2.1.2021

DAG Dispatch

By Claire Adler, DAG Fellow

Start the week off with a wrap up of Philadelphia area news, public proposals, and happenings in the world of design, architecture, and planning. Follow us @designadvocacy on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and subscribe to our email list to keep up with DAG Dispatch. Articles are shared to spark dialogue and keep our members informed, and do not represent DAG’s endorsement of an idea or project.

Local developer, Arts + Crafts Holdings is partnering with the nonprofit Scioli Turco is suing Reading International, the owner of the out-of-use and now blighted Spring Garden Street station, in order to take control over the land and make repairs at Reading’s expense.

 

The National Trust for Historic Preservation examined how preservation can be used as a tool for racial equity for Black communities, citing the Kensington Corridor Trust as an example of an organization using land trusts to maintain affordability.

 

A standardized method for examining equity in transportation projects at the city level could help to address recently exacerbated inequities in public transit in Philadelphia.

 

Philadelphia’s Civic Design Review will meet Tuesday, February 2 at 1:00pm and has three projects on the agenda.

 

Several “Ladies’ Entrance” signs remain hanging outside Philadelphia bars and elsewhere as bar ephemera like an old jukebox, but the history behind them is worth further examination. 

 

Recent DAG speaker and newly elected state senator Nikil Saval is working on a variety of initiatives to assist renters and expand housing affordability.

 

A plan was approved last week to study potential restructuring of SEPTA Regional Rail fare in light of ridership dropping by 85%.

 

As cities across the nation struggle with the complexities of who and what in history is memorialized, a team in St. Louis mapped out historic events and places, regardless of monument or marker with thought-provoking results.