It was a disgrace and a defeat, severed from the city by approaches to the bridge and formidably widened stretches of Sixth and Race Streets; Exhibit A for how neglect feeds on scraps of the city that have slipped out of sight.
So to see it today - the 1838-vintage fountain spraying over a sea-blue pool, toddlers swinging, petunias swaying, a carousel whirling, a putt-putt golf course featuring replicas of the Liberty Bell and the Museum of Art - is to be rendered, well, almost breathless.
History has not just been reversed here, but sent so thoroughly packing that it is hard to imagine, if you hadn't witnessed it with your own eyes, how low Franklin Square had sunk.
One day last week, a bit of icing was being applied to the cake. A jaunty little stand called SquareBurger opened, handing out free (for the day) burgers to long lines of police officers and firefighters whose fallen brethren are memorialized by a beacon in a corner of the square.
It made for a bit of a Norman Rockwell visual - highway patrolmen in tall, black boots huddled at picnic tables, bent over their juicy, hand-formed burgers (and salami-wrapped hot dogs) as T-shirted denizens of local day-care centers frolicked around them.
The stand, clad invitingly in creamy clapboard, is determinedly noninstitutional and unapologetically channels a similar and wildy popular joint called the Shake Shack in Manhattan's (also refurbished) Madison Square Park, a project of uber-restaurateur Danny Meyer, who in turn modeled itafter a retro roadside burger stand.
The Franklin Square stand is a joint venture, the first half of which is Philadelphia's prolific Stephen Starr, whose daughter has loved playing in the park, but whose restaurant group has tended toward trendier venues including Continental and the steak house Butcher & Singer.
