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“This is a little oasis, it’s very pleasant,” Maris Kobb said on Tuesday night, sitting with her husband, Harold, and an out-of-town visitor from Qatar, Tatjana. “It makes a sense of community.”
“It’s a lively place,” their guest added.
The retired couple, she a social worker and he a physician, have lived in Naval Square, 2420 Grays Ferry Ave., for four years but fled from the suburbs about 40 years ago.
“There was a lot of discussion about what to do with it,” Harold noted.
That’s an understatement. The process began nearly nine years ago, but the ribbon-cutting took place at May 3’s “Plazapalooza.” With a hard-earned blessing from Second District City Councilman Kenyatta Johnson and the City’s Streets Department and Mayor’s Office of Transportation and Utilities, the Grays Ferry Triangle was converted into a pedestrian plaza to the tune of just under $10,000.
A 100 percent approval proved to be a challenge for the South of South Neighborhood Association’s (SOSNA) ongoing efforts to repurpose the intersection of South and 23rd streets and Grays Ferry Avenue.
“In a perfect world, you would be able to get 100 percent,” Andrew Dalzell, SOSNA’s president, said.
But at least these things get citizens engaged and interested in the use of their public spaces.
“It’s a discussion, in the end, about who owns public space. And who owns the ground that cars drive on and what are you entitled to when you buy a property above that,” Dalzell divulged.
By simply closing off north-bound traffic on Grays Ferry Avenue to South Street, by way of a traffic barrier, added road striping, and relocating parking spots, neighbors now enjoy dozens of seats, a revitalized garden and fountain, evening lighting and a vibrant new community space.
However, thanks in part to SOSNA’s Triangles committee and its door-to-door campaign that secured 98 percent approval, MOTU and City Hall were able to green light a six-month pilot trial period.
“Sometimes you have to see it to believe it. They need to see the proof,” MOTU’s Andrew Stober suggested, on why four out of 163 votes were opposed to the plaza in an approximately two-block radius. “I think it’s off to a strong start for sure, and that’s just from going by it and seeing how well it’s used.”
But, there’s still potential for the plaza to disappear in November.
“I think if we had a consensus from the community that it wasn’t working, we would certainly consider bringing it back to its previous form,” Stober said.
Members of not only SOSNA and the Triangles committee but also the neighboring business community will seek to renew the City’s approval to guarantee its livelihood next spring.
When asked if he’d like to see the plaza stay through the winter into 2015, Ken Hatton, the manager of The Igloo, 2223 Grays Ferry Ave., and a resident of the 1900 block of Rodman Street, said “Definitely year-round. We want to keep it going so that it’s easier to start up in the spring.”
The Igloo, is probably the business most benefiting from the traffic-protected pedestrian space. Many of Hatton’s customers are children and families, so kids can literally run out of his shop with sprinkled gelato without worry of safety. He also said he likes to come sit in the plaza on Saturday mornings with his Rival Brothers Coffee, 2400 Lombard St.
Hatton also said he notices the plaza filling up with patrons of Phoebe’s Bar-B-Q, 2214 South St., Rita’s, 2124 South St., and Ants Pants Café, 2212 South St. South Square Market has chipped in by encouraging its customers to donate toward the plaza’s maintenance and Grace Tavern, 2229 Grays Ferry Ave., has been a friendly force of advocacy as well.
“They’re benefiting tremendously from this,” Geoff Thompson, a SOSNA board member and ThisOldCity.com blog founder, said of Igloo specifically.
But he’s pleased to see so many people using the space.
“We’ve seen it really get a lot of traffic in the past few weeks – it’s successful mainly in the evenings,” he added.
Thanks, in part, to movie screenings and music events in the plaza, Brad Dakake, the chair of the Triangles committee, has been drawing community into the space both to show them how well it can work and to get them invested in keeping it as is.
“We’re doing it because it’s a positive thing for the neighborhood and people want these kinds of events,” Dakake said. “They’re fun and they’re community-building, and it’s an opportunity to meet my neighbors. My wife and I go with our 1-year-old, and you just meet people.”
He eagerly reports that musical acts for Thursday nights are booked through August (info is posted in the plaza about meetings and events).
Dakake and his SOSNA peers will be investigating and measuring success based on directives from the Mayor’s office.
“Since this is a pilot, we’ll be measuring its success and documenting it. So the mayor’s office has given us metrics about how to analyze it,” Dalzell said.
Naturally, many of the loudest complaints have been about parking, both from residents and businesses, the latter more concerned with loading. But Dalzell said most immediate neighbors are warming to the functionality of loading zone spots that are usable at night for residents. “I’ve actually gotten multiple compliments on the back-in angled parking,” he said.
He also said that, in a way, it was the few but vocal naysayers that rallied and reaffirmed plaza-building efforts.
“The opposition, it brought us closer together,” he said. “It is almost sad that to make such a small change it takes so much effort, but now we have a great team to maintain it.”
The team is important because the city wouldn’t approve of a plaza like this without a clearly dedicated core group of neighbors willing to clean it, protect it and manage furniture and lighting. And as Stober put it, the city is open to more of these efforts most specifically when a devoted team is poised to keep it up.
“What’s really important is that we have strong community partners that are going to take ownership of these spaces, and that’s what we’ve had in SOSNA,” said Stober. “If there are spaces with partners who are ready to do that, we are interested in hearing from them.”
Staff Writer Bill Chenevert at bchenevert@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117.
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