Open Space
Historic Gloria Dei Preservation Corporation
Gloria Dei Church (Old Swedes’ Church) is the oldest church in Pennsylvania and among the oldest in the nation. The nonprofit, founded to preserve and renew the church property, is re-imagining its open spaces to serve a broader audience. Volunteers from the Community Design Collaborative involved community stakeholders in developing a master plan featuring an urban woodlands, improvements to the churchyard, and a new garden park that reconnects neighborhood residents to their riverfront.
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A garden park on the church grounds will link neighborhood residents to the riverfront.
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Proposed urban woodlands
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The master plan proposes three distinct open spaces: park, church, and woodlands.
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The master plan
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Woodlands will replace an open lawn and amphitheater on the southern portion of the site.
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The existing site
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The historic core of the site
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Gloria Dei, the City of Philadelphia, and the National Park Service own portions of the site.
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Can you find Gloria Dei? The once-bucolic church was hemmed in by wharfs and warehouses in the 19th century.
