Christ Church Park Redesign

Here's What I Think

X marks the spot.

Great meeting November 27 at Christ Church's Neighborhood House, on the redesign of Christ Church Park. The design team has been busy - a previous neighborhood meeting in July, also at the Neighborhood House; an open-air design workshop on Church Street, directly next to the park, in August; an online survey; research on other parks both in Philadelphia and elsewhere; and of course observation of the park itself.

At the most recent meeting the team went over all this activity and then presented a series of four design options, each taking a different approach but aiming at the same goals of increasing the park's usage and its usefulness to the community.

The Parking Lot
There was a bit of tip-toeing around what should be done with the elephant in the room - a parking lot that sits discreetly behind a red brick wall at the west side of the park. One of the presenters noted that turning the parking lot into part of the park would increase the size of the park by 50 percent. However, the National Park Service has stated from the beginning - very nicely - that the parking lot is out of scope for this project.

The presenters did discuss expanding the park in a tentative way that I hope didn't offend anyone, and they offered drawings of lesser takings from the parking lot that would improve the sightlines into the center of the block.

I say what I'm about to say with a twinge of regret, because I do think this is a model parking lot - it essentially disappears, in a nice way, behind a red brick wall. I wish every parking lot in Philadelphia looked this good. Very few of them do.

However, having given the matter some thought, I strongly support turning the parking lot into park land, for several reasons. First, this is a small lot in a crucial location that should be devoted to active people and not sleeping cars. Second, these drivers have alternatives in very large garages at the mall and on Second south of Chestnut. Third, turning the lot into parkland would provide a lot more room for people to enjoy themselves outdoors right in the center of Old City. Fourth, it would open up the block in a dramatic way that would let people see, before they stepped into the park from Market or Second, the potential for further walking adventures beyond the park, to the north and the west. Currently the rather complex web of streets within this block is not particularly visible until you get through the park and hit Church Street - the main drag, but hardly the only option for an interesting walk.

I hope the National Park Service will reconsider its position.

Diagonal Walkways
The presenters showed us drawings for four main options. I liked pieces of each of them, and pulled them together into what I suppose we could call option five - the rather clumsy drawing at the top of this story.

First, I think the park needs two strong diagonal paths, from the southwest to the northeast, and from the southeast to the northwest. These will be good for the park itself, and for the whole neighborhood. The survey came up with a figure of 20 percent of respondents who never go to the park. This is a terrible number, and the way to fix it is to allow people walking - residents, workers, tourists - to use the park as a shortcut to their destination.

There seems to be a lingering idea that a park should be solely an oasis for quiet contemplation, and that foot traffic shuffling through would be a distraction for those who have come to meditate. If you look at Washington or Rittenhouse Square, you'll see that they both have strong diagonal paths. And if you stand at the northeast gate of Rittenhouse Square, at 18th and Walnut, around 8:30 on a Tuesday morning, you'll just about get run over by the people walking through the park on their way to the office. This is not a conflict with other uses, it is a complement.

In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961, pp. 96-97), Jane Jacobs analyzed Rittenhouse Square in detail and came to the conclusion that the square's secret to its success was the variety of users who appear in the park over the course of the day.

Jeff Speck, in his book Walkable City (2012), likes to talk about the importance of bringing back the useful walk - walking to the office, or walking to pick up groceries, possibly at several different stores (say, in Rittenhouse, coffee at La Colombe, bananas, clementines, and arugula at Sue's, and cheese and maybe soppressata at Di Bruno's).  Walking should not be simply a leisure activity. It can also be a useful way to get around.

I think people - particularly our leaders - have trouble with this idea, just as they seem to have trouble seeing a bicycle as anything other than a leisure-time toy. The pattern of bicycle commuting and utility bicycling throughout the day is firmly established in certain parts of Philadelphia. And certainly it's not a secret at this point. I just think a lot of people have trouble processing the information, let alone acting on it.

And I think I know why. Jarrett Walker, who is consulting on the redesign of Philadelphia's bus network, has an interesting blog post on elite projection. This is simply the idea that the well-to-do and influential people in our society imagine that everyone else is just like them, or wants to be just like them. As he points out, many, many problems flow from this lack of vision.

Anyway, the strong diagonals should be very good at getting people into the park, and they should also encourage people to see how permeable this block is. And this block is only part of a larger, currently unintegrated, circulation pattern that, if it ever gets hooked together, would allow people to get around entirely on byways and, with the exception of crosswalks, avoid the highways. This system of walkways and alleys is prepared to run from the mall on Fifth Street down to Front Street, and from the Arch Street Meeting House to Old St. Joseph's Church, below Walnut.

Opening Up to Market Street
Coming back to the park itself, let's have a look at proposals for the perimeter of the park, starting with the south side, by Market Street. The actual park is at present set well back from Market, with much of the additional space taken up by a planting bed. I personally think the original designers of the park saw this as a mashalling yard for tourists. You can stand at the fence and gaze at Christ Church on the other side of the park's large lawn, maybe take a picture. Then you can walk through one of the park's two gates, which stands inconspicuously at the west edge of the park, next to the brick wall for the parking lot. You can then walk up a brick path to the gate at the north side of the park and, if you want, cross the Belgian block of Church Street and enter the church.

So the whole park, on its most heavily trafficked side, is essentially hiding. Time to open things up a bit. There are a number of interesting proposals about how to do this, but I do think one thing is quite clear. This park needs a gate at the corner of Second and Market. Which by the way is only a few steps from the Second Street stop of the Market-Frankford line, and less than half a block from stops for six different bus routes (5, 17, 21, 33, 42, 48).

Unless you're moving a piano, you really don't need to drive to Old City. But however you get there, the corner of Second and Market is the natural front door for Christ Church park. At present there is no gate on this corner.

Sidewalk Bumpout on Second Street
The design team also suggested bumping out the sidewalk on Second Street, roughly from Church Street down to Market. Engineers have been consulted, and we are assured that this can be done without materially affecting the flow of motor vehicles down Second Street.

Steps for Sitting on the North Side of Church Street
The design team also recommends adding steps to the north side of Church Street. You could use these steps to walk up to the church's grade level, which is a bit higher than the surrounding area, or you could use them to sit on; this happens quite a lot on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. I think the steps the design team proposes would work well.

The team is also proposing a lower wall on the north side of the actual park. These two changes would serve to meld the Church and its yard, Church Street, and the park itself into a more organic whole.

Back to the Parking Lot
Okay, back to the west side of the park. Another advantage of removing the parking lot is that it allows you to move the current north-south walkway further to the west, so it's on line with American Street to the north. There was a lovely rendering of this new walkway, paved now in cobblestones instead of brick, and looking for all the world like an eighteenth century Philadelphia street, shaded by the mature trees that are already present in the parking lot.

This new alignment for the walkway allows people to see from Market Street that the block has an interior north-south street, and from the park they will also be able to see Church Street running east to west, and intersecting at the northwest corner of the park.  That's not the whole internal grid on this block, but I think it's enough to create an invitation to explore. 

About Those Pink Stickers
At the end of the meeting, printouts of the four design options were put on tables, and the members of the audience, who had each previously been provided with several small stickers, some green and some pink, were asked to show their approval of particular design elements by placing a green sticker on things they liked, and a pink sticker on things they didn't like. I placed my stickers, chatted with a number of people, and at the end of the session I walked around and had a look at where the various stickers had descended.

On the plans that still had the parking lot at least partially intact, the lot looked like a leopard with pink spots.

Parking lot gate. Unlock the value.

See also The Invitation, The Future of Christ Church Park, Permeable Blocks.

Permeable Blocks

Going Off the Grid in Old City

Old City Philadelphia, 1811.

When I got to the top of the stairs and saw the dead squirrel lying in the dirt, barely three blocks from the Liberty Bell, I mused once again on Philadelphia's apparent inability to sustain a performance. Maestro, cue the tone-deaf trombones.

My friend Joe Schiavo tells me it used to be a lot worse. The area at the top of the stairs, now a parking lot, used to be a hot spot for short dumping. Still, the center of this block should be a Grand Central Station for distributing pedestrians - both tourists and locals - among the various destinations that lie a stone's throw from my dead squirrel. And it's not.

The pedestrian walkways through this block already exist. The east-west route actually extends from the mall, between Fifth and Sixth Streets, past Christ Church at Second Street, and all the way through to Front Street. The north-south route joins the Arch Street Meeting House to the north with Franklin Court just south of Market, and continues through the National Park to Old St. Joseph's Church, just south of Walnut.

However, there is a hitch in the north-south route - a gate at the southern edge of the Arch Street Meeting's property. This gate seems to be locked all the time.

Here's what the area around the gate looks like. The dead squirrel is just to the right, out of the picture.

Perhaps not a jungle, but definitely a jumble.

The gate is actually separating two parking lots - the lot for the Arch Street Meeting House to the north, and the parking lot to the south, which lies behind buildings that front on Third and also Market.

The gate issue is easily fixed with a key. But there's a reason the gate is locked. The parking lot at the center of the block - where all the walkways converge - is a very uninviting space. To put it charitably, this lot does not meet the City's current design standards for parking lots. (See Putting Some Park into Old Parking Lots.)

Here's what the bad-boy lot looks like. The stairs that lead to the walkways running south and west are just out of sight to the right.

There's also room for garbage. (Think sheds, at the very least. See What Should We Do With the Humble Dumpster?)

And here's my favorite wall. Something assembled by people who simply do not give a damn.

The one good thing about the mess in the middle of the block is that it's hard to see unless you're standing right on top of it. There's a significant grade change right in the center of the block, which is why there are stairs.

Don't forget to set the hand brake.

From Fifth to Third
Let's back up and talk about some of the parts that are pretty. The walkway, as I mentioned, begins in the west at Fifth Street, across from the mall. It would be nice if there were a mid-block crossing here, so people visiting the mall might actually feel invited to go see where the walkway takes them.

Between Fifth and Fourth things are quite lovely. I was puzzled by this oddity. My brother thinks it may be a work of art - bench frames standing in for benches, part for the whole. Sort of like the ghost structures at Franklin Court.

Ghost benches.

The pretty part continues across Fourth Street, which could also use a mid-block crossing. This area is formally known as the Commerce Street Walkway, after a street that used to run just north of Market and now lives mainly in memory and old maps. Commerce Square, in the 2000 block of Market, takes its name from Commerce Street.

Commerce Street Walkway, from Fourth Street.

If you look carefully, you can see the wall and the parking lot in the distance, but they're hardly detracting from the bucolic ambience.

When you hit the wall, you need to turn left to go up the steps or right to go to Market Street. The walk down to Market is rather barren, but there is a nice outdoor eating area attached to a restaurant.

This may be Orianna Street. Or maybe not.

If you go left up the steps you come to the ugly part, but you can push through to Third Street on Wistar Alley.

Wistar Alley.

Some nice pavers in the foreground. I'd love to see what's underneath all the asphalt. The alley itself is rather dark and unadorned. Calling Isaiah Zagar. Let's do mosaics with lots mirror shards, like the 800 block of Pemberton. (See My New Favorite Alley.)

Building across the street not my problem today.

It's important to remember the purpose of the exercise here. The basic purpose of fixing the walkways in the 300 block is to allow people to move easily through the block to get to adjacent destinations, like Franklin Court south of Market and Christ Church east of Third. We need to raise our game on this block so that people will feel comfortable rambling east from the Liberty Bell and discovering Philadelphia as a nineteenth-century city.

For that we need to learn how to sustain our performance. No flat trombones. No dead squirrels.

Here's what's available just across Third Street, on Church Street, not far from Christ Church. We need to live up to this.

Church Street.

So Who Cares About Going Off the Grid?
I do, and I think I have very good reasons. But first let's back up and glance at a little history.

Philadelphia's basic street grid dates to William Penn's 1682 plan, which was "aspirational" - the city didn't exist yet. When settlers who had purchased land showed up, they rapidly started adding little streets between Penn's big ones. (They also built out the city north and south along the Delaware, rather than expanding west toward the Schuylkill, but that's another story.)

Most of these little streets run generally north-south or east-west, like the ones in Penn's grid, but they often don't line up from block to block. You need to scoot a little bit right or left to pick up your little street again - and it may have a different name. Sometimes a little street will just go away - sometimes they come back a block or two later; sometimes they don't. And sometimes a little street is just a stub, ending in the middle of the block.

So it's not a grid the way William's 1682 plan is.

This pattern recurs widely throughout the older parts of the city, but it is particularly notable in Old City. And it is in Old City where these little streets are best placed to be a major tourist attraction.

I think there has been a tendency to view these streets as a mildly embarrassing remnant of our pre-modern past - after all, some of them are so narrow you can barely fit a car down them, let alone a beer truck. (And some are really tiny, like Grindstone Alley near Christ Church. It's just about six feet wide, wall to wall. I measured it.)

Grindstone Alley.

The Role of Permeable Blocks
What purpose do such streets serve in a modern city? As you may have guessed, I have an answer to that question: I think that the little streets, or alleys, offer a significant and sustainable competitive advantage built around human scale.

Old City is really two cities laid on top of one another - the modern, car-dominated city, and an older, almost accidental city that is profoundly human in its scale and appeal.

The alleys of Old City can be charming, quirky, occasionally mysterious, sometimes surprising. Oh, did I mention historical? Elfreth's Alley, commonly known as the nation's oldest residential street, is a National Historic Landmark. Only a short walk from the Betsy Ross House, it is located between Front and Second Street, north of Arch and south of Quarry.

But my new favorite alley is Cuthbert Street between Front and Second, a bit south of Arch and a stone's throw from Christ Church. It's just loaded with charm.

Cuthbert Street.

Recently I was sitting in my new favorite cafe, Old City Coffee on Church Street, when a happy and energetic group of middle-aged Italian tourists bustled in. As they were settling in to a collection of tables, one of the cafe's more senior people came out and explained to them in Italian how to order. And I think they liked the place, and liked the narrow Belgian block street out the window, the virtual absence of cars, and even though it clearly wasn't home, I think they felt at home.

When it comes to tourists, I think the big issue is to lure them away from the Liberty Bell and into Old City. Once they get there, I think they'll like it. Foreigners may find it comfortable. Americans may find it unfamiliar - even odd - but perhaps also charming.

I think there are big benefits for locals as well. Whether they live in Old City or work there, or are in from another neighborhood, perhaps to go to an art gallery or the Arden Theater, or to buy a bar stool at Mr. Bar Stool (that's an actual store, not far from Elfreth's Alley), you have more than one way to walk to your destination. You can get off the big grid and have a quiet ramble, maybe even let yourself get a little bit lost, if you enjoy that sort of thing.

Sustaining the Performance
All of these possibilities already exist in Old City. There are just a few spots that could use some tidying up, and the block we've been talking about is, to my mind, at the top of that list.

I mentioned my friend Joe Schiavo at the top of this story. He and Janet Kalter and their non-profit organization, Old City Green, led the successful 2016 makeover of Girard Fountain Park, across the street from the Arch Street Meeting House, and are now leading a project, including a Community Design Collaborative planning grant, to bring the 300 block of the Commerce Street Walkway up to its full potential as a community amenity. I spoke with them, and also with David Rubin, the landscape architect, Job Itzkowitz, executive director of the Old City District, and Jonas Maciunas, who consults with the Old City District and was a principal author of the Old City Vision 2026 planning document. I'm grateful for their insights. However, the opinions I express here are my own.

My understanding is that soon we will be seeing some proposed designs. I look forward to commenting on them, but first I wanted to do this story, to lay out the context and to encourage people to think not just about what these improvements will do for the block, but also what they can do for the whole of Old City.

One Last Thing
I've concentrated in this story on the potential to make it easier and more pleasant for people to move around Old City. But Commerce Street Walkway should also be a place for people to hang out. In fact, it already is. The benches in the 300 block regularly sport a variety of people taking the air, wielding cigarettes, cell phones, and laptops, or just sitting.

Here's my idea. At the top of the steps, place a few tables and some chairs. (I am stealing this idea, of course, from Dilworth Park and Love Park.) Oh, and throw in a gelato stand. Call it the Dead Squirrel Cafe. Or maybe not.

Cobblestones, Cuthbert Street.

See also Alleys, This Isn't Just Any Alley, A Tale of Three Alleys, City Beautiful Sprouts on Cypress Street,  Small Streets Are Like Diamonds, Second and Chestnut, The Invitation, The Future of Christ Church Park.

The Invitation

Christ Church Park, An Underperforming Asset

The corner of Second and Market. No gate.

So maybe we should ask people to come into the park. Just a thought. It's a nice park - I've often admired it walking by, on either Market or Second, on my way to somewhere else. I've hardly ever gone inside the park, and when I have I wasn't quite sure what to do there.

Let's face it: I've been coddled by Rittenhouse Square, where there are benches, other people, yadayada. Oh, yes, and there are ways into Rittenhouse Square.

How do you get into Christ Church Park? It's almost a secret. Is there an entrance at or near the corner of Second and Market? No. Think about Rittenhouse Square and the corner of 18th and Walnut, with massive quantities of pedestrian commuters in the morning and evening rush, bike messengers hanging out all day, socializing and waiting for their next call, various solicitors for religious, political, and other causes. The occasional odor of marijuana. Nothing like this happens at Second and Market. There's no gate there, you know.

Gate on Market Street, recessed in midblock.

There are two entrances to Christ Church Park, and frankly they're almost hidden. There's one on Market in the midblock, at the southwest corner of the park. The other one is at the northwest corner of the park, near the entrance to Christ Church. The two gates are connected by a brick walkway, the only path in the park.

The Market Street gate and the walkway.

Gate on Church Street.

Urbanist Jan Gehl likes to talk about the invitation. If you want people to come into your park, you need to invite them in. (See Jan Gehl, Cities for People, 2010, pp. 15, 17, 21, 236-237.)

View from Church Street gate, Christ Church across the street.

Okay, so let's assume you're in Christ Church park. What do you do then? Good question.

I'm a simple guy. My main park activity is hanging out. I don't need rope courses or zip lines. A place to sit would be nice. The park currently has five stone benches strung along the walkway. They do not have backs or armrests, but they are backed by a brick wall. Here's a picture.

Four of the five stone benches. The walkway. The brick wall.

Behind the brick wall, by the way, is a parking lot. It is virtually invisible. I wish all the parking lots in Philadelphia were as demure as this.

This parking lot is on line with American Street. 

Given the configuration of the park as essentially a pilgrim's path to the church, it is perhaps not surprising that park utilization leaves something to be desired. Dog-owners walk their dogs here, and even that has its ins and outs. This is a National Park Service park, and the Park Service requires dogs to be on-leash at all times. It's in the Code of Federal Regulations:  36 CFR Chapter 1, Section 2.15(a)(2).

Reimagining the Park
I picked up these tidbits at a July 18 meeting in Christ Church's Neighborhood House, next door to the church itself. On the fourth floor, in an auditorium that used to be a gym (there are still basketball-court markings on the floor), I watched and listened as various speakers discussed various aspects of the park.

All this gabbing was in service of a project sponsored by the Old City District: Reimagining the park at Second and Market Street.

Ideas? Yes, I Have a Few
Here are a couple of ideas off the top of my head.

My top priority. Figure out how to get little kids and their moms and dads into the park. You definitely want them in the mix of park users. They bring a whole new and very positive vibe.

Just look at the statue of Billy the Goat in Rittenhouse Square. The goat is the center of a seating area largely but not exclusively occupied by small children and their parents. This place is so popular with kids that, after a century, a literally worn-down Billy is retiring to a nice pasture across the street in the Philadelphia City Institute Library. He will be replaced by Billy Jr., an exact replica.

Second idea. Plan for a mix of uses. In The Death and Life of Great American Cities (pp. 96-97), Jane Jacobs explains the secret of Rittenhouse Square's success. Because it borders a residential district and a commercial district, the park draws different people at different times of day. Aside from small children and their parents, and the old people who like to sit on benches and watch them, you have pale-faced office workers who come to get some sun and exercise while walking on the park's ring path. The benches welcome people eating takeout lunches.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

So here are some physical changes that would undoubtedly make Christ Church Park more popular.

- More gates, better placed.

- Diagonal paths. These would encourage people to shortcut through the park. A valid use to my mind (I certainly do it a lot myself), and some of the people passing through may sit down for a few minutes, rest their feet, and look around.

- A water feature. Philly has lots of great water features, none better in my estimation than the two at Sister Cities Park by Logan Square (talk about child magnets). I personally think the water feature at Christ Church should include a watering trough for horses.

- Interpretive plaques. And here's why we should have a horse trough. Somebody needs to step up and educate tourists and locals about the history of the nineteenth-century city they are standing in the middle of. Explaining to people what a horse trough is could be a good place to start.

Why All the Low-Hanging Fruit?
As I learned at the information session, Christ Church Park is a child of the 1960s. The Park Service wanted to create a view shed for the church, so it pulled down the buildings where the park now is and created a very pretty space that would allow tourists to stand at Market Street, where the sidewalk has been widened and a raised planting bed with low walls appropriate for seating has been provided. (These walls currently sport a don't-sit-on-me rail running along the top.) Tourists could view Christ Church from a distance and then possibly walk on the walkway at the west side of the park to view the church exterior close-up and possibly even go inside the front door, just a few feet from the park's northern gate. Any other uses by pedestrians do not seem to have been in the program.

That's simply how people were thinking then. Take Mies van der Rohe's iconic Seagram Building, on Park Avenue in Manhattan. A product of the 1950s, it stands in magnificent isolation behind a very effective view-shed plaza. Later on, people did get the idea that maybe there should be, you know, people in the plazas, but in the beginning it was definitely look but don't touch. It might be a step too far to say that the only pedestrians welcome were architectural photographers. Or it might not be a step too far.

The view of Christ Church from Market could actually be improved by lowering the fence. New York City's parks department has a program called Parks Without Borders; it does advocate in certain situations for taking down fences entirely. I wouldn't do that here because I think the moms and dads will want some perimeter definition to help keep their little ones from wandering out into the middle of Market Street.

Learning from Love Park
Part of Old City District's reimagining process will be looking at ways to further civilize the streets adjacent to the park.

I watched this mission civilisatrice (as the French would call it) fail at Love Park. I love the new Love Park itself, but nothing was done about the surrounding streets despite promises and hints.

I'm still angry about Love Park, but I'm working resolutely to set that anger aside and focus on the opportunities presented by Christ Church Park. I think, with a little help from well-meaning people, the park could raise its game significantly without spending a lot of money.

There's an open design workshop at the park Wednesday, August 8, from 2 to 7 p.m. The workshop will be at the farmer's market, which is next to the church.

There is naturally a page on the Old City District's website. Linked from the page are a survey and the slide deck from the July 18 presentation. Click here to view.

See Do We Secretly Want Ugly Cities and Dangerous Streets? Also Road Diet by Love Park - a Natural Experiment.