New lighting makes JFK underpass safer, more attractive

 Anyone in the vicinity of John F. Kennedy Boulevard and 23rd Street Tuesday night might have noticed a new, blue light eminating from beneath the overpass.

The Center City District turned on the 40, four-foot-long LED fixtures last evening, with the help of a $40,000 grant from PECO. The goal is improving the “pedestrain experience” for PECO employees who park north of JFK and for residents of the adjacent Logan Square neighborhood and others who walk that way. The PECO grant also helped pay for improved metal halide lighting on each side of the 90-foot-long SEPTA underpass along 23rd Street.

The project cost about $45,000 in total, and the CDC picked up the rest of the tab itself. 

The lighting is similar to the lighting that CCD installed under the 22nd Street JFK bridge. The cost of that project was about the same, and CDC paid for the whole thing.

These lighting projects transform sites that previously were unpleasant thoroughfares,” said Paul R. Levy, president and CEO of the Center City District. “The  CCD would like to thank PECO for its generosity in helping make Center City safer and more attractive.”

Gordon Group Electric, the contractor, began installation on February 15, and the lights were turned on Tuesday night.