{"id":227152,"date":"2026-06-24T20:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227152\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T20:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T20:20:08","slug":"philadelphias-avenue-of-the-arts-teases-its-green-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227152\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia\u2019s Avenue of the Arts teases its green future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? <a href=\"#Section1\">Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>A new traffic median in front of <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/kimmel-center-tribute-marian-anderson-hall-unveiled\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia\u2019s Kimmel Center<\/a> on South Broad Street has been rebuilt as a 230-foot-long green ribbon elevated a couple of feet above the asphalt, planted with canopy trees and blooming flowers.\n<\/p>\n<p>The new green space, which is not accessible to pedestrians, is a taste of what developer Carl Dranoff and <a href=\"https:\/\/whyy.org\/articles\/philadelphia-avenue-of-the-arts-30-anniversary\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Avenue of the Arts Inc.<\/a> have in mind for the mile-long stretch of Broad Street from City Hall to Washington Avenue.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe call it our beta project to show people what\u2019s coming,\u201d said Dranoff, Avenue of the Arts Inc. board chair. \u201cWe\u2019ve taken a derelict, weed-strewn concrete bunker of a median strip, which we call an ugly duckling, and have made it into a beautiful swan.\u201d\n  <\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-745217\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-06-24-e-lee-philadelphia-avenue-of-the-arts-green-median-unveiling-watering-1024x683.jpeg\" alt=\"Dignitaries water the plants in a raised median strip dividing South Broad Street between Spruce and Pine streets.\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"  \/>Dignitaries water the plants in a raised median strip dividing South Broad Street between Spruce and Pine streets. The new median features native trees and plantings, a rainwater-collection cistern, and lighting. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)<\/p>\n<p>Dubbed Avenue of the Arts 2.0, the $150 million master plan aims to envelope South Broad Street in greenery, redesigning its sidewalks with continuous planters large enough to contain full-size trees and carving out niches for public art and performance spaces.\n<\/p>\n<p>The fully realized plan will be years in the making. Construction is taking an iterative approach, designing and building a block at a time as resources allow. Reconstruction of the sidewalks of the 300 block of South Broad will begin in 2027.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-745213\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2026-06-24-e-lee-philadelphia-avenue-of-the-arts-green-median-unveiling-aerial-1024x683.jpeg\" alt=\"A block of South Broad Street in Philadelphia, between Spruce and Pine streets, is seen with a raised median filled with plantings\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\"  \/>The block of South Broad Street between Spruce and Pine streets is the first of 10 blocks between City Hall and Washington Avenue to get a raised median filled with plantings. (Emma Lee\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>Avenue of the Arts Inc. pushed to get the initial median strip finished early so it would be in place for an anticipated busy summer.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile this may be the first block, it sends a powerful message that progress is here and visible,\u201d said board member Tiffany White.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[43400,17571,69,71,70],"class_list":["post-227152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-avenue-of-the-arts","tag-kimmel-center","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}