Unsightly bus islands were removed, and the street was dressed up with wider sidewalks, better bus shelters, improved signs, new lighting and freshly planted trees and flower boxes.
John Collins, whose work touched the city in so many ways over his long career, and whose social conscience led him to teach gardening to prisoners and to involve the jobless in his projects, died Friday of complications of Parkinson's disease. He was 75 and lived in Glenside.
He was the former chairman of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Horticulture at Temple University, and taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Penn State University, Harvard, Cornell, Drexel, the University of Virginia and Louisiana State University. He also taught at the School of Architecture and Planning in New Delhi, India.
John always considered himself first and foremost a nurseryman. He established a nursery at Temple's Ambler campus, and he and his students and colleagues won numerous prizes at the annual Philadelphia Flower Show.
"I have a compulsion for growing plants," he once said.
Among his other contributions to improving the life of his city, John designed and developed small parks scattered among the office buildings, the Schuylkill Banks Park along the east side of the river, pedestrian walks in Society Hill and many others.
Inquirer critic Inga Saffron wrote in 2007 that Chestnut Street Park, west of 17th Street, was her favorite small Collins-designed park.
"When you're sitting within its dense umbra, with the water softly plucking at the fountain's concrete pillars, you almost feel you are resting in a mountain grotto," she wrote.
Many others experienced the same pleasure in other Collins-designed greenspaces - and hardly anyone knew his name.
