Walking to the Free Library

The Distracting Charm of Logan Square

Entrance to Sister Cities Park.

I love going to Philadelphia's main library, up on Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The gorgeous Beaux Arts building, designed by Horace Trumbauer and Julian Abele, is an experience inside and out. And I always nod hello to Dr. Pepper, founder of the library, whose statue hangs out on the landing in the main staircase.

I find myself going to the library when a project moves me to. So I will go a bunch of times, and then not go for a while. I still love browsing the bookshelves, and it still amazes me how often I'm interested in the book that's shelved next to the book I was looking for.

Walking to the library, on the other hand, has not until recently been a great experience. There are basically three ways for me to get there - 18th, 19th, or 20th - and they all suffered from visually dead zones roughly between Market and Arch. That has changed.

18th Street, My Favorite
In particular, 18th Street has perked up a lot between JFK Boulevard and Arch, thanks to Comcast, which now has two buildings on this block, one on each side. I sometimes divert eastward and take the midblock crossing of Arch in the 1700 block, so I can walk up through the plaza and fountain by Three Logan Square and then the few feet beyond Cherry Street to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

It's here - at 18th and the Parkway - across from the cathedral, that you encounter the Amor statue, a translation of the Love statue three blocks down the parkway in Love Park. Amor takes after its English cousin, and is very popular with the tourists.

Amor stands at the beginning of Sister Cities Park, which is one of my favorite places in Philadelphia. There are two water features flanking the Sister Cities Cafe, and in the good weather the place is, shall we say, well populated with children, their parents and caregivers, and people like me who come to sit and enjoy a place of happiness.

The library seen from the Sister Cities Cafe.

Logan Square is a very complicated space. Sister Cities Park lies on the east side of the square. Inside the square there is a large traffic circle that is part of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. On the west side of the square is another park called Aviator Park. And on the north side of the square, on either side of 19th Street, are two more patches of land that could be called park, but aren't. So, one square, one circle, how many parks? I don't know. But I do know that the whole place is a sculpture garden.

When I finally finish my cup of coffee at the Sister Cities Cafe, and wander on toward the Free Library, I pass the statue of Galusha Pennypacker, which is one of the quirkier public sculptures in our fair town. (Dubuffet's Milord la Chamarre, on Market Street, gives Galusha a run for his money.)  The Pennypacker memorial statue - he was a Civil War hero - is pretty well documented, so instead of showing you a picture of that, here's the view looking back toward Sister Cities Park.

Galusha Pennypacker's view of Sister Cities Park.

After my old friend Galusha, you can walk up 19th to the library, or you can cross over 19th to the Shakespeare Memorial. I'll get to that in a minute.

19th and the Swann Fountain
So if you're walking up 19th to the library, you can walk directly across Logan Circle. In the middle of the circle, where cars are not allowed, you will find three very large people bathing in a fountain. They're not real people. They're sculptures by Alexander Stirling Calder.

Swann Memorial Fountain, 1924.

And I like to sit on a bench here. The bathers are old friends, and I do love to watch the tourists walk through here. They're probably headed somewhere up the parkway - Franklin Institute, Barnes Foundation, Rodin Museum, even the Philadelphia Museum of Art that hovers in the distance, at the end of the parkway. But they almost invariably stop and spend some time in this space, which among other things is an island. You can see all these destinations around you, and, as I said, you're probably headed to one of them, but just for now you're cut off from the outside world. It's an interesting experience.

When the spirit moves, I walk across the parkway traffic and up 19th Street to the library.

20th: Should Be the Easiest Way in, but It's Not
Just west of 19th Street, on the north side of the circle, is the Shakespeare Memorial. Again, it's pretty well known, so, not to be boring, here's a shot from the Shakespeare Memorial looking back at Aviator Park, with 20th Street and the Franklin Institute in the background.

Aviator Park from the Shakespeare Memorial.

It's a lovely, if underused, park, with the Aero Memorial and the All Wars Memorial to Colored Soldiers and Sailors and a very adequate number of benches, most well shaded by trees. It should be the easiest way to get to the Free Library, but it's not.

Why? Bear with me.

If you do come this way, and cross the zebra stripes in the picture above, and get to the Shakespeare Memorial, you come upon a simply wonderful plaza.

The Shakespeare Memorial is directly behind me.

This plaza sits on top of the Vine Street Expressway, and it provides a truly epic approach to a grand building. There's just one problem. Vine Street (the above-ground, not expressway part of Vine) lies between this space, which would be a suitable parade ground for the French Garde republicaine, and the library, which, come to think of it, is inspired by two buildings on the Place de la Concorde in Paris.

So what's the problem? It's illegal to cross the street. The entire approach from 20th Street, through Aviator Park, across the parkway, and across this fabulous no-name plaza, is designed by the heirs of the Ecole des Beaux Arts, whose specialty was moving people through space and making them feel grand while they were doing it. But when you get to this last piddly street directly in front of the library, you're told no-no, we didn't really mean it.

At least they tell you to go to the corner.

If ever a spot cried out for a mid-block crossing, surely this is it. Of course, intrepid souls (including me) have been known to ignore the sign and stride confidently across the street. But what about the tourists from Sweden? They probably have enough English to know what the sign says. And do you really want to go jay-walking in a foreign country? Maybe we should get the signs to agree with what the built environment is saying to everybody.

Just a matter of some paint, and switching out a few signs.

See also The Last Man Who Knew Everything, Extend the Diagonal, Do We Secretly Want Ugly Cities and Dangerous Streets?