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urbantravelsPHL OP t1_j616mme wrote

They had previously announced that there would be a permanent home for the Southeast Asian market. Which is 100% awesome news, don't get me wrong!

But this announcement of the location decision is really disappointing to me. I guess I had been picturing the market somewhere in the vicinity of the redone Welcome Center along Pattison, near the corner of Broad. It seems like the right location for something akin to an urban farmer's market. Instead it is going in the center of the extreme southern edge of the park. Could hardly have been less friendly to people arriving by transit. Of course there needs to be good vehicle access for the vendors to load in, but visitors to the market arriving by bus or subway will now have to hike even further than they do now. It just seems like once again FDR park is primarily catering to people with cars.

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pianomanzano t1_j62etn5 wrote

It doesn't look too far from their spring location near the maintenance buildings. I can't see them putting it anywhere near the welcome center because of spillover traffic from cars. Many of the suburban Asians (including my parents and their friends) all go there by car, and unfortunately are notorious for just double parking grabbing some stuff and heading back to the car to head out. They'll need to plan out the vehicle traffic/parking situation well because the reality is many of the folks who go there go by car (or Uber/Lyft). When we go, we park over by packer park on 20th and just walk through the park to get there. Hate looking for a parking spot and we like walking through the park and making a picnic out of the trip.

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NotUnstoned t1_j63j682 wrote

From the map image in that article, it looks like it’s in the spot they used to set up before it became the “south East Asian market”

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thereisnodevil666 t1_j61dxzw wrote

Yup. As is all of Philly which is very uggg. I guess bikes and boards in combination with buses are still an option? Finally went recently but drove there, walking would have been hard.

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hdhcnsnd t1_j61o2bx wrote

It’s still only a 10-minute walk from NRG station— I would consider that pretty walkable, especially since most of that walk is through the park. My big pain point is that when you get out of NRG you need to cross a literal highway to get to the park. Everything outside of the park is pretty anti-human.

That being said, yeah this is pretty shit for folks who aren’t able bodied, and overall I feel like it hides the market away from some of the more trafficked areas.

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urbantravelsPHL OP t1_j61qedl wrote

And what about elders who want to buy a bunch of groceries that they can't get elsewhere? "Only" a ten-minute walk to the market, and ten minutes back, when you're carrying or wheeling groceries, on top of however many trip segments it takes you to get to and from NRG station or the nearest bus stop.

I take the 17 bus to FDR park pretty often. Get off at the park entrance at the NE corner and walk in. When I went to one of the walking tours about the master plan for the park, I piped up and said "I got here by bus from Center City, but when you sent out the directions to get here there were only driving directions, nothing about transit." The leaders of the tour said airily "Oh, but most of the visitors to the park come by car!"

The head of the park and the head of the Fairmount parks conservancy were leading the tour. And not even *pretending* that they wanted to encourage people to come by transit or make it easier for people to even know that's an option.

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hdhcnsnd t1_j61rc07 wrote

Yeah, for elderly and disabled this is definitely not accessible.

In general, that whole area is pretty anti-pedestrian outside of the park. It’s a sea of parking lots and highway interchanges.

That’s a real shame if the actual people administering the park are encouraging driving. That’s a poor way to get a lot of people in the park, because there simply isn’t enough space, and I don’t think anybody wants the FDR loop jammed with traffic.

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urbantravelsPHL OP t1_j625kz6 wrote

Not so much encouraging driving, I don't think, as just being passive and fatalistic about the majority of their visitors driving in. They could do a lot more to encourage transit use and orient the park toward people arriving by transit.

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Acrobatic_Advance_71 t1_j6eei2x wrote

I hear southwest and I think those tennis courts. Which isn’t the most accessible part of the park.

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nemesisinphilly t1_j61b8xa wrote

The article mentions a structure. Will the market now be in an enclosed space and be able to exist year round or...?

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RexxAppeal t1_j61yp0h wrote

They shoulda moved it to Marconi plaza...

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KenzoWap t1_j61fv2b wrote

Why build a structure in the park if there are more viable locations in the city?

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urbantravelsPHL OP t1_j61rhh6 wrote

The story of the Southeast Asian Market in FDR Park is one of those rare, precious examples of Philly not sucking. The market started out as a totally unauthorized thing. But instead of shutting it down and arresting and/or fining people in the process, the city and the Parks department actually worked with the vendors to get the market officially authorized, and then actually made a permanent home for the market a commitment in the master plan.

They did know as soon as last summer that they were designating an office space for the market's vendor association, and that is going into the renovated "Welcome Center" which is the building off Pattinson to the east of the Swedish Museum. Maybe hearing that is why I was picturing that the market would have its home near there, instead of at the extreme southern edge of the park away from the major entrances and from transit.

ETA: I thought the market was going to stay an open-air market, but this story does refer to a "structure" being built, without making it clear what that's going to look like. Maybe just something like a large shelter rather than a fully enclosed building? There is mention of a $100,000 grant but the way the story is written makes it unclear whether that's just planning and design or whether construction costs are in that total.

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NonIdentifiableUser t1_j61n5t5 wrote

Proximity to many of the SE Asian enclaves in the city, and also tradition, if I had to guess.

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KenzoWap t1_j61rofd wrote

Ain’t trying to be a negative Nancy. City gonna spend millions building it (which is great) but what if half the current vendors fold a few months in.

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mikebailey t1_j627otr wrote

If there’s anything this thing has proven it’s that it’s not folding in the coming weeks, it’s fairly long-standing

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