Posted on Mon, Dec. 27, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Phila. effort aims to make parks fit for seniors
By Christina Hernandez
Miriam Schupacheveci, 74, hasn't ventured into a Philadelphia park in years. There aren't enough bathrooms or security personnel to make her feel comfortable. And there are too few railings for her husband, who needs support when he walks.
"I'd like to" go to a park, said Schupacheveci, of Northeast Philadelphia, "but I don't think it's safe."
Philadelphia has one of the world's largest urban park systems. And, according to census data, the city has the highest proportion of people 65 and older of any of the 10 largest cities in the country.
Yet 73 percent of Philadelphians over 60 reported never using their neighborhood park in the previous year, according to data from Public Health Management Corp.'s 2008 Household Health Survey.
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Posted on Wed, Dec. 15, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Residents dislike Ducks
By Miriam Hill
About 100 people who came to a meeting at the Free Library Wednesday night all had one thing to say: They don't want duck boats on the Schuylkill.
"I don't think you've heard a single person welcome a duck tour on the Schuylkill, and I hope that's the message you'll take back. We don't want it," Jovida Hill told Philadelphia's Managing Director Richard Negrin near the end of the evening.
The Schuylkill Park Alliance, an advocacy group, hosted the meeting to let residents share their thoughts on moving the duck boats from the Delaware River to the Schuylkill in the spring.
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Posted Thurs, December 9th, 2010, RadioTimes
Philadelphia Green 2015, w/Parks commissioner Michael DiBerardinis
Philadelphia has a plan to add 500 acres of green public space to the city by 2015, to make sure that every city resident is within easy walking distance of a local park. The Nutter administration hopes that the plan achieves a couple of objectives at once: improving life for Philadelphians, while also making use of vacant land and improving public safety, as well, among many other goals. Joining Marty in studio to talk about the plan is MICHAEL DiBERARDINIS, Philadelphia's Parks and Recreation Commissioner and special adviser to the mayor for the Free Library. The goal is to provide park space for residents who don't live within a half-mile of a park, and ultimately to make the city more equitable, livable, and competitive. We’ll also talk to DiBerardinis about his interesting and important career, which has seen him play a pivotal role in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in parks, recreation, handguns and more.
Listen to the mp3
Posted on Wed, Dec. 8, 2010, Editorial, Philadelphia Inquirer
A bit of green is golden
Small could be beautiful under Mayor Nutter's plan announced Tuesday to add 500 acres of parks in Philadelphia neighborhoods by greening vacant lots and paved playgrounds around schools and recreation centers.
The worthy goal of the Green 2015 plan is to have at least a swatch of parkland - grass, trees, and a few park benches, perhaps - within a 10-minute walk anywhere in the city.
How can this be achieved amid tough economic times? Not with new tax dollars, it's good to hear city officials say.
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Posted Wed, Dec. 8, 2010, PlanPhilly
A new plan for the first 500 acres of public green space
By JoAnn Greco
Last night at the Academy of Natural Sciences, in front of a capacity-plus crowd, Mayor Michael Nutter officially announced "Green 2015: An Action Plan for the First 500 Acres." The plan is an attempt to address the "Equity" section of his 2009 GreenWorks program, the city's overall sustainability effort.
That provision calls for the creation of 500 acres of open space in areas currently underserved. Some 200,000 residents don't have access to open space within a ten-minute, or half-mile, walk, the Mayor said. "Green space should not be a luxury," he declared, earning a round of applause.
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Posted on Tue, Dec. 7, 2010, Editorial, Philadelphia Daily News
New Park City: plan for expanding the parks
THE DEBATE over keeping the Fairmount Park system intact versus merging parks with the Recreation Department was often bitter and contentious.
Those wanting to keep the outmoded structure of governance - a park commission that was disconnected and accountable to no one but its members - argued that if the city took over, it would start selling off parkland to the highest bidder. Those pushing for change - and that included this page - argued that decades of neglect and funding shortfalls were directly tied to lack of leadership, and that parks were suffering as a result.
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Posted on Mon, Dec. 6, 2010, Op-Ed, Philadelphia Inquirer
Every neighborhood needs a park
By Michael DiBerardinis and Harris Steinberg
While going green is a phrase that's stretched thin these days, parks and other green public spaces improve the air we breathe, protect the water we drink, and make our neighborhoods better. And yet more than 200,000 Philadelphians cannot walk to a park within 10 minutes of their homes.
The city's "Green2015" plan, to be launched this week, aims to ensure that every Philadelphian has a park to call his or her own. It will make an affordable investment in Philadelphia's future using existing resources.
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Posted on Mon, Dec. 6, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
City plans proliferation of small parks
By Inga Saffron
The Nutter administration has developed a plan to convert its huge holdings of vacant lots and asphalt-covered school yards into tree-shaded greens, in a low-cost effort to satisfy a 2009 pledge to add 500 acres of parkland.
The kinds of parks envisioned in the ambitious Green2015 plan, which will be released Tuesday, would be very different from a traditional city park like Rittenhouse Square or Forbidden Drive. Instead of building a few large destinations for recreation, the city would establish an archipelago of green oases on scraps of land, some as small as a quarter acre.
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Posted Wed, November 24, 2010, PlanPhilly
Getting to better know the Parks & Rec system
By JoAnn Greco
A canopy of trees blazed orange and gold over Carroll Park, the stone entry posts looked new and intact, and — right on cue — a bright green trolley rolled past, adding to the photo-op presented at the corner of 59th Street and Girard Avenue in West Philadelphia.
"Six years ago, you wouldn't want to walk through here," said Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson, indicating the park. "It was drug-infested, there was a lot of crime. One neighbor pretty much came out and took over. She just said 'enough is enough.'"
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Posted on Wed, November 24, 2010, Schuylkill River Parks Alliance
The Proposed Schuylkill Duck Pond
Yesterday, a Request for Proposals (RFP) was posted on by the City of Philadelphia for an "Amphibious Vehicle Tours" in the Lower Schuylkill. This RFP requires that any company that wants to operate an amphibious vehicle tour must submit a detailed proposal by December 17, 2010.
The RFP is 48 pages long and if you are interested in the details, please click here to read.
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Posted on Tue, Nov. 23, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
City retreats on duck tours
Proposals will be sought that could spare the popular Schuylkill Banks recreation trail.
By Inga Saffron
Two months after Mayor Nutter announced that he was handing over a section of Schuylkill Banks park to the amphibious tour operator Ride the Ducks, his administration now says it plans to seek competing proposals from other companies and will consider moving a controversial access ramp.
Administration officials said they reversed course after they belatedly realized that state law requires any concession on city-owned land to be competitively bid. According to Deputy Managing Director Brian Abernathy, a request for proposals will be posted on the city website by Tuesday.
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Posted on Thu, Nov. 18, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Ed Snider gives $5.5 million to redo three city ice rinks
By Robert Moran
Spurred by a $5.5 million contribution from the Ed Snider Youth Hockey Foundation, three city ice rinks will be completely renovated and enclosed to make them operational year-round, officials said Wednesday.
Mayor Nutter, facing ongoing budget woes, has been partially successful in raising private money to help keep public swimming pools and ice rinks open.
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Posted Thurs, November 18, 2010, PlanPhilly
Final land ordinance and a Green 2015 run through
By JoAnn Greco
At Wednesday evening's final 2010 Parks & Recreation Commission meeting, held at the Central Branch of the Free Library, the talk was of adding parkland. It made a welcome switch from the matters of land disposition that have lately concerned the newly-merged parks and recreation departments.
PennPraxis director, Harris Steinberg, offered a quick run-through of a study the group prepared for the Commission. It outlines the whys, wheres, and hows the system can add the 500 acres of new open space called for in the City's Green 2015 plan, and builds on input from a 40-member advisory council, more than 140 stakeholders, and some 200 citizens who attended six civic engagements meetings held over the summer.
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Posted on Wed, Nov. 17, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Study finds open space a tangible benefit
By Diane Mastrull
When Daniel Thut and his brother-in-law/business partner, Douglas Witmer, first considered the West Philadelphia property that is now the flagship of their small Greenline Cafe coffeehouse chain, they had to look past a lot.
Specifically, past the window frames of the dilapidated former flower shop to something across the intersection of 43d Street and Baltimore Avenue.
There sat what eventually convinced the young entrepreneurs that the property was worth sinking more than $300,000 into: Clark Park, nine acres of rare urban green space in what was, at the time, a University City neighborhood transitioning from a high-crime reputation.
"We just stood there and looked out the windows and saw the green and the trees of the park and said: 'Wow. This is really beautiful,' " Thut said. "In a lot of ways, the park was part of the inspiration for the cafe."
And, it turns out, part of a much larger and, until now, not fully quantified affirmation of the economic muscle of open space in Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Read More
Posted on Wed, Nov. 17, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
For DiBerardinis, Philly parks are a field of dreams
By Kia Gregory
Mike DiBerardinis' first summer back in the city broiled with challenges.
Recreation centers sat empty, basketball courts were crime scenes with bullet casings and yellow police tape, and about a third of pools never opened at all.
That was in 2009, and DiBerardinis, head of the newly merged Parks and Recreation Department, told Mayor Nutter that if he didn't get all the pools open the next summer, "you can fire me."
Now it's the fall of 2010. DiBerardinis is not only still here, but pondering the leafy trails in Cobbs Creek Park, wondering how to work a similar miracle there.
Read More
Posted on Fri, Oct. 29, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Changing Skyline: Duck boats pose a threat to Schuylkill Banks
By Inga Saffron
The most transformational project that Philadelphia built in the last decade wasn't a museum or a skyscraper, but the skinny, mile-long strip of plain asphalt that hugs the Schuylkill in Center City. On a crisp fall day, you can find runners from Penn, fishermen from Grays Ferry, and yoga devotees from Fitler Square jostled together on the 12-foot-wide recreation path, drawn by big-sky views of the sparkling river.
If Schuylkill Banks isn't an urban success story, I don't know what is.
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Posted on Thu, Oct. 28, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
New Schuylkill route for Ride the Ducks poses many challenges
By Miriam Hill
Tourist duck boats may return to Philadelphia, but only if the company that operates them gets approval from several agencies to build a ramp near a popular recreation path along the Schuylkill.
Ride the Ducks, which operates the amphibious vehicles, remains confident of its new route, developed after a July 7 accident on the Delaware River that killed two young Hungarian tourists, but the proposed location presents several challenges.
Read More
Posted on Thu, Oct. 21, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Council panel opposes expanded community garden at Manatawna Farm
By Miriam Hill
The City of Philadelphia had hoped to expand urban farming by offering five acres to people who wanted to grow produce on Manatawna Farm in Upper Roxborough.
But some neighbors opposed the plan, and on Wednesday a City Council committee handed them a victory. The Committee on Rules passed a bill that would bar commercial farming and the expansion of community gardens there.
The legislation requires full Council approval, so it's still possible that the Department of Parks and Recreation could proceed with plans for urban farms there.
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Posted on Thurs, Oct. 21, 2010, Metro Philly
Telling Fairmount Park’s secrets
By Shaun Brady
For years, a number of film canisters sat, gathering cobwebs, somewhere in the midst of the architectural drawings and historic photographs that make up the majority of the Fairmount Park Historic Resource Archive. But Rob Armstrong finally grew curious enough to call Jay Schwartz of Secret Cinema — which frequently provides venues for obscure footage — to inspect the reels and find out what was hiding within.
“Luckily they were housed pretty well over the years,” Armstrong says. “We were blown away by how cool they were.”
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Posted on Wed, Oct. 20, 2010, PlanPhilly
Council committee passes along bill that would prevent urban farming at Manatawna Farm
By Kellie Patrick Gates
City council's rules committee today voted in favor of a zoning bill designed to prohibit commercial farming and the expansion of community gardens at Manatawna Farm in Roxborough, going against the planning commission's recommendation.
The 76-acre Manatawna Farm is managed by the city's Parks and Recreation Department as part of Fairmount Park. About 50 acres are already being used for farming – hay is grown on 25 acres for animals kept by Saul High School agriculture students and 13 acres are used for pasture. There are also community gardens on site, managed by The Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education.
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Posted on Wed, Oct. 20, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Changing Skyline: Master plan for riverfront nearly ready
By Inga Saffron
It's been almost a decade since Philadelphia started a long-overdue conversation about transforming the vacant acres along the Delaware River into a vital urban neighborhood. Yet, other than a single, suburban-style casino and some lonely high-rise condos, little change is visible on that bleak, postindustrial landscape.
The city now appears ready to stop talking and start doing.
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Posted on Tue, Oct. 19, 2010, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Philly's Dilworth Plaza makeover to start
By Marcia Gelbart
When the Philadelphia Orchestra performed last month at City Hall, the brass, percussion, strings, and other sections played in an awkward space near the northwest entrance.
"It was where there was a big concrete area, so that is what spot was used," said Alan Greenberger, deputy mayor for planning and economic development.
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Posted on Thu, Oct. 14, 2010, The Philadelphia Inquirer
Rittenhouse Square designated a great American space
Inquirer Staff Report
It's easy to like Rittenhouse Square and the American Planning Association agrees.
The educational and professional organization has designated the square - one of the original five squares in William Penn's "Greene Countrie Towne" - as one of nation's top 10 great public spaces for 2010.
The APA said it singled out Rittenhouse Square because of the long-standing tradition of residents maintaining the park.
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Posted on Sun, Oct. 10, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Nutter takes a stroll to promote city's parks
Mayor Nutter took a walk in the park Saturday to promote Philadelphia parks.
It was the start of a series of citywide programs to highlight Philadelphia's commitment to teaming with community groups to maintain the bounty of its 25 parks and recreation centers.
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Posted on Mon, Sep. 27, 2010, Op-Ed, Philadelphia Daily News
If a tree falls in the city...
By A.J. THOMSON
WE GREW UP together, but never really knew each other.
She shared the same address, but we never shared a meal or spent more than a few seconds together. When she left the other day, I never got the chance to say goodbye, and, though I didn't think I would, I felt a little empty inside when I stopped over at my parents' house and her limbs were no longer obscuring the view.
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Posted on Thurs, Sep. 23, 2010, PlanPhilly
Parks and Recreation moves ahead on land disposition ordinance
By JoAnn Greco
On Wednesday evening, for its fourth meeting since being formed, the new Parks and Recreation Commission offered the first public glimpse of its proposed Open Land Protection Ordinance. The ordinance is part of broader land use guidelines required by the City Charter at the formation of the Commission.
Commission Chair Nancy Goldenberg introduced a presentation outlining the proposal by assuring the 30 or so park activists in attendance that "we are not at all presuming that what we're presenting tonight is final."
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Posted on Thu, Sep. 23, 2010, Editorial, Philadelphia Daily News
Parks blueprint
LAST NIGHT, the newly formed Commission on Parks and Recreation released a draft blueprint for how to protect the city's open lands.
This Open Lands Protection Ordinance is a big deal, since despite the city's vast acreage of recreation and parkland, no written guidelines have ever been drafted that establishes a process to review how and whether precious public land can be given up for development or other nonpark uses.
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Posted on Wed, Sep. 22, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Agency hopes new rules protect parkland
By Miriam Hill
In the spring of 2008, the city came very close to leasing about 20 acres of Fairmount Park for a $1 billion expansion by Fox Chase Cancer Center.
Park neighbors rallied to preserve their beloved woods and took the case to Orphans Court, where Judge John W. Herron ruled in their favor and killed the planned development.
At the time, there were no rules about whether parkland could be sold, leased, or changed in other ways.
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Posted on Sat, Sep. 18, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Children's garden may face final harvest
By DAN GERINGER
ON A SUN-SPLASHED Strawberry Mansion afternoon, Vanoka Morris-Smith watched the neighborhood children working in the huge garden she created for them 10 years ago and said, "Every year, I pray, 'Please give us this growing season.' But I'm afraid this year could be our last."
The children's garden occupies 16 vacant lots on Berks Street near 30th, cobbled together by the city-funded Pennsylvania Horticultural Society program to stabilize vacant land. It was always vulnerable to future development by any of the lots' various owners.
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Posted on Fri, Sep. 17, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Group taking the lead to stamp out blight in Philadelphia
By VALERIE RUSS
Penelope Giles drove her Ford pickup truck around Francisville yesterday, pointing to vacant lots that a neighborhood group worked to "clean and green" in the North Philadelphia area.
Of the hundreds of lots that have been cleaned, she took pride in pointing out one in particular.
The lot, on 20th Street near Ogden, was turned into a "neighborhood pocket park" with shrubbery, flowers, a park bench and large colorful planters.
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Posted on Fri, Sep. 10, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Pleasant Hill Park, cleaned up and ready for fishing
By Tom Stoelker
Bill Brinkman moved into the caretaker's house in Pleasant Hill Park after the Japanese surrendered to MacArthur in '45. He was a paratrooper in the 11th Airborne over New Guinea and the Philippines before he served on land in the honor guard, around the time the Japanese signed documents of surrender aboard the USS Missouri.
"We were there to make ... sure there was no hanky-panky," Brinkman recalled.
He returned to a factory job in Philadelphia, but jumped at the chance to manage the Pleasant Hill fish hatcheries when that job was offered to him. The Victorian park had provided generations of children with their first fish-catching experiences.
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Posted on Thu, Sep. 9, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Philly Corners: Joining to bring back Hunting Park
By Kia Gregory
'Oh, yeah, that's my man," someone shouted Wednesday from the cheering throng gathered as Ryan Howard stepped up to home plate amid the scorched grass, dusty infield, and rotting bleachers of the Hunting Park baseball field.
Instead of a bat, Howard wielded a shovel.
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Posted on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 by PlanPhilly
Parks & Rec getting down to land disposition work
By JoAnn Greco
As we leave the summer behind, the new Parks & Recreation Commission is ready to get down to work, with its first meeting since the official merger scheduled for Sept. 15. PlanPhilly caught up with Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis to see how things will move forward.
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Posted on Fri, Aug. 20, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Trust's new office space is grand (project)
By Thomas Stoelker
The approach evokes the dream home: a thicket of pines along a winding drive, obscuring a 19th-century mansion tucked along Wissahickon Avenue in West Mount Airy.
The call of cicadas drowns out the sound of gravel crunching under the car's tires. As the car moves around the drive's last bend, the manse reveals itself in all its gothic glory. Ahhh ... home.
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Posted on Wed, Aug. 11, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Out of the city, into the woods
Urban Blazers acquaints youngsters with nature's joys.
By Nicole Lockley
Nagewa Robertson hopped from one shaky rock to another, trying to keep her feet out of the swiftly moving creek water.
Nagewa, 13, was used to the streets of North Philadelphia but not the woods of nearby Fairmount Park.
"Look, it's a baby chipmunk," Nagewa said as she walked through the park with 13 other youths from the Hank Gathers Recreation Center at 25th and Diamond Streets.
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Posted Wednesday, August 11, 2010, PlanPhilly
Who is minding Philadelphia's parks?
By JoAnn Greco
Last week, the somnolence of a late August morning in Bella Vista was suddenly ravaged by the searing sound of a lawn mower. It was music to the neighbors' ears, though — made doubly sweet by the smell of freshly-cut grass that had in recent weeks grown knee high in Cianfrani Park.
"Did they find any small children in there?" smirked one neighbor.
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Posted on Wednesday, July 28, 2010, It's Our Money
Help Desk: How to save a park
A broken swing at Eastwick Park.
City Howl is a Web site that lets citizens post raves or rants about city services (thecityhowl.com). On Wednesdays, we publish highlights of our investigations.
THE PROBLEM: John Taylor's neighborhood park is in bad shape. When he moved to Southwest Philadelphia three years ago, Taylor liked taking his grandkids to Eastwick Park across the street from his house.
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Posted on Thursday, July 15, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Recharging in the park
Two run-down Fairmount Park houses are renovated and serving superior refreshment to hikers, bikers, and others enjoying the out-of-doors.
By Dianna Marder
Ricki Gever Eisenstein lived on Northwestern Avenue, just steps from a dilapidated Fairmount Park house for six years, knowing nothing of its history, until one day, at a relative's birthday party, she met Lucy Strackhouse.
Strackhouse runs the Fairmount Park Historic Preservation Trust, which owns the building known as Cedars House. She told Eisenstein that the house was available for rent as a business.
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Posted Monday, July 5, 2010, The New York Times
The Claim: Exposure to Plants and Parks Can Boost Immunity
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
THE FACTS
This time of year, allergies and the promise of air-conditioning tend to drive people indoors.
But for those who can take the heat and cope with the pollen, spending more time in nature might have some surprising health benefits. In a series of studies, scientists found that when people swap their concrete confines for a few hours in more natural surroundings — forests, parks and other places with plenty of trees — they experience increased immune function.
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Posted on Thu, June 24, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
In green initiative, Philly's final cinder baseball field giving way to grass after generations of scraped knees
By DAN GERINGER
After forcing Fishtown kids to play with pain for more than 50 years, Philadelphia's last cinder ballfield is finally going green.
Shissler Rec's grass baseball/soccer field will be the crown jewel in a $1.2 million, six-block "Green Connection: Shissler to the River" plan that the city's newly merged Department of Parks and Recreation unveils today.
"We're living the merger before we actually merge in July," said Michael DiBerardinis, parks and recreation commissioner
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Posted on Tuesday, June 22, 2010, PlanPhilly
Some simple solutions for our parks and rec centers
By JoAnn Greco
As Philadelphia lazes itself into summer this week, its parks and recreation system enters its busiest season. Just in time for the extra wear and tear come some major changes in how things will be done.
Among the biggest developments: the city's parks department and its recreation department officially complete their merger, and Jane Pepper, long-time executive director of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society officially hands the baton to newcomer Drew Becher.
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Posted on Sat, June 19, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia city pool season opens with a mayoral splash
By Kia Gregory
The lifeguards are ready. Residents are ready. And Friday afternoon, so was Mayor Nutter, as he jumped into the cool water of Kelly Pool in West Philadelphia to officially open the city's pool season.
There was much to celebrate. With a six-figure donation this month to the city's Splash and Summer Fund, all of the city's 70 outdoor pools will open this summer.
"It has real meaning for neighborhoods," Parks and Recreation Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis said of having every city pool open, "for children and families to gather and enjoy themselves during a hot and sticky summer.
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Posted on Fri, June 18, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Parks and Recreation a homecoming for Mike DiBerardinis
By CATHERINE LUCEY
MIKE DIBERARDINIS knows how to make a splash.
When the commissioner of the newly combined Parks and Recreation Department started work last year, the city was taking heat for opening only 46 outdoor pools due to budget cuts.
Not anymore. This year, 70 outdoor pools will be open thanks to an aggressive fundraising effort by DiBerardinis that collected $600,000 from community groups and private donors.
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Posted on Fri, June 11, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
New audio tour offers insight into outdoor art
By Dianna Marder
Martha Erlebacher recalls the feedback her husband, sculptor Walter Erlebacher, heard in 1976 when his work Jesus Breaking Bread was unveiled outside the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul.
The piece looked all wrong, some people complained, because "everybody knows Jesus had a beard."
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Posted Thursday, June 10, 2010, PlanPhilly
Message from Parks and Rec friends: find the Money
By JoAnn Greco
If weather has any significance as an omen, today's park-related activities were very interesting indeed. Under a threatening sky, 17 representatives of parks groups made impassioned plea after impassioned plea for City Council and the Mayor to "go back to the table" to make the approved parks and recreation budget a reality.
The recurring theme: Find the money. Find the money.
"These speakers represent thousands of constituents who think it will be tragic not to find a way to fund the budget which was passed," Lauren Bornfriend, executive director of the Philadelphia Parks Alliance told PlanPhilly before a sparsely-attended press event got underway outside City Hall this morning.
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Posted on Tue, June 8, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Groundbreaking begins Parkway rejuvenation
By MICHELLE SKOWRONEK
Beyond the Meudon Gate off the Benjamin Franklin Parkway lies the historic Rodin Museum, but the landscape around it lacks personality, pizzazz and perennials.
The city plans to soon change that.
Though announced in July 2008, the city finally broke ground yesterday on the major aspects of a project to improve the Ben Franklin Parkway. The city plans to add gardens, paths and trees to the museum's front yard and other spots along the Parkway.
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Posted on Tue, June 8, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Polishing the new Dell's potential
By Fatimah Ali
ONE LOOK at the growth of the Avenue of the Arts on Broad Street proves that Philadelphia is fast becoming a new East Coast haven for the performing and visual arts.
So I hope that "Monday Nights Out in Philadelphia," the new summer lineup recently announced by Mayor Nutter for the renamed Dell Music Center, will provide a resurgence of cultural arts in a neighborhood desperately in need of summer outdoor entertainment.
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Posted on Fri, June 4, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Cool news: Philadelphia's pools will open
By JAN RANSOM
It's going to be a splish-splashing good summer. Mayor Nutter announced yesterday that the city has raised enough cash to open all its public pools for the summer.
Philadelphia's second annual Splash and Summer FUNd generated the $600,000 necessary to keep 70 city-owned pools open. Two other pools will be converted into spray grounds. Budget constraints last year prevented 27 pools from opening in the summer.
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Posted on Mon, May 31, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Garden clubs out to save Fairmount Park's Concourse Lake
By Virginia A. Smith
To look at Concourse Lake now, you'd never believe what it used to be - or what it may be again.
In its long-ago heyday, the 71/2-acre lake in West Fairmount Park was a popular spot for fishing, picnicking, swimming, and ice-skating. But starting in the 1960s, it joined a sad list of Philadelphia treasures that were trashed by neglect or design. These days, it's a hot spot for Canada geese.
Now, as part of the city's long-term, $300 million plan to revitalize West Fairmount Park and its institutions, the lake is poised for a comeback - new landscaping and pathways, play and picnic areas, educational signs and small amphitheater, all underwritten by an unusual "angel."
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Posted on Fri, May 28, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Nutter, Council still far apart on budget
By Miriam Hill
A giant game of budget chicken is happening at City Hall.
On one side are Mayor Nutter and his budget gurus, who say they stand ready to cut $20 million and 339 jobs, most of them from libraries and the Police and Fire Departments, starting in July.
On the other are some members of City Council and a union leader who think those cuts are unlikely and who say city leaders will find another solution.
On Thursday, Nutter said it was too late for that with the budget deadline looming.
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Posted on Thu, May 27, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
City neighborhood touts its greening at news conference
By Kia Gregory
Nilda Ruiz remembers when the grassy park in her North Philadelphia neighborhood was a dumping site, filled with old toilet bowls, flat tires, and broken glass.
"It wasn't a safe place to walk," said Ruiz, standing in the park at Ninth and Norris Streets on Wednesday for a news conference on the city's progress in becoming the greenest in the nation. "To look at it now . . ."
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Posted on Saturday, May 26, 2010, PlanPhilly
Going green, one acre at a time
By JoAnn Greco
Standing in the blazing sun, about thirty curious souls joined Amanda Benner of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society for a sneak preview of what will soon be Philadelphia's first "pop-up" park. For now, a weed-strewn one-acre lot fronting the Delaware River in between two rotting piers, the site serves as an example of a "new open space that's actually happening," Benner told her audience.
The brief jaunt kicked off a series of six community meetings intended to familiarize neighbors with Green2015, a program to add 500 acres of open space to Philadelphia in the next five years, and part of the larger citywide green initiative Greenworks. Each meeting will be held at an extant or promised green space around town, said Benner.
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Posted on Fri, May 14, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Greenworks Philadelphia wins national honor
By Diane Mastrull
A year ago, Philadelphia launched a sustainability plan aimed not only at improving environmental stewardship and energy efficiency, but also at converting the old industrial city into a clean-technology hub.
The ambitious initiative known as Greenworks Philadelphia picked up what city officials are considering a substantial credibility boost Thursday night.
Philadelphia was named winner of the third annual Siemens Sustainable Community Award in the large-community category. The plan edged out sustainability efforts by a more modern city - Dallas - in a national contest organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The other finalist was Atlanta.
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Posted on Thu, May 6, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Spring Greening
Join your neighbors to spruce up city's open spaces
Ninety-four parks will participate in Saturday's LOVE Your Park event, getting tender loving care from volunteers committed to keeping Philadelphia's green spaces beautiful.
Liberty Lands on 3rd Street in Northern Liberties is one of them.
Built on an industrial brownfield - the site of the long-gone Burk Brothers Tannery - the soil was deemed safe after the Environmental Protection Agency removed waste nearly 20 years ago. After development efforts failed in the mid-'90s, the land was donated to the Northern Liberties Neighborhood Association, which has nurtured the two-acre multi-use park that brightens 3rd Street today.
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Posted on Thu, Apr. 29, 2010, Philadelphia Daily News
Stu Bykofsky: Our political apathy: Something in the water?
IT'S COOL - city pools will open this year. If the Nutter administration learned anything last year about city residents, it was this: Don't screw with libraries and don't screw with pools. Like the administration, I wouldn't have thought of them as third-rail political issues, but they were.
More fury was generated by those budget-cutting proposals than even this year's brainstorm to tax sugary beverages and to double-dip by charging residents for trash removal.
The budget crisis remains, but the pools will open, starting June 17, according to Recreation Commissioner Susan Slawson, who told me that the openings would be staggered over two weeks.
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Posted Mon, April 26, 2010, Plan Philly
Philly will plant 300,000 new trees by 2015
By JoAnn Greco
One thousand trees planted around town last Saturday. Another couple thousand promised by the end of June. At this rate, Philadelphia will surely get its much bally-hooed 300,000 new trees in the ground well before the target of 2015.
If not, I'll quit, says Michael DiBerardinis, Commissioner of the Department of the Parks and Recreation. No sweat, says Drew Becher, president-elect of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. "I don't think that goal is off the charts," he offers. "In New York, they've planted 350,000 trees in just two and a half years."
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Posted on Mon, Apr. 26, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Philly Corners: Neighborhood pool sparks new optimism
By Kia Gregory
As the morning rush fades, businesses along this stretch of Brewerytown yawn to life.
The ponytailed waitress at the corner diner serves a lone customer. Down the street, the owner of the vintage boutique separates handbags. Outside, Kenny Jackson pours soapy water on the concrete and scrubs the front of his family's fledgling water-ice business.
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Posted on Mon, Apr. 26, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Personal Health: News and Notes: 34 questions to determine whether that playground is safe
Is your child's playground safe? If you want to know, get out your clipboard and get ready to take stock.
Researchers at the University of Alabama in Birmingham have come up with a 34-question checklist that will help parents and others evaluate the safety aspects of playgrounds. The aspects it covers include the depth of the material in sandboxes, whether the "fall-zone" areas are made of soft materials, whether a first-aid kit is nearby, and whether the equipment is securely anchored.
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Posted on Tue, Apr. 13, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Parks chief beseeches Council: Fund more trees
By Miriam Hill
Parks and Recreation Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis so believes in Philadelphia's effort to plant 300,000 new trees by 2015 that he told City Council on Monday that he would quit his job if he didn't make big strides this year toward that goal.
Not everyone on Council buys into the plan, which could make it harder for DiBerardinis to make good on his promise.
Councilman Bill Green, who is not sure he agrees with Mayor Nutter's proposal to increase the parks budget by $3.3 million, to $49.8 million, questioned whether DiBerardinis could pull it off.
The plan calls for 5,800 trees to be planted this year, but DiBerardinis told Council that's not enough.
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Posted on Tues, April 13, 2010, It's Our Money
Hearing Notebook: Betting against Bill Green
We think it’s safe to say that Philadelphia parks advocates really like Parks and Recreation commissioner Michael DiBerardinis, judging by the number of times he was interrupted by applause during his budget testimony yesterday.
As Council President Anna Verna said: “You’re the first commissioner who’s come before us that’s gotten a standing ovation.”
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Posted on April 12, 2010, PlanyPhilly
DiBerardinis rallies troops, takes a stand
It’s safe to say that park advocates really like Parks and Recreation commissioner Michael DiBerardinis.
His City Council budget testimony on Monday was punctuated several times by applause and a standing ovation and outlined a new direction for the city’s parks and recreation facilities, to be consolidated under the new Department of Parks and Recreation in July: a budget increase of 7.6 percent, to $49.8 million and an ambitious tree planting initiative.
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Posted on Mon, April 12, 2010, ABC-WPVI
Trees.
Philadelphia has an estimated 2.5 million of them. They help clean the air and provide shade. The man who heads the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Department, Michael DiBerardinis, says the city wants to spearhead a green works program to plant more; 300,000 more trees by the year 2015.
Despite budget woes, park supporters want Philadelphia City Council to give Parks and Recreation $3.3 million more than last year. Some of the money would be for trees, some for 43 new staffers.
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Posted on Mon, April 12, 2010, PhillyClout
Tree Planting A Hot Issue at Parks and Rec Hearing
Councilman Bill Green and Parks and Recreation Commissioner Michael DiBerardinis threw down this morning over an unlikely topic – tree planting.
Under Mayor Nutter's budget plan, Parks and Recreation is getting a small budget increase this year, of about $3.3* million, which DiBerardinis said would go to a number of priorities, including planting more trees. The city has set a goal of planting 300,000 trees over the next five years.
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Monday, April 12, 2010, PhillyClout
City: Dell Will Reopen This Summer
Recreation Commissioner Sue Slawson today told City Council that the Robin Hood Dell East concert venue – closed for the past two summers – will have an eight show season this year.
“July 12 should be the first concert at the Dell,” Slawson said during a budget hearing for the department of parks and recreation. The city currently has a series of contracts up for bid to provide lighting, stage production and other technical support for the Fairmont Park venue.
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Posted on Mon, Mar. 22, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Forest or meadow? Not everyone agrees
By Miriam Hill
In Philadelphia's Andorra section, a thicket of forest gives way to Houston Meadow, a haven for two types of butterflies found nowhere else in the city, and a bevy of red squirrels, birds, and other small animals.
The Fairmount Park Commission, which says the meadow was much larger 50 years ago, has been cutting down tree species that started growing there relatively recently to expand the meadow from 15 acres to about 47 acres.
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010, PlanPhilly
Parks & Rec Integration is a Priority
By JoAnn Greco
How auspicious can you get — a jovial semi-holiday, a gentle hint of Spring in the air, and a still-shining sun thanks to pushed-up Daylight Savings Time? For the new Commission on Parks & Recreation, which assembled for the second time last night, things were looking good.
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Posted on Wed, Mar. 17, 2010, Opinion, Philadelphia Daily News
New way at Parks & Rec
By NANCY A. GOLDENBERG
IN JULY, on a sunny afternoon, a crowd convened at the Mander Recreation Center in Strawberry Mansion to listen as Mayor Nutter announced the members of his new Commission on Parks and Recreation. As he named his nine "guardians of the city's treasures," he urged them to swiftly pursue his ambitious vision: to creating the nation's premier parks and recreation system. And that's precisely what we've set out to do.
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Posted on Fri, Mar. 12, 2010
Assessing winter's damage
All may not be lost in the garden.
By Ginny Smith
This week, two things became clear.
One, spring is close - eight days away. We know that because the temperature is inching up, the days are growing longer, the snow is gone.
Which brings us to Point No. 2: We have a boatload of yard work to do. As if we didn't have enough to clean up, the winter's snow drop, almost 80 inches, caused a huge amount of tree damage.
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Posted on Thu, Mar. 4, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Hidden gem
Fairmount Park's Rockland Mansion is hard to find and gets little notice. A 200th anniversary campaign is aimed at changing that.
By Carolyn Davis
A GPS couldn't locate the address for Rockland Mansion in east Fairmount Park. Neither could the guard at the much-better-known Mount Pleasant Mansion.
"Is that Rockland Mansion over there?" a visitor asked, pointing to a nearby building that turned out to be the object of the query.
"No," the guard answered confidently, pulling out a park brochure. "It's not on the map."
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Posted on Fri, Feb. 19, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Changing Skyline: A peerless plan for a Philly pier
By Inga Saffron
When the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. selected Field Operations last fall to design a new park at the Race Street pier, it was hard to shake off a certain feeling of trepidation.
The firm, led by Philadelphia-based James Corner, was still basking in rave reviews for its work on the High Line park, the magical suspended garden that rolls through New York's Chelsea neighborhood on an elevated trestle. But for that five-acre project, Corner's group enjoyed a kingly budget of $152 million. Perennially cash-strapped Philadelphia was setting aside just $5 million for its one-acre pier, and part of that money was meant to cover repairs to the structure's 109-year-old wooden piles.
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Posted on Thu, Feb. 11, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
City's 'green machine' gets a new leader
Pa. Horticultural Society names Drew Becher to succeed Pepper.
By Virginia A. Smith
Drew Becher, an urban warrior who has spent 15 years promoting community gardens, tree-planting, and environmental education for underserved children in Chicago, Washington, and, most recently, New York City, is the new president of the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Philadelphia's "green machine."
He succeeds Jane G. Pepper, 64, who retires June 1 after more than three decades of association with the society, the last 25 years at its helm.
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Posted Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010 PlanPhilly
New commission, new focus, new mandate
By JoAnn Greco
That fifty or so people even turned out for the first public meeting of the Commission of Parks & Recreation last night is noteworthy. The event wasn't heavily publicized — neither Fairmount Park nor the Recreation Department listed it on its web site — and it was held in the hard-to-find, albeit symbolic, chill of the Horticultural Center in Fairmount Park.
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Posted on Wed, Jan. 20, 2010, Editorial, Philadelphia Daily News
Big Park News
TONIGHT, THE newly formed Commission on Parks and Recreation meets in public for the first time. This is a command performance for anyone who is a) a lover of the parks; b) a lover of the city; c) a voter who helped contribute to this amazing development by voting to create this new body.
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Posted on Sat, Jan. 16, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer
Fox Chase drops Burholme Park expansion plan
By Stacey Burling
Fox Chase Cancer Center yesterday announced that it was abandoning its efforts to expand into neighboring Burholme Park.
The cancer center decided not to appeal a Commonwealth Court decision last month barring its plans. In December 2008, Orphans' Court Judge John W. Herron ruled that Fox Chase was not entitled to build on 19.4 acres of the 65-acre park. Fox Chase had appealed that decision to Commonwealth Court.
Fox Chase's plan to spend $1 billion over 20 years on the expansion was met by strong neighborhood opposition.
Timothy Spreitzer, a spokesman for Fox Chase, said the hospital would continue to consider three possibilities: expanding on its current land, splitting its facility into more than one campus, or moving entirely to a new location.
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Posted in December/January Issue of Parks & Recreation
Does Knope Really Know?
By Amy Kapp
NBC recently announced the pickup of its Thursday comedy, “Parks and Recreation,” for a full 2009-2010 season. Starring Amy Poehler as Leslie Knope, a mid-level administrator for the Parks and Recreation Department in Pawnee, Indiana, “Parks and Recreation” is a mockumentary that examines “the mundane but necessary ways that people interact with their government.” The storyline largely focuses on Ms. Knope’s endeavor to turn an abandoned construction pit into a community park.
Parks & Recreation magazine was curious to hear what real-life industry folks think of the show. Funny or not? Positive or negative? Purely entertainment or hurting the cause? Here’s what real parks and recreation pros told us...
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