Big opportunity meets low ambition in run-up to Philly’s 250th anniversary celebrations | Editorial

For Philadelphia — the birthplace of American democracy — big anniversaries have traditionally brought big opportunities for ambitious legacy projects.

When the United States turned 100, the city hosted the World’s Fair in Fairmount Park. A massive undertaking that involved building what amounted to a small city for 10 million visitors from around the world. While much of the Centennial Exposition was built to be temporary, Memorial Hall still stands and is now the home of the Please Touch Museum.

Fifty years later, despite becoming “corrupt and contented,” city leaders still managed to inaugurate the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the Frederick Law Olmsted-inspired FDR Park in time for the celebrations. Even under notorious Mayor Frank Rizzo — who infamously tried to scare away tourists from Philly’s Bicentennial events — the city still managed to build the Mann Music Center, established a museum for African American history, and snagged a visit from Queen Elizabeth II.

So, what grand project will Philadelphia unveil for the nation’s Semiquincentennial?

Local philanthropists and leaders declared the city’s planned highway cap over I-95, which includes a nearly 12-acre park and will connect Old City to Penn’s Landing, as a model for getting big things done. While that may be the case, after years of delays, it will not be done in time for America’s 250th birthday.

In fact, the only major public works project that may be finished by 2026 is a desperately needed fresh coat of paint for Independence Hall.

While it is encouraging that City Council approved $45 million Thursday to help fund anniversary festivities — and that more funding is expected from the city and the state — it is too little and too late for any grand projects.

“We focused a lot on past celebrations about physical transformations, and I’ve been a little heartbroken that we’re not really going to see that,” Kathryn Ott Lovell, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corp., told The Inquirer.

Heartbreak is an understandable reaction. Outrage should be another.

A failure to capitalize on the anniversary celebrations isn’t the only squandered opportunity for the city and its history. Under former Mayor Jim Kenney, Philadelphia closed its own history museum, the Atwater Kent. The museum’s collection, which includes many priceless artifacts, was given to Drexel University in 2022. Was there any reason why the city couldn’t have secured grant money to keep the collection accessible to the public, as Drexel did a year later?

The city also has lost track of roughly 1,000 pieces of public art, with dozens of pieces missing or otherwise altered, and tens of millions of dollars worth of art owned by the school district have been locked away, sometimes in questionable condition, for decades. Works from prominent Philadelphians like Thomas Eakins and Henry Ossawa Tanner are likely rotting in storage.

Given our lack of ambition and disconcerting procrastination, it’s no wonder Philadelphia is being forced to share the Semiquincentennial stage with cities like Boston and Charleston, S.C.

This is particularly egregious when Philadelphia’s history and importance to America extends far beyond the two nation-defining documents that were drafted and signed here. When William Penn created what he called a “Holy Experiment,” the idea of people of different faiths living together in harmony and equality was considered far-fetched. Penn’s Charter of Privileges may fall short of modern expectations of religious freedom, but it was revolutionary for an era defined by religious warfare and persecution.

Philadelphians rallied to save the American Experiment, serving by the thousands in the Union Army and marching down to Charleston with fire and steel to make the promises of freedom real for all Americans. These veterans returned and made the city the “workshop of the world,” and filled the streets with rowhouses designed for dignified and affordable urban living, while the Frankford Arsenal’s Bullet Row became home to “the street that beat Hitler.”

Arguably no other city has done more to elevate the cause of freedom and democracy than our own. Such a legacy seems impossible to squander, but some of Philadelphia’s leaders seem determined to try.