Pretzel Park, located just a block off of Main Street in Manayunk, provides neighborhood residents with several amenities including a dog park, a playground, and public green space.

Delicious

Green space

Fun for kids

And dogs too

Because of the nature of the topography in the area (steep, mostly), awareness of and access to the park from Main Street is severely hampered. Numerous area stakeholders, including Manayunk Development Corporation, Schuylkill River Project, and Friends of Pretzel Park were able to procure a grant to retain the Community Design Collaborative to come up with a plan to better link the park, Main Street, and the Manayunk Canal. The idea is to increase access to the park for visitors to the…

The Philadelphia Water Department says the $45M Venice Island Recreation Center remake project is now accepting bids. The plans we found (involving engineer Jerry Snyder, the City of Philadelphia and its Capital Program Office) are for the construction of a new recreation center,  performing arts center and the installation of an underground water-storage tank; and the replacement of the playground, park, basketball court, hockey rink and 175 parking spots (the pool will stay the same). The project (a collaboration between the PWD, Parks & Recreation and the Manayunk Development Corporation) will include more than 25,000 square feet of landscaped green space, according to Newsworks.org. Construction will begin later this year and will most likely take a few years. It’s well-known that during rainstorms the Schuylkill becomes a bacteria cocktail of sewage and…