelphia itself runs 23 miles on the eastern shore of the city, from above the mouth of the
Poquessing Creek and past the international airport. With our corporate headquarters a mere three blocks away, it's time for Philly Skyline to show some love for our
big river.
Truth be told, the Summer of the Delaware is itself a series of questions: What is the Delaware River? What does it mean to us? What have we done to it? What
will we do to it? For it? With it?
They're the very same questions an Argentine delegation came to Philadelphia two weeks ago to ask, as they're identical questions they're asking about the Río
de la Plata ("Silver River"), the Delaware River to their home Buenos Aires. (Where we have Camden on the other side, they have Uruguay, whose capital
Montevideo is to Buenos Aires what Cape May is to Philadelphia, at the mouth of the estuary.)
Jorge Colla, a real estate manager for Ernst & Young in Buenos Aires, is a board member of Grupo Techint, a development association of private and public persons -- government officials including Baldomero Alvarez de Olivera and
Francisco Gutiérrez, the mayors of two sectors of Buenos Aires, Senator Roberto Ravale of Buenos Aires province, as well as planners, architects and
investors. In researching riverfront reclamation projects, Colla came across the efforts being made in Philadelphia and New York, and decided to come check it out
for himself. Interestingly, the organization he found was not Penn Praxis, but the Delaware River
City Corporation (DRCC).
Several emails, phone calls and an initial visit later, Colla brought his Grupo 5,000 miles north, from the eve of the South American winter to the eve of the North
American summer (of the Delaware!). A coalition led by DRCC including the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation (PIDC) and coordinated by the city's
Commerce Department (in particular Carol Brooks, Manager of International Trade) hosted the delegation two weeks ago today for a daylong exploration and examination
of the state of the Delaware River. Former Congressman and current DRCC chair Bob Borski and PIDC president Peter Longstreth (who spoke entirely en español)
welcomed the delegation before Mayor Mike Nutter presented them with the mini-Liberty Bells the city gives to diplomats. In doing so, the mayor admitted about the
Delaware, "we haven't done as much as we can, but we're trying." (More on this shortly.)
As the delegation set out from City Hall for a tour led by DRCC executive director Sarah Thorp including stops at Waterfront Square, the Tacony-Palmyra
Bridge (under which DRCC is developing a 4 acre park to include a wetland to match the one across the Delaware) and Pennypack Park, Mayor Olivera remarked that
"Philadelphia is a very important city to South American cities for the ground it broke, especially with the Declaration of Independence." Appropriately enough,
before the bus' wheels even reached I-95 -- the Delaware Expressway -- it passed, really slowly, by Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Plan Philly's Kellie
Patrick Gates has a take on the visit with the delegation and what they are trying to accomplish HERE.
The tour was, for me, the physical execution of a totally unexpected Buenos Aires trifecta. That same week, Philly band The War On Drugs (pictured, left) released its
first album Wagonwheel Blues on Secretly Canadian Records. After signing the band, Secretly Canadian made the Drugs' EP Barrel of Batteries available, with the anthemic/acoustic "Buenos Aires
Beach".
Then, sometime-contributor to Philly Skyline and recent Penn grad (and hiree at architecture powerhouse Skidmore Owings and Merrill) Mike Burlando dropped me
a note of greetings from America del Sud, where he and four of his fellow grads are traveling for two months before settling into real life. This picture
below, of Santiago Calatrava's Puente de la Mujer ("Bridge of the Woman"), across the narrow portion of Río de la Plata in Buenos Aires, appears on the
blog the five travelers are keeping HERE.
BUENOS AIRES SKYLINE: Imagine a Calatrava as the new South Street Bridge. Better yet, don't.
At a stroll along the riverfront at Pennypack on the Delaware Park, snug between the river and Holmesburg Prison, the delegation took pictures, refreshed and learned
of DRCC's work that includes a riverfront greenway from Torresdale's Glen Foerd all the way to Pulaski Park in Port Richmond (the northern terminus of Penn Praxis'
Central Delaware study) and the extension of Delaware Avenue.
The afternoon then concluded with a thorough tour of the Navy Yard led by PIDC's Mark Seltzer and Liz Gabor, making stops at the Aker Shipyard, the dry dock, Liberty
Property's business park (where, right now, Tastykake's new corporate headquarters are being developed as the second LEED platinum building at the Navy Yard) and, of
course, Urban Outfitters' acclaimed headquarters.
While at the Navy Yard, the tour's organizer was able to reconnect with her past, as DRCC executive director Sarah Thorp was once US Naval Aviator Sarah Thorp. In
training, the Iraq War veteran landed her first plane, a T-2 training fighter plane, on the aircraft carrier John F
Kennedy, docked immediately behind Urban Outfitters.
Mario Ferodki, representing Acumar, an Argentine environmental government agency, tells me, "I like Philadelphia . . . very unexpected, and beautiful." (This is the
second time in a week I've heard an out-of-towner say how beautiful Philly is, the other being an elderly couple on a visit to the City Hall tower from California.
Mayor Nutter is right: the city's best ambassadors are people not from here. "Philadelphia is not as bad as Philadelphians say it is," after all.) "But," Mario says
in his Spanish accent, "there is lot of work to be done."
All of this in the way of positive impression -- Mario is right on both counts, of course -- and the delegation didn't even get to see the Action Plan for the Central
Delaware.
* * *
As covered by just about every single media outlet in the city (for our purposes, let's go with our favorite), Penn Praxis' latest
public presentation was held at the Seaport Museum last night, with the biggest announcement not even being their incredible ten-step implementation plan, but that
Mayor Nutter supports it enough to make a 30 minute speech (replete with musical snippets from the Fifth Dimension and, if I may borrow from Tara Murtha, the radio-friendly version of "Let's Get
Retarded").
AXIS OF PRAXIS: Mayor Mike Nutter, Harris Steinberg, Deputy Mayor Andy Altman.
The Mayor's Declaration on the Delaware was itself was as big an endorsement as Penn Praxis could have gotten, but it came with three incredible wins for the
entire Central Delaware process:
That the long troubled Penn's Landing Corporation would be reconstituted with an entirely new board, as well as an entirely new name: the Delaware Waterfront
Corporation. (Councilman Frank DiCicco later clarified that only the board would be reshuffled, and he thanked the staff and employees at Penn's Landing who do things
like plan events at the Great Plaza and Festival Pier and maintain the landscaping in the median of Delaware Avenue and the sculpture park next to the Hyatt.) This
announcement fulfills the very first of Praxis' actions: appointing an "open, accountable and effective waterfront manager."
That the city not only supports Paul Levy and Center City District's plans for a much-needed hike-and-bike trail, but that it will match the money CCD and the
William Penn Foundation put forward, totalling over half a million dollars to begin construction on the trail immediately. (It will run at first from Pier 70 --
Wal-Mart/Home Depot -- to Penn Treaty Park, which itself is set for a makeover in the coming days.)
As well, the Mayor said that money will be allocated for the renovation of Pier 11, the city-owned pier at the foot of Race Street where, as the Pennsylvania
Horticultural Society's Joan Reilly said, "hundreds of tourists get their first impression of our riverfront from Ride the Ducks." (She left off "for better or for
worse.") Reclaiming Pier 11 as a municipal park -- or, as Mayor Nutter described it, "the lighthouse for the Riverfront's development" --
at that location, is a no-brainer. Think Hoboken's Pier A, but with a towering view of the Ben Franklin Bridge instead of the wide view of Manhattan.
PHILLY SKYLINE FILE PHOTO SKYLINE: Comcast Center's construction is now done, but Pier 11's is just about to begin. Click to enlarge (without red
arrow).
That the Foxwoods and Sugar House casinos, as designed, simply do not fit within the vision for the Central Delaware. That, of course, drew the most raucous
applause from the capacity-overflow crowd. He also charged Penn Praxis with initiating an independent, third party study to determine if the casinos would
work along the riverfront at all.
While this is certainly good news to the anti-casino crowd, which has been extremely vocal and successful in blocking the casinos' development, this stands to be a
matter of certain stickiness between Mayor Nutter and Governor Ed Rendell. Rendell has driven the slot barn bus since its inception, and has been none too pleased
with the multitude of delays. The key phrase, used by both Nutter and Praxis director Harris Steinberg, is "as planned." This implies that Sugar House and Foxwoods
could, in fact, retool their windowless, car-invited casinos to use the principles set forth by Praxis and the Central Delaware Advisory Group, the coalition of 15
neighborhood groups from Port Richmond to Whitman, South Philly . . . but who really sees that happening? Certainly not the petitioners asking for signatures
supporting the outright re-siting of the casinos. But the casinos are a matter for another time.
Something else that could come between Pennsylvania's highest Hillary homies is . . . well, this:
The 60' concrete Penn's Landing Pi is, probably above everything else -- Mayor Street's 2003 Penn's Landing
forums, the sentencing of Seaport Museum director John
Carter, the seas of surface parking -- the biggest symbol of failure, the manifestation of what is wrong at Penn's Landing. And, unfortunately, it's still there
because Governor Rendell still wants an aerial tram that even the Delaware River Port Authority, who would pay for it, does not want. (See HERE -- 14 December 07: False alarm: no tram yet (thank god) -- for more of Philly Skyline's seemingly endless
thoughts about the stupid, stupid, stupid, aerial tram that cannot, should not, must not happen.)
If I were to have one single request to add to the immediate action plan, it would be for the demolition of Penn's Landing Pi to coincide with any ribbon cutting for
a riverfront trail. Harris: Call me, I have a sledgehammer.
This is the Central Riverfront. (Speaking of Philly Skyline File Photo Skylines, click that to enlarge it as well.) This image has made the rounds, from the Action
Plan's official booklet to CBS3. I took it from the passenger seat of a Cessna in October 2003,
when the St James was under construction. Incidentally, that set was one of the first photo essays I posted on the young Philly Skyline -- see it HERE (old formatting and all). It really shows
the mélange of thoughts that has gone into planning Center City's riverfront, but most effectively the sheer amount of concrete, asphalt, and vapid topography.
The challenges facing Praxis' ten-point, ten-year Central Delaware plan are many . . . but they can be overcome, and their approaches, officially announced last
night, are doable.
But, it's also important to remember that the Central Delaware plan covers seven miles; Philadelphia's Delaware Riverfront runs for more than twenty-three. The
Delaware River City Corporation is already doing on the North Delaware Riverfront. PIDC has been building on Liberty Property/Robert A.M. Stern's Navy Yard
master plan on the South Delaware Riverfront for over four years. Nathaniel Popkin and I last year
visited the Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, which is set to expand southward -- Southport -- very soon, while the food distribution center will relocate to
Southwest Philly, making even more room for development.
If you'll pardon the wordplay, there's a lot of ground to cover on the Delaware River. As far as Philly is concerned, our Delaware River begins behind the Franklin
Mills Mall at the Poquessing Creek and ends just below Fort Mifflin, inhaling the exhaust of a US Airways Airbus A321 touching down at PHL. Our Delaware River is our
line of defense against the great Jersey unknown.
Our 23 miles, though, account for less than 7% of the 360 miles the mighty Delaware rolls, beginning in the northwestern corner of New York's Catskills, flowing south
as the only border between PA and NJ, making neighbors of the Shawnee and Kittatinny Mountains, of Easton and Phillipsburg, of New Hope and Lambertville, of
Morrisville and Trenton, of Philadelphia and Camden, of du Pont Wilmington and du Pont Penns Grove, of Lewes and Cape May.
Much like our Argentinean friends, we're looking for our river. Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission executive director Barry Seymour said last night,
"Schuylkill River means 'hidden river', but for years it's been the Delaware River that's been hidden." From boats and bridges, through photos and features, Philly
Skyline aims to find it in this, the Summer of the Delaware.
–B Love
|
SUMMER OF THE DELAWARE ARCHIVES:
|
|
