DO NOT PUBLISH How the city remembers tragedies
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Mayor Michael Nutter announced today that the site of a tragically botched demolition at 22nd and Market streets that claimed six lives last June will be transformed into a public park. The plan, less than one hour old, has already drawn some skepticism, like the tweet below from Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron.
Philly Salvation Army site where 6 killed in building collapse will become a park. Is this really a good idea? http://t.co/9yPm7UAUVv #inq
— Inga Saffron (@IngaSaffron) March 20, 2014
As much as the victims of the sudden collapse of a Salvation Army thrift store deserve to be memorialized — and let's be clear, they absolutely do — it is still worth wondering if converting the land into a small public park is the best way to do that.
Anne Bryan, Roseline Conteh, Bobor Davis, Kimberly Finnegan, Juanita Harmon and Mary Simpson died because of the craven apathy of careless developers who saw the city as a collection of real estate tokens. Toys to be bought, sold, torn apart or shoddily rebuilt with little care to who or what was affected in the process, so long as some marginal income trickled in.
But the city is much more than that. It is a place — one that's enlivened by the intersections of people and the built environment, and there is unlimited potential therein. It is a place that can be endlessly wounded only to endlessly reinvent itself.
After the tragedy of the Meridian Plaza fire in 1991, the burnt-out hulk of a once-iconic office building loomed over City Hall like an embodiment of Philadelphia's declining fortunes. The city memorialized the deaths of three firefighters that died fighting the blaze with a beautiful sculpture on the sidewalk at 15th and Chestnut streets, but the wound didn't really feel closed until the site itself was rebult as a gleaming residential tower. Today, the bustling intersection is a greater memorial — to the fact that the vibrancy and life inherent to Philadelphia cannot be constrained or diminished by tragedy.
The intersection of 22nd and Market has a lot of unrealized potential. It's long been out of place in the hustle of Center City, both in its past as a weirdly persistent tumbledown red-light district, and now as little more than a collection of parking lots. [[I'D AT LEAST MENTION THAT THERE'S A TRADER JOE'S THERE AS THE EXCEPTION THAT PROVES THE RULE? THAT'S WHAT I IMMEDIATELY THOUGHT, ANYWAY — "WELL YEAH BUT IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S AS DESOLATE AS HE'S SAYING"]] This is largely because of the limited vision of greedy real estate out-of-town speculators and slumlord property owners who couldn't or chose not to see the city's hidden potential. [[I'D ALSO BACK THIS ASSERTION UP WITH SOMETHING]]
It's worth asking if a better way to remember the victims of that cruel cynicism would be to rebuild, with something better, taller, safer and more alive — to eradicate the cynicism that caused those deaths by making the city ceaselessly active. [[MAYBE AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT YOU'D LIKE TO SEE THERE THAT WOULD FIT THIS BILL? OR WHY THAT WOULD BE BETTER THAN A SMALL PARK?]]
A park can be a wonderful thing, and the fact that the victims' family members have asked for such a public space to honor their loss deserves a great deal of respect. But it's only the first proposal. There are many other ways to remember.
