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Frankford Creek Greenway Project for Womrath Park

The Philadelphia Water Department (PWD) plans to install a stormwater
management demonstration project at Womrath Park in Frankford (Frankford and
Kensington Avenues).  The plan for installation in Spring 2012 is not final and PWD wants comments
from you and your neighbors on the design.

PWD¹s Green City Clean Waters program is designed to use natural systems to
capture stormwater reclaiming it as a resource while reducing harmful
combined sewer overflows to our streams. Collecting the stormwater will help
grass and trees stay healthy and provide a model for projects that help
prevent the sewers from overflowing into our rivers and streams. The main
changes you would notice in the park are new native plants, small
stonewalls, some changes to the pathways and new mounds and depressions in
the landscape (essentially creating a series of rain gardens that will
beautify the park while collecting stormwater before it flows into the
sewers).

Womrath Park was identified as a priority public site for renewal under the
Frankford Creek Greenway Plan, an earlier planning process led by PWD.

Meeting Details:

Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Community Academy of Philadelphia
1100 E. Erie Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19124
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

www.phillywatersheds.org/womrathpark

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Deal Street

Betsy Ross Bride - road to nowhere

In the late fifties, the city was planning to build the Pulaski Expressway from the Betsy Ross Bridge to Roosevelt Boulevard.  Someone on Wikimapia actually mapped out it’s path.  Awesome idea, except if you lived on Deal Street.  That’s because the city was going to eminent domain your house so the highway could go there.  Neighborhood backlash(presumably from Frankfordites) stopped the project, but not until years of debate took place.  And in that kind of situation you really don’t want the fate of your house up in the air for a couple decades.  You can’t sell it because no one wants to buy a house that’s going to be seized.  And you can’t move because the city hasn’t given you any money for taking it yet.  So what do you do?  You let your house rot.  See those houses down the street next to that first car?  They’re wrapped in a metal chain mail that I’m guessing is keeping them from falling over and spilling in into the streets.  So what’s going to save Deal Street?  It’s the Frankford Greenway Project. Here’s the nitty gritty.

Deal Street