Today’s Changing Skyline continues the column’s parks trend with another look at transforming Philadelphia’s holy grail of landscape reclamation, The Reading Viaduct. Though in the local news again and again over the years (and even in paperback form), the Viaduct has the wind to its back with the urban greening movement taking hold both locally and abroad: Race Street Pier, Sister Cities Garden, and similar initiatives for green infrastructure are just a few Philly efforts of note lately. Add to this New York’s wildly popular High Line Park, designed by one of Philly’s own, and you have all the ingredients at hand for a very viable Viaduct Park. Inga Saffron writes:
Designed by Philadelphia’s James Corner and New York’s Diller Scofidio & Renfro, the two-year-old High Line may turn out to be the most influential work of architecture completed during the boom years, the Guggenheim Bilbao of its decade. Every city wants one.
That includes Philadelphia. And now the city is taking the first steps toward creating its own version on the viaduct that carried the Reading Railroad’s trains into Center City. Not only did the Nutter administration endorse the park project in the Philadelphia2035 master plan that was released last week, it has sent two high-ranking emissaries to Los Angeles to negotiate the viaduct’s purchase from the remnants of the Reading company, now primarily a real estate holding company.
Can you imagine? The thought alone has me giddy and already looking at nearby real estate… A complete game-changer for the Philly, this project has all of the High Line’s potential and more in its slow curve from Vine Street through to Spring Garden and beyond. Here’s hoping the buildup of decades-long interest pays off and we can see some results in the near term.
Changing Skyline: A Park on High | Philadelphia Inquirer
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