Revised
As part of an overall Master Plan to modernize and expand its facilities over the next ten years and beyond, the Museum is planning to build a new below-grade parking facility and rooftop sculpture garden in a section of East Fairmount Park between the Azalea Garden and the West Entrance to the Museum. For more info ...
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A fascinating history of the development of Boathouse Row is posted on-line in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Control and Competition: The Architecture of Boathouse Row, by Thomas G. Beischer of Stanford University, opens with:
Twenty-first-century Philadelphians know Boathouse Row as the idiosyncratic collection of boathouses that dot the shoreline of the Schuylkill River. But the unique architectural character and definition of the row is no accident of history; rather, it is the result of one of the earliest attempts to exert municipal control over private structures, initiated in response to a confluence of cultural and historic trends sweeping through Philadelphia and parts of America in the late nineteenth century. This paper investigates how the architecture of Boathouse Row developed in three distinct phases: first, under city ordinances influenced by prominent individuals who oversaw the founding and growth of Fairmount Park; then, as an aesthetic competition developed between the boat clubs within the constraints determined by the city; and finally as municipal control over the design of the boathouses declined as the Fairmount Park Commission shifted its attention elsewhere and as prominent architects took the stage and a rise of architectural eclecticism led to a profusion of new styles.
It’s well worth the read.
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Kite Aerial Photography – Cris Benton, professor of architecture at UC Berkeley, took some interesting and unusual pictures of Boathouse Row from a kite! A sample is at right.
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The Philadelphia Water Department has a reputation as one of the most progressive in the country. With much of the city’s drinking water coming from the Schuylkill River, they are particularly interested in both monitoring and improving the quality of water in the river. Their Philly RiverCast is a forecast of water quality that predicts potential levels of pathogens in the Schuylkill River between Flat Rock Dam in Manayunk and Fairmount Dam.
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That's all for now. See you soon on the river.