PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The Sixers’ controversial Market East arena project, 76 Place, is still not a done deal. Among the proposal’s most prominent opponents are community organizers in the city’s Chinatown district. If the arena gets final approval, it certainly would not be the first time city government has frustrated that community.
At the same location, 40 years ago, the Center City Commuter Connection, more commonly the Commuter Tunnel, was criticized by the Chinatown community and some politicians at the time, but it turned out to be what retired Philadelphia Daily News Editor Zach Stahlberg called the most transformational project in the city’s history.
Here’s what happened.
It was big. The project linked the Reading terminal (now Jefferson Station) on Market Street to the Pennsylvania Railroad terminal at Suburban Station. It created a unified system, connecting two separate regional commuter rail systems.
Started in the Frank Rizzo years, through Mayor Bill Green’s tenure, and finished on Mayor Wilson Goode’s watch in 1984, it took six years — almost the same amount of time the arena project would take.
There it was: rapid transit that suddenly linked everyone to 30th Street Station, the South Philadelphia Sports Complex, Philadelphia International Airport. A family from South Jersey could take the PATCO High-Speed Line in, walk a block and connect. Many today may take this access for granted, not knowing how it changed commuting and commerce in the region.
In the end, the Chinatown Friendship Arch was built. Chinatown businesses zoomed. It brought billions of dollars in business to Philadelphia, a seamless transit corridor, the growth of SEPTA. It spawned Market East, The Gallery, the Pennsylvania Convention Center and the Marriott Hotel linked to it, and a boom of high-rise construction on West Market, including the Liberty Place towers and Comcast Center.
This story is not a reason to back this current Sixers arena project, supported by the mayor. The commuter tunnel and the arena project are two different ideas. It is clear that not every massive city project has been a boon to Chinatown. However, it is interesting to look back four decades to what happened at the same location.
76 Place could be a game changer, too — and the biggest question is who will win and who will lose.