[dovate.com] » 2007 » March
Let’s play urban designer. Everyone is doing it.
People are thinking big about Philadelphia. Here’s the second installment outlining a few ideas that would transform this city for the better.
1. End violence, fix public education.
But seriously, let’s talk about the brick and concrete aspects of fixing the city. The focus today is on center city north, from the Delaware River to Broad. Later installments will bring us clear across Broad to the Art Museum and beyond, but let’s not get too ambitious with 1 post.
Cap it
Have you ever crossed Vine Street? Crazy isn’t it? South of Vine we see a city that’s been alive for the past 25 years. It’s gotten cleaner and greener. We’ve seen the development and growth of all the things that drive the economic engine of a large city. For the most part, south of Vine is doing great.
North of Vine we see an economy that was put on pause since the construction of the Expressway. Sure you can get an expensive place in the “loft district” but to really encourage the northward expansion of center city, something has to be done about that highway.
With talk of capping I-95 from Market to South, why not cap I-676 from 9th to 23rd? Sure there’s the whole ‘cost,’ but the benefits would be enormous. For the northward expansion of center city to actually ever happen, the capping of 676 is an absolute necessity. What we have now are neighborhoods to the south, a vast wasteland from Vine to Spring Garden/Fairmount and spots of development to the north. The goal is to fill in that wasteland with true urban space.
Starting at the River
With the Constitution Center and Franklin Square, a new waterfront greenway, revamped Delaware Ave. and housing development along the river at the eastern edge of the city, we may someday see the seamless flow of neighborhood from old city and the historic districts, straight north into Northern Liberties, Fishtown and beyond. With I-95 capped, a real waterfront and other highways already elevated off the grid from front to 8th, big roads are much less an obstruction in northeastern center city. For the future, look to the east to lead the way.
But back to a capped I-676: 8th to Broad
Chinatown has been hemmed in by the Vine Street Expressway. The area from 8th to Broad, Vine to Spring Garden has slowly, slowly, slowly become Chinatown north, but capping that highway would accelerate that development. Right now Chinatown north is a strange no-man’s land full of warehouses, abandoned buildings and trash strewn lots. It would be nice to see some commercial and residential infrastructure added to what now hardly qualifies as a neighborhood. Some street life would be nice.
Philly’s Chinatown is small and needs room to grow. With insurmountable barriers to the eastern, western and southern borders, the area to the north is the only direction for the neighborhood to expand. Capping the highway would make this development much easier.
The Viaduct
While we’re thinking big, we mine as well imagine the Reading Viaduct, that abandoned above-ground rail line that snakes from 12th and Vine to 9th and Fairmount as an asset and not a liability. The apparently defunct Reading Viaduct Project sought to turn the old rail bed into an elevated green space. Paris has done it. New York is doing it. We can too. As the viaduct would cut across several new and growing neighborhoods, including Chinatown, the brand new PHA construction between Fairmount and Girard, the existing north of Spring Garden area and the extreme western edge of Northern Liberties, converting the viaduct would benefit many lives in many neighborhoods.
And… that’s all for now.
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The Delaware waterfront plans unveiled on Saturday afternoon all call for the capping of I-95 from Market to South. I reserved a spot at the conference, but was couldn’t make it. According to phillyskyline, some plans called a covering of the highway from Washington to Spring Garden, but don’t get your hopes up. Either way, any burying of I-95 is outstanding news. For a complete and excellent recap, check out phillyskyline. For my observations, continue on.
The reincorporation of the Delaware waterfront into the fabric of the city is emblematic of the economic changes of the past hundred years. Originally cut off from the grid to accommodate train lines and heavy industry, the waterfront has never truly been imagined as part of Philadelphia’s entertainment and leisure space.
Penn’s Landing has always been an isolated afterthought, grossly underutilized and hard to access. If we have to assign blame, we can say with confidence that I-95 has been the primary reason for the eastern waterfront’s neglect and failure.
I can’t tell you how happy I am for this city at the prospect of doing something about that 8-lane gash. A few short years ago, discussion of burying the highway was laughed down as a nice idea, but completely beyond the realm of feasibility.
As industry was the principal force that shaped the waterfront during the first half of the 20th century, vehicle transportation shaped the second half. Highways carried goods and services up and down the east coast and they carried people from their center city jobs to their suburban homes. Believe it or not, the construction of I-95 was once considered to be a good thing.
As we move into the 21st century we see a growing appreciation for cities, green space, public plazas, community and aesthetically pleasing waterfronts. The economic forces driving this new set of ideas are centered around the upper middle and upper classes, their large luxury condos on the Delaware and the services they desire in their new communities. Think Rittenhouse Square on the River. Fortunately for the rest of us, the rich have the combined resources to make sure this will actually happen. That means that while I’ll probably never experience my penthouse view 900 feet above the Delaware in Bridgeman’s View Tower, maybe someday I’ll enjoy the eastern waterfront much like I do Kelly Drive today.
As we imagine the future of the Delaware, here’s a look into the past. Phillyhistory.org is of course, the source.
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Absolutely beautiful photo taken near Front & Arch, c. 1917
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Delaware Ave at Market, c. 1917
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Waterfront at Pine street, March 1902
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Waterfront at Lombard, June 1912
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Looking west from Front and Callowhill, c. 1918
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Waterfront at Cherry Street, September 1917
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Waterfront at Chestnut, June 1920
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I forget when and where this was taken
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Alright back to the shit that I usually post… haha… you’ll see.
Today my google sponsored ads took me to the greatest website in the world. The site advertises various herbs and spices that act as colon cleansing agents. Everyone should see this site. Why? What makes it so great?
Along with the usual advertising propaganda espousing the benefits of colon cleansing, the site includes pictures. Many of the pictures come in 3 enlightening parts. First is a smiling face. Second comes the long, leathery, mucous covered greenish brown object that was expelled from the anus of the smiling person; and third is a picture is that slimy expulsion is held up, (often next to a ruler or common object like a toilet) thus demonstrating the quantity of disgusting pseudo-fecal waste bumping around in that person’s colon. Umh… that’s all for now.
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Paul
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Susan
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Where are you John?
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So the other day I was reading a message board thread on shadow beings, when I came across a story that is so entertaining, it trumps anything I could otherwise post this evening.
Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I’ve mentioned shadow beings on this site. What are they? The only thing that can be said for sure is that they are a phenomenon occasionally perceived by the human mind. Whether or not the mind also creates them is the part I won’t get into here.
All in all, they’re my favorite kind of paranormal. Like an Edgar Allen Poe style apparition, they blend the mind with the ‘ether.’ The story that I’m about to post has all the right ingredients… for terror. A scientist, the natural world, isolation, ruins, supernatural forces of good and evil, fear, love and rationality. Great story:
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When I was younger, my job often found me deep in the forests of Northern Canada for prolonged periods, often alone. Vast areas of the Northwest are uninhabited, seldom visited by even the aboriginal peoples. Anyway, years back I was way up in Northern Manitoba, weeks away from any settlement or even a road, and by this sizeable lake off of one of the old canoe-routes of the Fur Trading days. I’d been flown in for a four week project, to check on some tests - boring science stuff, in other words - After I was done with work, I’d ramble around a bit, and it was on the third or fourth day that I came across an abandoned cemetery by the shore, all overgrown with weeds and underbrush.
Not much farther from there I discovered a chapel, or what was left of it. I’d heard that you could find them here and there, in the North; mostly made by Jesuit missionaries, I think. It couldn’t have held more that 15 people in it, tops; the roof was gone, as well as part of the east wall by where the door used to be. But the altar at the front was still there, and despite a healthy-looking fir-tree growing up out of the floor, when I got a closer look at it, it was intact, just abandoned and left to nature.
There was room to stand up and move around at the front of the building, once you squeezed around its solitary evergreen occupant. I felt like the luckiest man in the world, really, because every time I went out on long trips like this I always found myself missing Church. What a wonderful answer to my prayers! So the very next day, I started to repay the favour, and began clearing away the brush and weeds from the little cemetery.
I found about twenty graves altogether, not all of them with marker stones. It was easier to see the outline of a little rock-wall that once marked its borders after all the undergowth was gone, and the entire job was done over a span of 2 days. The chapel itself was easier, really, because I couldn’t really do much except clean it up a little and repair part of the wall, but I loved the work, it completely cured me of loneliness. I found myself humming the angelus as I worked.
As the days went by, I took to going down there to say my prayers in front of the altar beside the fir tree. When everything I could do for the little place had been done, I got the idea that I would shift some things from the pre-fab hut I was staying in, and spend the night down at the chapel. It had been growing in my mind, that whoever had been buried there might not have had anyone to pray for them in a long time, so I planned to use Saturday for a vigil. The weather was looking to turn mean and wet, so I got this big blue tarp that covered the wood pile, and with a little huffing and puffing, rigged a roof over the front of the chapel, relying on my evergreen companion to keep the doorside dry.
After you spend a long time in the woods, away from noise and people, you get used to the normal sounds of day and night in the woods. Seeing shadows, and glittering eyes, looking at you from the edge of a campfire are okay, especially if you take precautions about your food, and you have a firearm handy. Animals are curious too, but not stupid.
I lit a fire outside the doorway, and got it going good, but when I lit some candles and put them on the altar, it suddenly got very quiet. Not a sound outside, even from the flies and mosquitoes. I looked outside. The sun was down, and it was getting dark. The campfire threw its light out in a big ring of about 25 feet from the doorway. At the very edge of the light and just in front of the trees, I could see a figure, standing there. It was like a solid shadow, human in form, but featureless. It so plainly stood out from the background, I knew I wasn’t mistaking it for a tree. I grabbed the rifle, at first thinking it was a bear, standing up on its hind legs. As I did this the figure took a step closer, inside the ring of light now. I could see that this was not a bear. It was not a man, either, but made up of shadow. I made the sign of the cross, and dug my rosary out, holding the crucifix up to the figure. I was scared, to put it mildly. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, something like, ‘God Bless you, and good evening”. That seemed to make the figure shift back a bit, so I said a little louder, ” May God Bless you, stranger, in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.’ and I made the sign of cross with the crucifix in my hand. This definitely got a reaction. I got this feeling of sudden freezing cold, and could suddenly see my breath. At the same time the figure vanished, but I got this powerful feeling of fury, I don’t know how to describe it…directed at me I guess. Then after a bit, the cold was gone. I watched by the door for a long time, then went inside. I prayed all the night through, and kept the campfire going. It rained hard, but I was okay, and by sun up, was a bit tired, but a lot calmer and a hold of myself.
I packed and went back to my camp, and what a surprise when I got there. The place looked like it had been hit by a twister. The door of the hut had big holes knocked into it, the woodpile was scattered all over. Much of the equipment stored outside was broken and smashed. I went inside, fearing for my food and the radio, but everything inside was untouched. I wondered at the time, if it might not have been because I had hung a little crucifix over the bed, and placed a St Benedict’s medal over the door.
I radioed in to let them know about my ’storm-damage’. Because of the loss of equipment my trip would be cut short, but not short enough, to my liking. Due to the ongoing bad weather, it was a week before the plane finally came to get me.( During the wait, I moved into the chapel.) Although I never saw the figure again, I was jumpy and on my guard, all the time. I usually hated going back to the smells and noise of city life, but this time I was only too happy to leave. Nothing like that night ever happened again, and on other occasions, I’ve seen these shadows or wraiths, but that was scariest encounter with some kind of evil I ever experienced. I was alone, weeks from help, and only the blessings of a rosary, crucifix and a couple holy medals, plus whatever remained of blessings upon the old ruin. Talk about hair-raising!
…is probably very nice right now. I think I’ll go there when I’m released this afternoon.
Following are my favorite 30 search terms culled from my site stats from February 2007:
30: essay to describe myself for interview
29: horrible dream
28: picture of someone crawling through back of pick up truck
27: pretentious
26: suicide writing
25: where are philadelphia squatters
24: a world map showing where dung beetles live
23: eat own ejaculate
22: why did walker evans come to bethlehem?
21: roller pigeon
20: nuns mastrubating
19: cock splitting
18: a picture of molly pitcher’s face
17: landing pod
16: seat belt trapped upside down
15: lemurtastic (*note: I know who you are)
14: possum skeletons
13: orange lumps in semen
12: art ejaculations pictures -female
11: strange clown cars
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10: scum derivation
9: hippopotamus shit territory
8: hippopotamus elephant mating video clip
7: neo swank dresses
6: john madden’s childhood
5: replica rubber fetuses
4: crazy eagles
3: why stephen hawking held his breath under water
2: do male testicle stink?
1: barak obama for klingon high council leader
Report: Principal arrested while naked, watching gay porn
By Pamela Lehman and Steve Esack
The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.)
BETHLEHEM, Pa. - When police entered the office of Nitschmann Middle School Principal John Acerra to arrest him for allegedly selling crystal methamphetamine, they found the 50-year-old educator naked and watching gay pornography with sex toys nearby, sources say.
Police also found a glass drug pipe and $200 in marked money on the desk, just minutes after a confidential informant wearing a wire arranged to buy meth from Acerra about 6 p.m. Tuesday, officials said. [rest of story]
