Last January, a large group of residents gathered in the ballroom of the Harrisburg Civic Club, the stately, Tudor-style mansion nestled within Riverfront Park.
The hundred or so people hailed from a cross-section of the city: politicians, historic preservationists, developers, environmentalists, along with a smattering of concerned citizens.
They were called together on that blustery mid-winter night to consider a grand proposal, one that, if successful, might play a vital role in reviving a city plagued for so long by neglect, misplaced priorities, under-investment, malfeasance and just plain bad luck.
They called their movement City Beautiful 2.0, recalling the original City Beautiful movement of more than a century ago. That ambitious project turned Harrisburg from a filthy, unplanned backwater into a modern city with clean water, a functioning sewage system, paved roads and beautiful parks.
But that was then.
Today, century-old pipes rot beneath the pavement. Sinkholes are swallowing streets. Reservoir Park, Riverfront Park and Italian Lake are all desperately in need of basic maintenance and repair. The graceful river walk, which magnificently combined flood control and beauty, is being reclaimed by the Susquehanna.
Given its financial crisis, can Harrisburg restore this legacy our forebears graciously left us, much less address the new challenges of the 21st century? And, if so, can these well-intentioned citizens really do enough to make a difference?
A Movement Re-launched
It was entirely appropriate that the first meeting of City Beautiful 2.0 was held in one of the few buildings in the city that remains standing on the west side of Front Street.
Before the original City Beautiful movement, which began in 1900, Riverfront Park was incomplete. It was pockmarked with houses, shacks, docks, boat liveries, coal dredging and logging outfits and filthy, waste-strewn mud, all descending into a river choked with industrial and human waste. One of the top priorities of City Beautiful was to clean up the park and the river, providing an uninterrupted stretch of green and walkways from Shipoke to the city line.
City Beautiful leaders Mira Lloyd Dock and J. Horace McFarland, along with the young reformist mayor Vance McCormick, led a team of vast ambitions. In a short period of time, alliances were formed, arms twisted, funds raised and a large municipal bond floated.
Over the ensuing years, a complex, multi-faceted plan was launched and largely realized. Work began quickly, but it took more than two decades before the final pieces of the project, such as the creation of manicured Sunken Gardens, were in place. At the end, Harrisburg was transformed, a little jewel of a city with what seemed like a boundless future.
The group that met in the Civic Club last January, and again in February at HACC Midtown 2, frequently recalled that glorious past in a hope to restore and build upon it.
Facilitated by John Campbell, executive director of the Historic Harrisburg Association, and Jeb Stuart, the project consultant, the speeches, slide show and visioning sessions were small steps forward into awakening a conceptual outlook for conservation and sustainability projects within the city.
Campbell believes that this group serves a number of purposes, the first as a clearinghouse of sorts. In the future, project leaders will be able to go to the City Beautiful 2.0 website and identify similar initiatives others are working on to prevent redundancy and promote collaboration, he said.
Another noble goal: “to make sure this group is reflective of the city” through geographical, socioeconomic, race and gender lines. “Our next hurdle is making sure everyone is at the table, and we know that it won’t be a successful movement” without that type of participation, said Campbell.
Then there’s Stuart’s project, which is to begin the application process so the park system in Harrisburg can receive historical recognition on a national and statewide scale. The hope here is to allow places like Riverfront and Reservoir parks and Wildwood and Italian lakes to receive funding, activating “the religion of the movement; understanding what the City Beautiful movement was and how Harrisburg was the catalyst for a national City Beautiful movement,” said Campbell.
Erica Bryce, owner of City House Bed & Breakfast located along N. Front Street, attended the meeting and believes, “Cities, in general, need to be clean, green and safe. I think we [citizens] can tackle the clean and green here” and “clearly someone needs to step up.”
No doubt, but Harrisburg’s needs may be too great for even the most dedicated volunteers. Perhaps the greatest obstacle is this: the city’s financial crisis has made the local government almost a non-actor in this project, a vast difference from the original City Beautiful effort.
As city Councilman Bruce Weber told the 2.0 attendees, monies for parks have been slashed, and the funds that are available have gone to recreational programs. In addition, the Public Works Department now is charged with the maintenance of city parks, which has never been its primary responsibility. Worse yet, the city, in default on both its incinerator and general obligation bonds, has been cut off from the financial markets.
That’s the bad news. The good is that there already are numerous groups that have taken up the burden of trying to make Harrisburg a better, cleaner place. Perhaps City Beautiful 2.0 can learn from and build upon the efforts of these groups, which have accomplished much with little local government involvement.
What Works Now
Indeed, civic groups abound in Harrisburg that have committees or missions dedicated to environmental stewardship.
Chris Fegley, Community Action Commission’s (CAC) Neighborhood Revitalization Manager, has been on a vocational and civic mission in South Allison Hill. As part of CAC’s five-year strategic plan, he is required to interview residents regarding the state of their neighborhoods. The biggest concern he found was trash and the deteriorating condition of homes.
“As of Jan. 1, we’ve collected over 15 tons of trash” with collaboration from the State Probationary Office, Messiah College and Habitat for Humanity,” he said. “We’re financed through public-private grants received through Wells Fargo and DCED (state Department of Community and Economic Development), so as to not take any money away from the local tax base.”
Harrisburg Young Professionals (HYP) has had long-standing commitments to conservation projects. Since 1998, HYP has maintained the Forster Street median in alliance with PENNDOT and the Department of General Services, ensuring that best practices went into the construction and planting processes.
Catherine Hoover, vice president of HYP’s Beautification Committee, said that the project is “integral to the history” of the organization. HYP, she said, has continued to make strides in this area, particularly in the new median installation along State Street, which includes native, low-maintenance plants, bringing a much needed face-lift to the landscape leading up to the entrance of the Capitol building.
Many more noteworthy landscaping and beautification projects exist around the Capital region: Rotary Club of Harrisburg’s planting of 100 trees along the river front about two years ago; Green Urban Initiative’s aggressive expansion of community garden plots in the Midtown and Uptown neighborhoods; and the Joshua Farm, Harrisburg’s only urban farm, which is planted on Edison Elementary School’s former athletic field.
Each of these projects highlights the due diligence and hard work necessary to improve even a slice of Harrisburg’s landscape. Without exception, all have cultivated community partners to ensure procedural liability, build capacity and improve funding opportunities. In addition, they all sourced funding in creative ways through foundations, private corporations and public grants. Lastly, they’ve all either required or will require vast short- and long-term volunteer sweat equity to re-plant, maintain and improve upon their plots and pick-ups.
Take Joshua Farm. Started in 2005, founder Kirsten Reinford received approval from the school district to lease the S. 18th Street lot. Early funding came from a number of foundations: M&T Bank, Lowe’s and the Joshua Group, the umbrella organization the farm sits under. Reinford works with colleges, Boy Scout troops, local high schools, church groups and others to assist in overall maintenance. She also understands that sustainability projects require progress, and expansion outside the fenced walls of Joshua Farm occurred for the first time just three years ago on an Elmerton Avenue plot granted to the farm by the Department of Agriculture. On a personal level, she is deeply committed, with the vision and the mettle to see this important project thrive through collaboration, sustainable funding and labor sources, both paid and unpaid.
These are a few takeaways that City Beautiful 2.0 will need to incorporate into its framework to fulfill its vision. Whether or not the group has the will or persuasion to bring the leaders of the aforementioned projects to the table—to consult, recount their narratives and add substance—will be a colossal task, one that Campbell recognizes.
“I think if we [City Beautiful 2.0] achieve nothing else in the next five years but to bring everyone to the table and break down the barriers of everything that exists, I think we’ve achieved something great…the dialogue that hasn’t happened on a centralized scale that needs to happen,” he said.
In a speech entitled “The Great Civic Awakening,” City Beautiful organizer J. Horace MacFarland said “that self-respect comes to a community when it has roused to a sense of its civic sins and has methodistically shown by repentance a desire for regeneration.”
In another time, this spiritual call to renewal was what Harrisburg needed. Today, we may need something more—things like collaboration between groups, an examination of what has worked and creative ways of raising funds. To be even somewhat successful, City Beautiful 2.0 will need an integration of wisdom, savvy and sustained dedication. Perhaps then this fledgling movement, born of idealistic vision and practical need, can gain true momentum.
Next article in this series: What can City Beautiful 2.0 learn from other town/city greening initiatives?
