The hidden history of Filadelphia window gardens and their role in the city reform

At this time of year, house owners in Philadelphia Row with green thumb have on their windows – choosing fresh plants to design an ingenious mix of colors, shapes and textures.

Sonja Dümpelmann to Landscape historian and built which lived in Philly in 2019–2023. At that time, she examined how reformers and activists in Philadelphia in the 19th and 20th centuries usually had a garden window for a charity organization and stimulation of urban renewal in suspended districts.

Dümpelmann has recently published an article about this story in an architectural journal Buildings and landscapes. She talked to a conversation about what she learned.

How did you get interested in window boxes?

When I first moved to Philadelphia from Cambridge, Massachusetts, in August 2019, I was immediately hit by window boxes. The lush and freshness of plants in many boxes, and sometimes in pavements, made walking more pleasant and engaging. This was especially the case in heated summer months, when I often saw plants from subtropical and tropical climates on Rittenhouse Square, Fitler Square and the districts of the hospital for graduates.

I noticed that there are three categories of window boxes. Many were clearly looked after, often freshly fried and decorated several times a year according to the changing seasons. Some were abandoned and had a impromptu growth of seedlings and various grasses. And the third category were boxes equipped with plastic plants, perhaps signaling the owners of absent or owners who are trying to simulate care.

What makes them architecture of landscape?

Window boxes – especially planted boxes, but also empty boxes – change the outer space and external buildings. They make them more colorful and engaging, and break ordinary vertical walls, protruding from the facade.

It can be said that the windows “welcome” passers -by. They connect a private inner space with the public street kingdom. As one early window promoter observed in 1903“A man on the street drew as much pleasure from them as its owner.”

“Gardens in a box“As their early promoters mentioned, they can make the houses and whole districts look different. They make clear identities with the selection of plants and the style and color of boxes.

How did the window gardening start?

Window gardening has become Popular in Victorian England and continental Europe in the 19th century. It started as an activity in rooms and was practiced especially by women, but Soon he also moved outside. There it became part of what American women called “” at the end of the 19th centuryMunicipal households. “This has expanded their conventional female roles as housewives and mothers for a larger” household “of the community.

Window gardening became the center of social reform women during Progressive era. During this period, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, when industries and cities developed rapidly, women tried to improve education, public health and living conditions, especially in the case of the indigent and immigrants. By offering plants, flowers and entire window boxes, women supported housewives with smaller means.

However, these boxes were also a way to make sure that order at home and beyond it was maintained. Window gardens have become cultural symbols of purity and good cleaning. In addition, the reformers considered the gardening of windows as a practice that can assist immigrants in assimilation with American society.

When did they become political?

Two enormous garden movements took place in Philadelphia. The first took place at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and I describe it as a window charity. The second, which I call Window-Box activism, began in the 1950s.

The window charity was conducted primarily by white philanthropists and social workers who would distribute plants and goods sent from outside the city to urban indigent and ill, especially immigrants and black Americans. Sometimes window boxes were ready to install outside the windows. Other times, the recipients themselves built and planted boxes.

A few decades later, in the mid -twentieth century, plants became a tool for White suburban ladies in the garden and the inhabitants of Czarnych Śródmieście counteract urban distribution resulting from racism and public disinfection. On annual planting days, Garden Club brought plants to the city and joined the residents in planting and installing window boxes to brighten neighborly blocks.

Plants were crucial both in the activism of a charity and windows. People gathered to take care of plants, creating friendships among neighbors and ties between low -income and wealthy districts. Women used plants and window boxes to protect private space and augment the safety of public space. In the 1960s, the police in Philadelphia reported fewer crimes on the streets with window boxes.

Of course, the window boxes and the plants themselves could not solve major urban social problems, such as bad housing conditions and racial discrimination. So when they can be Catalysts for the change of neighborhoodThey also helped camouflage and literally naturalize major social problems that required political reactions.

Are they still associated with urban renewal?

Like a smaller version of public parks, social gardens and street trees, window gardens can contribute Green Gentrification. This happens when the construction of parks or planting trees contributes to the augment in the value of the property, which leads to the displacement of long -term residents in low -income districts.

Window gardening helped save some Ancient Row House Philly districts before demolition during Renewal of cities starting in the 1950s. However, many of these districts – such as Washington Square West and Graduate Hospital – have been gentrified since then, and families that once garden to transform their districts into more lovely and safer places could not afford to live.

The window activism of the 20th century drew the attention of sociologists and other domestic and international observers, especially because it combined white and black inhabitants during the tensions of movement for civil rights. He also raised social awareness uneven access to urban green spaces.

However, despite the good intentions of movement and positive effects, Racial segregation remains a lasting problem In Philadelphia.

In gentrified parts of the City City, fresh and restored in -row houses often contain binding and built -in irrigation pipes for window boxes. Many owners order planting and maintenance of windows Service providers.

But in the case of residents with lower income, costs and money for installation and maintenance of window gardens may be excessive.