15 September 08: Old fashioned Monday Mornin' Lookin' Up



Is it just me or are the days getting shorter and the sun rising later? Not just me? How bout that. The equinox is staring us down from the next Monday on the calendar, and we have lots of ground -- and water -- to cover between now and then. It's been a bit since we've had a general roundup of casual observations, even longer since it was on a Monday morn'. Start your week with Philly Skyline, but hold the cream and sugar. We're drinking coffee, not Kool-Aid.

Ed. note: this post was started at 7am, put on pause around 9 when it was almost finished, and finally published around 1:30 . . . for our purposes, let's make believe it's still Monday morning!

• RIP, BVT: Welp . . . first, we must begin with a bit of sad news, the passing of the grand vision that was once Bridgman's View Tower (or Bridgeman's View Tower, depending on the printed document and/or your spelling preference). Natalie Kostelni reports in this week's Biz Journal that the 2.2 acre parcel at Delaware & Poplar -- directly across the street from the new Yards Brewery and what may or may not eventually be Sugar House -- has been foreclosed upon and will be sold at auction.

While anyone even slightly interested in the economy would not be surprised by the news, it's still a blow to most fans of this site (myself included). The 66 story, 915' tower could have been a flagship of the new Delaware Riverfront. Its developers, Marc Stein and Bridgeman Development, opened the discussion to the neighborhood (Northern Liberties) before any plans, including design, were final. By that I mean, they practiced the transparency we champion today when Mayor Street still had two years left in office. (Check March 2006 archives for, I think, our first report on BVT.) And frankly, that discussion made it a better project . . . the Northern Liberties neighbors for the most part seemed open to the project, and their biggest concern, the giant parking podium, was removed from the tower and placed at the rear of the project.

Bridgeman's View Tower was a good looking project in an intriguing location. Waterfront Square is wrapping up its third blah-box tower as we speak -- on the pier in between a wedge pier where the Trump Tower will hopefully probably not happen and another vacant pier with a burnt-out, half-sunken ferry on it. With a mixed use streetscape including retail, restaurants and offices -- and the promise to spruce up the 'connector' streets between the Delaware Ave side and the main side of Northern Liberties (namely Brown and Ellen Streets), BVT would have made a much nicer catalyst to other riverfront development than a giant, windowless slot box.

(Rendering of Bridgeman's View Tower by H2L2, accessed at the BVT page on their web site, HERE.)

• INTRODUCING . . . THE FERGIE TOWER: But where one idea dies, another one is born. The Inquirer's Joe DiStefano was the first to confirm a rumor that's been on the UPenn-ward wind since early summer: the Fergie Tower. Omar Blaik and his u3 Ventures will make an information-only presentation about his concept for a 30 story cinema-and-apartment tower at 1213 Walnut (the surface parking lot that leads to Fergie's) at the Planning Commission's monthly meeting tomorrow.

The same PCPC meeting figures to be a good one. Laura Spina will be formally presenting the Rowhouse Manual (8 April 08: ATTENTION HOMEOWNERS), the invaluable Phila-centric homeowners manual; a TOD study for Northeast Philly centered around the Septa regional rail stations passing through there; and consideration will be given to whether or not they'll support rezoning for the Campus Inn Hotel. Likewise, next month's PCPC meeting will have a similar consideration for the rezoning of the American Commerce Center site.

• MARKET EAST, NOW FEATURING FOXWOODS? South Philly finally shed its Foxwoods, and Chinatown gained one . . . sort of. The proposed move to the Gallery is leaps and bounds better than the South Philly riverfront proposal. My ideal handling of the force-fed and unnecessary slots barns -- still without planned skill/table games, for some unknown, stupid, ridiculous, backwards, Pennsylvania reason -- was to place one of them (at Inga Saffron's suggestion) at the Airport, where travelers could drop coin and affect no neighborhood whatsoever, and the other at the Disney Hole, as that embarrassing 8th & Market lot is exactly halfway between the Convention Center and the Liberty Bell.

This proposed move does not see development of that lot.

Instead, it uses a (long anticipated) upward expansion of what is now the Gallery's Burlington Coat Factory and Old Navy locations, on Market between 10th & 11th. One idea has those two retailers moving into the now vacant former Strawbridge's flagship . . . across the street from the Disney Hole. Whether this could at long last spur development at that lot is, I suppose, up for debate. While the Foxwoods proposal is directly on top of Market East Station (which hypothetical suburban gamblers could use) and the 11th Street el station (which hypothetical Foxwoods employees could use), it's still a casino. Busloads of blue hairs would be coming for the slots. Fortunately, the city's bus terminal is one block away. Unfortunately, Greyhound doesn't have to let them use it. (And for what it's worth, that bus station should be at 30th Street Station, where it could be a true multi-modal transit center.)

Foxwoods at the Gallery is better than Foxwoods South Philly, but it's nowhere near perfect. The Chinatown and Wash West neighbors will no doubt fight it, but of greater concern to Foxwoods are the three losing casino bidders, who will absolutely file suit if the gaming board approves their move.

• MARKET WEST, NOW FEATURING THOMAS PINK? Market East gets a casino, Market West gets a pink. Natalie Kostelni also reports for the PBJ that the owner of 1601 Market, one of the first of the original Penn Center buildings to renege on the Penn Center concept (it was 5 Penn Center; 3, 4, 6, 7 and 11 Penn Center have all also adopted their street address, and Mellon Bank Center never went by 9 Penn Center), intends to spiffy up the streetscape which is now simply a very large sidewalk. Two story glass boxes in two phases, 25,000 sq ft retail (Thomas Pink as a suggestion) each. It's an interesting proposal for the NW corner of 16th & Market. Across the street, there's an entire mall inside Liberty Place, but there's only a dead walkway into it. PNC Bank has a wall of ATMs -- on the inside, with only reflective black glass on the outside. This 1601 Market embellishment has the potential to invigorate a block where the only people hanging out (as opposed to walking by, of which there are thousands) are the smokers at the Turf Club.

• THE BIG TWO: Construction updates on Residences at the Ritz-Carlton and 10 Rittenhouse Square have not been forgotten. I'm still in the middle of a most dreadful Technology Timeout (a full report may be issued once it's over), but as soon as I'm back to normal here, a flood of photos will flow.

A cursory glance shows 10 Ritt about 27 floors up, and the fully-glazed RATRC has the metal sheathing about two-thirds of the way to the top. That tower's exterior will be complete once that's finished.

• PHILLIES: How about those Phillies, huh? A sweep of the Brew Crew is just phenomenal, but how huge was it to not face CC Sabathia? (Let alone have him face off with Joe Blanton in a trade deadline playoff race showdown.) Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard are playing like MVPs, Cole Hamels is finally getting some support, Brett Myers is pitching like an ace, and Brad Lidge is an unstoppable force. (And holy crap, my personal record this year is 11-5!) Go Phils!

• WHAT'S POSSIBLE: Finally this morning, a heads up about this coming Sunday. We're throwing a book launch party for Nathaniel Popkin's new book The Possible City, a loose extension of his column of the same name here. (The book is not a collection of the essays, though.) He, myself and City Paper's editor-in-chief Brian Howard will be on hand to talk a little about the book and a lot about Philadelphia and what's possible. That's the theme of the evening -- What's Possible -- so come out and join us Sunday evening at Johnny Brenda's for booze, books and brainstorming. (Specific details later this week.)

* * *

Let's send it into the afternoon with a Philly Skyline Delaware River Skyline, taken just offshore from the United States Coast Guard station. (Their buoys are the colorful top-looking on the dock on the left.)



–B Love


12 September 08: Burlington & Bristol: expecting twins



Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. The Summer of the Delaware is not dying . . . it is not dying. We still have nine bridges to go on our way to the sea, and the next two on our river sojourn are just around the bend (in the River), just past US Steel, a little downstream from the "scenic overlook", a short barge ride from Pennsbury Manor.

Bristol, Pennsylvania and Burlington, New Jersey go back. Way back. Bristol was originally settled in 1681 and fast became a desirable location. (It incorporated in 1720.) While William Penn had his modest home in Philadelphia (which he barely lived in), he chose for his estate a spot on the Delaware just above Bristol. There was already ferry service when he arrived, from Bristol to Burlington, where Quakers had established a coat factory congregation the decade prior to Penn's arrival to the colonies. The ferry service between the towns, which was long the most direct route across the Delaware between Philadelphia and New York, continued all the way into the 1930s, when a more permanent bridge, which didn't concede to the weather, was built.

The Burlington-Bristol Bridge opened in 1931. As with most major roads and bridges in the Delaware Valley, Steve Anderson's PhillyRoads.com has a great historical background on its coming to be.

Of all the tidal Delaware bridges, the Burlington-Bristol may be the least visible of them. All of the other bridges south of Trenton either carry or have a connection with major thoroughfares like I-95 or the PA and NJ Turnpikes. Burlington-Bristol connects PA-413 with NJ-413, which at less than a mile is merely an extension of PA-413 to US-130 in Jersey.

While Burlington-Bristol certainly has seniority over its more robust neighbor to the north, the Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge (which we'll get to in a moment), it is by no means forgotten or unused. The two lanes of metal grating still carry thousands of cars each day between the south end of Bristol borough and Burlington city, where there is now a landscaped promenade on the river where there were once factories and warehouses. The riverboat Liberty Belle docks at this park.

The most important, and unique, function of the Burlington-Bristol lends to its utilitarian aesthetic -- the lift span. The clearance at the center of the bridge at high tide is only 61 feet, so taller vessels must request that the center span be raised so that they may pass through. From the Burlington County Bridge Commission:
When the lift span is raised mechanically to permit passage of the vessel, concrete counterweights are lowered at each end of the span to maintain a balanced condition.
That includes during rush hour; the bridge operator is at the beck and call of the captain, no matter what time of day. Therefore, the built-in bridge house (pictured at right), one of the signature features of the bridge, is manned 24/7.

For a new mini-essay of photos of the Burlington-Bristol Bridge (17 total), please click

HERE.

* * *

About three miles upstream, on the other side of Burlington Island -- the island in the Delaware River with a lake of its own -- is a larger bridge with a larger ambition.

The Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge, the strangely hyphenated, verbosely named steel arch structure also connects Burlington and Bristol -- Burlington Township and Bristol Township. It opened in 1956, a promontory summit bringing the Pennsylvania Turnpike to the New Jersey Turnpike, each of which was extended after World War II -- PA from Valley Forge, NJ from Exit 6. Again, an excellent back story by Steve Anderson is at PhillyRoads.com.

It's a shame an effort by a PA branch of AAA to name it "William Penn Bridge" failed, because the handsome structure deserves a better name than Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge. For our purposes, let's call it the Turnpike Bridge, since it connects the two historic turnpikes.

The Turnpike Bridge opened on May 25, 1956, one month and four days before President Dwight Eisenhower signed his landmark Federal Aid Highway Act. It truly carried an Interstate Highway one month before Interstate Highways existed. Of course both the PA and NJ Turnpikes predate perhaps the most important interstate of our time, I-95 -- known in PA as the Delaware Expressway for the river it parallels and the communities that depend on it.

Right now, famously, 95 is a mess between Philly and Jersey, the only interruption in the nearly 2,000 mile highway between Miami and Canada, and all megalopolitan points between. Travel north on 95 in PA, end up heading south on 295. Travel north on the New Jersey Turnpike, which turns into 95, and bypass the original 95 in PA. Also famously, there is no direct connection between the PA Turnpike (I-276) and I-95. But there soon will be, solving both problems.

There was actually supposed to be a PA Turnpike-95 connection from the start. I-95 was planned to go directly through Trenton via the Trenton-Morrisville Bridge, but New Jersey legislators protested on the thought that the US-1 corridor could not support such traffic. The road was instead routed just west, crossing the Delaware at Scudder Falls Bridge, and the alignment of 95 did not match with the existing PA Turnpike exit structure. People who've been asking ever since why they didn't just build a new interchange will have that question satisfied beginning early next year.

The Pennsylvania Turnpike begins in 2009 the $650M fixing of what has for too long been broken. (Click that graphic for more maps on the project's official web site.) While I certainly don't advocate for the construction of new highways, this interchange has long been needed, addressing both the PA Turnpike/95 problem, but more importantly, providing the last solid link to at last complete I-95.

When the interchange is completed, I-95 will follow the Pennsylvania Turnpike east across the Turnpike Bridge to the New Jersey Turnpike, where it will continue again northward, providing the continuous eastern seaboard highway that was envisioned over a half a century before. Philadelphians who choose to shirk the obvious non-driving options -- Amtrak, Septa/NJT, Chinatown bus, Bolt Bus -- will at last have an uninterrupted route between Philly and New York, with no navigating of traditional Jersey roads like 38 and 70 just to find the Turnpike. (Can't make any promises after Exit 14 -- count on a backup at the Holland.)

No sooner than the north-south through traffic starts backing up on the four lane Turnpike Bridge (two lanes each way), construction will begin on its twin. Estimated to begin in 2012 and be open in 2015, the Turnpike Bridge -- which I suppose by then will be called the I-95 Bridge, or the 95 Delaware River Bridge -- will have an identical, steel arch twin next to it, one for northbound traffic and one for southbound. It'll be kinda like the other twin bridges across the Delaware -- the ones that are the final destination of the tidal bridge series.

For a new mini-essay of photos of the Delaware River-Turnpike Toll Bridge (18 total), please click

HERE.

–B Love




11 September 08: Mumbo Jumbo



WELLLLLLLLL . . . the neighborhoods which come together at Front & Girard last night got their first real taste of what may or may not become -- again -- the Jumbo Theater.

Avram Hornik, the Center City barman who developed what he described in his own words, "places I'd like to hang out" including Lucy's Hat Shop, both Drinker's (Old City and Rittenhouse), Loie, Noche and the late Soma and Protolounge, made his case to a public organized by four community groups: Fishtown Neighbors Association, Northern Liberties Neighbors Assocation, New Kensington Community Development Corporation (NKCDC) and Kensington South Neighborhood Advisory Council. That the four neighborhoods with varying goals and varying populaces came together is a feat in itself, as noted by State Representative Curtis Thomas, who showed up long enough to see part of Hornik's presentation before announcing that, thanks to a petition filed by some neighbors, he will try to block the liquor license Hornik has applied for.

Great. Before the evening's grand unveiling -- of ideas, unfinished plans -- is even fully presented, we learn that Harrisburg is already against it.

It's evident from the get-go that this petition is led by a woman named Juliette, who started a thread at Fishtown.us -- with the alarmist title "A Nightclub with a capacity for 1200 at Front & Girard? Can this be right??" -- and who came to the meeting armed with propaganda printed on pink paper including (A) a nine year old PBJ article which had little to do with Hornik, (B) the one negative comment out of seven on Citysearch's Drinker's Tavern page, and (C) a copy of the city's North Delaware Avenue Area Special District Councils (i.e. the rules for Del Ave nightclubs), which doesn't even apply to the Jumbo.

Oh, community meetings!

Here's what's up. The Global Thrift store, on the northeast corner of Front & Girard, directly under the Girard el station, has been closed and boarded for a couple years now. Hornik wants to restore it -- strip off the ugly drywall inside, remove the box that was tacked on to the exterior's otherwise handsome structure -- and make it a rock venue akin to World Café Live. Right next door is a shuttered KFC. Across the street is Club Ozz, a go-go bar. Out front of the closed thrift store, guys sell bootleg Air Jordans, football jerseys and baseball caps.

Once upon a time, this was the bustling Jumbo Theatre, a 1,200 seat movie house designed by Hoffman & Henon, architects of the Boyd and several other Philadelphia theaters. Check Philly History for archival photos HERE and HERE.

That Hornik wants to restore one of the city's long lost theaters is commendable. And that he's a proven business owner is an asset.

Or is it?

While he can rightfully claim that he operates six bars, 2 in Old City and 4 in Rittenhouse Square, exactly what types of bars are they? When one audience member said he'd moved to Fishtown to get away from Old City, where he'd lived before, Hornik was quick to say that Old City was nothing like it used to be, that it's now obnoxious and loud. Two things here: 1. Dude, didn't you help to make it that way? 2. Nothing like presenting a new idea to a new neighborhood by trashing a neighborhood you've done (and are still doing) business in.

Personally speaking, I'm about as mellow as bar goers get, and I practically got into a fight at Drinker's in Rittenhouse because some jerkoff frat boy was looking for one. I love bars, but that place sucks, even more so considering Devil's Alley, one of my favorite places in Center City, is right next door.

So, what exactly is Hornik looking to do with the Jumbo? Two parts: 1. a 100 person 'restaurant' and 2. a 500-700 person performance space for national touring acts. Think of it as: what Johnny Brenda's is to the Khyber, the Jumbo could be to the TLA. There would be dedicated parking lots in the rear of the theater and across Front Street totalling about 80 spaces.

Mind you, this place is directly under -- at the bottom of the stairs of -- the el, the Route 15 trolley has an island outside the front doors, and two other bus lines stop right outside its doors. Like every community meeting, the very first question asked during the Q&A was about parking. Another woman declared that she can't keep her windows open because people walk by laughing loudly because they are walking back to their cars, and that Hornik better be prepared to offer 400 parking spaces. She actually said 400 parking spaces! I dunno, maybe they're your neighbors, walking home from the bar?

* * *

I see no reason a 500-700 person venue -- done right -- couldn't work at Front & Girard, especially when a movie house twice that size operated in the same facility 90 years ago. Sandy Salzman, NKCDC's executive director stops just short of agreeing. "Maybe," she says, looking across the room of 150 or so, "but there are definitely concerns . . . the former capacity had (the benefit of) a balcony."



When an audience member pressed Hornik about who he's been talking to to book and operate the shows, he mentioned Live Nation and Bowery Presents by name. Which is to say: larger national acts. It underscores the independence of Johnny Brenda's Brandy Hartley, whose booking of national acts gets herself and JB's press in the likes of MSNBC. (Disclosure: She also books Philly Skyline's events at JB's.)

William Reed, one of JB's two owners, thinks the Jumbo could maybe work, "but where are you going to put all the smokers?" Indeed, if you have a full capacity of 700 concert goers and 100 'restaurant' patrons, that's going to be a lot of smokers out on the well traveled sidewalks on Front & Girard.

About that 'restaurant' bit. I use quotes because it's how Hornik presented the idea. On his concept sheet, "Restaurant" is in bold, and it's how he described it at the meeting, before guaranteeing that every show would end by 12:30, so that patrons could catch the last el and the exodus of up to 700 would be just past midnight, not after 2. But it took an audience member to ask about the 'restaurant' in the front -- that it would be open until 2. Hornik said "yes." So it's a bar that serves food, not a restaurant that serves booze. Again, I love bars, but call a bar a bar, not a restaurant with gourmet pizza.

Hornik says that "the Jumbo's time has come again." His timeline, pending liquor license approval, sees construction wrapping up in time for an April 2009 opening. His track record may prove that he can do it, but his track record may also prevent the neighborhoods -- four of them -- from supporting it.

I think April may be a little on the early side for the rebirth of the Jumbo.

–B Love


10 September 08: Fantastic voyage



I wasn't lying on Monday when I said I was taking a technology timeout, but believe me, I wasn't going to sit around on such a beautiful day pouting about it. I thought a six hour boat ride on the Delaware River was a better idea. As did Kellie Gates, whose story on the Delaware Riverkeeper for PlanPhilly was the impetus for my joyride. Her story and some of my photos are HERE.

I arrive a few minutes late for our 9 o'clock launch in part because I don't know how to exit US-13 in Tullytown. Lucky for me, Kellie and the Riverkeeper -- known in less organizational settings as Maya van Rossum -- are coming back from the dock to the gated entrance at D&S Marina. "I got bird poop on my hands -- I'm not going out on the river with bird poop on my hands," van Rossum says upon greeting me.

After washing her hands, we walk out to The Delaware Riverkeeper, the eponymous boat of the organization van Rossum heads, and whose citizen action coordinator is Fred Stine, who's waiting at the boat for us. As we untie and start the engine, I grab a cushioned seat facing the direction of the boat's travel . . . and am greeted with bird poop of my own, on my fresh washed jeans. Well how do you like that. Rather than hold things up any further to go all the way back to the marina bathhouse, I wipe it off and now I'm the one with bird poopy hands. Even as Waste Management's Tullytown landfill looms like some mountainscape above us, I figure the Delaware River's inlet is a cleaner option for the hands that would at long last be handling a Canon 5D for the duration of our cruise, so a splash-bath my hands do get.

And off we go downstream, with but one definite destination, the Philadelphia Marina next to Dave & Buster's, where we will refill and pick up another passenger, Northern Liberties activist Hilary Regan. How timely, I think, as we pass under the Pennsylvania Turnpike and Burlington-Bristol Bridges, as they're next in line for our Tidal Delaware Bridges series. Likewise for Tacony-Palmyra, Betsy Ross, Delair, Ben Franklin and Walt Whitman. The farthest south bridge we encounter is the Schuylkill's southernmost, the Girard Point Bridge carrying I-95 parallel to the Delaware.

Along the way, I am the giddy sightseer I expected to be, pointing my new camera at a to-do list that includes the bridges and the skyline (obviously), landmarks like the Tioga and Packer port terminals and Penn's Landing, and PlanPhilly topics like SugarHouse and pier redevelopment. There are a slew of unexpected surprises, too, like the abandoned and graffitied warehouse near Pennypack Creek and the Burlington Generating Station (seen at right), originally designed by Paul Cret. Its stacks rise with perfect, snakelike pipes above cubist powerhouses and drums Kraftwerk might use. All four of the power stations -- Burlington, Port Richmond, Delaware and Pier 92 -- in their various states of use (or, sadly, demolition in the case of Delaware) command the attention and imagination of the riverfarer, be it a Pink Floyd Animals or a Tate Modern -- or, as Regan once proposed for the PECO Delaware Station, a Calder Museum.

Coming around the corner where Neshaminy Creek empties into the Delaware, at Neshaminy State Park, the skyline comes into view with Burlington-Bristol Bridge still within sight. As I point this out, Gates says "wow" -- like a collection of uncut silver topaz crystals, she writes -- and van Rossum sighs. It's evident that the Riverkeeper is no fan of the city. I was actually surprised to learn she lives in the region, near Bristol, and not Delaware Water Gap, as I'd previously thought.

It's also evident, and understandable, that van Rossum is rooting for Mother Nature, when she lights up at abandoned piers which are years into the process of reclamation by nature -- piers like those at the Conrail Yards and at Wal-Mart, South Philly's Pier 70. Were it up to her, there would be no port, no parking lots, no prisons and no Penn's Landing. "They build this so-called celebration of the river," she says pointing to the Chart House Restaurant, "yet they close it in with windows and give you no way of coming down to touch the river."


The fabulous ruins of the McMyler coal dumper, at Port Richmond's Conrail Yards, future site of . . . _____?

Seeing it from this perspective, it is indeed fascinating how little there is in Philadelphia city-county in the way of getting your feet wet -- rolling up your pant legs and making a physical connection to the River that is the reason for our city. There are piers and there are promenades; there are marinas and there are ports; there is the Navy Yard. But all told, you can probably count on both bands the total places you can get to the river: Penn Treaty Park with its unforgiving boulders, Frankford Arsenal with its tiny, muddy fishing beach, a pebbly, low-tide-only beach near a large apartment building in Torresdale.

The Jersey side, including Petty's Island, is far more lush. Palmyra Cove, whose interpretive center and parking area are at the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, has several miles of hiking trails, including along the sandy Delaware shore, which van Rossum says is about the closest the city section of the River comes to its natural state. "But," she points out, "there is probably large development just on the other side of the brush."

As we pass under the Walt Whitman Bridge, looking on toward the giant derricks and tiny shipping containers of the Port, and discussing whether or not Southport will happen, a longshoreman waves us over and calls to us from the dock that a jet skier is in distress downstream. Looking through my telephoto lens, I see the jet ski in question with no rider on it. Stine, a former Coast Guard serviceman who is captaining the ship, puts it in high gear as we head toward a possible rescue mission.

Luckily, the rider is off of the watercraft by his own doing. "I repair these things," says the man who looks like the wrestler Diamond Dallas Page, before suggesting this one may need a little more work. It's broken down, and with no power, he's tied it to himself in an attempt to swim it back to shore on the Jersey side. The Delaware Riverkeeper ties him to The Delaware Riverkeeper and we start toward Gloucester City with perhaps a little more ease than swimming with a jet ski strapped on your back.

Before we can even make a wake, the Philadelphia Police Marine Unit approaches us to make sure everything is OK. It is, but we defer to their more powerful boat to get him back to land, and as we're transferring the broke down jet ski, Gloucester City's Fire Department Marine Unit checks in to make sure all is well.

It is, so we bid our adieus and bend round the surprisingly green curve between the Port and the Navy Yard. Planes are coming in for landing overhead (all of which were the blue-and-white US Airways models but for one colorful Southwest bird); warships, including the aircraft carrier John F Kennedy sleep just beside us. Just beyond the handsome early 20th century buildings where Navy civilian engineers share lunch with the sartorial Urban pioneers, Lincoln Financial Field stands proudly as the scene of Sunday's 38-3 massacring of the St Louis Rams.

As we approach Block Island, formed from sedimentation deposits emptied by the Schuylkill, van Rossum explains that it, along with Petty's and Burlington Islands, and several others within the Delaware, were a few years ago explored by the National Park Service on a fact finding mission in consideration of NPS designation. Where that is is anyone's guess, but Block Island is already a popular resting spot for pleasure boaters on both the Schuylkill and Delaware, as anyone can see when crossing the Girard Point Bridge. Block Island is also our turnaround point, so Stine does a mid-river U-turn and we head back north.

The northbound trek moves at a brisker pace than south, in part because the views are reruns and in part because, by now, it's 1 o'clock and the sun is beating down. Regan pulls some pre-cut watermelon from an Almanac Market bag like some cool, refreshing rabbit out of a dry, sun-drenched hat; in return, the grateful captain takes her in for a closer inspection of the Sugar House site and Delaware Station, whose north wing is little more than scrap heaps now.



From here, we cross the river to take the other side of Petty's Island north. The back channel is like a whole other river, a mini-Delaware: home of Camden's Pyne Poynt Park, a hidden marina, Fish House Cove and the 36th Street Bridge, the only road access onto Petty's Island and its Citgo oil facilities. On the Island's shore, though, are no signs of industry, just mud flats with birds.

Faster we go, under a 30th Street Station bound New Jersey Transit Atlantic City train, past one man with two coolers on the shore in Northeast Philly, past Glen Foerd mansion at the mouth of the Poquessing Creek, past what looks like a sailboat show in Bristol.

And one shade of red short of dangerous sunburn, we're back at Tullytown, watching a convoy of trucks moving dirt up on the landfill. It's one of about a million different scenes piling on the sensory overload from six hours on the water. The colors, the forms, the ideas, the stuff. It's a lot, and a lot of variety. Even just the boats -- gray warships, red tankers, black barges, brown tugboats, white yachts, white sailboats, white motorboats, a green kayak -- run the gamut.

It's the diversity of, well, everything, that makes the Delaware River's 23 Philadelphia miles so amazing. It makes it that much more amazing to consider that diversity of everything happens for 360 miles from the northwest Catskill Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.



* * *

Many of my photos from the day are currently posted with Kellie Gates' story at PlanPhilly HERE, but I plan on having the complete photo essay online as soon as the Apple Store in Cherry Hill decides it can get my work station back to me.

–B Love


9 September 08: Trentonian Trifecta



The tide's a-rolling back downstream past The Falls, so put your paddle in the water and go with it, man. Next stop in our tidal bridge celebration is the Trenton Triple-shot about a mile below Calhoun Street.

• LOWER TRENTON BRIDGE: First of these was the subject of a Tidal Bridges preview from a few weeks ago, an anagramical sample of the Lower Trenton Toll Supported Bridge's iconic sign: TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES.

While this bridge is the oldest -- built originally in 1806 -- of all crossings on the tidal Delaware River, its common nickname, "Lower Trenton Bridge", dates only to 1884, when the Calhoun Street Bridge was built, giving need for a better name than "Toll Bridge". Thus, the "Upper Trenton" and "Lower Trenton" bridges were born.

The sign, as mentioned before, was installed as neon in 1935, but actually existed in a slightly different appearance for two decades prior to that. As Trenton emerged as an industrial city at the turn of the 20th century, it took pride of its exports and the "Trenton makes, the world takes" slogan was adopted by the Trenton Chamber of Commerce. With the completion of the Pennsylvania Railroad's bridge (which is profiled below) in 1903, it seized the opportunity to proclaim the slogan to the thousands of passengers traveling the PRR's main line between Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston with the installation of a metal sign in 1911, electrified in 1917 and replaced with steel-and-neon in 1935. The LED sign we see today was installed in 2002.

With Trenton smack dab in the center of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between those same cities, the same is true of the eye-catching landmark sign today. Septa's R7 and New Jersey Transit's NEC line also use the Railroad Bridge -- for Septa passengers traveling between 30th Street and Trenton, and for NJT's empties en route to the Morrisville yard for servicing before returning to the rails back to Penn Station. Anyone on those trains looking to the north still understand that TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES.

For a new mini-essay of photos of the Lower Trenton Bridge (10 total), please click

HERE.

* * *

• TRENTON-MORRISVILLE BRIDGE: Well then, imagine PRR's surprise when construction began on a new bridge for the Lincoln Highway, or US-1, which was at the time using the Lower Trenton Bridge.

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, which was established as a joint venture between PA and NJ in 1935 (and which still operates 20 bridges across the river north of the PA Turnpike Bridge), constructed the new 12-span crossing in 1952 to accommodate auto technology and traffic growth. This was four years ahead of President Eisenhower's Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956.

Like the other toll bridges between NJ and PA downstream, there is only a westbound toll on the Trenton-Morrisville, this one 75¢. At present, a $100M rehabilitation project is bringing the bridge up to current standards, with reconstruction of the toll plaza, a complete re-decking, attention to the Morrisville side's on- and off-ramps, and a new auxiliary lane northbound, bringing the total to six lanes. The Bridge Commission has a thorough web site dedicated to the project HERE. For a new mini-essay of photos of the Trenton-Morrisville Bridge (4 total), please click

HERE.

* * *

• MORRISVILLE-TRENTON RAILROAD BRIDGE: Long before Eisenhower and before even the Lincoln Highway, the train was the name of the game in interstate travel. No one made this a greater moneymaker than the Pennsylvania Railroad.

In 1871, the PRR purchased the Camden & Amboy Railroad, the first inter-city railroad system in the US. (CPRR.org.) It carried passengers between Philly and New York via its own ferry terminals in Camden and Perth Amboy. The PRR inherited these from Camden & Amboy, but in 1875, PRR's fiercest competitor, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, built a stone arch bridge between Yardley and West Trenton. The rebuilt version of this bridge is the first non-tidal bridge across the Delaware upstream, and carries both the Septa R3 and CSX freight. The Reading Bridge necessitated something faster than the ferries and more accommodating than the Lower Trenton Bridge.

In 1901, the PRR's chief engineer William H Brown designed the arch bridge between Morrisville and Trenton, a more direct route into the New Jersey capital than the Reading's line. (Steven M Richman, The Bridges of New Jersey.) Completed in 1903, the railroad bridge has been in active use ever since, nowadays by Amtrak, Septa and New Jersey Transit as mentioned above. The bridge was listed on Historic Register in 1979.

For a new mini-essay of photos of the Morrisville-Trenton Railroad Bridge (7 total), please click

HERE.

–B Love




8 September 08: Technology timeout



Pip pip, cheerio and allathat. Regret to inform that the mother brain of the Skyline Network is in for repairs on this most beautiful of Monday mornings, so we're going to have to press pause until the interim system is powered up tomorrow morning. Bee Love this sounds like an excuse to take the day off and go soak up the sun! Ha ha, it does, doesn't it?

Lightning fast observations: Eagles win, HUGE. Phils' win in game 1, Moyer was masterful. Phils' loss in game 2, disappointing. (Ouch, Delgado.) Residences at the Ritz-Carlton is now fully encased in glass, and the metal paneling on the Chestnut Street side is about two-thirds to the top. 10 Rittenhouse is way up there.

Oh, and the My Morning Jacket show at Festival Pier on Friday was probably the greatest concert I've seen in eight years in Philadelphia. Absolutely phenomenal. I had just finished making 12 wallpaper sized Philly Skyline MMJ Skylines when my computer went MRRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLP. Let's send it home with this consolation Yank on YouTube, the band's cheesy home-video video for "I'm Amazed."

–B Love



5 September 08: CALENDAR OF EVENTS



And we're rolling right along, like the floodwaters in Yardley, where the residents get mad if the news comes to cover the news. Hot damn!

This Delaware River edition of the Calendar of Events finds a lot going on this weekend, and a date to circle next week. No time to waste, let's get our sharpies (or blackberrys or iphones) ready.



• ON THE DRAWING BOARDS: This one's not technically on the river, but a number of the entrants pay close attention to it. AIA Philadelphia's Associate Committee (organized by members of Cecil Baker, Ballinger and Ewing Cole) put together DRAW:Philadelphia, a competition to interpret the Philly Skyline, open to young members of the architecture and design communities. The interpretation of the skyline was totally open -- literal or figurative, straightforward or abstract, pen or paint, exciting or banal. All were encouraged.

I'm happy to report that I was one of the three-person jury, the others being Temple architecture professor Sneha Patel and painter-cum-architect Ed Bronstein. This evening, a reception is being held at the Center for Architecture, 1218 Arch Street, and winners announced. (I know but I'm not telling.) Go down, give the artists your best and check out the circa-2000 Center City model on display, as well as the new neon exhibit. [CFA.]

• JACKET REQUIRED: I'm amaaaaaaaaaaaaazed at the growth of this Kentucky band. Seriously, My Morning Jacket just gets better with every release, and their fanbase grows to accommodate it. They're headlining a New Year's Eve show at Madison Square Garden, for goodness' sake. This evening, they bring their road show in support of the new album, the incredible Evil Urges, to Penn's Landing to wrap up the summer concert series at Festival Pier. I am so there.

Original photo at right by Justin Schaible, accessed on My Morning Jacket's official web site, HERE, is from the TLA show in 2005 that I had a ticket to and did not go. (Dumbass.)

• MAD MOJITOS: If mind shredding rock & roll is not your bag, float downstream about half a mile to the Moshulu for Paperstreet's Mojito party. DJ Dirty spins house on the front deck, and Brendan Bringem, who's probably the best hip-hop DJ in 2008 Philadelphia, takes over the back deck. There's a Red Bull & Smirnoff open bar from 10:30 to 11:30, so plan on staying up all night. But have a Plan B ready, because Hanna's gonna make landfall some time near the end of the open bar.

About the Moshulu, DID YOU KNOW: that it is the largest four-masted ship in the world still afloat? That it launched in 1904, built in Germany as the "Kurt"? That it was confiscated by the United States government during World War I, and renamed "Moshulu" (Seneca Indian for "fearless") by President Woodrow Wilson's wife? That it was taken back by Germany during World War II and used as a floating warehouse? That it first opened as a restaurant in Philadelphia in 1975, just in time for the filming of Rocky? That the restaurant got three bells from Craig LaBan? It's all true! Learn more at Moshulu.com.



• PENN TREATY 1: BUBBLY TO-NITE! If neither mind shredding rock & roll nor old school hip hop is your jam, then perhaps Butch Ballard and his jazz trio will float your boat, so to speak. (If none of these works, then you can't hear very well, no offense.)

This evening, the Friends of Penn Treaty Park are throwing their third annual Champagne in the Park fundraiser. It's thirty-five beans (45 at the door), but it gets you bubbly, the sweet sounds of smooth jazz, and it's for a great cause. I will attest to the gem that is Penn Treaty to this Fishtown-Kensington-Northern Liberties neighborhood. In addition to the sham-pon-ya, food is being provided by Johnny Brenda's, Greensgrow, Café Estelle and Memphis Taproom. Good on ya, all of ya. For more info, VOICI. (More on William Penn a bit later in this waning Summer of the Delaware.)

• PENN TREATY 2: TAILOR MADE SUMMER OF THE DELAWARE FESTIVAL NEXT WEEK: Speaking of Penn Treaty props, they also go to the Fishtown Neighborhood Association, who next week is hosting the first ever River City Festival at Penn Treaty Park. In collaboration with the Police Department's 26th District and Fairmount Park, the festival includes a 5k run through Fishtown, live music including Oud Blues and Crow vs Lion, food from the likes of Canvas Coffee Company and Hot Potato Café, and programs from PPD and the Horticultural Society. For more, check out the official web site of the festival HERE.

• SUZANNE & JOSH: Finally on this Weekend of the Delaware, congratulations are in order for the bride and groom, my friends and yours, Suzanne Howard and Josh Solow, as they tie the knot at Glen Foerd, where the Poquessing Creek meets the Delaware River.

* * *

On an unrelated note, do you or anyone you know by chance have an all-weather, outdoor ping-pong table that you're trying to unload? $700 is a bit steep for an entry level hobby. (I played a bit when I was in junior high, but you know, I'm 32 now.) If you do, I would love to hear from you. Drop me a line at blove AT phillyskyline DOT com. Merci beaucoup.

AHHHH LOOK OUT! IT'S A DIRTY DELAWARE SPLASHDOWN, AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!



–B Love





5 September 08: Calhoun Street Bridge,
My bridge



by Nathaniel Popkin
September 5, 2008

Ed. note: This is the first of the thirteen bridges spanning the tidal Delaware River that we're going to pass over and under in the next week or so. Nathaniel is a Trenton native, and when I told him about the series, he related a personal relationship with the Calhoun Street Bridge, the northernmost of the tidal bridges, the next-to-last free crossing coming downstream. This story and these photos are his.

* * *



There are places and things in life that retain an emotional charge, a sensitive energy. The greatest for me is my grandparent's house in Trenton.

I still smell my grandmother's rosewater, the musk of the kitchen (not her kitchen, she didn't cook), the thin, grainy decline of their bedroom. I feel the satin of the couch, the crumbling driveway beneath sneaker feet, the roots of the massive, languorous European Beech (my grandfather would say the governor had wanted the tree for the Capitol but it was too large to move).

These were seventies days; I wore a shirt with a frog on it, Swim Camp '77. That was the year my grandfather died, the day after Elvis, a few days before my father's 40th birthday. I remember the day, too, waiting with my sister Nancy on the worn carpet of their bedroom floor while everyone else was at the hospital, and my grandmother's fierce expression and her arms crossed as she left the car and came inside.

I remember too, the sound of the bridge, the Calhoun Street Bridge between Morrisville and Trenton, as we drove back home. The buzz and jostle beneath car wheels. It was the most familiar sound perhaps, 15 miles an hour and the tight squeeze and the little guard shack that once in a while would be renovated -- aluminum siding and a window unit to match the times -- and the merge ahead onto route 29.

My dad has taken the bridge every working day since his dental office opened in 1967; for me as a kid it would mean a day at the office with him, a visit to the grandparents, or to my other grandmother, my father's mother, whose funeral limo ride across the bridge I recall now; how many times had we driven her back home, across the bridge, after dinner?





–Nathaniel Popkin
nathaniel.popkin@gmail.com

For Nathaniel Popkin archives, please see HERE, or visit his web site HERE.
For The Possible City, please see HERE, or purchase the book HERE.

* * *

Ed. note 2: Nathaniel mentioned the Capitol, also known as the New Jersey State House. The building, on the Delaware Riverfront (if separated by Route 29, à la I-95 in Old City), dates back to 1792 when it was built by a Philadelphia builder called Jonathan Doane. By some counts, he's also credited as the architect, but I've been unable to confirm this. Legendary Philadelphia architect John Notman (Athenaeum, St Mark's Church) directed an enlargement of the building in 1845, including the golden dome, which united the older structure with the new addition. Read more HERE.






4 September 08: You know what this is . . .
It's a celebration, BRIDGES!



Greetings again, friends. So as to not confuse, let's reiterate up front that Philly Skyline's Summer of the Delaware follows the Philly Skyline Gregorian calendar, from solstice to equinox. Besides, this latest addition to the series has 13 editions unto itself.

Today we begin our journey downstream, following the tidal Delaware River from the New Jersey capital -- and Capitol -- to the state where the Delaware River becomes the Delaware Bay: Delaware. Delawhat? DELAWARE.

The Delaware River is tidal from the Atlantic Ocean up to Trenton, a journey of 130 miles or so. It's here that exists what is known as the fall line -- where two geologic provinces meet. This creates not only a change in topography, but also in the performance in a river like the Delaware. Here's a map project I did in 1998 of Pennsylvania's geologic provinces, which may help to give this some context.



(Apparently this map was made before the concept of anti-aliasing; no really, it looked good printed out!)

If you follow the line just below "Triassic Lowlands" on the right, where it meets the eastern border is what's known as the "Falls of the Delaware" -- the portion of the river between Morrisville PA and Trenton NJ that's rocky at low tide and deep at high tide, an average of about eight feet in difference. (Check out this site for more on the tides.) This is also indicative of the shift in geology: above the falls (within the Piedmont -- soft rolling hills in which the fertile farmland in Lancaster County is also located), the river is more rocky and shallow; below the falls (within the flatter Coastal Plain, in which most of Philadelphia, including all of its Delaware Riverfront, lies), the bed is softer, sandier, and the river is more navigable because of it.

The fall line helps to explain Trenton's location (it's as far north as early ships could travel), and in turn explains Washington's crossing just north of Trenton in 1776. He couldn't attack the Hessians and British directly at Trenton, or he'd have been pummeled. He couldn't do it south of there because there were too many men to cross competing against the tides.

With all this in mind, we're going to set sail tomorrow morning on this Summer of the Tidal Delaware and take a look at each of the 13 bridges from Trenton to the Bay. Cue up the Action News theme song ("the Delaware Valley's leading news program"), because this series examines the Delaware Valley at its truest sense.

To kick it off, let's begin without any bridges at all, instead opting to have a look at our launchpoint, the Philly Trenton Skyline. This was taken from the dike at Williamson Park in Morrisville, about 32 miles from Center City.



–B Love


4 September 08: And lo, a chorus of angels did sing



I know Brian Roberts' office is way up there, but this is ridiculous. I had no idea his reach extended to the heavens.

Actual photos from today, when the sun began burning away the morning fog.





–B Love






4 September 08: Nice things really do happen



This pretty painter right here is Kathleen Hughes of the Mural Arts Program. Just behind her is her colleague Harvey Weinman. The two of them are touching up Ed Bacon's map of Penn's Philadelphia in City Hall Courtyard right this second. Bacon's sundial/compass is still in storage and will remain so for at least a couple years, as City Hall's exterior restoration is moving into the courtyard just as soon as it wraps up on the outer perimeter. (Mind you this process began in 2001.)

The painted map is of course a small scale of what is now Center City Philadelphia, with the center of Center Square matching precisely where Broad and Market meet, the literal center of the center of the city.

Just to its northeast, we find an amazing sign of things to come: tables and chairs!



While there is not yet a café to speak of, the tables and chairs which suggest there is one are already well in use. Passersby (including tourists coming in and out of the Visitors Center inside the first door from the tables), subway users and city workers are all making use of the tables that Nathaniel Popkin hypothesized a year and a half ago.

The tables were used as props during the filming of Transformers 2, when City Hall Courtyard was, er, transformed into a Parisian café. Word has it that Mayor Mike Nutter liked the look of it so much that he requested that the tables and chairs be kept there.

It's kind of cute that it took a make-believe City Hall café to evolve into a real-life City Hall café, but hey, we'll take it. Now let's get someone who's serious about coffee and serious about service to make it happen for real for real. Just think of the French connections between City Hall's architecture and the courtyard café concept and the dark roast at the coffee grinder over on 19th Street.

Capriccio got the gig on the Parkway. Now let's see another hometown hero give City Hall Courtyard's aroma an upgrade.

Mayor Nutter, please give La Colombe a call at your earliest convenience. La Colombe, please accept Mayor Nutter's offer to run a café at City Hall. Thank you both.

–B Love


3 September 08: Philly Skyline vs Penny Postcards:
St George's Hall



It's a Demolition Party -- and THE WHOLE CITY'S INVITED!

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, my fellow interested and engaged citizens of Philadelphia, step right up and buy your ticket right now, for there will be no Will Call when the wrecking ball is through. The Demolition Party goes on -- as we speak!

Perhaps you've heard about PECO's demolition of the northern portion of its Delaware Substation (pictured just below), the powerful structure designed by John T Windrim next to Penn Treaty Park in Fishtown. And maybe you've heard the concerns over the destruction of the Garrett-Dunn House, designed by Thomas Ustick Walter in Mount Airy. You may have even caught wind that the classical Bank at Front & Norris, which Nathaniel Popkin touched upon in a story about Norris Square for The Possible City in February, is soon a-comin' down.

It's been a good year in the demolition community . . . all of the buildings, a dozen or so, that once stood in the way of the expanding Convention Center are now gone. And Comcast-Spectacor was happy to announce that the Spectrum will be coming down next year for Philly Live, a complex that could be built, oh, on any of the acres and acres of surface parking already there.

But right now? Right now in our citywide Demolition Party? It's St George's Hall who's the belle of the ball!

The Penny Postcard above is of what was once known as, well, St George's Hall. Who? St George's Hall.

The Society of the Sons of St George dates back to 1772, when it was "founded on the premise of giving advice and assistance to Englishmen in distress." (StGeorge1772.org.) In one regard, it could have been considered sympathizing with the enemy in the colonies. In another, the Society of the Sons of St George could be admired for their staying power, akin perhaps to the Freemasons, as they're still in existence today, effectively as an English heritage club. (St George's Cross is the red cross that emblazons the flag of England, the same cross that is one of the central components of the Union Jack.)

The club survived the Revolution, and by the mid-19th century had grown to a point of needing its own social hall. In the 1850s, they purchased a building belonging to the attorney Matthew Newkirk, at 13th & Arch. It was designed by? The aforementioned Thomas Ustick Walter. (Recall if you will a Philly Skyline piece on Walter's US Capitol dome, found HERE (24 September 07: A Philadelphian in the Capitol).)

In 1876, the Society commissioned a sculpture from London of St George slaying the dragon (pictured at left, original photo by Chris Purdom at Philart.net), the allegorical tale in which the circa-Roman Empire soldier killed a plague-bearing dragon on the notion that the people he saved convert to Christianity. (St George is not just the patron saint of England, but also Georgia, from which it takes its name, and Russia, who features the dragon slaying in its coat of arms, as well as several other countries like Portugal and Brazil, and organizations like the Boy Scouts of America.) The sculpture was placed atop the pediment topping the portico of St George's Hall. The Free Library has a nice photo of it HERE.

In 1903, the Society decided to sell the building and move to the 19th & Arch building, built in the 1850s and pictured in the postcard above. The 13th & Arch portico and its ionic columns, but not the St George and Dragon statue, were moved to Princeton University in 1905 and the building was demolished. The statue was placed atop the center of the club's new home, as seen above.

The Society of the Sons of St George called the building along 19th Street between Race and Cuthbert home for twenty years, including World War I, when the society was active in contributing money to war efforts via the Prince of Wales and protesting the teaching of German, the enemy's language. They sold the building, which they'd bought in 1903 for $32,121, for $80,000 in 1923 whe they moved to 19th & Spring Garden.

Now? Kaboom.

1900 Arch Street Associates, owned by Philadelphia Management's Ron Caplan, is in the process of demolishing it and the adjacent properties. One of those, the four-story rowhome at 1900 Arch, was owned in the 1870s by Samuel Shipley, a Quaker businessman whose lineage is traced back to the emigration led by William Penn in the 1680s, and whose grandfather was the founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society. As reported by Jeff Shields for the Inquirer, the same building was occupied by Fernley & Fernley, a non-profit organization management company, from 1951 to 2004. According to BRTweb, that is when 1900 Arch Street Associates purchased the properties for $1.7M.

Since then, the buildings have stood empty. Exactly what 1900's plans are for the site are unclear; phone calls there and to Philadelphia Management were unreturned. What I've heard is that "there are no immediate plans." And, earlier this year, Caplan's group presented plans to the Logan Square Neighborhood Association for . . . wait for it . . . a surface parking lot. If this were to happen, that would make not one, not two, but three of the four corners of 19th and Arch Streets surface parking lots. In Center City Philadelphia, that is downright embarrassing.

Consider then that the surface parking lot directly across the street, on which Walnut Street Capital expects to build the 1,500' American Commerce Center, was bought for $30M. I wonder which seems more desirable in a weak market 2008: building yet another condo tower, or flipping a property with pesky historical buildings already out of the way.

In this New Day, in which the Nutter administration has done a great job placing emphasis on planning and design, and promoting green building to the point of having a Sustainability Director, it seems that little has been done in the way of historic preservation. The Boyd Theater scored a victory with the Historical Commission's unanimous designation for the Register last month, and that is largely thanks to the efforts of the Friends of the Boyd.

Here again, that was largely thanks to the Friends of the Boyd. Put another way, it took a successful, huge grassroots movement to save it. There are no Friends of the Former St George's Hall. No Friends of the Delaware Substation. No Friends of the Spectrum. (Err, well, there is a Friends of the Spectrum, but it's an autism support group, not a non-profit trying to preserve the site of the Flyers' only Stanley Cups and the city's last championship, the 1983 Sixers.)

The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia publishes an annual list of endangered properties. It's a non-binding list made primarily to raise awareness about unprotected (i.e. undesignated) buildings, such as the Stephen Girard Building at 12th & Ludlow, one of the city's earliest skyscrapers which was part of the Girard Block property on which Trinity Capital recently wanted to build two towers. The Preservation Alliance is taking nominations for its 2008 list now. Unfortunately, it's too late for the former St George's Hall now.

You know -- it's just another building. Just another building from another era in a city whose religion is its history. While the likes of Independence Hall and the PSFS Building and City Hall are no false idols, it's the simple congregation -- St George's Hall, the Philadelphia Life Insurance Building and its annex, the 1600 block of Sansom Street -- that suffers when its history isn't deemed important enough to preserve. A good portion of the 19th century's workshop of the world was razed for Independence Mall, our 20th century shrine to the 18th century, after all.

Rob Stuart, president of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, laments the demolition at 19th & Arch, saying "the best we can hope for now is a historical marker." He also notes that 1900 would need a zoning variance to develop a surface parking lot there. It seems unlikely that LSNA will readily endorse one.

PECO says that they're only taking down the modern northern portion of the Delaware Substation, that they're leaving the Windrim building intact. Garrett-Dunn still stands, but largely stripped and in poor condition. The fate of the Front & Norris bank is unclear. But St George's Hall is as good as gone -- it's already halfway there.



It's unbelievable to think that this city, in spite of everything it's learned in recent years, in spite of a New Day, still allows the demolition of historical buildings with "no immediate plans" or worse, another fucking surface parking lot.

* * *

For a Philly Skyline vs Penny Postcard before-and-after comparison, please click the image below. (Note the bay window on the building on the right, which was reduced from four stories to two stories in the mid-1900s.)

.

* * *

If there's any good news to take from this, it's that the bronze and masonry statue of St George Slaying the Dragon lives on. The statue, whose sculptor is unknown, was cast in 1876, in time for the Centennial. After speaking with Margot Berg, the director of the City's Public Art Program, we determined this as the journey for the sculpture: it was commissioned in 1876 and after the Centennial placed on the portico at St George's Hall at 13th & Arch. In 1903, when the Society moved to 19th & Arch, so too did the sculpture. In 1923, it moved again with the Society to 19th & Spring Garden. In 1935, for some reason, it was moved into storage at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it stayed for 40 years. In 1975, they dusted it off and dedicated it on West River Drive, in time for the Bicentennial. That's where it remains today -- Martin Luther King Drive, near Black Road.

–B Love

* * *

NOTES & SOURCES:
• Old Philadelphia in Early Photographs, 1839-1914, Robert Looney, 1976
• History of the Society of the Sons of St George, Theodore Knauff, 1923

• "St George's Hall" postcard published by Hugh C Leighton Company, Portland ME, appr. 1908
• Contemporary photo taken by B Love, 3 September 2008
• Original postcard not written on or mailed
• The stain on the postcard was there when I bought it, I swear

PREVIOUSLY ON PHILLY SKYLINE VS PENNY POSTCARDS:

6 May 08: FDR Park Gazebo
17 April 08: Walnut Lane Bridge
18 March 08: The Parkway & the Skyline
10 March 08: 1800 Arch Street
27 February 08: New Market
7 March 07: Letitia Street House




3 September 08: "Scenic Overlook"



Just a quickie for this one . . .

About 25 miles upstream from Philadelphia is the lower of the two bends of the Delaware River that form the shape distinguishing the Pennsylvania and New Jersey border. On the PA side is the US Steel complex, while on the Jersey side the circa-1830s Delaware & Raritan Canal used to meet the river here. There's a state park that follows its path now, a lush greenway hidden from the megalopolis on the other side of the thick brush.

I-295 also passes through here on its way north toward Trenton, where the northbound 295 somehow becomes 95 south. At the point of the curve, there is a "scenic overlook" with a pull-off parking area on both sides. But for a small sliver in which you can see the river, I don't know that it's scenic enough to hike across an interstate . . . but it does have this nifty walkway!



–B Love


2 September 08: How I spent my Summer of the Delaware



Whooooooooooooooooo doggie, summer's over! Well, sorta. It's the same thing every year, trying to figure out which designation makes better sense: summer proper (June 20 to September 22) or summer popular (Memorial Day to Labor Day). Why not have both? The Summer of the Delaware didn't officially launch on yr Skyline until after the solstice, so we'll give ourselves until the equinox to enjoy it. Besides, even if we did a feature on the Delaware River every day of the year, it would still feel incomplete. It's quite a river, that 360 mile meanderer which spends 23 of those with us in Philadelphia.

But in the back-to-school spirit, it's worth a moment to reflect on the summer that was.

Comcast Center officially opened in June, so Philly Skyline's construction section of it officially closed. (The general Comcast Center section was recently tidied up, with better access to features like the plaza and marketplace, in addition to the construction photos, which are still the second-most viewed pages on the site after the homepage.) Murano also moved in residents, so we retired that construction section as well. Residences at the Ritz-Carlton is itself nearing completion, so we'll be wrapping that section up soon too, leaving 10 Rittenhouse all by its lonesome in terms of dedicated construction updates. Cira Centre South will get one, as with the rest, once it starts to rise out of the ground.

Summertime, summertime . . . we had a chat with Deputy Mayor for Commerce and Development Andy Altman with the guys from Onion Flats. (Thanks, PlanPhilly, for being there!) Nathaniel Popkin, when not cavorting through Istanbul and Nicaragua, published his second book. (We will be celebrating with a book launch at Johnny Brenda's on the last full day of summer, September 21st -- details are coming.)

What else, what else . . . The War On Drugs released a spectacular debut album and took it on tour, including two legs through Europe. They're playing tonight at JB's, in between their European vacations. Dr Dog also released a spectacular album and took it on tour, including a full lineup across the States and Europe later this fall.

Hmmm, let's see . . . Penn Praxis released their 10 year, 10 point action plan for developing the Central Delaware Riverfront, early action items of which include a dedicated bike trail and the transformation of Pier 11 under the Ben Franklin Bridge into a park. American Commerce Center moved closer to reality with presentations at the Planning Commission and overwhelming support from the community. Stamper Square also moved forward. The Planning Commission finally got itself a new executive director in the inimitable Alan Greenberger. The ZBA rightfully, and unanimously, rejected Unisys proposal to add its logo to the east and west sides of Two Liberty Place.

Oh! I got married too.

So yeah, all in all a pretty good summer popular. Before we switch into fall mode, in which we'll get back into the long neglected neighborhoods, contemporize some more old penny postcards, and find Joe Minardi's head in the toilet, yr Skyline is going to ride out the summer proper with focus on the Delaware River. Get your life preserver!



–B Love












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