More parklets are popping out around the University City area. Just recently, the University City District installed one on 44th Street between Spruce and Locust. A third parklet, although a little smaller (with just three tables), has emerged right next to recently opened Ramen Bar (4040 Locust Street).
September 28th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
I think these are pretty scary to sit in. They make me nervous.
September 28th, 2012 at 1:47 pm
Only philadelphia first bike lanes now this what a waste of money. Open programs for children in the urban community
September 28th, 2012 at 3:06 pm
So this parklet is basically just for the ramen bar? That seems like an interesting choice.
September 28th, 2012 at 4:04 pm
Another idiotic idea from people don’t live in the neighborhood. How about we plop one of these on YOUR block and take away your parking spaces? Enjoy sucking car exhaust as you slurp your noodles!
September 28th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
@Festus: “How about we plop one of these on YOUR block and take away your parking spaces?”
OK!! Please do.
September 28th, 2012 at 9:57 pm
@Festus: I’m pretty sure this is an idea implemented by people who do live in the neighborhood.
Also, for you, p, and future posters — from the comments on the first parklet post here, last year:
“FOR THE LOVE OF GOD can we please all just stop fixating on freaking parking?”
Move on. Or if parking’s so freaking important to you, move to the suburbs.
September 28th, 2012 at 10:01 pm
As many of you know the pilot project of the parklet happened in front of our location at 43rd and Baltimore Ave last year. A second parklet was installed later in the summer on the 3600 block of Lancaster Ave in front of the newly renovated Powelton Pizza. They are a project of University City District, the costs of the design/production were grant funded. The architect who designed the parklet as well as the UCD staff in charge of planning and implementing were and are local. There are all sorts of factors taken into account in trying to select the sites for the parklet, the idea of highlighting new/local businesses being one. Also, there needs to be a willingness on the part of the nearby businesses to participate (i.e. we lock the tables/chairs at night, sweep it off, water the plants as necessary, etc.) The 43rd and Baltimore parklet was and remains a big success, and not just for Green Line Cafe. I observe it daily and it is regularly used by Best House patrons, and occasionally others who bring their own food, or just a book or whatever. It’s driving money into the (hyper)local economy, and creating community goodwill. The parklet did not reappear this year in front of Powelton Pizza. I don’t know this for a fact, but I heard that it didn’t feel like a good fit relative to the trolley going by. This year the second parklet happened on 44th in front of Honest Tom’s/Pop Shop/Tampopo/Local 44. In my opinion it’s a great spot, and I know the businesses are pretty happy with it, too. The parklets have a modular design. Again, I don’t know for a fact, but it may very well be that there were a few remaining units left over after the other two parklets were installed and it required minimal effort on UCD’s part to get the permissions and do the installation of the third one in front of a new and unique neighborhood business.
September 28th, 2012 at 10:06 pm
And to clarify: when I said the parklets are grant funded, I meant from a private foundation, not a city grant. When I described the people involved as being local, I meant “University City residents.”
September 29th, 2012 at 11:13 am
Festus great point, why would someone want to eat infront or in back of someones car exhaust getting into your food? Charles: I was born and raise in Philadelphia before they Came up with ”University city” which is West Philadelphia. Also before Upenn and Drexel started buying up residential area from ppl who were born and rasised her; and before these stupid stores even got here they were just houses where regulars use to live at. So come on with going to the suburbs never been and never will
September 29th, 2012 at 2:28 pm
Parklets happen.
September 29th, 2012 at 6:54 pm
Curb your parklet.
September 29th, 2012 at 8:04 pm
Yeah, I don’t really understand the parklets. If you want a peaceful area for social activity, you have to get rid of through car traffic. Putting some seating next to a busy and dangerous road isn’t doing anything to address the overlying problem. And I find it particularly odd that we’re not willing to sacrifice parking for safer streets where children can play, but we are willing to sacrifice it for some wood and chairs that are used only a few hours daily.
September 29th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
@p, are you a Lenape? If not, then stop complaining. This is America, where the only thing constant is change. The city isn’t going to be what it was 20 years ago, so who cares what the neighborhoods were called? Who cares what they will be called in 20, 50, or 1,000 years? The world is for the living, and we improve it for ourselves. Today that means making parklets and bike lanes. Maybe someday people will agree with you and believe that cities are improved by less space for people, no commerce, and a poor economy — you know, the way it was before the universities began pouring in hundreds of thousands of dollars into the area, enabling people to grow their own independent businesses up and down Baltimore Ave and Market Street. I have no special love for UPenn, but without their presence, this area would be a wasteland.
p.s. You don’t think you live in the suburbs? Why do you think ‘West Philadelphia’ was developed in the first place?
September 29th, 2012 at 8:34 pm
@C. I’m not sure if you approve of the parklets, but what are you proposing as an alternative? That streets like 43rd St, Locust St, and Lancaster Ave are cut off to vehicular traffic so that kids can play in the street? Forever?
I would like to see UCD, or whoever Doug W. said was in charge of picking parklet spaces to hold a poll on their website or something, where people in the neighborhood can nominate places for the parklets. Then ‘p’ could vote ‘the dumpster’ and I could vote ‘in front of Earth Cup’ and someone else could say ‘in front of Mood Cafe!!!’
September 29th, 2012 at 9:48 pm
Thos you have your opinion and I have minds, and what I think still stays the same reguardless of what you think lol. Other cities are doing find without universities buying up residential areas, maybe Philadelphia needs to look for help in other cities to bring the ecomony up, because of right now this city is the pits especially when closing down public schools, library’s , rec centers and etc. So instead of wasting money on things as this put the money in something to that will keep a future in children. Not just in certain areas where people are wealthy
September 30th, 2012 at 10:50 am
Once again, I think these parklets are great. I’ve eaten on them before, and I’m not choking on car exhaust. In truth, I wish there were more of these things.
This “parklet” issue seems to be less and less about the parking issue, and more and more about “those goddamned people from the university.” I’m noticing that West Philly has its own version of Godwin’s Law – eventually, the comments section of WPL is going to devolve into someone bitching about the university and the people affiliated with it. For someone who lives out here, is affiliated with the university, and goes out of her way to support (hyper)locally-owned businesses and do her part to improve the neighborhood, it’s becoming really offensive.
October 1st, 2012 at 12:41 am
All the parklets are great. I hope they follow through and keep the one on 44th st open through the winter in the scandinavian style.
October 1st, 2012 at 3:48 am
Whenever I see the sort of divisive arguments that always spring up amongst members of the community regarding these parklets I can’t help thinking that there are deeper issues being brought up by these things.
Beyond the presence of annoying college students or the loss of a few parking spots for a few months, I think part of it may be the resentment residents may feel toward the institutions that comprise “University City” which, while dominating such a huge chunk of this city’s landscape, pay nothing in the way of property taxes, and don’t pay much of anything in the way of PILOT fees (payment in lieu of taxes) that such wealthy non-profit institutions are usually expected to pay towards a city which hosts them. These parklets are supposed to be seen as gifts back to the local community, and while I appreciate efforts to help out local businesses, I can’t help thinking that these parklets are a rather paltry compensation.
But then when I look at the discussion surrounding these things, it’s depressing to see that when these huge, exclusive institutions throw the general public a few crumbs of “public space”, the main complaint is that precious parking spaces are being taken away. I feel that this suggests that people in America have long since abandoned any thought about what “public space” can and should be. The few slivers of this country that aren’t occupied and fenced off by private property owners are given away to the machines which give us the illusion of convenience, safety and independence, while isolating us and insulating us from the community and landscape that we live in and travel through. Just look at Philly’s “parkway”, is it really much more than a bunch of highway median strips clustered together to create a huge swath of uninhabitable space in the middle of the city?
I admit that I’m not a member of the Lenape tribe (they were all shipped off to Oklahoma and Canada so we could live on their land, btw) but I can’t help feeling a little indignant at seeing how inhospitable the landscape we live in has become and I just think it’s a little absurd that they put a little platform on the street with some chairs and flowers and I’m supposed to sit there and think “oh how nice, what a beautiful and progressive city I live in…”
Oh well, baby steps I guess, right?
October 1st, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I thought we decided that children should play in the trash in the alley behind the Subway on Baltimore Avenue as God intended.
October 1st, 2012 at 1:43 pm
“Move on. Or if parking’s so freaking important to you, move to the suburbs.”
AMEN. stick your car…
October 1st, 2012 at 2:08 pm
but arent most of these parklets near public parks? whats the point of doing it when you can sit in the park just across or down the block.
wouldnt it make more sense to place these where parks a bit further of a walk?
October 2nd, 2012 at 2:15 pm
UCD employees don’t really live in UC!!
Oh and the much touted “Porch” wasn’t UCDs creation, nor is it green but it is waste of space…for mimes and the yoga crowd. And since basketball is such a rich tradition in Philadelphia and to turn that space into basketball courts would honor that.