WPLP


This site celebrates the accomplishments of the hundreds of people who have been part of the West Philadelphia Landscape Project since 1987. We invite you to learn about our history, use our resources, and join our community.

Click on the image to find out more

Explore the Map

This map provides links to many stories about the West Philadelphia Landscape Project and to information on other WPLP Web sites. Each marker on the map is a link; click on the marker to see more, then click on the image within the marker to explore further. Click on the plus (+) and minus (-) signs in order to zoom in to see more detail or to zoom out to see a larger territory. Expand the map to the entire screen.

Browse the Timeline

This timeline gives an overview of the West Philadelphia Landscape Project and provides links to many stories about WPLP and to information on other WPLP Web sites. Highlighted icons and text within each year are links. Click on them to explore further.

Prelude: 1974-1985

No project emerges from a vacuum. The West Philadelphia Landscape Project is grounded in many precedents and prior activities. Sheldon Hackney, Penn's president in 1986, was impressed by the dramatic positive impact on the university of a recently implemented Landscape Architecture Master Plan. A landscape master plan for West Philadelphia might have a similar catalytic effect, he reasoned.

The community gardening movement, from the 1970s on, also provided a foundation for WPLP. Philadelphia Green , partner with WPLP from 1987-1991, had been established thirteen years before, in 1974.

Anne Whiston Spirn, founding director of WPLP, had worked with Boston Urban Gardeners from 1984-1986, and West Philadelphia was the focus of her master's thesis in landscape architecture at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974. Her Boston work in on vacant land as a resource for reclaiming urban neighborhoods is described in "Reclaiming Common Ground: Water, Neighborhoods, and Public Places" and in "Shaping the City to Nature's Laws."

1986

University of Pennsylvania's President's Office submits proposal to J.N. Pew Charitable Trust for West Philadelphia Landscape Plan and Greening Project, a collaboration among Penn's Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning and Fels Institute, Philadelphia Green, and the West Philadelphia Partnership

Anne Whiston Spirn returns to Penn as Professor and Chair of Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning and becomes co-principal investigator for WPLP & GP, with Gerri Spilka as co-principal investigator.

1987

  • Initial WPLP database produced on paper maps
  • Design and construction of community gardens
  • W. Gary Smith teaches West Philadelphia studio class
  • Funding from J. N. Pew Charitable Trust begins

1988

1989

1990

1992

1993

1994

  • Planning magazine publishes story on the role of community gardens in urban planning and revitalization, citing WPLP as a model:“Dig These Gardens”
  • US government designates part of Mill Creek neighborhood as an Empowerment Zone
  • Nehemiah Corporation, with sponsorship of the City, builds new homes on the buried floodplain of Mill Creek
  • Spirn teaches Mill Creek watershed studio in landscape architecture

1995

1996

  • First WPLP Web site launched in March
  • Collaboration with Sulzberger Middle School continues and expands into The Mill Creek Project. Read more here.
  • Second WPLP Web site launched in August
  • First Transforming the Urban Landscape graduate studio in landscape architecture. Read more about the class here.
  • Presentation by Anne Whiston Spirn at Schuylkill River conference and US Environmental Protection on the potential for stormwater detention on vacant urban land to reduce combined sewer overflows
  • Support for Mill Creek Project with SMS from Philadelphia Urban Resources Partnership
  • Support for research assistants from Penn’s Center for Community Partnerships

1997

1998

1999

2000

  • President Bill Clinton speaks at Sulzberger Middle School
  • National Housing Institute cites WPLP as a model of community-based planning efforts
  • National Center for Community Education Training Workshop visits Sulzberger Middle School to learn about Mill Creek Project
  • Landscape Architecture magazine publishes feature story on WPLP
  • Community workshops on Mill Creek History and Community Development sponsored by the Mill Creek Coalition
  • Anne Whiston Spirn moves to Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Philadelphia Water Department hires WPLP research assistant Sara Williams
  • Frances Walker of Mill Creek Coalition receives fellowship at MIT’s Center for Reflective Community Practice
  • Philadelphia Water Department obtains grant from EPA to fund outdoor classroom-environmental study area-detention basin project to reduce combined sewer overflows from the Mill Creek watershed
  • Support for research assistants from Penn’s Center for Community Partnerships

2001

2002

  • Mill Creek Project continues
  • Media Technology, Youth, and City Design and Development class at MIT
  • New WPLP Web site launches
  • “You Just Don’t Leave Family” digital story
  • Sulzberger Middle School teacher Don Armstead visits MIT to discuss plans for continued collaboration using digital storytelling and the Web as a means of engaging middle school students in planning Mill Creek’s future
  • Commonwealth of Pennsylvania takes over the Philadelphia School District and grants responsibility for Sulzberger Middle School To Edison, Inc., a corporation headquartered in New York
  • Key teachers at Sulzberger, Don Armstead and Glen Campbell, resign and leave Sulzberger in protest of decisions by Edison, Inc. Plans for further collaboration collapse. Mill Creek Project ends
  • Work on WPLP Alumni Network begins; research on current location of WPLP alumni
  • Research on the history of West Philadelphia and Mill Creek
  • Support for research assistant from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning
  • Support for summer research intern from Smith College

2003

  • City of Ottawa, Canada Growth Management Plan describes WPLP as a project that “demonstrates the links between environmental issues, education and heritage, and is a model for Ottawa as it seeks to comprehensively implement a ‘green city’ strategy.”
  • The City of Philadelphia breaks ground on a $110 million project to replace Mill Creek Public Housing with new homes, but innovations in stormwater management to reduce combined sewer overflows and the outdoor classroom-environmental study area for Sulzberger Middle School are not implemented
  • Support for research assistant from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning

2004

  • WPLP wins Community Service Award, American Society of Landscape Architects
  • NYU’s Institute for Civil Infrastructure Systems, in their study of “Innovative Designs for Education,” cites WPLP as a model for a “fully integrated, comprehensive approach”
  • Harvard University’s Institute for Cultural Landscape Studies calls WPLP a model project for ecology history, and design
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science, describes “an excellent model” in applying Internet-based learning activities for K-12 classrooms”
  • Philadelphia City Planning Commission recommends WPLP as an online resource for vacant land and brownfields issues and cites the inspiration of WPLP for current Mill Creek plans
  • Work on WPLP Network continues; research on current location of WPLP/Sulzberger alumni
  • Support from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning for research assistant

2005

2006

  • Work on new WPLP Web site begins
  • Support from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning for research assistant

2007

  • Work on new WPLP Web site continues
  • Support from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning for research assistant

2008

  • Anne Whiston Spirn receives Guggenheim Fellowship to write Top-Down/Bottom-Up: Rebuilding the Landscape of Community, a book on WPLP
  • New WPLP Web site launches
  • Work on WPLP/SMS Alumni Network continues
  • Research on role of natural and social processes in urban design and planning
  • Support for research assistant from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning

2009

  • Launch of WPLP-Mill Creek, a social network site for all those who have been part of the WPLP for the past 22 years
  • Please get in touch! Contact Anne Spirn:
  • Email: spirn@mit.edu
  • Phone: 617-452-2602
  • Fax: 617-258-8081
  • Mail: Anne Spirn, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT, 10-485, Cambridge, MA 02139