Jane Jacobs had some interesting things to say in The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) about parks, and while Kennedy Plaza is not a park (though it has Burnside Park right next to it), some of it may well apply to the changes under way there. Although she exempted places like Boston Common and other major, well-used city parks, she was dubious about smaller parks without more natural animation, and which often tended to require programming, which often failed. She has this to say about one of William Penn’s parks in Philadelphia. Only Rittenhouse Square has been an unmitigated success, largely because of the vibrant commerce that surrounds it. Here she comments on Washington Square, including some remarks that bring Kennedy Plaza to mind:

The third is Washington Square, the center of an area that was at one time the heart of downtown, but is now specialized as a massive office center – insurance companies, publishing, advertising. [We wish!] Several decades ago Washington Square became Philadelphia’s pervert park, to the point where it was shunned by office lunchers and was an unmanageable vice and crime problem to park workers and police. In the mid-1950s it was torn up, closed for more than a year and redesigned. In the process its users were dispersed, which was the intent. Today it gets brief and desultory use, lying mostly empty except at lunchtime on fine days. Washington Square’s district, like Franklin Square’s, has failed at spontaneously maintaining its values, let alone raising them. Beyond the rim of offices, it is today designated for large-scale urban renewal.

So what phase of the above description would apply to Kennedy Plaza? All of them?