Franklin Square (Philadelphia)
Franklin Square is one of the five original open-space parks planned by William Penn when he laid out the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1682.Penn included this piece of green space in his original city plan as one of five squares, although the park was slow to develop because it was a marshy land.Although there were raids to prevent this, the park attracted people in the surrounding areas who lost everything when settlers migrated to other places.This led to the encampment of homeless and further eroding of Franklin Square as a public green space.The revitalized park contains a number of family-friendly attractions such as a golf course, an improved playground, a carousel, and gardens.[3] The park's restoration helped fulfill one of William Penn's original intentions: a green respite in the middle of the city.As a result, pedestrian traffic has increased dramatically and residents and tourists alike are able to enjoy the park's attractions.In 2009, the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) announced that it was commissioning a design plan for renovating, modernizing and reopening the PATCO Speedline's underground Franklin Square Station, closed since 1979.[12][13] It was erected in 1984 in Monument Plaza at the base of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, facing the square across 6th Street, a location personally chosen by Noguchi.In 1984, the Philadelphia Inquirer said about it: It shrinks in its plaza before the bridge, inaccessible to pedestrians and, for motorists, a sliver out-dazzled by a parade of billboards announcing the sizzle of Atlantic City.It is a crumpled, bent-can of a sculpture, in the end, a symbol more of the dispirited swatch of Vine Street it concludes; a propped-up monument to a city that, like Rodney Dangerfield, has had — and, with this piece of art, may continue to have — one tough time getting respect.
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