Some in Chinatown favor demolishing part of viaduct

ALTHOUGH many support the idea of re-creating the old Reading Viaduct as a public attraction, one influential neighborhood group wants to tear parts of it down.

"It's the dark shadows; it's the trash," said John Chin, executive director of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corp. "There's more crime in this area around the viaduct. Many bad things have been associated with the viaduct and the fact that it overshadows the streets."

Further, he said, the embankments and steel structures that support the railway occupy chunks of city blocks, creating unusable parcels that make it hard for Chinatown to expand north of Vine Street.

Chin insists that the PCDC isn't against greening, pointing to the 10th Street Plaza on Vine Street, its work with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society to plant trees and support for redeveloping Franklin Square Park, at 7th and Race streets.

But Chin said that what Chinatown North needs the most is affordable housing for low-income residents who live and work in Chinatown.

He points to the high-income housing around the High Line, a public park that opened above a railway trestle on Manhattan's west side in 2009 and is a model for the Reading Viaduct project.

"This puts pressure on low-income people," Chin said. "It creates gentrification for Chinatown."

Chin said that the PCDC is against plans for the boundaries of the planned Callowhill Reading Viaduct Neighborhood Improvement District, pointing out that the name "Chinatown North " isn't even included in the NID.

The PCDC says that the process to create the NID has not been transparent and that Chinese-speaking residents were not included.

John Struble, a founder of the viaduct project, said that his group is continuing to talk with the PCDC, and he believes that they can work things out to create space for more affordable housing in the area.

"There are many people and many voices in Chinatown and it's important to listen to all of them," Struble said.

Ellen Somekawa, executive director of Asians American United, is one of those other voices. Her group supports the project.

"We think it [the viaduct park] would be a great thing for the neighborhood because there is an absence of green space," Somekawa said. "As the viaduct is now, it is this rusting hulk that creates a sense of neglect around the neighborhood and it could become instead an asset."