You don't see owls, even if you are an ornithologist their presence is made known by taking recordings of the sounds of the night. Even a flock of owls still live within the city limits. A noted local ornithologist on the recent cruise remarked that forty or fifty species of birds are found there. There were many reports in the Seventeenth Century of large flocks of swans sailing around the entrance of the Schuylkill into the Delaware River. If you are there in the evening, the river has the same feeling of wilderness that the Dutch traders would have experienced three hundred years earlier. As evening closed in on the riverboat, the gaily lit towers of center city were looming in the stern, but some fishermen along the bank proudly held up a respectable string of six or seven rather large catfish. Never mind the junkyards and auto parks you happen to know lurk behind the trees on the west side or the oil tanks which loom above the trees on the south bank. The bluff at Gray's Ferry, where the University of Pennsylvania's new buildings now dominate the scene, was originally the beginning of dry land, or the end of the rather large swamp, through which the river winds its way essentially shaded by trees along the riverbank. The point comes up because cruises have started to leave from the dock at 24th and Walnut Streets, where it becomes quite noticeable that the Schuylkill really is rather hidden as it winds seven miles south to the airport, in contrast to the wide-open vista we all are accustomed to seeing from the Art Museum northwards. To give it emphasis, it is common to speak of the "Skookle". As soon as you become aware of this little factoid, you start to come across Philadelphians who do indeed speak of the Schuylkill in a way that acknowledges the origin of the term. In Dutch, Schuylkill means "hidden river", thus making it redundant to speak of the Schuylkill River. This tour imagines your driving your car out the Ben Franklin Parkway to Kelly Drive, and then up the Wissahickon. There are lots of ways to go from City Hall to Chestnut Hill, including the train from Suburban Station, or from 11th and Market. Western regions along the Schuylkill are still spread out somewhat with many historic estates. Philadelpia County had two hundred farms in 1950, but is now thickly settled in all directions. Local residents would need a couple dozen one-day trips to get up to speed. Using explicit directions, comprehensive touring of the Quaker Colonies takes seven full days. He was the largest private landholder in American history. The states of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and southern New Jersey all belonged to William Penn the Quaker. Tourist Trips Around Philadelphia and the Quaker Colonies Nature preservation and nature destruction are different parts of an eternal process. Philadelphia has always been defined by the waters that surround it. They may be coming back, cautiously.Īccording to an old Quaker joke, the Holy Trinity consists of the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the neighborhood of Philadelphia. Less than a century ago, Delaware Bay, Delaware River, Schuylkill River, Pennypack Creek, Wissahickon Creek, and dozens of other creeks in this swampy region were teeming with edible fish, oysters and crabs. East Falls, Germantown and Chestnut Hill are almost a separate world on the far side of the park. Airy and Chestnut Hillįairmount Park is large enough to split the City from its suburbs, and is partly a playground, partly a museum. The Park and Beyond: East Falls, Germantown, Mt. The Resilient by Design | Bay Area Challenge has enabled examples of the type of timely, inspired, empowering planning needed to face the challenges of climate change, as project teams seek to build preparedness before disaster strikes while going beyond a narrow fix towards a broader, beautiful transformation of landscapes and livelihoods, informed by the input of local people.A concentration of articles around the rivers and wetland in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. ![]() By exploring design solutions that would provide multiple additional ecological and community benefits and amenities, they seek to improve the resilience and lived experience of place. The Resilient South City project led by the HASSELL+ team as part of the Resilient by Design | Bay Area Challenge is opening hearts and minds to an approach that goes beyond flood control. The rising risks of a changing climate, including the rising severity of storms and rising sea-levels, might further fuel the tendency to treat the creek like a foe and scale up the walls that try to divide the city from the water. Most of Colma Creek is a city creek now, straightened out and hardened, the consequences of becoming an urbanized watershed managed by minds that feared foremost the ravages of floods and forgot the need to keep people intimately connected with local waters.
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