Southern Boulevard Parkway (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Southern Boulevard Parkway
Type	Parkway - Urban Park
Location	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Created	1914 by Olmsted Brothers
Operated by	Fairmount Park
Open	All year

Southern Boulevard Parkway is a landscaped segment of south Broad Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania connecting Marconi Plaza and FDR Park from Oregon Avenue at Broad Street southward five intersections to the gateway entrance of the Philadelphia Navy Yard. The parkway consists of the central median landscaped area including the bordering east and west tree lined sidewalks and various sized green spaces which separates opposing lanes of traffic, and roadway intersections. Broad Street itself is a historic city street and this landscaped segment is bordered by an urban residential townhome community and the entrance to the major venues of the Philadelphia Sports Complex and Xfinity Live!, and the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

In 1904, a plan for a Park and Parkway Improvements in South Philadelphia began with Samuel Parsons Jr laying out a design but work stopped by 1910. Then in 1912, the city's director of public works, Morris Cooke, engaged the preeminent landscape architecture firm, Olmsted Brothers, to produce designs for League Island Park, Oregon Plaza and the stretch of south Broad Street from Oregon Avenue south to Pattison Avenue and southward to League Island. The unifying medial green space including the tree lined sidewalks on the east and west connected the two parks developed from river swamp lands that were filled and regraded. In 1926 a second Parkway was constructed on Moyanmensing Avenue from Oregon Avenue to the intersection of Packer Avenue, and Packer Avenue was extended from 20th Street to Broad Street (Southern Boulevard) for access to the Sesquicentennial Exposition. Later the two parks were renamed Marconi Plaza and FDR Park and the median landscaping known as the Southern Boulevard.

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