Soon to be Razed, a Philadelphia Neighborhood Frozen in Time

Architizer News

Soon to be Razed, a Philadelphia Neighborhood Frozen in Time

February 13, 2012

During World War II, the waterfront zones of many American cities were mobilized by the American Naval Fleet for shipbuilding. The demand was high, as were investments in the infrastructure needed to manufacture ships. After World War II, demand dropped drastically as the Navy shrunk its fleet. These one-time centers of wartime industry floundered, unequipped to accommodate new ship building technologies. What little demand remained was for nuclear-powered vessels, which had to be built far from metropolitan areas due to the risk of accident. Consequently, many cities were left with vacant and unused commercial properties, typically located in otherwise dense urban fabrics.

The prototypical waterfront redevelopment is Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, which experienced major infrastructural investment followed by a quick drop in demand and eventual abandonment. Baltimore’s story is notable, because the city was the very first to institute a waterfront redevelopment plan, starting in 1959. Fifty years later, the redevelopment of Baltimore’s waterfront is still the standard for successful revitalization of abandoned commercial water front areas. Throughout the United States and Europe, blighted post-industrial urban neighborhoods are being eyed with new interest by developers and politicians. A cornerstone of Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s mayorship, for example, was the institution of Vision 2020, a plan to revitalize 500 miles of New York City waterfront. Yet urban redevelopment is a complicated business, and behind each politician’s “vision plan,” there’s a more complicated narrative about the socio-economic development of a city.

A recent visit to Philadelphia’s Naval Yards, currently awaiting redevelopment, offers a glimpse of an abandoned community soon to be demolished forever. The Naval Yards, and the residential communities that ring it, sit frozen in time since it was last populated, during the height of America’s military industrial complex. What led to one middle-class suburban neighborhood’s eventual decline? Read on.

Image (c) K. Scott Kreider.

All images (c) K. Scott Kreider.

Philadelphia’s Navy Yard is located 3.5 miles south of City Hall, at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. It operated as a functional Naval Base for over 200 years, and reached its peak of productivity in 1943, when the Navy employed close 60,000 workers as part of its shipbuilding operations. Since then the Navy Yard has seen a steady (if less precipitous) decline in its fortunes, with the Navy officially decommissioning the area in 1998, thus opening the area to redevelopment.

The redevelopment of the Navy Yard is being led by a coalition of businessmen, developers, and architects, made up of the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corporation, Liberty Property Trust, Synterra Partners, and Robert A.M Stern Architects. The plan’s vision, laid out in a 2004 Master Plan publication, treads familiar territory, clearly looking to as a successful redevelopment story. According to the plan, it lays a groundwork for “a dynamic, mixed-use waterfront community that includes everything one would expect of a great city: industrial development, offices, retail, waterfront amenities, executive conferencing, research and development, improved mass transit, great public spaces, and the potential for residential development.”

A brave new world, to be sure. Yet the redevelopment faces many challenges, among them the distance between the heart of the city and the waterfront itself. A key factor in the success of many waterfront redevelopment projects is pedestrian proximity – an amenity the Navy Yard cannot boast. In fact most Philadelphians have no idea this area exists. Public transportation ends a mile and a half from the gate, and like most of Philadelphia’s waterfront, is cut off from the rest of the city by Interstate 95, Columbus Boulevard, and the Railway. The redevelopment coalition has proposed the extension of the Broad Street subway line to address the issue of accessibility, yet the plan has been a nonstarter, mainly for financial reasons.

Despite such tactical challenges, the redevelopment has commenced. The fifth and final phase of the project is in the East End, where the abandoned Mustin Homes — built in the 1970’s for naval crews — await demolition. Depicted in these photos, the East End sits four feet below the 100-year flood plane. Despite their precariously low position, the plan is to use the area either as an industrial development, a residential neighborhood, or an 18-hole championship golf course. A recent visit to the site reveals a once-vibrant naval community, frozen in time, as it awaits the glossy residential towers planned for it. What’s holding up demolition? A bald eagle has made the neighborhood into its home, halting the process of razing the prefab housing development.