City Safari: Is Germantown Rehabilitation-Proof?
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Germantown Reinactors.
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Wed, Feb 26, 2020
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Contributing Editor
Why have so many excellent albeit Utopian design projects intent on improving this historic section of Philadelphia failed? Is there something in Germantown air? Do the neighborhoods here need a "population transplant" before the area can be revitalized?
In the 1960s and 1970s, Germantown was home to several large department stores: Allen's, JC Penny, Franklin Simon, and CA Rowell. The area was known as a regional shopping district, second only to Center City. Germantown was the home of Asher's Candy, Cunningham Pianos and a first-class restaurant in a Victorian mansion on Greene Street that attracted diners from all over the city. There was also a vibrant YMCA with a large swimming pool and gym. A Linton's Restaurant on the corner of Germantown and Chelten attracted diners who wanted to see their food orders travel from the kitchen to the counter along a conveyor belt. There was a Woolworth's on Chelten Avenue and a pub restaurant with famous roast beef sandwiches at Wayne and Chelten.
Vendors along Germantown Avenue sold homemade pecan pie ("To rot your teeth," as one friend of mine noted.) In the 1970s the area was beginning to show some signs of decay. There was Maplewood Mall, tucked away among Greene Street, Germantown Avenue, W. Armat Street, and West Chelten. The mall featured a shoe repair and cheese shop, a bookstore (Leaves of Grass), a kite shop, a vitamin store, and a popular jazz club. The mall's relative isolation from the street contributed to its downfall. In 2019, the city invested 3.3 million for a Maplewood Mall redo. The redone mall will have direct street access and will effectively end the 50% vacancy rate.
The beauty of Germantown cannot be denied: Big houses, trees, cobblestones, cleaner air than Center City. There's also that famous "good earth grounding vibe" that so many people talk about.
In the 1970s the Chelten Avenue offices of The Germantown Courier could have doubled for a big city newsroom. An elevator took you to the offices where the editor-in-chief, decked out in a white shirt and bow tie, sat at an enormous desk.
On the streets, Hare Krishna devotees filled the air with incense and chants. Occasionally one could also spot an Anglo-Catholic nun or two from St. Luke's parish on the Avenue. White hippie types and gays (mostly lesbians) began moving into the area despite Melvin Floyd's Neighborhood Crusade headquarters (Floyd was a vehement and outspoken opponent of gay rights) on West Queen Lane, where there was also the Queen Lane Projects, a massive Section 8 'snake pit' high rise. I lived two blocks from the projects. The worst 'assault' I experienced was being called 'whitey.'
Throughout the late 70s and 80s, Germantown showed little signs of improvement. It was neighborhood frozen inside a snow globe as if the visionary designers of Maplewood Mall decided that the area was really bad and got out of town. All seemed permanently lost when the good restaurants began to disappear. The Victorian mansion restaurant on Greene Street closed. Linton's followed suit as did the 'roast beef' pub on Wayne Avenue. Fast food places moved into the area with a vengeance. Asher’s Candy, in the Germantown area since 1899, left Germantown in 1997 for Souderton. Cunningham Pianos, a Germantown institution since 1891, left for King of Prussia in 2016.
Cunningham co-owner Rich Galassini told The Philadelphia Business Journal that "We loved being here [in Germantown]. People come just to see the architecture, let alone our instruments. It's a really cool place to show pianos, but it's just not in the right location anymore. I'm torn, but I'm going to love being in King of Prussia, and we'll still have a Philadelphia presence."
"Just not in the right location," sounds like a vague reference to Germantown's demise. What has hampered Germantown's development to some degree is the irregularity of public transpiration in the area. Along with Roxborough, Germantown has less than adequate bus routes. The regional rail lines, Chestnut Hill West and Chestnut Hill East, have far too few trains that run back and forth to Center City. On weekends, the gap between trains is even wider.
In 2012, the Central Germantown Business District Beautification Plan noted that Germantown was no longer "a regional destination," and that "today the district is characterized by rising vacancy, a lack of diversity in retail offerings, and physical deterioration."
What to do?
An international student design competition might be one answer, because a student in the UK may have the key to Germantown's future.
That's what happened last month when the Center for Architecture and Design announced its 2020 Edmund N. Bacon Urban Design Awards, a student competition with a first prize of $5,000. The competition's theme was the revitalization of Germantown, namely the so-called Chelten Hub.
The competition's program material spelled it out plainly that in Germantown, "There is a high concentration of empty storefronts, neglected properties, buildings modified with inexpensive materials, parking lots, and fast-food restaurants." The program went on to say that, "Some property owners are preventing development by holding onto vacant buildings and underutilized lots."
The challenge: How might this historic district be designed to better support the local community?
The winner of the competition, Leeds Beckett University (UK) called their vision Platforms for People.
Leeds calls for the creation of new urban spaces termed platforms. Leeds identified overwhelming problems like crime, lack of amenities, poverty, rubbish, and parking. "These issues have held Germantown back." Leeds' solution is to "push back the fabric of buildings and pull forward the history and the people. This begins to highlight important structures and address wayfinding."
Wayfinding, according to the Society for Experimental Graphic Design (SEGD, "can help reduce [community] stress by providing easy-to-follow signage and legible directions to their destinations. In some settings, reliance on text-based messaging is minimized and systems rely heavily on non-text cues such as colors and symbols.”
While this sounds smart indeed — it could have come from a millennial's crystal ball — one wonders how this will curtail real-life problems like chronic graffiti attacks on SEPTA's New Payment Technology vending machines. The graffiti war seems to have been lost in Germantown. If only Leeds had suggested a new Anti-Graffiti Network patrol the area, an army of non-text user’s intent on practical beautification.
Two UPenn students won second place. Their proposal, Chelten Hub, "encourages the adaptive reuse of vacant stores and infill development on vacant lots." This seems about right. The students also call for the integration of transit stops with public spaces and the improvement of transit accessibility. Transit accessibility is a must. The Chestnut Hill West station, for instance, is located down a long flight of concrete steps. In the past, the station platform at the bottom of the steps was not lighted and its dark isolation caused many riders to wait on the bridge over the tracks before hurriedly running to catch a train as it pulled into the station. While the improved lighting conditions at the station are notable, the station platform itself is in such a deep pocket that many riders wait at the foot of steps for the train so that, in case of an emergency, a quick U-turn up the steps can be easily navigated. Along with transit accessibility, transit multiplication — a new bus route to Germantown or added trains on the Chestnut Hill West line — needs to happen.
Two jury prizes went to students from the University of Massachusetts and another group of students from Leeds.
The New England students focused on green spaces, recreation, and transportation. The students admit that their proposal — Community Builder/The Quilt: Make Little Plans — is a broad one. The proposal to "increase the synergistic dynamic of this living mixture [the diverse 'quilt' of Chelten Avenue] through the creative use of and reuse of wasted spaces," sounds as vague to me as the exegesis of existentialist philosophy.
Finally, the second group of Leeds students came down hard on the area's concentration of fast food outlets and the lack of fresh food. This Leeds group envisions the creation of a modular timber structure built by the community (Amish style?) that will support workshops, learning spaces, and hydroponic growing systems.
It all sounds very quaint but perhaps not impossible.
Will Germantown see any of these plans realized?
Or will the plans once again become a beautiful but impossible urban designer's academic fantasy?
