Two Abandoned Railroads, Two Different Results

While plans to turn NYC's High Line into a park move forward, Philadelphia's Reading Viaduct continues to decay. Some groups want to tear it down to make way for development while others hope to retain the structure and make it a park.

"One group proposed building a boardwalk over the viaduct and using former railroad signals to light the area; another suggested turning the viaduct and nearby empty, triangular parcels into a university with a dining car gliding up and down refurbished tracks.

But despite the proposals, the project has only "moved ahead in fits and starts," Struble said. According to most people involved, the lack of progress signals a larger problem: a lack of municipal leadership."

"Philadelphia and New York may both be large, post-industrial metropolises separated by a mere 100 miles, but they are worlds apart.

"It's emblematic, when you talk about the tale of two cities, of different administrations and different resources," said Harris Steinberg, who runs Penn Praxis, the School of Design's consulting arm.

Leadership, or the lack of it, Steinberg explained, begins at the mayoral level.

"John Street is a good mayor," he said. But "he is challenged in terms of getting people behind his ideas."

Without the avid support of a Bloomberg-like figure, many say, the Reading Viaduct project has stalled."