Philly is Number 3 on the New York Times "52 Places to Go in 2015" list, and I'm feeling pride

Not as if I haven't been saying that myself (well, sort of), right here, and in the Inquirer, and in my books. But huzzah. This is the New York Times speaking, not just some homegrown booster.

I am taking particular pleasure in this because I have had the privilege of working with some of the people who are making the radical difference. Let's put Brandywine Realty Trust high on that radical difference list, and Brandywine CEO Jerry Sweeney himself, who has quietly and collaboratively helped engineer a renaissance along the Schuylkill River Banks (through the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, which he chairs), in University City, and in the downtown nexus. Let's talk about outdoor artists like Jane Golden and Isaiah Zagar. Let's look at my alma mater and employer, the University of Pennsylvania, which keeps the greening coming.

In naming Philadelphia right after Milan and Cuba on its list, the New York Times, in its January 9, 2015 story, said this:

The making of an urban outdoor oasis.

A series of projects has transformed Philadelphia into a hive of outdoor urban activity. Dilworth Park, formerly a hideous slab of concrete adjoining City Hall, reopened this past autumn as a green, pedestrian-friendly public space with a winter ice-skating rink (and a cafe by the indefatigable chef Jose Garces). Public art installations, mini "parklets" and open-air beer gardens have become common sights. The Delaware River waterfront was reworked for summer 2014 with the Spruce Street Harbor Park (complete with hammocks, lanterns and floating bar) becoming a new fixture, following the renovation of the Race Street Pier, completed in 2011, and offers free yoga classes on a bi-level strip of high-design decking and grass. The city’s other river, the Schuylkill, has its own new boardwalk. To top it off, this spring, Philadelphia will get its first bike share program, making this mostly flat city even more friendly for those on two wheels. Nell McShane Wulfhart

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Schuylkill Banks: remarkably effective and far from done

I walked the new Schuylkill Banks Boardwalk before my river talk last evening. The skies were expressive, pewter and blue, and from this 15-foot-wide float of walkway over the river herself, I saw the city as I had not seen her before. One of the many exhilarating advantages of this new and elevating space.

Another advantage? The joy of it. The Philadelphians who are coming to know, and to better see, their river. The sense that they don't take this for granted, and why should they? It wasn't all that long ago that the Schuylkill was sludge and noxious fumes, dead water, a place to be hurried past. Now, thanks to the Schuylkill River Development Corporation, Fairmount Water Works, Schuylkill River Heritage Area, the William Penn Foundation, the people I have met this week at the 2014 Pennsylvania River of the Year events, and many others, the Schuylkill is the place to be.

I've written here about the Heritage Area. I've written here about Fairmount Water Works. Today, my spotlight is on the SRDC.

Already offering kayaking and river tours, skateboard parks and overlooks, this brand-new boardwalk, and the idea of the bucolic in an urbanscape, the SRDC is hardly done with its quest to build "trails and greenway running along both banks of the Schuylkill River wherever possible between the Fairmount Dam and the Delaware River." Now planned or in play are the Bartram's Mile, destined to run along the west bank between Grays Ferry Avenue and 58th Street (and one-day connecting to the Grays Ferry Crescent by an abandoned railroad bridge); a pedestrian/biking west bank trail; and an east-side trail between the South Street Bridge and Christian.

All I know is words. The SRDC, the organizations mentioned above, the river advocates who work on behalf of tributaries, against run-off, for the future—they are the ones making the physical, even quantifiable difference to our city.

Find a way to thank them the next time you head off toward the river. You wouldn't be there without them.

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