Non-Depressing Fairmount thread

[6enny]

It's been nothing but union cronies, possible gunshots and memorials on this hood's thread for a while.

Some positives

• I finally tried Doma and it was great. Less pricey and more traditional than Umai Umai. Still haven't tried the place on 26th st.
• I've realized that I should treat the Franklin Institue IMAX/Theater as the local theater. In the past, I've only seen really niche stuff there, but they're currently playing Batman 3.
• Also on the Franklin Institute, I Saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. Kind of a snoozefest, but still cool to have seen them. The story of their discovery was the best part.

[Moonraker]

I have to agree with you in that the union thread keeps dominating the chatter. All of this reminds me of the cliche that people need to say something, but have nothing to say.
Recently the Dept of Parks & Recreation held 4 focus group sessions around and about the future of the Ben Franklin Parkway. To the question of who are the users, everyone but my family remembered Super-Sunday and all the Fall parades and festivals, which seem to end by the Thanksgiving Day parade.

The Barnes has a hidden treasure, their library is nice, has wifi and is now open to the public without an admission ticket. The library is just as good a place to chill, consider surfing the old newspapers and map collection. The Franklin Institute has Commuity Nights, open free to the public, expecially the volunteers who staff the telescopes in the Observatory, there are night planets in view on clear nights.

Tonight, on Eakins Oval, the Street Vendors Association have a gig starting at 5 PM, sort of an evening picnic event. Similar to last Friday's roach-coach round-up at 27th & Girard, but with real grass, suitable for blankets.

Try the surrey rental at LLoyd Hall. though I wish I could traverse Schuylkill Banks. Finally, they seem to have Dragon Boat orientation sessions boarding at the Cosmic Cafe (LLoyd Hall dock). We need a report on that as well.

[AbortedWalrus]

I have to agree with you in that the union thread keeps dominating the chatter. All of this reminds me of the cliche that people need to say something, but have nothing to say.
Recently the Dept of Parks & Recreation held 4 focus group sessions around and about the future of the Ben Franklin Parkway. To the question of who are the users, everyone but my family remembered Super-Sunday and all the Fall parades and festivals, which seem to end by the Thanksgiving Day parade.

I actually found the focus group session empty and meaningless from a planning perspective. They were completely unwilling to attempt to fix some of the real problems with the parkway such as working with Streets to make a coherent and safe plan for pedestrians to get around on the parkway instead of having it a death trap, with women with strollers stuck on the islands every single time they try to cross the street, or dodging cars coming off Pennsylvania Ave/Fairmount Ave/Kelly Drive when trying to get to the Art Museum. Or eliminating the surface parking lot in the middle of the parkway. The parkway will never amount to anything when it's not even safe for families to cross the street to get to it, and when it's so completely separated off from commercial of any kind.

Instead they're focusing on quick hits that are bound to fail due to lack of participation because there's not enough visibility or walkability to the parkway.

Edit:
http://www.parkwaymuseumsdistrictphi...0-%20final.pdf

They need to take a look at some of the plans in this before they try to do anything with the Parkway. I particularly like the Triangle plan for the Oval, and the Encapsulated parking plan for Pennsylvania Ave/Fairmount Ave/Kelly Drive.

[Titus]

I'm afraid that's what I expected so I didn't attend. Sad to hear that. But with the new Barnes and the restored Rodin there is considerably more activity and excitement on the Parkway - that's great.

[eldondre]

doma is a japanese word

I'm afraid that's what I expected so I didn't attend. Sad to hear that. But with the new Barnes and the restored Rodin there is considerably more activity and excitement on the Parkway - that's great.

I don't know, there are some "quick hits" that could make the parkway better even if they wouldn't be transformative. if nothing else, hopefully it will give them the courage to get rid of the parking lot in eakins oval, rework the crosswalks, and bring some cafe's ONTO the parkway. hammer was in a different group so his experience may have differed. the city doesn't seem ready or willing to do anything big which I believe is hammer's complaint, to transform the parkway, they'd need something a little more comprehensive.

[#1MetsFan]

I saw a butterfly yesterday!

[6enny]

I saw a butterfly yesterday!

Thank you Mutts Fan and Moonraker for being optomistic people.

Also, I haven't noticed as many mosquitos this summer as last.

[AbortedWalrus]

The real secret of Doma is that their Korean food is better than their Japanese food.

[Moonraker]

[QUOTE=AbortedWalrus;518855]I actually found the focus group session empty and meaningless from a planning perspective. Edit:
http://www.parkwaymuseumsdistrictphi...0-%20final.pdfQUOTE]

1. The four meetings were coordinated by Praxis to solicit fresh ideas about the topics listed at the beginning of the meeting, and executed during the break-out sessions. Your concern coulda/shoulda/outghta have been addressed to either DeBerridinis or Focht, not Praxis. Ideally, you brought that to their attention, they were available from a limited time, but still available at these meetings.
2. The technology and design standards exist for Traffic Engineering and Streets to address all of your concerns, today, so track down Clarke, DeBeridinnis etc. However, if they don't realize that traffic turning from the Art Museum Drive onto outbound Kelly needs a Timed Left Turn, get ready by pushing boulders up-hill. But people need to pay attention to the pedestrian signals and move when they go green; as they do in NYC, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC et. Lay off the cell-phone and heed the green.
3. I attended the first and (most of the ) last meetings, later I heard extremely positive feedback on #2 & #3 from many, many area residents. Yes these 2 meetings were run differently, possibly due to Lessons Learned @1-2-3.
4. You are the first person, I have heard from, who found anything of merit in the referenced Eakins Oval report; between 3 public and committee meetings, dealing with 20+ neighbors, many who drive the circle before it was rebuild and christened after Eakins, I heard no kudos. Overall, they found the proposed four alternative designs to be a joke, geared solely to the PMA issue of pedestrian traffic between the PMA and the Perelman. The PMA wanted a solution to their problem, ignored the impact to the neighborhood, rush hour traffic flow, cost, etc,. The proposed designs seemed to have concepts from first-year architect students, with no real world experience. Come-on would you deliver a study with the Square design option? Yes the triangle was good (the best), resembled the circa 1950-60's design, but had more intersection, pedestrian and bicycle issues as well. Net Zero!

[AbortedWalrus]

The four meetings were coordinated by Praxis to solicit fresh ideas about the topics listed at the beginning of the meeting, and executed during the break-out sessions. Your concern should have been addressed to either DeBerridinis or Focht, not Praxis. Ideally, you brought that to their attention, they were available from a limited time, but still available at theses meetings.
I attended the first and last meetings, and heard extremely positive feedback on #2 & #3 from many, many area residents. My 2 meetings were run differently, possibly due to Lessons Learned @1-2-3.

I was at the first meeting, in Francisville, and my wife and I were in two separate groups. I appreciate their idea of getting the community involved in the process of making the parkway better, but the actual process basically yielded nothing but common sense ideas that honestly didn't even need community involvement. Build cafes on the parkway! Great. Did it really take a meeting to know that would be a good idea? I mean you can plainly see how Milk & Honey brings life to Sister Cities, and clearly they already have the idea of including cafes and out door seating space in parks, so what was the point of having neighborhoods simply echo that aspect? The other concern I heard? Both my group and my wife's group had members complaining that they shouldn't make the parkway busier because it would make it harder for them to find parking. I certainly hope they don't take short-sighted ideas like that to heart. Generally speaking the ideas that were brought up in both of our groups were so run of the mill and unambitious that I can't really see them doing anything of lasting impact for the parkway or being something that was already a no-brainer to institute. I mean, my groups top issue was bringing more food related events to the parkway, but by the time the meeting happened the event that's being held this evening on the parkway was already announced. A person in my wife's group was actually saying how much he hated how there were people always all over the place.

You are the first person who found anything of merit in the referenced report, and I between 3 public and committee meetings, dealing with 20+ neighbors, we all found the proposals to be a joke, geared solely to the PMA issue of pedestrian traffic between the PMA and the Perelman. They wanted a solution to their problem, ignored the impact to the neighborhood and rush hour traffic flow, and seemed to have given plans from first-year architect students.

I'm not going to pretend I have the architectural or planning know-how to say whether any of the plans are good ones, but I will tell you what I have examined how things are while living in the neighborhood. Maybe that proposal was about solving the issues for the PMA regarding the Perelman building, but it also solves another big one: the fact is that Fairmount Avenue, an important commercial corridor for three separate neighborhoods, is very inconveniently accessible from the parkway. Similarly so with Spring Garden Street. One of the goals of planning the parkway should be to make commercial corridors like Fairmount Avenue and Spring Garden Street more accessible to tourists so that they can take advantage of the shops and eateries along those commercial corridors and bring more business into those neighborhood. I walk my dog up to Pennsylvania Avenue every day but never once have I been tempted to cross 10 lanes of traffic to get to Eakins Oval and take in the beautiful sites. It's simply so hideously inconvenient and unsafe that I'm unwilling to walk that extra single block. Anything that can be done to improve pedestrian access from what should be one of our greatest tourism assets to two of the commercial corridors that it's all but cut off from should be a priority if we actually want to improve the parkway and the surrounding neighborhoods.

[BBQ KING]

Wow, that was fast.

Any discussion of the Ball Fields?
I'd like to see them stay but I know some feel there are better uses. Lots of kids in the area learn to play baseball there.

As someone who lives here in FMT/SG/BWRT I like ideas that make the area more walkable.
Cafe (even outdoor seasonal stuff) would be nice.

But I guess they need to balance the parking needs as well. Not sure of the split but I am guess a non-trivial number of parkway visitors drive it in from the burbs.
Now a Septa stop at 27th and Penn or in "the pit" at 21st by the Wawa, maybe that could off load some parking needs.

The area is getting better in some ways. More places to to eat, expanding east on Fairmount etc. Very curious to see if there is a point where clothes/shoes make sense. That and Fried Green Tomato with bacon sandwiches. A little less crime would be nice.

[#1MetsFan]

I haven't found any dead hookers on my doorstep lately, so that's positive. I did, however, come out of the house in the morning a few weeks ago to find some idiots had written "Noah IS GAY AND MAD" on my front steps. I don't know who Noah is.

[Moonraker]

The ball parks are considered an asset, today at least. Who's to say what could happen if someone paid to build (sponsor) a new museum, which matches the original purpose of The Parkway.
I understand that the Fairmount Sports Association packed Monday's meeting at the Olivent Covenant Church; and their concerns were put to rest. An FSA/VP attended the first meeting, and may have briefed the FSA.

As for cafes, if you frequent Europe you should be a proponant for those food & accessory kiosks which resemble 2X Park Guard shacks. Temporary toilets have made in-roads in design. Given these sessions were looking of quick response ideas and solutions to problems, I forsee more cafes and toilets west of Logan Circle in 2013-14. The Commissary ran an out door food tent, moderately successfull, but too dependent on weather and traffic to hold to a fixed schedule. Their weekend traffic was hit or miss.

If you attended any of the sessions, I was left with the recollection that the existing, circa 1976 benches along Pennsylvania Avenue are targetted for a quick fix, replacement.

[eldondre]

their food was hit or miss as well.
the most successful after work thing at "the porch" so far has been the beer garden

[6enny]

I did, however, come out of the house in the morning a few weeks ago to find some idiots had written "Noah IS GAY AND MAD" on my front steps. I don't know who Noah is.

Slightly better than "Life is pain" and "Danzig". Haven't seen any of that lately.

[LUCas]

I haven't found any dead hookers on my doorstep lately, so that's positive.

That's neutral. Finding a live one on your door step is postive.

I don't know who Noah is.

You should get to church more often.

[Big Irish]

Some positives

• The Rodin Museum looks great, both inside & out.
• Art After 5 at the PMA is a great time.
• The Bastille Day celebration seems to get better each year

[chudclay]

[BeckyJ]

My neighbors are great.
I love living within walking distance of the Schuylkill River path and near all the museums.

[Topperoni]

It's been nothing but union cronies, possible gunshots and memorials on this hood's thread for a while.

Some positives

• I finally tried Doma and it was great. Less pricey and more traditional than Umai Umai. Still haven't tried the place on 26th st.
• I've realized that I should treat the Franklin Institue IMAX/Theater as the local theater. In the past, I've only seen really niche stuff there, but they're currently playing Batman 3.
• Also on the Franklin Institute, I Saw the Dead Sea Scrolls. Kind of a snoozefest, but still cool to have seen them. The story of their discovery was the best part.

We love Doma, although the family is split BTW Doma and Umai. The coffee/sushi place on 26th is actually quite good as well. The sushi chefs spent a minute or two talking to my girls about what they were doing and the different types of fish. One thing that made me smile was ESP tonight-apparently, auditions (applications?) started for TBtW today. I had to laugh, though, that as I passed Jack's Firehouse, two "douchettes" were talking smack about the kids in line. I would have recommended that Applebees has no such problems.....
Parking seems much less nutty this year, too. At least on Brown.