On 18 Nov, 2004, at 20:30, Bill Sanderson wrote:
A formerly public right-of-way can revert to private ownership under some circumstances. This has happened in center-city to some of the narrow streets--there's one between Arch and Race, one block east of 15th, for example, which has disappeared. Part of it is a parking lot, and part of it is a private drive to service a restaurant.
As I understand it, if you own the properties on both sides, and, probably, petition some city entity, you can get permission to close the street and use that space for your private purposes.
Basically. If I recall correctly, the process takes about 3 years. The first year the street is closed with "temporary" barriers, the second year, the pending closure is advertised and the third year is the approval year. If it is a "real street," I believe that City Council must pass an ordinance closing it down.
There is also the situation where one must close down a "public street" at least one day a year, because it is in fact private property and one wants to maintain it as private property. However, today, the City Engineering Department is not quite so quick to "claim" all the assorted alleys as "public property" as they were a few years ago. Virtually all of the "named alleys" in University City are in fact private property, and not public streets. What is the distinction? ALL the property owners along the alley are libel for any and all repairs or similar activities and can be arbitrarily assessed for them by the City. This way the City can "pass on" all maintenance and repair costs to someone else. In times of budget crisis all sources of revenue are exploited.
There have been quite a few of these "closing" in recent years -- 32nd street from Market to Chestnut was probably the most recent. (2002 Drexel University).
Woodland Avenue from Chestnut to Market was closed back in the late 50s early 60s to build Drexels' Science center building. The Block from Walnut to Chestnut was closed about the same time to create Hill Field for Penn, as well as the block from Spruce to Walnut and from Baltimore to Spruce. I would guess that Locust, 36th, 37th, 39th and Hamilton were all closed at about that same time ... all part of the great wave of Urban Renewal and Planning that Bacon and others foisted on the community. Of course, all of those closings gave Penn (and Drexel) the Urban Campus that everyone extols as an oasis of green today.
Penn bought that gas-station island--which looked like a "good deed" at the time--it was a clean-up site from the leaking gas tanks. However, that same good deed aided in this change.
Personally, anything would be an improvement over the disaster that resulted when 38th street was widened, access to the Sure-crawl-expressway was created and the rats nest there was "designed" by the City and State. That design disaster was finally recognized and now, roughly 40 years later, being fixed. It is guaranteed that the new intersection(s) cannot possibly be worse than what was there before. If it will be better remains to be seen by future generations.
T.T.F.N. William H. Magill [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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