Philadelphia’s Ongoing Self-Perception Problem
Diana Lind | Mon, Jun 23rd, 2008 | Category: Commentary | City: Philadelphia | Tags: environment, philadelphia, building, brooklyn, pennpraxis, mayor nutter, harris steinberg, commerce, design montreal
Last week Philadelphia’s Mayor Nutter presented a new plan for reviving Philadelphia’s waterfront to packed audience at the Academy of Natural Sciences. I didn’t get a chance to make it to the event, but have been eagerly awaiting some of the responses online. Harris Steinberg from PennPraxis wrote up a piece on Philly.com about the pros and cons of Nutter’s ideas, but more interesting than Steinberg’s piece were some of the blogged responses to it. Apparently one user by the name of Argonne was appalled by the 1300 block of Walnut Street—which happens to be where Next American City’s offices are.
Here’s a sampling of what the user, Argonne, had to say:
Posted by argonne 02:35 PM, 06/22/2008
Thanks for the good laugh Philly.com..Beautiful renderings but why doesnt Philadelphia fix what it already has instead of wasting its time pretending about this pipe dream. I was in Center City today and there are giant weed stalks growing all over the deteriorating Chestnut Street ,South Street,and Walnut Street Bridges between Univ City and Center City. If the city doesnt have the pride or cant even pay a guy $10 an hour to maintain the landscape,and patch up the bridges of Center City why should anyone believe they can pull this mammoth project off. Get real people.If somebody blindfolded you and dropped you off on the 1300 block of Walnut Street you would think you were in Camden,Detroit or Chester not the supposed Next Great City. Take care of the basics first and then get back to me about this billion dollar Delaware Ave fairytale.
Later Argonne writes:
Take a good look around center city. The 1300 block of Walnut Street looks like a stage prop for a bad ghetto movie out of the 70’s.Its a depressing 1/10th of a mile mix of vacant buildings ,grungy stores, and filth covered cages + grates. Its horrendously bad.Much of the blocks of Chestnut(east of Broad) resembles the 1300 block of Walnut, Market East is worse than East Chestnut if that possible. The Ben Franklin Parkway has turned into a homeless encampment. Nutter needs to stop wasting time on this Riverfront fantasy and go get some developers and tenants to revive the blocks of Market,Chestnut and Walnut. The forefathers gave this city some great bones, work on rebuilding them so the riverfront will be an easier sell for the next generation..
Indeed, the 1300 block of Walnut isn’t anything great—there’s some vacant stores across from my building and the Holiday Inn is outrageously fugly. But turn the corner down 13th street and you have some kickass Mexican food at El Vez, Capogiro gelato, a very groovy looking ad agency called Gyro, a paper store, a baby store, a home store, the Grocery, etc. Empowered by the Gayborhood sensibility and a very savvy business owner (who owns Grocery, Bindi, Lolita, etc), these stores are beautiful examples of the kind of commerce that Philly can attract and sustain. The question of why the 1300 block sucks so hard is one that needs to be asked of the stingy property owners and perhaps of the permitting process in the city. Why do owners let their stores go vacant for months at a time? What kind of businesses would do well here? I’m not sure, but I can tell you what’s on my wish list: a juice bar, a soup place, a cafe where I could take magazine contributors to talk about their work, a really good vintage clothing store, a bookstore, one of those places where you can get your teeth whitened, Thai take out, a hardware store, you get the idea.
What Argonne and a lot of Philadelphians seem to forget or not realize is that Philly actually has a terrific environment for small businesses. In my native city of New York, almost every block features some kind of chain store—usually a bank branch, sometimes a Starbucks, other times a chain pharmacy. Philadelphia’s businesses are diverse and independent—something that’s remarkable in 2008. There’s also a ton of amenities in Center City all within a one-block radius of 1300 Walnut—an eye glass place, an art framer, a Mediterranean restaurant, a luggage store, a pharmacy, a deli, a nail salon, etc. In New York you’d be lucky if you could find all this in any neighborhood. These days most blocks have the above-mentioned chains and then only fancy restaurants or boutiques. In my old neighborhood of Ft. Greene Brooklyn there were many expensive conveniences stores and a handful of restaurants—there’s not a decent grocery store and the Atlantic Mall serves up the only source of day-to-day shopping at places like Office Max and Target.
We need to keep Philly independent, and at the same time we need to reinvest in some of the shabby stores and fill vacancies. Mayor Nutter needs to help property owners and business owners work together. A good start would be to follow a program like Commerce Design Montreal, where businesses are encouraged to improve the design character of their establishments. This program has a record of increasing visits to these businesses and the program makes the urban landscape a livelier, more enjoyable experience.
Diana Lind is editor in chief of Next American City magazine.
Jeffrey Hill in Washington, D.C.
Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 8:31am
True, Diana. Why is everyone hatin’ on 13th and Walnut? I enjoy the Bonte that makes everything smell like syrup and the lightning speed of the cashier at the Asian grocery store across the way. El Vez definitely owns the Mexican food racket, although I’ve yet to see an actual Mexican working there (does the Mexican Elvis impersonator, Elvez, own the place?)
What Mayor Nutter needs to do is ask the construction workers to stop drilling all day so I can concentrate!!!
BradyDale in North Philadelphia, PA
Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 12:46pm
The close of what you wrote is really important. I think small businesses tend to look unnecessarily tawdry compared to chains, and it wouldn’t take a lot to get them looking a little less late-80s.
For example, that Frame Shop you mentioned is a disaster to walk into. They may know how to make a frame, but they sure as heck don’t know how to hang work attractively. One time I got something framed for my organization there and they suggested I organize an art sale as a fundraiser in their shop. I looked around and thought, “are you kidding?” Never mind the fact that an art sale doesn’t fit my organization’s donor profile: I can’t imagine anyone seeing anything within that visual cacophony.
The other dirty secret about small businesses versus chains is they also tend to be a more provincial in their thinking. They try not to let people use credit cards, for example. The whole credit card issue is enough to have me in a Qdoba even if a local place is across the street. Small businesses also tend to lag behind on vegetarian food and healthy thinking generally. Sad but true. It’s not the main street/retail small businesses that are innovators.
What this post really got me thinking about, though, were the places in Jane Jacobs DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES where she writes about what makes for active versus dead blocks. The big point she makes there is that mixed use is key, especially mixed schedules. If a region is too dependent on the businessman’s cycle, for example, it will have dead evenings and dead evenings will prevent establishments that need later traffic from staying open.
Anyway, Argonne is not quite as smart as Nutter. The sad reality is that it’s often easier to raise large chunks of Capitol for new projects rather than raising the money to maintain or redevelop what you’ve got. Frustrating, but very real.
shishi in NYC
Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 1:10pm
Stop generalizing NYC. While what you described about Fort Greene, many parts of Brooklyn, and Manhattan are true (NYC is being over run with chains) many of the boroughs still have small, diverse, and vibrant commercial areas that are similiar to Philly. While I was going to move to Philly a few years ago, I did find that the day to day stuff does lag behind quite a bit. While smaller in scale, the lack of green/open space is Philly is lagging behind even the concrete jungle of NYC.
Diana Lind
Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 3:57pm
Hey, it’s not an NYC vs. PHL argument. And if it were, NYC would still win. Indeed, Philly lacks a good public park in the midst of all the chaos (like Central Park). While we have Fairmount Park, it’s just not accessible in the same way.
I just think that NYC’s chain-ification is heading the city in the wrong direction (and that’s not to say that indie stores don’t flourish, they’re just a diminishing percentage of the total retail environment), and I don’t want Philly to replicate that mistake when it has a pretty good thing going.
BradyDale in Philadelphia, PA
Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 4:11pm
Manhattan’s chainification is classic case of being a victim of its own success. It’s such a successful place that nothing but chains can afford the overhead anymore. In DEATH AND LIFE, Jacobs talks about how old buildings are essential for a stimulating diversity, because scrappy new enterprises can’t afford new building rents. Manhattan, it seems, is like one gigantic new building. So expensive and in demand that only the chains can bear the prices.
Philadelphia is a long way from being in danger of having this problem, though we might mistakenly scrap too many old buildings, just as Mayor Street mistakenly lowered population densities with public housing developments around 12th and Spring Garden. Mark my words: those places are nice enough right now, but they are doomed.
Not to be some sort of acolyte, but Jacobs’s thoughts on green space are also instructive. She thinks greenspace is mostly overrated, and I agree. It’s fascinating how she wrote the book 30 years ago and called Rittenhouse Square fantastic and Washington Square a dud, and it’s still true today.
shishi in NYC
Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 8:02pm
Diane, you are right. My comment was not to start a Philly vs. NYC argument. While we still have some commercial spaces that are not over run chain stores things are not looking up. The Fulton Mall in Brooklyn, which has been a long foothold of local shops with some minor chain retail is about to get a face lift. Not only that, but the implications are that these new chain stores are needed to provide the services that the new residents (upper income professionals) will desire. Through a slow process of rezoning and a condo building boom down town Brooklyn is going down the path of no return.
Chain stores are not always the problem. In my neighborhood of Flatbush (Ditmas Park) my short 6 block commercial strip has changes significantly as the make up of residents and become more white and prices have increases. While we had the usual mix, now we have a chain coffee shop, a wine shop, kids clothing store, and expensive restaurant, and new condo development. These are all the things I did not want and attracted me to the neighborhood (Philly as well). My wife and I are now figuring out where to relocate because NYC has become a city we no longer enjoy or want to be a part of.
I really do hope that if Philly does make changes down the road it will not follow in NYC’s footsteps.
Diana Lind
Tue, Jul 01, 2008 at 10:37am
Well, you should come to Philly! It’s still really gritty! And cheap!
shishi
Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 10:30am
I was just there yesterday. I am always reminded how much Philly reminds me of Chicago and Oakland about ten years ago.
Matt
Wed, Jul 02, 2008 at 4:43pm
Philly lacks a good urban park? Sure Fairmount is a LITTLE out of the way, but the new Schuylkill Banks bike/running trail goes right to it from Center City. Besides, have you been to Rittenhouse Square on a summer evening? You can’t beat it…