Celebrating 90 Years—Countless Friends PRESERVING THE NATURAL BEAUTY AND WILDNESS OF THE WISSAHICKON VALLEY FOR NINETY YEARS. FALL 2014 • VOLUME 23 • NUMBER 3 Meet You at Valley Green! Coverage of our 90th Anniversary on pp. 4, 8, 10, 11. FROMthePRESIDENT 8708 Germantown Avenue The Friends of the Wissahickon is celebrating our 90th Philadelphia, PA 19118-2717 Anniversary this year, and while there is much to celebrate, Phone: (215) 247-0417 Tthis anniversary year also finds us commencing our second 90 E-mail: [email protected] years with a multi-pronged, five-year strategic plan for growth in our Website: www.fow.org reach, our visibility, and our stewardship in the Wissahickon Valley. The mission of the Friends of the Wissahickon While the early years of FOW saw much work done in preserving is to preserve the natural beauty and the park and the completion of projects like the restoration of Valley wildness of the Wissahickon Valley and Green Inn, current activities are on a much larger scale. The most stimulate public interest therein. visible of these is our Sustainable Trails Initiative, in which, through the combined efforts of our great staff, membership, funders, and OFFICERS board members, we are already halfway through a five-year, $10 Will Whetzel, President million budget plan to restore and/or rebuild 50 miles of trails in the Liz Werthan, Vice President, Advocacy Heidi Grunwald, Vice President, Finance Wissahickon Valley. The exclamation point for our anniversary year Robert Harries, Vice President, Governance will be our Gala celebration event on October 25, which will showcase the restorations and Jeff Harbison, Treasurer improvements made to Valley Green Inn over the past year. (See page 4.) Liz Werthan, Secretary Looking forward, this newly formed strategic plan will help to align the mission of the Friends past PRESIDENTS of the Wissahickon with the needs of the organization, the park, and its surrounding constituents Cindy Affleck Charles Dilks at a time when issues that were barely reviewed 90 years ago are now key environmental and Robert A. Lukens David Pope organizational issues necessary to the health and future prosperity of FOW and the park. John Rollins Edward C. Stainton Robert Vance The exclamation point for our anniversary Board MEMBERS Christine Bamberger Courtney Kapp year will be our Gala celebration event on Melen Boothby John Kelly Richard P. Brown, Jr. Martha Kennedy October 25, which will showcase the Stephanie Craighead Richard Kremnick restorations and improvements made to Emily Daeschler Charles Lee, Jr. David Dannenberg Jerome Maddox Valley Green Inn over the past year. Sam Finney Chris McCausland Shirley Gracie John Meigs Heidi Grunwald David Pope Jeff Harbison Chris Rabb One such issue is water quality. According to the Philadelphia Water Department, the Robert Harries Jean Sachs Wissahickon watershed contributes to the drinking water for a third of Philadelphia’s citizens David Hilton Liz Werthan who are located in Center City and the northwest. FOW realizes how important it is to expand Bettina Hoerlin Patricia R. West our knowledge of and involvement in this area. Teaming with our upstream neighbors, the Louise Johnston Will Whetzel Wissahickon Valley Watershed Association, is an example of expanding our scope and creating a partnership to focus on this area of great concern. A second issue is this very one of partnerships; STAFF joining forces with other similar-minded organizations can create results greater than any one Maura McCarthy, Executive Director organization might accomplish on its own. Ruffian Tittmann, Development Director Audrey Simpson, Business Manager A third strategic issue for the years ahead, and Denise Larrabee, Publications Editor equally as important as the other two, is how our Zane Magnuson, Development/Operations ninety-year-old organization can most effectively reach Coordinator out to all of our park users and stewards of the Valley, Sarah Marley, Outreach Manager and improve our involvement and interaction with them. Henry Stroud, Project Manager To this end, we have recently hired a marketing firm Erin Mooney, Publicist John Holback, Volunteer Coordinator which has given us a report full of helpful ideas and new guidance for our efforts. I sincerely hope that all of Newsletter you reading this newsletter will take stock of how you Denise Larrabee, Editor interact with, benefit from, and contribute to the mission Dena Sher, Associate Editor of FOW—and join your fellow FOW members in these Sarah West, Listings Editor exciting developments. Moon Design, Layout Published by Princeton Packet, Princeton, NJ Printed on recycled paper. Will Whetzel, President United Way Donations We appreciate Valley The Friends of the Wissahickon can receive Green Bank reinvesting in membership/donations through the United Way. Cover photo credits: Allen Aisenstein, Chestnut Hill Historical Society, Our United Way number is 9882. If this is the most Steven Powell, Robert Shaw, and Eileen Tonkinson. our community and in the convenient way for you to give, please do so. Visit our Wissahickon Valley! website (www.fow.org) to learn about the benefits of membership in the Friends of the Wissahickon. 2 Friends of the Wissahickon • Fall 2014 VALLEY TALKS NEWSBRIEFS 6 pm at Valley Green Inn FOW Sponsors Valley Talks are free and open to the public. Schuylkill Acts & Sponsored by Impacts FOW sponsored Tahmid Bhuiyan, a Junior at Science Leadership Academy, as a participant in the Schuylkill Acts and Impacts Expedition this summer. The expedition is a weeklong service-learning program with a team of ten high-school students from communities within the Schuylkill River September 16 Watershed. It included a journey (by boat Philadelphia’s Future: The and van) along the 120-mile Schuylkill FOW Celebrates Increasing Impact of Climate River, from its headwaters Seventh Change with Frank Niepold in Schuylkill Ice Cream Social Climate change is noticeable and is County to affecting Americans in a variety of ways. The its confluence with the Delaware River in Northwest neighbors gathered National Climate Assessment is the most Philadelphia. Team leaders from Outward on the lawn outside FOW’s office in comprehensive report to date. It presents Bound Philadelphia and the Schuylkill Chestnut Hill on August 20 to learn more extensive evidence and covers climate change Headwaters Association guided the students about the Wissahickon and enjoy free ice impacts on various regions and sectors, as downriver, illustrating an array of issues cream, environmental activities, and live steel drum well as adaptation and mitigation. Frank impacting water quality in the river through music, courtesy of musicians Kyle Dunleavy and Niepold will present an overview of the tours, programming, and applied service David Sherrick. This annual event also offers the assessment and its findings with a focus on work designed to highlight issues in the chance for the community to meet with FOW’s staff the Northeast. He is the Climate Education watershed and offer hands-on solutions to and volunteers. Pictured here are Sylvie and Noura Coordinator at the National Oceanic and these problems. Merryman-Lotze, Sam Keefe, and Sage Bellot. Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Program Office, a co-chair of the U.S. Global Change Research Program’s Communications and Education Interagency Working Group, and FOW Member lead writer of “Education, Training, and Evening at the Outreach” in the U.S. Climate Action Report. Woodmere October 14 Join FOW and the Woodmere Art Museum for a tour of the Envisioning a New museum’s new exhibition featuring Fairmount Park with renowned landscape painter Walter Elmer Schofield (1866-1944) Harris M. Steinberg, FAIA on Wednesday, November 19, “The New Fairmount Park,” a recent from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Schofield: study by PennPraxis, aims to create a vision/ International Impressionist action plan for East and West Park so this is the most ambitious and watershed park, including the Wissahickon, comprehensive exhibition of the remains relevant in the 21st century without artist’s work, and the first major undermining the relationship between public critical reevaluation of his career. water and access to nature and their roles in It includes over 60 paintings and recasts Schofield as an international artist who combined the tenets supporting urban life. Harris M. Steinberg will and stylistic qualities of both realism and impressionism. Schofield’s large scenes of the Wissahickon, the present the results of this study. Steinberg is coasts of Cornwall, England, and other locales won numerous prestigious prizes and are in the collections the Founding Executive Director of PennPraxis, of major institutions across the U.S. This tour is free and open only to current FOW members, who will be the applied research arm of the School of allowed to visit other exhibits during this event. The tour will begin at 6 p.m., with refreshments served Design at the University of Pennsylvania, before and after. Visit www.fow.org for more information and to register. where he serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning. Civic visioning is a hallmark of his work at Support the Wayfinding and Signage Initiative PennPraxis and he lectures nationally and internationally on the role of civic engagement FOW is currently raising funds from individuals and private foundations to provide the balance in city planning. of matching funds needed for the Wayfinding and Signage Initiative. The project has an expected total budget of $500,000. A grant of $250,000 from the PA Department of Community and Economic Register by contacting Sarah Marley at Development has leveraged an additional $150,000 in private support, but FOW still needs $100,000 [email protected] or 215-247-0417 x109, or visit to complete the project. For more information on how you can support the Wayfinding and Signage www.fow.org. Spaces are limited. program, contact Development Director Ruffian Tittmann at 215-247-0417 x102 or [email protected].