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Thank goodness Thursday: A bridge too far . . .

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Cover of the Plan for Cathedral Bridge

Cover of the Plan for Cathedral Bridge

THE WISSAHICKON VALLEY: AN ENCUMBERANCE TO THE COMMUTER’S PARADISE

Like most cities, Philadelphia’s bedroom communities have spread ever outward and have been burdened with the constant struggle of commuting and congestion. Samuel Frederic Houston – heir to Henry Howard Houston’s development legacy and estate – proposed a grandiose scheme for the “Cathedral Bridge,” a direct connection between Chestnut Hill and Roxborough over the Wissahickon Valley that would facilitate the rise of Cathedral Hills, a new community modeled as a Garden City. Anchored on the call for superior traffic and commuter patterns, this new vision for Philadelphia’s “well-to-do” in the north and west of the city (i.e. Chestnut Hill and the Main Line), though a stretch, perfectly encapsulates the urban planning and development policies of the era.

Plan_HHPlan_1950

The preliminary idea for this plan appeared publicly in 1910, but was not further investigated until a 1920s traffic study of a route to connect Chestnut Hill, Roxborough, and the Main Line.[1] Lacking significant traction on the full scope of his original plan, little of the original project was further designed and even less came to fruition. Scaling down the project, the sole development was a post-World War II ranch-style housing development that encompassed a shopping center, what is now Andorra.[2]

Planning for Andorra began in the 1950s, when Saarinen, Saarinen and Associates produced conceptual plans for the Houston Estate.  The plans provide an interesting insight into what could have been. This proposal was entitled Land for Large Scale Development in Suburban Philadelphia, and has interesting parallels to the components included in plans today: commuting distance, social amenities, natural amenities, and growth trends. However, the standards and values placed on each of these components are now very different.  This proposal championed low-density development typologies that are auto-oriented and void of any mixed-income considerations. Another interesting difference to note is the proposal’s outlook on “natural amenities,” not as an active or recreational area that is for the people. Instead, the proposal gives the impression that the land is there to be preserved, as part of the view and beauty of the community, to retain a piece of “wilderness.”

The Wissahickon Valley today is one of the city’s greatest assets, as not only a piece of “wilderness,” but an active space to escape the city and cars. Aside from the visual piece of infrastructure overhead, this proposal would have brought at least one other piece of the urban world close to the park: noise. It is impossible to say exactly what impact the additional development and high-traffic bridge cutting across the Wissahickon Valley Park would have had on the community and landscape, besides at least temporarily improve traffic circulation. Perhaps planners today would be investigating the conversion of the Cathedral Bridge into a pedestrian bridge.

Andorra Shopping Center

Andorra Shopping Center


[1] Duffin, J.M. 1989. Henry Howard Houston Estate Papers, 1698 – 1989. Collection Guide. http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/houston_hh_est.html

[2] Duffin, J.M. 1989. Henry Howard Houston Estate Papers, 1698 – 1989. Collection Guide. http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/houston_hh_est.html


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