Pastorius Park is one of Chestnut Hill’s most important and beloved public parks, but did you know it was almost a traffic circle for a cross-country highway?! From Wednesday, November 30 through the month of December, the Chestnut Hill Conservancy will present the streetscape exhibit: “The Evolution of Pastorius Park – the Park that Almost Wasn’t,” in the Germantown Avenue storefront of Kilian Hardware (8450 Germantown Avenue).

Although the Conservancy is taking a break from the Night of Lights streetscape exhibition this year, they still wanted to enliven the Avenue with fascinating history. The exhibit was created by landscape architect and historian Rob Fleming, and includes several rarely-seen drawings from his research in the Olmsted Archives during Olmsted’s 200th birthday year of 2022. Panels will showcase the evolution of Pastorius Park, from a site initially planned to be a dramatic double roundabout in the heart of Chestnut Hill, to the picturesque pedestrian park we enjoy today. The final panel of the exhibit illustrates the heroic and sustained efforts of Friends of Pastorius Park to restore and replant the park guided by the final landscape design created by noted landscape architect Fred Peck in the early 1930s.

This program is sponsored by BMT Wealth Management, Bowman Properties, SoMD Architects, Nottingham-Goodman Group, Dennis F. Meyer Inc., Millan Architects, George Woodward Co., Pure, Shechtman Tree Company, Friends of the Wissahickon, Sivel Group, MIS Capital LLC, and John B. Ward & Co.

About Pastorius Park and Chestnut Hill Conservancy
Named for Francis Pastorius, a German-born Quaker who founded Germantown in 1690, Pastorius Park is one the most beloved public parks in Chestnut Hill, which is also known as Philadelphia’s Garden District.

The Chestnut Hill Conservancy is an educational center and leading advocate for the architecture, open space, and social history of Chestnut Hill and surrounding communities in the Wissahickon Watershed.