Can Open Streets Go Year-Round?

Pretty Nearly.

Open Streets: West Walnut did so well in September that it came back for encore performances on December 8 and 15. 

And yes, Virginia, there was even a Santa Claus planted directly in the middle of Walnut Street.

And there was chalk.

Here are some children not playing chess but playing with chess pieces and having a lively time.

As was a smaller child who happily found her own way to play beanbag.  

As is normal at Christmas time, the engine behind the celebration was commerce. Will the people come out? Definitely. Will they go into the stores and buy stuff? It seems so, but we need to wait for the numbers.

Meanwhile, on 18th street, we have people watching TV. They had been watching Frosty the Snowman, but now they appear to be enjoying a break with some wallpaper. Later, I'm told, there was a broadcast of the Eagles-Steelers game. The Steelers lost 27-13. 

And here we have one of the area's major attractions, the beer garden that stands on the remains of three nineteenth century buildings that were looted and burned during the George Floyd disturbances in 2020. The beer garden appears to be quite successful all the time, but the Open Streets were definitely special.

Violence was not far away this year. On the afternoon of Friday, December 13, a gunfight broke out at Philadelphia's Christmas Village, near the ice skating rink in Dilworth Park, next to City Hall, leaving three people wounded, one shot in the face.

Another, more distant reminder of the fragility of civilization came on December 20, when a man drove a BMW SUV into the crowds at the Christmas Market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing five people, including a nine-year-old child, and injuring at least 235 others.

The police presence at the December Open Streets: West Walnut was decidedly more muted than it had been in September. Large police vehicles had blocked vehicular access to the open streets in September; in December they were replaced by smaller vehicles belonging to the Center City District, which actually managed to look friendly. As I've often said, security should be effective and unobtrusive. But too often what we get is obtrusive and ineffective. I think the Center City District is headed in a good direction.

Nevertheless, there were still quite a few cops standing around. They generally looked bored but alert, a good frame of mind for sentry duty. One of the things they were watching with some care was a group of remarkably non-intimidating people walking a circular, or perhaps oval, picket line in front of Starbucks.

As a paid-up member of the Democratic Socialists of America, I was well aware of the ongoing strikes against Starbucks and Amazon, and after I finished taking the strikers' picture, I joined the picket line and walked the circle for a bit.

See also Open Streets: West Walnut, The Lady on Stilts.