Take a Ride Down the iRiver
Reconnecting Philly to its waterfront, abandoned by industry and strangled by the concrete noose of I-95, is a hot topic these days. This is especially true if you are a regular visitor to Plan Philly, have read the Central Delaware River Master Plan or are the type who daydreams about urban planning.
But seriously, you should care.
Do you hang out on the Delaware very often? Or paddle down it? Or take the ferry over to Camden? Probably not. Me neither. And what a shame. But short of submerging or relocating the highways—or just damning them all to hell—what to do?
Efforts to make the waterfront tolerable (Penn’s Landing) were perhaps noble, but turned out to kind of suck. It’s an understatement to say that I don’t expect much different from the Sugarhouse “refine the future” Casino.
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, amidst all of these false starts and wrong turns, has doubled down on a creative approach. They want to alter our minds: We’ve got to mentally reconnect to the river, reclaiming the waterfront in our imagination, so that we can, you know, reclaim it in real life. Most people don’t think of the waterfront as part of Philadelphia as they know it.
The Society has created a podcast tour of the Delaware to help reintroduce these long-lost friends: Philly and its riverfront.
Old-school Fishtown senior citizen Joe Walker narrates the tour. Walker is a star of the mind-blowing Breakfast at Sulimay's contemporary music reviews. He never disappoints.
The podcast tour is historical, ecological and futuristic. It follows Philly’s industrial past; the missing islands and present wildlife; the planned park at Race Street Pier that is currently under design; Port Richmond’s Tioga Marine Terminal; and the Navy Yard.
In an age of increasing techno-induced placelessness, podcast tours demonstrate that telecommunications can be used to reconnect us to our surroundings. The Society's River Talk website needs better organization if it is going to be successful in getting people to download its podcast. And the background music is a little...numbing. Walker is great, but maybe Ira Glass could help them on a remix? Better, softer and more varied sounds would be great. But there’s so much here to like. Hopefully this is one of many small steps on a path back to the river.
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1. alessandra said... on Apr 20, 2010 at 09:21AM
“If the SS United States isn't bought by a suitable buyer who can maintain it, it will be deconstructed and the pieces sold. This is a historical vessel which cost 78 million to build!... but most younger philadelphians don't even know it exists..”