Henry Houston memorial statue leading into the Wissahickon park. (Photo used with permission from Friends of the Wissahickon)

This year, the Wissahickon Woods will become more accessible to neighbors in Germantown.

Friends of the Wissahickon (FOW) has procured the final funding for the Germantown Neighborhood Connection capital project, seeking to create a safe and beautiful entrance into the woods from the Harvey St. and Lincoln Dr. intersection to Harvey and Wayne Ave.

The goals of the project are to improve the following: 1) neighborhood recreational amenities, 2) connections to the entire park, and 3) safety & accessibility.

FOW works with Philly Parks & Recreation to implement best management practices of urban park land stewardship to conserve the watershed, wildlife, and habitat. They do this through park improvements, stewardship & training, and public programming.

The group got its first round of funding in the spring of 2022 to start some of the trail work, including a trail reroute, building retention walls, installing wayfinding signage, footbridge installation, historic infrastructure restoration, and habitat restoration, like re-adding native plants. 

Most of this work has been done by FOW staff and volunteers.

What to expect later in the summer

The group held a virtual public meeting this February with community stakeholders and others to give folks the final details on the project,  revealing that construction is slated to begin at the top of this summer. If all goes as planned, neighbors can expect three major improvements.

The first is an ADA midblock-crosswalk on Harvey St. with speed cushions on both sides. The second is reconstructed sidewalks, which had crumbled due to street renovations. Those will also be made ADA accessible.  

FOW worked with the Philly Streets Department on all of the street adjustments to ensure pedestrian safety. 

Final improvements will include the Henry Houston statue area at the intersection of Harvey St. and Lincoln Dr. To beautify and make more accessible, FOW will add a crushed stone path to direct people to either side of the steps to the statue, add native plantings, and install boulders along the edge so that cars do not accidentally enter the area. 

According to FOW, the design has been completed, and pending approval from funders, they will be releasing a construction bid so that it can be built. FOW says the timeline is short, expecting about two months of construction to complete.

Under the current timeline, a contractor would be selected in May, construction begins in June, and is completed in July, if all goes well. During this time, Harvey St. will be closed. 

Partners for this project include Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, Philadelphia Streets Department, and Councilmember Cindy Bass, also a funder of the project.

Other funders include the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Pennsylvania Department of Community & Economic Development, National Recreation and Park Association through their corporate sponsor Sensodyne, The McLean Contributionship, Philadelphia Garden Club, Feet First Philly program through Clean Air Council, and the William Penn Foundation.

What nearby neighbors say

“This is all about creating one cohesive Wissahickon park, about providing wayfinding and interpretive signage for park visitors to help better navigate their visit, and then also understand this piece of the park in the context of the greater park,” said Pauline Berkowitz, Director of Capitol Projects at FOW.

Nearby neighbor Janice Sykes-Ross, a former FOW board member, has lived on Harvey St. since 2008, and was a part of the initial push for FOW to consider the park parcel as a future project.

Around 2018 and earlier, a year-long street renovation kept Harvey St. from getting constant car traffic. It also brought an upside, as neighbors loved being able to walk around without cars and access the park.

But it brought short dumping, which increased heavily when the sidewalks began to crumble from the renovation.

Neighbors had already made a habit of clearing trails on their own in the park parcel near the underpass. Sykes-Ross and unofficial Harvey St. Block Captain, Jude Robison, began working with others to clear trash and litter off the road. 

“We were hauling trash like every other day,” said Sykes-Ross. 

FOW began working on some neighborhood clean-ups and restoration projects as they organized to secure more funding for the plans around the Lincoln Dr. entrance. The neighbors were excited about the potential of the outdoor spaces.

“It’s all going to be sort of a trickle-up effect rather than a trickle-down effect in terms of the effect that it’s going to have on the overall community. You know, no more dumping because it looks like a place that’s inhabited now… and it’s going to be accessible to people that are having difficulty (without sidewalks) that want a park experience,” said Sykes-Ross.

Robison, a Harvey St. resident since 2010, emphasized the need for access to green space. “We need to be able to connect with the natural world and find places of peace,” she said. 

Robison is also happy with the amount of involvement FOW has tried to get from nearby neighbors, saying, “They’ve been reaching out and encouraging our efforts to engage the community and listening to the voices of the community.”  

She and Sykes-Ross agree; after the final renovations, it would be lovely to close off Harvey St. to car traffic on Sundays. 

For Germantown neighbors interested in more details and updates on the project, sign up here. 

Maleka Fruean is Germantown Info Hub’s community organizer, a writer, and mother of four, all raised in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia. She has a B.A. in journalism from Temple University and an M.F.A. in creative writing from St. Joseph’s University, and uses both to embrace the power of stories.