Visions of Vibrancy: Center City Philadelphia

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Artist Isiah Zagar's Magic Garden on South Street. According to Wikipedia, "Magic Gardens, Zagar's largest South Street mosaic work, is both a three dimensional, immersive piece of installation art and a museum gallery space. The mosaics are inlaid with poetry, quotes, names of artists who have inspired Zagar, as well as portraits and forms of people and animals. The gardens utilize a variety of materials, including bottles, bike wheels and folk art."


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Keeping young families in the city is important to any vibrant urban environment. Accessible interactive parks and playscapes are an important element in attracting and retaining families in dense urban settings.


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Center City Philadelphia's context sensitive network of streets successfully balance multimodal transportation connectivity.


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Dating back to 1986, the Mural Arts Program is a successful anti-graffiti mural program. Today, the program is one of the city's largest employers of artists According to wikipedia,

"The Mural Arts Program is responsible for the largest mural painted in Philadelphia at 600 feet (180 m) in length. Titled History of Immigration, the mural displays settlers of different ethnicities who have settled in Philadelphia over time. The average mural painted by the program is approximately the height of a three-story row house and 35 feet wide. The average cost of each mural is $10,000–$15,000, which includes artist commission and supplies.

The program is currently one of Philadelphia's largest employers of artists, employing over 300 artists a year. The Mural Arts Program also hires prosecuted graffiti vandals at a rate of over 100 per year and involves them with the creation of murals around Philadelphia. Currently, the program employs 36 former graffiti artists as staff members on permanent payroll and serves more than 300 children a year with arts programs. During the 2001–2004 Neighborhood Transformation Initiative, the Mural Arts Program had painted over 600 murals around Philadelphia.[9] In February 2006, the city of Watertown, New York asked Jane Golden to speak in hopes of creating a similar program in their community."

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural_Arts_Program


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The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is home to Verizon Hall (2,500-seat concert hall), Perelman Theater (650-seat recital theater), and SEI Innovation Studio – a 2,688 sq. foot black box theater.


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Officially opening on September 1, 1928, the 12 mile Broad Street Subway has an average weekday ridership of 124,945 (FY 2014).


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Designed by architect Robert A. M. Stern, who also designed Jacksonville's Main Public Library, the 58-story, 975' Comcast Centeris the tallest building in Philadelphia. In Comcast Center's lobby is the Comcast Experience, which is a 2,000 square feet (190 m2) high-definition LED screen that has become a tourist attraction. Designed to be environmentally friendly, the skyscraper is the tallest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified building in the United States.


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Originally called Southwest Square, Rittenhouse Square was renamed in 1825 after David Rittenhouse, a descendant of the first paper-maker in Philadelphia, the German immigrant William Rittenhouse. With over 20,000 residents today, the neighborhood is considered by many to be Philadelphia's continuously signature fashionable residential district.


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The Schuylkill River is very popular with watersports enthusiasts. In Center City, the Schuylkill River Trail, is a multi-use trail for walking, jogging, bicycling, rollerblading, and other outdoor activities.


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Old City is the area of Center City near the Delaware River where William Penn and the Quakers first settled. It is home to Independence Hall and its encompassing Independence National Historical Park, Elfreth's Alley, Carpenters' Hall, the Betsy Ross House, and many of Philadelphia's other historic sites. It is also one of the city's popular nightlife destinations, with lounges, dive bars, and quality restaurants, mostly along the three blocks from 3rd and Market streets to Front and Chestnut streets.


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Philadelphia's Chinatown dates back to the 1870s. Significant portions of it were razed for the construction of the Vine Street Expressway and the Pennsylvania Convention Center during the 1960s.


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Over 100 merchants offer fresh produce, meats, fish, groceries, ice cream, flowers, baked goods, crafts, books, clothing, and specialty and ethnic foods in the enclosed Reading Terminal Market.


Article by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com