If you've ever been brave enough to undertake a shopping excursion at the South Philly
Walmart Supercenter on a weekend, there's a decent chance you ended up parking your car way out in the far-eastern hinterlands of the lot, right next to the Delaware River.
Assuming you took a minute to soak up your surroundings, you may have noticed a concrete pier jutting into the Delaware, overgrown with weeds and protected by a fence topped with razor wire and sporting a "No Trespassing" sign. That's
Pier 68, and it certainly doesn't look like much today.
But come this time next year, following a $1.7 million facelift by
Studio Bryan Hanes, not only will it have become the new southern trailhead for the Central Delaware Trail, it will have been transformed into a feature-rich pier park boasting amenities ranging from a tree-shaded picnic grove to an angled lawn designed for sunbathing to a water-side walk suitable for fishing.
On June 26, the
Delaware River Waterfront Corporation (DWRC) publically unveiled the pier park's design at a press conference attended by Mayor Michael Nutter, Councilman Mark Squilla and other local leaders.
"This is about getting to the waterfront," says Deputy Mayor for Commerce and Economic Development Alan Greenberger, who pointed out that Pier 68 will merely be the latest in what is becoming a string of pier parks along the Delaware. "And this pier," he adds, "has got a very special character."
Along with an entrance deck, a grove of trees and a selection of native aquatic plants, the park's highlight will be a 4.5-foot cut in the pier's surface that will allow the tidal activity of the Delaware to be viewed up-close. Visitors will cross the cut atop a road-and-cable bridge.
For development updates, visit the DRWC's
Pier 68 website.
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Michael Greenlee, Delaware River Waterfront Corporation