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Source: News Gleaner Breeze, Olney Times
Date: January 11, 2006
Byline: Greg Heller

Letter: Far Northeast a part of Bacon's legacy

To the Editor:

In your editorial of December 28 (Winners and Losers of 2005), you wrote "During the post-WWII redevelopment boom, the Northeast was ignored while city planners, led by the late Edmund Bacon, focused on Center City." While it is true that Bacon focused much of his energy on Center City, many forget that he also planned the entire Far Northeast-north of Pennypack Creek-that as late as 1953 was still largely farmland.

When he became Director of the Planning Commission 1949, Bacon was aware that developers were planning to develop large tracts of housing on this land, either with gridiron rowhouses or suburban-style single-family and twin homes. Bacon believed there was a way to build a new urban-type community, rather than a suburb in the city, that would fit into the topography of the Far Northeast.

Bacon drafted the Subdivision Ordinance specifically for the Northeast. This was an act of Council that mandated developers must build exactly what the City Planning Commission prescribed for this huge area of land. Then Bacon created a new zoning classification for the Far Northeast, at the time called C-2. This called for rowhouse blocks, but with wider facades than the traditional rowhouse, front garages, and mid-block easements.

Bacon also created an innovative street design in which he adapted the typical gridiron plan into one that separates through traffic and local traffic, and curves into circular and woven loop streets, to fit into the stream valleys of the Far Northeast.

Bacon's chief of Land Planning, named Irving Wasserman, worked on the Northeast for years, laying out every single development tract and working with developers to adapt their plans to the Planning Commission's designs. Bacon's concept was built almost exactly as planned in Morrell Park, near Frankford Hospital – Torresdale.

The design was altered in later developments, and some of the major features of Bacon's plan were dropped when they proved impractical. For example, commercial development was supposed to be integrated with the residential. As it turned out, the commercial developments largely took the form of suburban strip malls.

In the end, some of the development tracts turned out well and have remained cohesive communities. Others did not turn out as well. Overall the Far Northeast emerged more suburban and auto-dependent than Bacon would have liked.

One of Bacon's major aims in designing the Far Northeast was to maintain the streams and stream valleys. In the rest of the city, streams were covered over for gridiron development, losing valuable green space, and sometimes resulting in major housing collapses (most famously at Mill Creek). Looking at a current map of waterways in the city, it is extraordinary how the Far Northeast is covered in streams and the rest of the city is almost devoid of them.

I accompanied Bacon to the Far Northeast a couple of years ago. We traveled from Torresdale to Parkwood, getting out at several points to walk around, look at the communities and streams, and to talk to neighbors. He was alarmed at how underused the streams currently are. He had hoped that these streams would be preserved and enjoyed by the families and children of the neighborhoods adjacent to them. Perhaps in the near future we may create a program to preserve the streams, and create a coordinated park system out of the tremendous green space that Bacon ensured that the Far Northeast would have for posterity.

Regards, Gregory Heller
President, The Ed Bacon Foundation
(www.edbacon.org)

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