A Park Is Born

The House passed the bill on June 14, 1948, and the Senate approved a companion bill, S. 2080, on June 18, 1948. President Truman signed it as Public Law 795 on June 28, 1948. The park project now existed on paper, but without funding. The law demanded the acquisition of considerable property before the project could become a park. Any activity toward that end, however, would depend on appropriations made by the next Congress. While the federal government's timetable thus remained uncertain, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania moved ahead on Independence Mall, north of Independence Hall. Early in 1949, the Public Works Committee of the Philadelphia City Council held hearings on an agreement between the city and the state to establish the mall. The move was opposed once again by Morris Passon, who had represented local businessmen before the Shrines Commission. Passon characterized the plans as "grandiose" and warned that appropriations by the state were uncertain. Another local businessman, Louis Herbach, suggested that the money might be better spent on cleaning up the city's rivers and slums. He objected on aesthetic grounds as well. In his opinion "Independence Hall would look like a peanut in a two-block vista." The weight of opinion was against the businessmen. Lewis pointed out that every state legislator favored the project, and that Rear Admiral Milo F. Draemel, Pennsylvania secretary of forests and waters, who had been given responsibility for its execution, had assured him that funds were already available. Albert Greenfield assured the committee that the mall would boost the city's tax revenues. Rep. Hardie Scott expressed fears that failure to act would be seen in Washington as bad faith on the part of the city.

Although it was not stated at the hearing, the most persuasive argument for the development was its potential for encouraging large businesses to remain in the city. Three major companies, employing 15,000 people, were contemplating moves to the suburbs because of the continuing deterioration of the area. If the city would commit itself to civic improvement, as represented by the mall, these businesses might be persuaded to participate in redeveloping the neighborhood. (Two of them, Rohm and Haas Company and General Accident Insurance Company of America, did in fact remain.) The committee recommended execution of the pact, and City Council passed an ordinance to that effect on January 18, 1949.

While the state and city were working out the details of their agreement, Congress was wrestling with an appropriation to initiate the federal project. A suggestion for an appropriation of $3 million was quickly whittled down. The Department of the Interior was satisfied with the $500,000 that was finally appropriated. It was all that they expected to be able to use in the next fiscal year. Furthermore, the House and Senate conference committee had worked out a compromise. Although the park service would receive only $500,000 for the fiscal year 1950, the conference recommended that they be authorized to contract for almost $4 million worth of acquisitions.

The bill authorizing the park called for an advisory commission, representing the city, the state, the federal government, and important private organizations interested in the project. The National Park Service, which had worked successfully with such commissions in the past, believed that such a body would "integrate and give effectiveness to the best thought of the city, State and Federal Government in carrying into execution a program." With funding secured, the secretary of the interior moved in June to make appointments to the commission. He chose, as the bill required, eleven members, three selected by himself, three recommended by the governor of Pennsylvania, three by the mayor of Philadelphia, and one each by the Carpenters' Company of Philadelphia and the Independence Hall Association. Among the governor's nominees were judge Lewis, the banker A. G. B. Steele, and Arthur C. Kaufmann, executive director of Gimbel Brothers department store. The mayoral appointees were Thomas Buckley, Edward Hopkinson, Jr., and Albert Greenfield. John P. Hallahan represented the Carpenters' Company, and Sydney E. Martin the Independence Hall Association. The secretary's own appointments were Sen. Francis J. Myers, Joseph Sill Clark, Jr., then director of the Citizens' Council on City Planning and later reform mayor of Philadelphia and U.S. senator, and Michael J. Bradley, collector of customs, who had, as a representative, introduced one of the bills to study the park.

Meanwhile the state mall moved ahead steadily. In May 1949 Governor Duff and Mayor Samuel signed an agreement laying out the respective roles of city and state. The city would widen Fifth and Sixth Streets; the state would develop the land between them. By November Admiral Draemel announced the beginning of negotiations to purchase thirty-seven properties in the block opposite Independence Hall from Chestnut to Market at an estimated cost of a little under $3 million.