13 March 07: And now for today's double feature

It's Monday Morning and we're lookin' up in two directions: a residential tower emerging from its subterranean roots and an office tower that's already been scraping the sky. Specifically:
  • THE RESIDENCES AT THE RITZ-CARLTON: One of the more frequently asked questions in recent months has been "yo, why don't you have a construction section on the Residences at the Ritz?" The right answer is that we've been waiting for the building to come out of its hole. Literally -- there was a ton of prep work (including the demolition of the existing parking structure) that had to be done before actual construction could begin. And begin it has; effective late last week, the core of the building is now above the surface at South Penn Square and the ground floor has been poured.

    With that in mind, we're happy to begin our own tracking of its progress with the launch of the new Residences at the Ritz-Carlton section, including the quick link on the left. The graphic above takes you to the overview page, and the link on the left takes you to the construction page.

    A special thanks to Diane, Amber and the nice folks at the Residences for sharing some time, info and views with Philly Skyline.

  • COMCAST CENTER HARD HAT TOUR, PT II: Remember if you will back to December 13th. We'd seen two weeks straight of unseasonably warm and clear (and photogenic) days up until I was scheduled to visit the Comcast Center construction site. That's when the clouds rolled in and the misty rain assigned a gray mood to the views from the 33rd floor. Interesting, perhaps, but not something which really took advantage of the views upper floors afford.

    That's where the guys at Madison Concrete came in last Thursday. In celebration of the building's core they'd recently topped out, they brought me on site to make certain those views were clear. They were. The resulting 90 photo essay is broken into its own popped-up gallery with captions.

  • March Madness is following the weather's lead and is heating up: Penn and Nova are in the Big Dance, Philebrity is en route to SXSW, and spring is almost sprung. Rock.

    –B Love




    12 March 07: A Ritzy launchpad



    Mornin', friends. This here Philly Skyline Philly Skyline (click, enlarge) is about as appropriate a starting point to the new week as we could imagine. There are themes buried herein on which we'll elaborate as the week progresses, but here's an easy one: our Comcast Center construction section had itself a huge update over the weekend (and has an even bigger one coming this week), with some interesting new angles. Say hey to Chinatown and the Architects Building.

    But what of the Ritz? Target date: this afternoon for an all new construction section.

    Also, a spicy aside: the Chili Skyline Cookoff is shaping up to be a winner, so if your chili deserves a spotlight, be sure to register now! Please contact me expressing your interest. It's Thursday the 22nd at 8pm, so there's plenty of time to get your recipe in order, so sign up now -- it's free!

    –B Love


    10 March 07: LED certified

    Nope, those weren't your eyes playing the tricks, but Two Liberty Place's newly installed LED lighting system. Installed earlier this week, they skipped testing altogether and just pressed play.

    The mode for the past few days since it was turned on has been a steadily changing gradient like an M-shaped screensaver. The deep purple / magenta looks particularly sharp. It's great to see buildings like Two Liberty and Boathouse Row shift to LED systems, simultaneously reducing the energy strain and opening endless possibilities for lighting ideas. The building manager should probably expect an influx of requests.

    One Liberty Place . . . you're next, right?

    –B Love



    10 March 07: It's a bloody mary morning


    You know who makes a good bloody mary? The good folks at Johnny Brenda's, that's who. There are actually a lot of watering holes around town who set themselves apart with an extra squirt of sriracha, another spoonful of horseradish, a bouquet of shrimps or a tossed salad on top, but I'm telling you, there isn't a more consistent bloody than JB's bloody. If you're up for the doubleheader, pop in upstairs this evening for a couple pints of Philly pale and the rock & roll sounds of brotherly love, as El Dorado, the Nethers and the Capitol Years pull a shift kicking off at 9. Then tomorrow AM, do like Willie and make it a real bloody mary morning for brunch.

    We're gonna get our feet wet for this morning's Philly Skyline Philly Skyline, which looks downstream from under Girard Avenue. Go git yer Schuylkill brand hip waders and make a splash.



    –B Love




    9 March 07: Fire in the Ho



    One dead, three firefighters treated for smoke inhalation: that was the human casualty report from this massive blaze at 19th & Fitzwater deep in the heart of G-Ho. The dollar damage in this forever "up and coming" (bleh) neighborhood is gonna be way up there, though, especially for neighbors who've reported the house in question as a problem house (rumored crack house). The smoke damage at Union Baptist Church shouldn't be too bad; the spirit of Marian Anderson appeared to blow the smoke in the opposite direction.

    This fire was so big and smoky that this was the first thing your friend B Love saw as he stepped off the hoist on the 57th floor at about 2 o'clock yesterday afternoon. (I'll elaborate that minor detail over this weekend and have it ready next week.) There were four helicopters hovering above; 6ABC's video report is HERE. (Aside: it's nice to see Lisa Thomas Laury on the news, isn't it?)

    * * *

    Speaking of fires

    This is all that's left of the Five Spot:



    What's interesting is that the site is not entirely cordoned off. From this side, you can walk through the burned out wall into the main downstairs lounge area, where there are charred remains of the couches, tables and bars its patrons loved so. I remember talking with Albert Hammond from The Strokes there in 2001 and wondering why a creepy 40 year old dude with a cigarette dangling like some drunken Keith Richards would be playing guitar with a band of 20 year olds, only to find out later that he too was 21 years old. What's amazing is that, lying there in those ruins is a cache of unopened bottles of beer which by now have frozen over and thawed at least a half a dozen times; there are more than enough homeless people in Old City who could have partied like they did before their partying put them on the streets. Didn't anyone tell them?

    * * *

    Previously on the OC

    'Member the inaugural Philly Skyline vs Penny Postcards earlier this week, the Letitia Street House? Then 'member back in November when developer Andy Kaplin graciously gave Philly Skyline a tour of his 22 Front Street project? Well silly me, I forgot to tie them in together. Though it may not have ever been in the Penn family's possession, the Letitia Street House did in fact once reside on Letitia Street, currently the rear side of Andy's development.

    The building continues to take its shape on Front Street, as the windows are installed on all but the top floor now:



    22 Front residents stand to gain the most out of the oft-mentioned future riverfront development, particularly the capping of I-95.

    * * *

    And further up Front . . .

    While Old City has grown in leaps and bounds in the past 5-10 years, tipping the scales in property values, art galleries and weekend meatheads, those leaps and bounds were leapt and bounded over obvious development sites (like the multitude of parking lots and rehabs in waiting), some going as far as inexplicably knocking down historic buildings that make up a city's invaluable fabric.

    Fortunately, the omnipresent Girard Estate's beautiful Mercantile block of North Front Street was not one which met the wrecking ball.



    The tall row of 4 and 5 story buildings is currently being developed into 35 units called the Old City Mercantile Condos. The finishes and floorplans, being done by architects Bower Lewis Thrower and developers BRP Development Corporation, actually look pretty great. Still, there's no mention on the web site of I-95 or in the sales literature, and that's gotta be the first question prospective buyers will ask. The support wall of 95 in front of Old City Mercantile is at least ten feet tall. Here again: bury 95, problem solved. (Yeah, it's that easy!) Hopefully the developers are involved in the Riverfront process.

    * * *

    All American façade treatment

    Hot diggitty, would you have a look at that? Chris Woods pointed out to me that The Skinny needs an update. And how! Specifically, he mentioned that CREI's American Lofts in Northern Liberties is no longer in prep work stages, and in fact has already topped out. It's true.



    What in Archi-Tectonic's renderings appears to be a brown and silvery façade has, at least for now, come to be a sharp black and white. The eleven story building is already the tallest building in NoLibs. Its parking area is a unique change of pace -- a breath of fresh air, if you will -- in that it employs an uncommon "grass-crete" surface, under the building. Fancy! (And green!) [theamericanloft.com.]

    * * *

    Stay glassy, Murano

    We are most happy to report -- in Philly Skyline Philly Skyline fashion, to boot -- that Murano has installed its first floor of glass. Observe:



    It's been a couple weeks since we updated our Murano section, but we'll fix that up this weekend with a handful of new photos. Current progress has the building (diagonally across the street from Bob Brady's mayoral campaign headquarters) on the tenth floor.

    * * *

    Let's switch up to rapid fire mode to close out this Friday with some recommended reading and events calendar announcements, shall we?
    1. CHILI CHILI CHILI CHILI CHILI: Don't forget, folks, the 2007 Great Chili Skyline Cookoff is two weeks away, so get your recipes and appetites ready. If you think your chili has got what it takes to be champion, please CONTACT ME to register. There's only one rule for participants of the Great Chili Skyline Cookoff, and that is no vegetarians. This is a chili cookoff, not a soup tasting contest.

      What we're looking for from entries are: approximately two gallons of chili -- what meat you use and what level of spicy you prefer are entirely up to you. This is your chili and we are not here to tell you how to make it. One man does not fuck with another man's chili recipe, no sirree. (Women are allowed to participate too, by the way. Ha ha.) We'll provide the cornbread, the sour cream, the shredded cheddar, the little tasting bowls, the utensils and the ballots. The Great Chili Skyline Cookoff is a democracy; there are no celebrity judges here (although LaBan, you're invited), just people having a good time and voting on their favorite chili. The New Pony Blues Band will provide a Mississippi Delta backdrop for us.

      WHAT: The 2007 Great Chili Skyline Cookoff
      WHEN: Thursday, March 22, 8pm
      WHERE: Tritone, 15th & South in G-Ho
      HOW MUCH: Free for the chefs, five bucks for the tasters

    2. WE LOVE YOU PHILLIES: It's spring training and the first game at Citizens Bank Park is three weeks away; you may think we've forgotten about the Fightin' Phils, as we haven't said much recently. Not so; we're so ready for baseball that we've got twenty tickets with our names on 'em already. A Phillies preview is in the works, but we've gotta say this about the RyHo re-signing: we actually agree with Conlin on this one; Phillies management really dropped the ball.

      Ryan Howard is, with young peers Chase Utley, Cole Hamels and Jimmy Rollins, the reason that fans are coming back to baseball and buying tickets in advance. (Well, that and I guess the Sixers and Flyers just really suck.) The Phillies know this and are using his likeness to sell tickets and merchandise: he's on the opening day tickets, a montage of him was on the header banner of phillies.com all winter, they've got a Howard MVP Six Pack of tickets, and he's all over their new tv spots. (Yeaaah, the "Goosebumps" spots.) Sure, the $900k he'll be getting this year is a hell of a raise from his $355k, and is on par with Albert Pujols' deal of the same tenure a few years ago, but this is Ryan Howard, the last two years' Rookie of the Year and MVP. Yes, they're only building a bridge until after this season, when he'll get his 'real' contract . . . but where they could have built a Ben Franklin Bridge (or even Betsy Ross), he got a Chestnut Street Bridge. C'est la vie.

      Nevertheless. Phillies fever is only rising with the temperature. Oh how this is going to be one awesome, wet, hot American summer.

      On a sadder Phillies note, much love goes out to the family of former third base coach and all around good guy John Vukovich, who succumbed to a brain tumor yesterday. RIP, Vuk. KYW has the best of the obits written for him. Thanks to DMac for the heads up.

    3. PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES: A big tip o' the cap to my man in the City of Sin, Keith Van Norman, for pointing me in the direction of Pew Charitable Trusts, who just released a study by Basil J. Whiting and Tony Proscio entitled Philadelphia 2007: Prospects and Challenges. The study
      evaluates Philadelphia's strengths and weaknesses relative to six comparable American cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh.
      That's an interesting mix of rust belt, sun belt, and similar (and often compared and contrasted) Northeast right there. There's good and there's bad in the three-part PDF HERE.

    4. A FESTIVAL OF FRIENDS IN FISHTOWN: Saturday night, the stage at Johnny Brenda's will send off the Capitol Years as they embark on a mini-tour that culminates in Austin for Philebrity & Uwishunu's Philly Jawn at South by Southwest. Pop over to Philebrity to listen to the bands who'll be representing the 215 down in Texas. Saturday night expects to be its own little Philly Jawn, with the boys in El Dorado going on at 9, the Nethers after that, and the Capitol Years sometime later. Come on out!

    Hey now, you have yourself a heck of a Friday, ok? Hey George Benson . . . gimme the night!

    –B Love






    8 March 07: Hey Mr Dick Clark, what a place you've got here



    As you know, the Market Street El celebrated its 100th birthday on Sunday. Septa threw a party in its basement lobby (which leads into the 13th Street station of the El) with pretzels, cake and Curious George, and opened the turnstiles from noon to 5. Seemed like a good enough reason to ride to the end of the line at 69th Street and come back on the first car, watching out the front window.

    Today's Philly Skyline Philly Skyline is the view from the platform at 46th Street station, directly above the location of Dick Clark's American Bandstand. There's a PA historical marker there commemmorating it, but aside from that, the area under 46th Street probably doesn't look much like what Jerry Blavat gleefully recalled from his even more youthful days.

    Between the red support rails in the picture, you can see the remnants of the earliest days of the El, before they sent it underground here and lopped off the rest. In a previous life, the El continued above ground past 30th Street and was only underground east of the Schuylkill. The first year it was open, the El only ran to City Hall. In summer 1908, the line continued along Market Street to the Delaware, where it re-emerged and hooked a right down to South Street. (Here we are again, talking about transit on Delaware Ave.) The El line to Frankford didn't open until 1922. After it did, the trains alternated between South Street (the "Ferry Line") and Frankford for 17 years, when decreased ridership killed the lower line.

    Still, here is the El, looking east down a rusty Market Street to the city under which this train's about to pass.

    –B Love

    7 March 07: Philly Skyline vs Penny Postcards:
    Letitia Street House



    Customers who enjoy Philly Skyline also expressed interest in The Necessity for Ruins.

    I've mentioned Chris Dougherty's site a couple times in the recent past, but it seems we keep running into each other, be it at Dirty Frank's Quizo or a Jerry Blavat party on a trolley or at Johnny Brenda's balcony. So, we decided to run into each other on purpose and head up the west side of Fairmount Park, on one of those blindingly bright mornings where the sun's power is doubled by the coating of snow. I had a place I wanted to see, and so did he.

    This one, the so-called Letitia Street House, has a history of mysterious history, and ultimately no history at all. Chris was generous enough to prepare this essay on the Letitia Street House, which you may have seen previewed on his site last week.
    "If You're Off to Philadelphia in the Morning"
    Letitia Street House and a City's Search For Order


    By the 1880s Philadelphia was maturing into its industrial self, its new mills and factories sprouting like sooty mushrooms amid its row of traditional redbrick rowhomes. It was a city whose workplaces sat cheek by jowl next to the places where Philadelphians called home. For some, the industrial growth of the city signaled the arrival of Philadelphia as the nation's premier workshop. Still others appreciated the short distance to work. Yet for others with a regressive gaze, the obliteration of the city of Penn, Franklin, Rush, and Rittenhouse was cause for alarm. The new and seemingly inexorable economic momentum of the city was destroying the sacred places, the streets, and places once inhabited by the Philadelphia's legendary First Men. In this time of uncertainty, Philadelphia's elites' reconnection with a mythologized past was an act of rebellion against an increasingly incomprehensible present.

    One of the era's great romanticizers of the past, Rudyard Kipling caught the age's nostalgia for the city's supposed golden age. Searching in vain for a vanished social geography, Kipling's Philadelphia (1910) begrudgingly commits the lost Philadelphia of "Adam Goos" and "Pastor Meder" to immortality:
    If you're off to Philadelphia in the morning,

    You must telegraph for rooms at some Hotel.

    You needn't try your luck at Epply's or the "Buck,"

    Though the Father of his Country liked them well.

    It is not the slightest use to inquire for Adam Goos,

    Or to ask where Pastor Meder has removed—so

    You must treat as out of date the story I relate,

    Of the Church in Philadelphia he loved so.
    Yet some were not prepared to simply pine for the lost physical backdrop of Philadelphia—nor did they accept capitalism's unthinking desecration of the city's holy ground. As early as 1824, just as the mists of time were beginning to shroud the stories and places of the city's origins, Philadelphians—swelled by the return of French patriot Lafayette—rallied around a tiny two story dwelling on Letitia St. to commemorate the 142nd anniversary of the city's founding. Why assemble at Letitia House? As Kenneth Finkel pointed out in his text to Philadelphia: Then and Now, the 19th century historian John Fanning Watson, through painstaking research, identified the unprepossessing abode as a probable residence of William Penn. Two years after the anti-Catholic riots of 1844, Granville John Penn visited the home and presented the putative belt of wampum given to his ancestor by Indians as a sign of friendship. In the shadow of immigrant violence, true Philadelphia gathered to give homage to the pacific legacy of the Founder.

    By the early 1880s, the area around Letitia Street between Front and Second near Market was a jumble of small shops, boarding houses, and rum holes catering to the rough-and-tumble denizens of the waterfront: hardly the environment for one of the city's most sacred sites. In a highly politicized act of historic preservation, Philadelphia's elite took up a subscription to move the house to more auspicious environs. The move, they hoped, would correspond to the 200th anniversary of the founding of the city in 1883. They chose a picturesque bluff overlooking the Schuylkill once home to Robert Egglesfield Griffith's stately villa, "Eaglesfield" now opposite the Zoo north of W. Girard Ave. There in a bucolic vacuum emptied of history, context, and offensive neighbors the best of the city proudly (and wrongly) proclaimed the "first brick building erected in Philadelphia" William Penn's.

    By the 1960s, historians had proven the lie to Watson's fanciful interpretation of the house and its noble resident. The house, once believed to be a present from the Founder to his daughter in 1701, was, in fact built between 1713-1715 for Thomas Chalkley. William Penn never set foot in the Letitia Street House. Stripped of its story, the house was closed in 1965 according to Finkel. What then can you say about a historyless house? Established so that nostalgic Philadelphians could go off and touch something more tangible than memory, the enduring story of the house—and its movement—is one of a city's search for order in a placid past. For the first time in their history Philadelphians sensed that progress came with a price and sought to sequester sacred history from the maw of modernity.

    by Christopher R. Dougherty


    This is the Letitia Street House. It is the first subject of our new feature, Philly Skyline vs Penny Postcards. Over the past several years, I've collected postcards from flea markets, antique stores, other collectors and the like. A photo, an etching, a painting . . . these are all convenient ways to document change -- an aging person, a fading shoreline, a changing skyline -- but postcards take that up a level by their celebratory nature, their mass production, and their worldly travels. Who doesn't love getting a postcard in the mail?

    Philly Skyline vs Penny Postcards measures the length of time. With this new feature, we intend to make the contemporary image as accurate as possible. With that in mind, the two images of the Letitia Street House above are overlapped for comparison (and at a larger size) right over HERE. Enjoy.

    NOTES:
    "William Penn's Mansion" postcard copyright Lynn H. Boyer, Philadelphia PA and Wildwood NJ and printed by C.T. Art Colortone, Curt Teich & Co., Chicago IL.
    Postmarked August 7, 1937, sent from Camden NJ to Seattle WA.


    Chris' side of our collaboration is also now live. The Necessity for Ruins' current feature examines the history of the defunct 24th Ward Reservoir on George's Hill, just above the Mann Music Center. Have a look at it HERE.

    –B Love




    6 March 07: Uhhh . . .



    These three pictures of the same bar (Finn Muhkewl's) at 12th & Sansom are presented without comment.

    –B Love

    6 March 07: BEERFEST '07: not so gravy at the Navy



    I'd like to begin today's post by personally apologizing to anyone who heeded the words of da Skyline over the weekend, attended the Philly Craft Beer Festival and did not enjoy yourself. I thought it had all the elements of a rockin' good time at the old Navy Yard . . . but I was wrong. What follows is a sequential recollection of events from that beer smelling night at the Philadelphia Cruise Terminal inside the Navy Yard.
    5:30PM: Finish up complementary warmup Yards Philly Pale Ale at the Plan Philly waterfront presentation (which we reviewed yesterday -- scroll down for the post right below this one), round up Bama and our lovely ladies and head south down the River.

    6:00: Get call from Steve saying to MAKE SURE we have tickets, they're not letting people in without them. (They were supposed to have been selling tickets at the gate, so I figure it's sold out.) He also says that the promise of a shuttle running between Pattison Ave subway station and the Cruise Terminal is bullshit, that he and his friends hiked the approximately ten blocks there because there was no shuttle.

    6:15: Arrive at gate, directed by airport runway looking guys to hang a loooong left instead of driving straight down to the end of Broad Street, where Beerfest was. Pay ten dollars to park (Kerri was our designated driver) in a dark lot with no overhead lights, only to learn that we are nowhere close to the Cruise Terminal and that we must wait for our own shuttle bus. GREAT START. Dozens of people are standing in a group (i.e. not in a single file line) when two Erin Express Yellowbird school buses pull up with who was probably Temple's starting nose tackle driving the bus.

    6:30: Yellowbird drops us off Cruise Terminal's door, the start of a line, oh, 300 deep. Along the way to the back of that long-ass line, hear loads of people complaining and a couple people who managed to sneak through the gate asking for extra tickets.

    Now, mind you, when I say tickets, I don't mean like Ticketmaster 1.5" x 6" light cardboard tickets. I mean print-out-the-email-you-received type tickets. I mean, print-out-multiple-copies-of-the-email-you-received and let-in-all-your-buddies-for-the-price-of-one because they're-not-checking-the-names-on-the-printout type tickets. (If I was still 21, I probably would have done the same thing.) Think something like that could contribute to overcrowding?


    MOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.


    6:45: We're inside, and we're packed to the gills. Not that I didn't think Beerfest would be packed -- it should have been -- just not this packed. Just not fire hazard packed. Remember, theoretically these people are or will be drunk.

    6:50: Staving off feelings of regret, trying to roll with the punches, we take a deep breath and head into the herd, starting with a Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Mmmm, crowded.

    7:10: Twenty minutes and a Sly Fox Phoenix Pale Ale later, we're about halfway through the crowd, frightened by the look of the food (which was not included in the price of the ticket) and the length of the lines of the bathroom. Oh look, Yards! Please ground me, Château Kenso. (Just kidding -- they didn't have the Kenso there, just ESA and Philly Pale, which I refilled.)

    A girl who'd clearly been there for a while next to me drops her jaw and OH.MY.GOD. sees a friend she, like, hasn't seen in forEVER and throws her arms around her, missing spilling her full beer on me by two inches. (I wouldn't have been mad at her, just the situation.) She apologizes eight times (for something that didn't happen anyway), then says eighteen times how amazing it was that she didn't spill her beer on me. Dring this exchange, her old friend casually tiptoed back into the crowd.

    7:25: Abandon attempt to make it to the far end of the terminal, where we'd planned on stepping outside for some fresh air. Suck it up and head back through the crowd with Lancaster Milk Stout toward the entrance, which is also the exit. Regret is rapidly overtaking patience.

    7:45: Find some breathing room at the Straub table. Poor Straub. The light lager pride of north central Pennsylvania is the ugly ducking at Beerfest, especially seated next to that desirable and Wild Goose (whose Nut Brown is classic, by the way). I get a sympathy cup and force it down to the sound of a bluegrass "Wish You Were Here". So, so I think I can tell heaven from hell, and the Cruise Terminal, tasty beer and all, was closer to the latter.

    8:05: Bama, the lovely ladies and I decide enough is enough and to leave. Well, to try leaving. For, you see, our DD's car is neither within sight nor within walking distance. Ah, there's the Yellowbird dropping off more people. We start walking toward it so it can shuttle us back to the parking lot . . . except, he closes the door and takes off without us. We ask the valet-looking-dude-who-was-not-a-valet WTF and he says "oh yeah, he'll be back in 15-20 minutes." Uh no. We hire the cab sitting out front to take us to the freaking car in the pitch black parking lot, a six dollar ride (including tip).

    8:45: Settled in in those wobbly barrel seats near the door at the South Philly Tap Room, the four of us shrug our shoulders at the forty bucks we wasted, but continue our good beer theme. This time, the Bells Double Cream Stout comes in 16 oz portions, as opposed to 4 oz portions down Beerfest way. And when the boar burrito came with a bottle of Tuong Ot Sriracha (the best over the counter hot sauce in the world), all was right with the world and Beerfest was a faded memory.

    This is not to say that the Philly Craft Beer Festival was entirely a wash. I'm sure some folks had a good time, and I did have the pleasure of running into good Skyline friends Liza, Steve, Puffnuts, Jen, Chris, Nicole, Fergie (pictured left) and Tom Thew.

    I also heard that the noon-4 session was a great success. I'm sure it was; you can't beat the scent of a river breeze and the sweet taste of a hoppy ale when the sun strikes noon. Would I do it again next year? Perhaps, under the conditions that it's organized by someone else, tickets are issued with scannable barcodes (i.e. honoring a building's capacity), driving is not encouraged to an alcohol event, and hey, what the hell, hold it in Center City! There are plenty of auditoriums that could support this sort of thing.

    Still, if you can get down to the Navy Yard, you should. It's interesting to see such a sprawled out, (pardon the cliché) rustic campus with large destroyer ships and now cruise ships, right at the very bottom of Broad Street. On this idea, the Philly Skyline shoot there from May 2005 is linked below.

    –B Love




    5 March 07: Take me to the river



    The first round of Big Ideas for the Delaware Riverfront is now open, and the consensus is unanimous: get I-95 the hell on out of here. It's not like this is a revelation; people have been calling for the burial of I-95 since it opened. Only now, there are tangible ideas of how to do that, and perhaps more importantly, 1. who's going to do it and 2. how much it could cost. That would be 1. PennDOT, who contrary to both Pennsylvania and Philadelphia tradition IS actively involved in this discussion, and 2. "less than half of the Big Dig."

    PennDOT, represented by administrator Rina Cutler, already has plans to give 95 a facelift and bring it up to modern standards in the next ten years (including the previously mentioned reconfiguration of the Girard Avenue exit). The Big Dig cost American taxpayers nearly fifteen billion dollars for rerouting three and a half miles of I-93, digging the Ted Williams tunnel, and constructing the Zakim Bridge.

    Addressing 95 here is but a fraction of all of that: 95 really only needs to be capped between let's say South Street and Market Street, though conceivably (for a whole lot more money) it could be done between Washington and Spring Garden (the latter of which would also necessitate reconfiguring the El as it emerges from its own tunnel). South to Market is six blocks -- less than three quarters of a mile -- but the positive impact of bringing the Center City grid back to the riverfront where it started would be immeasurable.

    Other cities have done this, and now we need to do this. Forget naysaying, Philadelphia, let's MAKE IT REAL.


    L-R: Penn Praxis director Harris Steinberg, landscape architect and planner Peter Latz, Wallace Roberts & Todd principal Richard Bartholomew, renowned architect Denise Scott Brown, former Cal-Berkeley chair of landscape architecture Walter Hood, Penn School of Design dean Gary Hack, MOMA (NYC) deputy curator and Philadelphian Peter Reed, Chicago Millennium Park design director Ed Uhlir, Goldenberg Group executive Leslie Smallwood, Design Advocacy Group vice chair George Claflen.

    But I-95 isn't the only thing wrong with the waterfront; it's just the most obvious and fixable. Another major issue is the riverfront neighborhoods' disconnect with the river within steps from their doors. Penn Treaty Park and a jacked up Penn's Landing are the only two real live parks on a seven mile section of river, and there is more than enough unused and under-used property to change that.

    Good things come in threes

    The session was broken into five parts, plus the Q&A session pictured above with the presenters of those five parts plus a panel of four more, all hosted by Harris Steinberg. The Central Riverfront was itself broken into three sections, with each section given its own team of experts. These are all detailed at planphilly.com, with high-res PDFs to illustrate the concepts.

    Peter Latz's team had the part from Penn Treaty Park north to Pulaski Park. His concept was a continuous riverfront that celebrated the Power Station next to Penn Treaty, and featured bulbs of smaller parks whose sprouts extended into the surrounding neighborhoods.

    The central portion of the riverfront, from Spring Garden to Washington, went to a team led by Richard Bartholomew of Wallace Roberts & Todd, the local design & planning firm with loads of waterfront experience. This vision, again, buried 95, in a sloping manner from the River up to Center City, where streets leading to Penn's Landing would afford views of the River itself. I-95 would be shifted to use the current location of Delaware Avenue, which would be stacked on top of 95, and the current trench of 95 could be used for parking for both this new riverfront and Old City tourism/club-going/etc.

    The southern third of the study area was a bit . . . ambitious, shall we say. Berkeley's Walter Hood led the group that returned the River to its original South Philly shoreline, thereby removing a large swath of what is already there, mostly rusty, barren post-industry. The SS United States is no longer there, much of Delaware Ave/Columbus Blvd is gone, several piers are replaced by water, and Southwark Power Station is now an island. Though the goal of the entire Riverfront plan is most certainly to think big, this one would no doubt be the first to be cut when budgets are issued.



    Denise Scott Brown's team emphasized the physical and mental connections between neighborhoods and the River with eight visible nodes: a restored wetland at Home Depot/Wal-Mart, Penn's Landing, Callowhill Docks, Spring Garden Street, Penn Treaty Park and the Power Station, a Fishtown interchange, the Lehigh viaduct and Pulaski Park.

    Finally, Gary Hack's team turned Delaware Ave/Columbus Blvd (quick aside: it really sucks to always have to add the "/Columbus Blvd" to "Delaware Ave") into one contiguous, much greener, much more sensible boulevard with trees, bike lanes, and -- wait for it -- public transit. Yes, Delaware Ave has gridlock issues. That doesn't mean there still isn't room for a streetcar/light rail.

    Much of this entire process is about righting wrongs, and given the state of American environmental consciousness and the state of global climate, there's no reason we can't explore this. Hack's team sees a modern (read: NOT throwback) streetcar on the outer lanes of Delaware Ave running from Allegheny to near Oregon (namely Penn Praxis' study area) with a connector running up to Market Street.



    . . .

    These are all ideas. Harris Steinberg was clear up front that all of this is right now conceptual, that nothing is finalized. Translated: these ideas can use your help, and there is plenty of time to offer it. Philly Skyline has its own suggestions. For example . . .
    1. If we're gonna do Del Ave transit, do it right and make it extensive: I have long thought that Delaware Avenue could support transit, but I don't think it should be limited to that area. Specifically, if we are to seriously consider transit for the Riverfront, it absolutely MUST continue past the Walt Whitman Bridge to Del Ave's transition to Pattison Avenue and serve the stadiums and FDR Park. Theoretically, the ports and food distribution center (and Crazy Horse Too!) could be served by the same line, but the nature of those two industries makes the use of transit unlikely. Still, a transit system has to go somewhere, and that somewhere has got to be Broad & Pattison, where the Subway already terminates, and where four major professional sports teams play.

      Oh, and it has GOT to be operated by Patco, not Septa.

    2. Timed, countdown crosswalks: You know, like the ones at Broad & Spring Garden. The kind that chirp when it's ok to walk, and which feature a countdown letting the pedestrian know exactly how long s/he has to make it to the other side. No matter how attractive and multinodal, a rebuilt Delaware Avenue will still be wide and still be a major traffic thoroughfare. These types of crosswalks offer up an invaluable peace of mind.

    3. Get existing proposals involved NOW: The casinos are entirely their own ball of wax, but very little mention was made of them at the presentation. While what seems like a majority of residents is totally opposed to the casinos, this process should not shun them outright, and it needs to involve them from the get-go. Treat them as a done deal so that the worst case scenario sees two well done, hemmed in casinos.

      More importantly, though, are the other projects involving residences and retail like Waterfront Square, Trump Tower, Brandywine Realty's pier near the Ben Franklin Bridge, and above all else Bridgeman's View Tower. As this web site has stated ad nauseam, this Riverfront planning process is about hearing community concerns to create the best product possible. This is exactly what the Bridgeman's View team has done, and well in advance of riverfront study. Bridgeman's View, at over 900 feet and with a location at the heart of the Central Waterfront -- Delaware & Poplar -- can needs to be the snowball that gets the riverfront rolling. If Bridgeman's View is shut out from the onset, it sends the message to future developers that policy is far more important than product, and that just doesn't work. They have to coexist, especially for a project whose product more or less followed the principle Penn Praxis is pushing. Bridgeman's View wants to be a good neighbor, so their side needs to be heard right now, since it is scheduled to break ground by the end of this year.

      Cue up the John Lennon, Harris . . . imagine a completed waterfront with a focal point of its own: a LEED certified, locally grown, locally designed, mixed use, landmark tower named for the workers who built the bridge across the very River we are celebrating.

    4. Keep the Great Plaza: One of the things at the current incarnation of Penn's Landing which works is the Great Plaza which is, in fact, great. The outdoor amphitheater steps down to afford excellent views of the River and Camden, is the perfect home for Jam on the River and the multicultural summer festivals it already hosts, and the interpretive plaques depicting the settling and growth of the region with maps and diagrams are one of the most under-appreciated assets we have. Folding the Great Plaza into a broader scheme that brings people around and TO Penn's Landing will at last give it the life it begs for.

    5. Don't forget Camden & damn the tramn: One of the panelists was surprised at how little thought was given to Camden, reminding us that all rivers have two sides. This is an important point to remember, especially when you consider how much Camden has already done with its side of the Delaware. A meshing of the Cooper's Ferry Development Corporation, Delaware River Port Authority and private enterprise has, in the past twenty years, brought Camden an excellent aquarium, a minor league ballpark, a marina, a large scale amphitheater, a promenade and park and a relocation of the Battleship New Jersey. And, uh, a boatload of parking lots. Those parking lots are eventually going to be filled in, though, as developers including Carl Dranoff (who converted the RCA Building and is currently converting the Radio building) plan to bring more homes and entertainment to the Camden side of the riverfront. Also worth noting is that the state prison on the north side of the Ben Franklin Bridge will be phased out, freeing up a most valuable plot of land.

      As for the tram? Please god, DON'T BUILD THE TRAM. The pillar built to anchor the Philadelphia side of the aerial tram has loomed like a giant concrete pi for so long that Penn's Landing Corp decided to decorate it with a banner saying "welcome to Penn's Landing", immediately drawing your eye to this concrete pi in the middle of a concrete parking lot. BARF. Do away with the whole tram and we preserve our view of the Ben Franklin Bridge and we require people to use the bridge, or better, the ferry.

    Finally, something that wasn't even brought up was the political implication of the riverfront study. While we all can agree that the riverfront study is a worthwhile and indeed necessary venture, it still has an aroma of one mayor's legacy building, at a time when all around him murders are shifting his legacy in a darker direction. And by the way, where the hell WAS Mayor Street? Isn't this his baby? Is not his hand the one that pushed this forward? Was this presentation -- the most important that Penn Praxis has put together yet -- held at such an inconvenient time (3 in the afternoon on a Saturday) that he couldn't fit it into his Blackberry's schedule thingy? If Mayor Street couldn't be bothered with so much as an introduction of his project's director Harris Steinberg, how are we to know if he really cares about its progress?

    Further, this riverfront master plan would take years to reach even half its potential. That means future mayors will have a say in how it proceeds, and none of the candidates for the first of these future mayors attended the presentation. This is an ambitious plan, but it is an attainable plan. And the only way to attain it is for people, led by the example of the mayor, to believe in it and make it happen. Make it real.



    SUGGESTED READING:
    phillyskyline.com/pennslanding: our review of the Penn's Landing forums from 2003
    planphilly.com: The official site for the riverfront study. This particular link is the review from in-house
    The great I-95 divide: Inga's take for the Inquirer
    Burying I-95 would enhance riverfront: Earni Young's take for the Daily News
    Frog Commissary: Lord have mercy. If you need big time catering, you need the Frog. Lots and lots of brie with an apricot glaze and crunchy pita wedges? Oh my. Penn's Landing never tasted so good.
    –B Love




    5 March 07: The morning after



    Hot damn, what a weekend! Free El rides, the Geator singing while Curious George dances and a juggler juggles, a double dose of Paul Levy, a five-part collective riverfront vision, a botched beer fest and ensuing consolation drink at South Philly Tap Room, a RyHo re-signing, the prospect of nonstop flights out of PHL to Shanghai (just in time to cash in on the Chinese sneeze?), Residences at the Ritz pours a ground floor, and New Delhi filled muh belhi. All this and more is on the way, for this week's gonna be a doozy, boy.

    The best way to break it in, then, is a gradual ease in with an "after" Philly Skyline Philly Skyline from the "before" we posted last Wednesday (which is found by scrolling to the bottom of this page). Pennsylvania Hall bit the dust on Sunday morning and our man on the scene was one Matt Johnson, who shares with us this video of said implosion:





    –B Love

    2 March 07: El oh el, what a century

    Hey now, old girl, you don't look so bad for 100.

    One hundred years ago Sunday, the Market Street subway-elevated departed station for the first time, and ran from a rural 69th Street down the length of Market to the Delaware River, where it hooked a right down to South Street. The extension to Frankford opened fifteen years later, and in 1939, the spur along Delaware Ave to South was closed.

    As a TOKEN (GET IT?) of appreciation, Septa is offering free El rides from noon to 5 on Sunday, and a reception is being held at Septa's headquarters. To commemorate, the Geator with the Heator will spin all your favorites while that famous El-ridin' cartoon character Curious George will entertain your kids. Historic photos and models will be on display. 2-3:30, Sunday, 1234 Market. [SEPTA.]

    Not to be all All Events Calendar All The Time or anything, but we just want to make sure you're perfectly aware of these highly important events, this first weekend of March:

    PENN PRAXIS' CONCLUSION OF THE BEGINNING: Saturday afternoon from 3-5 at the Independence Seaport Museum at Penn's Landing, we can put an actual vision on the Riverfront planning concept. Citizen voices have been heard through a number of charettes/forums/seminars/etc, and the folks at Penn Praxis' Plan Philly have channeled them through design professionals who will present their collective ideas Saturday. This is the biggest event yet, so don't miss it, and don't forget to register HERE.

    CRUISIN' FOR A BREWSIN': Then, Saturday evening further down that same Delaware River, the Philly Craft Beer Festival sets sail from 6-10 at the Philadelphia Cruise Terminal. Fifty breweries (including all the local favorites like Yards, Flying Fish, Stoudt's, Dogfish Head, Dock Street, Nodding Head, Iron Hill, Lancaster and Victory) present over 120 beers. You won't even have time to sample them all. Seriously, for less than $40 (online -- it's $45 at the gate), you can finally see the inside of the Navy Yard and you can tie a nice one on. The beers and the tickets are HERE.

    THE UPHS BUILDING BOOM: The third and final remaining building from our forlorn Civic Center goes kaboom on Sunday morning, so get your ibuprofen ready and make sure your alarm clock works. At 7am on Civic Center Boulevard, Pennsylvania Hall bites the dust to make way for the biggest hospital complex you ever saw.
    On this second day of March, we're happy to announce that our Comcast Center section is now up to date with 18 new pictures taken yesterday, including today's Philly Skyline Philly Skyline. This wide angle mini-panorama from 17th & the Parkway spans a number of architectural styles and architects, including the neoclassical Phoenix (Stewardson & Page, 1925), the beaux-arts 1631 Arch (the original Bell Atlantic Building, 1915, John Windrim), the modernist 1650 Arch (aka Cigna Annex, 1975, Mitchell/Giurgola), the neogothic Wesley Building (formerly the Robert Morris Hotel, Horace Castor, 1915), the modernist Hotel Windsor (1963, dunno the architect and neither does PAB), the postmodern/neogothic/art deco mashup Bell Atlantic Tower (1990, Vincent Kling), the very-80s postmodern Two Logan Square (1984, Kohn Pederson Fox, who also did Mellon Bank Center and Penn's Huntsman Hall), and finally, above it all, our ever-rising Comcast Center. A count on-site yesterday puts the steel at the 53rd floor and the glass on the 23rd.



    These ugly rainstorms got you down and out? It's nothing the greatest band in the history of rock & roll can't pull you out of. As we bid you adieu, we'll turn it over to Ed Sullivan for the intro.

    –B Love






    1 March 07: REPOST from 10 January 07: on South Street Bridge

    At the behest of our friends at Design Advocacy Group, the following is a rerun from our January 10 posting on the South Street Bridge forum put on by the Streets Department at St Matthews Church, Grays Ferry & Fitzwater. There are some useful links included, and we promise: as soon as we can carve out an afternoon to do so, there's gonna be a bundle of handy South Street Bridge information in one easy to find place. We'll be sure to mention it when we do. In the meantime, we'll be opening a new month of photos in our Comcast Center section just as soon as we can get them online, so check back for that later today. On South Street Bridge, then . . .

    What's up with South Street Bridge?

    AHHH. We're glad you asked. Seriously -- we've finally got some hard info we can use, and we're working on bringing it to you in a whole new package. Keep it locked right here for more info on that, and in the meantime read the back stories or participate in your own discussion here:

    Phillyblog discussion on the Monday night meeting
    South Street Bridge is AOK (our June 2003 photo essay of the bridge)
    A bridge too far, Inga's October 2001 column about the bridge's plans

    Some vitals you can use for now, presented without comment:

    — It will be greatly widened to accommodate cars, bicycles and pedestrians.

    — It will have a tubular, stainless steel mesh that will reflect both sunlight and artificial lights which allow it to shimmer.

    — The existing buttresses in the river will be the only components of the bridge which remain, and at those columns there will be towers with cornices, serving as both an architectural element and a lookout point to stop and enjoy the view from the bridge.



    — The architect of record is H2L2, the firm founded by Paul Cret, who designed the existing South Street Bridge. The engineer of record is Gannett Fleming.

    — The artificial lights will be LEDs, programmable to change colors à la Cira Centre and Boathouse Row.

    — Estimated cost: $50M. (That's less than half of Donovan McNabb's contract, or slightly more than Chris Webber's contract buyout.)

    — Estimated start date: November 2007.

    — Estimated construction time: eighteen months.

    — Will connect to both the Schuylkill River Park's southward expansion and University of Pennsylvania's eastward expansion, which sees the athletic fields just east of Franklin Field being raised by levels of parking beneath them.

    — The "official" traffic detour will be routed on 22nd/23rd Streets and Walnut/Chestnut Streets.

    — Beginning January 22, vehicles over 6 tons will be forbidden to cross the bridge (with exceptions for emergency vehicles), and Septa's 40 bus route will begin the 22/23/Walnut/Chestnut detour at this time.

    — The on-ramps to I-76, at this time, are not a factor in the budget and will unfortunately remain unchanged for now.

    Lots more info is forthcoming, but this has to be said: in spite of what many attendees thought and vocally purported, Chief Engineer of the Streets Department's Bridges Division Jack Lutz did a fine job in presenting the information to the public. As expected, there were heated moments where irrational people spoke out of turn and out of line, but all told, it was a pretty good -- and informative -- presentation.

    ###

    –B Love



    1 March 07: . . . And then Bill looked over his shoulder.



    Happy March!

    –B Love

    28 February 07: A Bad Hump Day for Barbera



    Sorry, disappointed Eagles fans, this billboard on the South Street Bridge is pretty much all you've got left of your magical seven game run. Garcia's gonna drive his 37 year old self in that Barbera to a payday in Chicago or some lesser team. It seems doubtful he'd be willing to pull another Browns or Lions type of stint, but . . . I mean, do people really think that Donovan McNabb is not the Eagles' best quarterback? Yeesh.

    Eh, who cares, it's Phillies season. That said, here's an AJ Feeley edition of your Hump Day Umpdate.
    1. THE PENN PRAXIS RIVERFRONT PLAN: TANGIBLE RESULTS? Find out this Saturday at the Seaport Museum at Penn's Landing. All the discussions held at the forums in Port Richmond, Fishtown, Penn's Landing and South Philly culminate in the presentation of design ideas for the future of the Central Delaware Riverfront (Oregon Ave in the south to Allegheny Ave in the north). Philly Skyline is going to be looking for a focal point of Bridgeman's View Tower in the schemes. It should be a good time with lots of good ideas. It's from 3 to 5 Saturday afternoon at Penn's Landing; be sure to register, as it's gonna be a full house. (As an aside, you can revisit the Riverfront by joining Joe Minardi for his sixty photo tour from March 2005 or my stroll on the river with Praxis and the mayor back in November.)

    2. AND WHEN YOU'RE DONE THERE, SAIL DOWNSTREAM AND DRINK FIFTY BEERS: Once your head is full of great ideas on how to view the Delaware River, head just downstream to the Navy Yard, where by the end of the night your view of the River is sure to be blurred. The Philly Craft Beer Festival conveniently does not begin until after the Plan Philly event has ended. From 6 to 10 Saturday evening, sample from fifty different breweries for one cost: $37 now or $45 at the door. [Philly Craft Beer Fest.]

    3. CALLING ALL SKYSCRAPER FANS WHO WERE ALIVE IN THE 1980S: Philly Skyline wants YOU. One of our more frequent requests is for pictures of the city's 1980s building boom, specifically One Liberty Place. Alas, I was in Mrs Strong's 6th grade in Tyrone PA (instead of out taking ridiculous amounts of construction photos) when One Liberty Place was getting ready to open, so I got nothin'.

      If you have pictures of One Liberty (or any of the 80s/90s skyscrapers: Two Liberty, Mellon Bank Center, Blue Cross Tower, Bell Atlantic Building, the Commerce twin towers, or Two Logan Square before Bell Atlantic was built) and would like to share them with the world, we'd love to be your platform. We'll obviously assign credit where it is due, and perhaps we'll provide contemporary views to complement the photos you took in the 80s. If you're interested, please email "photos AT phillyskyline DOT com" (use a subject line of "80s construction photos" or similar). Muchas gracias, muchachos.

      As an example, here's one submitted by our faithful friend Arthur Petrella, taken in 1988 soon after One Liberty Place had opened, before the city's tercentennial City Hall cleaning and Blue Cross' logo adorned the building, and while Bell Atlantic was under construction.

    4. MURDER MURDER MURDER, KILL KILL KILL: (Ed. note: if you are my mother, please skip this item.) Here's a happy little nugget from our inner city crime bureau: Philadelphia, as of right now this second, the last day of February 2007, not only has a higher murder rate for 2007 than the other four Top Five US cities -- New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston -- Philadelphia has more TOTAL MURDERS than any of those cities. That is absolutely incredible. New York City has a population of over 8 million people. Philadelphia has less than a million and a half. And yet, two months into 2007, our side has more total murders, 60 to 51. That's 15% more murders than a city five and a half times larger than us. And this is while it's cold out! God help us all once the weather heats up people's crazy quotient. Arrrrrgh! [David Gambacorta, Daily News.]

      And people say we don't need more police? On a related note, the Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge 5 (the local police union) has endorsed Bob Brady for mayor. A press conference today will make it official. [Robert Moran, Inquirer.]

    5. AND THE PRESIDENT'S HOUSE WINNING DESIGN GOES TO . . . KELLY/MAIELLO! Congrats to architects Kelly/Maiello on being chosen for what will soon occupy the corner of 6th & Market, symbolically in front of the Liberty Bell Center and conveniently/uncomfortably directly across the street from the city's Visitors Center. Not entirely unlike Venturi Scott Brown's nearby Franklin Ghost House, K/M's President's House contains a shell of the house that once served the country's first two presidents -- including slaves. Intended to ignite open-aired discussion, the site will have interpretive panels and sound recordings about the complex historical time which shaped the future of the nation, while simultaneously keeping it dark. [Stephan Salisbury, Inquirer.] [Kelly/Maiello design explanation, phila.gov.]

    Finally today, we'll pack February into the books with a Philly Skyline Philly Skyline taken last night, a view soon to be no more. This is all that's left of Pennsylvania Hall, the final holdout of Philadelphia's once proud Civic Center in West Philadelphia. As the University of Pennsylvania's Health System continues to expand, so too does the Pennsylvania Convention Center. This otherwise positive pairing of growth proved lethal for the triumvirate of Civic Center Boulevard's architectural stylings: the neoclassical Commercial Museum, the fabulously art deco and historic Convention Hall, and now the brutalist, four-story Pennsylvania Hall. What you see here is all that remains, and all that remains will itself turn to dust at 7 o'clock this Sunday morning. If you're into implosion parties, West Philly is the place to be on Sunday; however, because the building is so short, finding a good vantage point (short of booking a south facing room in Penn Tower) may prove tough.

    These three buildings' replacement, of course, begins with the Rafael Viñoly-designed Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, already under construction at Civic Center & Convention. AND, we've just learned, the Perelman Center has been approved for a height increase, from the current six stories to fourteen stories. This is developing, so we'll post more as we learn it.

    One has to wonder, with Pennsylvania Hall finally closing the Civic Center chapter of this section of Philadelphia, how long will it be before nominations are made to change the names of both Civic Center Boulevard and Convention Avenue? The Perelmans already have a building named for them; let's start the bidding at Amy Gutmann Boulevard!

    As always, clicking enlarges.



    –B Love





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