Sept. 6
By Kellie Patrick Gates
For PlanPhilly
West Philadelphia resident Wanda Steward sat on the parched lawn of Penn Treaty Park early Friday evening, smiling contentedly into the breeze coming off the Delaware River.
"I just love the water, the pretty air," said Steward, 38. "You get peace of mind out here."
A hundred feet away, members of the Friends of Penn Treaty Park - a three-year-old community organization whose mission is to care for and improve the park - were setting up tables and a sound system for their annual Champagne in the Park fundraiser/celebration. This year's party came with a big announcement from President Win Akeley: The park's future was about to be mapped out with a master site plan, paid for largely with grant money.
Requests for proposal have already gone out to firms specializing in landscape design, transportation and recreation, Akeley said. Proposals should come back by the end of the month, and soon after, a series of three or four public meetings will be held to refine what residents want from the park, which is part of the Fairmount Park system. "We see the plan evolving over the next several months," he said.
Some of the broad goals of the plan have been established. A lot of attention will be paid to improving the park's two "gateways," the river's edge and the street entrance, Akeley said.
Street-side goals include making the park more accessible by public transportation and walking. And then there's the parking question. Penn Treaty has a small parking lot and parking spaces along the roadway. But there's concern that the roadway parking will be eaten up when the new I-95 exit is built or by road-widening that could happen in the future if the planned SugarHouse Casino is built nearby.
The river's edge offers wonderful views of the city - including the Benjamin Franklin Bridge - passing boats and wildlife. But right now, the bank is piled with large boulders. Sometimes, people climb out on them and take a seat. But Akeley said the future might include a softer edge "where people are more apt to touch the water." This could be a small beach of sorts, he said.
Boaters might be able to come to Penn Treaty via the river, Akeley said. "Personally, I can imagine a public dock," he said.
Friends Vice President Barbara Morehead dreams of a pier, especially a re-creation of the one she often visited on her trips to the park as a child. It had a roof, she said. "It was like a covered bridge."
One portion of Penn Treaty has picnic tables, benches, the obelisk and playground equipment. The newer two-thirds of the park is largely open space. Northern Liberties resident Mike Haile, 28, and his dogs, Rosco and Burt, really hope it stays that way.
"We come every day, to get in 20 minutes of exercise for them," he said as he tossed a football to his furry friends.
The informal, flexible space is part of the park's essential character, Akeley said. The plan will not alter that.
Bernadette Breslin, who came to the event with her three kids - 8, 6, and 4 - and husband, hopes the park's young users will be remembered in the plan. "New equipment for the playground would be nice," said Breslin, who comes to the park two or three times a week from her home, a few blocks away.
While much of the master plan will cover landscape and hardscape, the Friends also aim to boost the park's public profile with education programs for students and events for everyone.
Steward began coming to the park about 19 years ago, when her youngest was born. When the kids were young, they played in the playground. As they grew, the family fished together.
She said she has appreciated the improvements made by the Friends over the past three years - the park is cleaner, there are more trees, and recently, new benches were added. She hopes the plan calls for more of the same. She'd also like to see more events in the park, she said, nodding to the one that was taking shape next to her - she would have attended if she had known it was happening, she said.
Katie Recker, who chaired the Champagne in the Park committee, said the fundraiser was as much about public awareness as money.
Many Philadelphians don't know this rare piece of open riverfront land exists at Columbia and Delaware avenues, lamented Friends Vice President Morehead, one of the founders of the Friends.
When Mayor Michael Nutter spoke to the crowd, he called Penn Treaty a "beautiful place that must be preserved." He said there was "so much to enjoy, so much to protect, so much to make an investment in."
Nutter also admitted this was his first visit.
"I've driven past any number of times, but have not had the opportunity to stop in the park," he said. "I look forward to coming back out and enhancing the relationship between the city, this park, and your organization," he told the Friends.
Even those who regularly use the park tend to be a bit sketchy on its history. The legend - one often depicted or described in art and old journal entries - is that William Penn and the Lenni Lenape Indians signed a treaty of friendship beneath an old elm tree on the site. The fabled elm fell in a storm in 1810. In 1827, the Penn Society placed an obelisk on the site to memorialize it.
Recker hopes for a future partnership between the park and the school district, in which children are brought to the park on educational field trips. She also hopes the Philadelphia Orchestra will hold concerts there.
Friends Vice President Morehead, one of the founders of the Friends, has a clothesline arts festival planned for October. Around Thanksgiving, people will feed the birds by hanging food from the trees, she said. A Christmas Carol sing-a-long is also planned.
Akeley said the Friends have received a $22,500 matching grant from the State Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. The Friends must themselves raise that same amount, which means a whole new level of fundraising, he said.
It soon became clear that even $45,000 was not enough to pay for a top-notch, comprehensive master plan, he said. The William Penn Foundation invited the Friends to apply for additional grant money that would bring the total to as much as $100,000, he said. While the William Penn grant is not yet official, "We feel good about it already," he said.
Contact the reporter at kelliespatrick@gmail.com
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