Philly.com asked successful restauranteur Avram Hornik about the Ben Franklin Parkway, an "oft-deserted strip." How do you turn an area with buildings and residences into a thriving center of activity? Not by designing it so traffic whizzes through but pedestrians are put off, that's for sure.
"There's museums, schools, some residential, but it's not really a pedestrian area people go to stroll around. You don't hear people say, 'Oh, let's go to the Parkway and just hang out.' While on Walnut Street and Rittenhouse Square people do that," Hornik said.
"You have to change the architecture of the space, you have to make it pedestrian-friendly, you have to do landscaping, you have to create a mixed-use environment that makes the walk from Logan Circle to the Art Museum something people want to do.
"Just plopping a sidewalk cafe in that area right now would do no one any good. Nobody is going to walk five blocks just to sit outside. But if there's a series of sidewalk cafes, of small-scale amusements, now this is not something the city would necessarily have to invest in."
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