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16 March 09: Feelin' Erie, mon
Would you believe this crusty old burnout is on the National
Register of Historic Places?
Born as the National Bank of North Philadelphia in 1926, the Beury Building is effectively an unwitting icon of North Philly's decay. It's all tagged up, its windows
are all busted out, and it stands watch over an intersection where bar fights have resulted in gunshot and bloodshed. The six point corner of Broad & Erie &
Germantown has in recent years been more associated with the drug and gun problems than as the pivotal gateway it once was, as the crossroads of Tioga, Nicetown and
Hunting Park.
Broad & Erie has also long been considered the Gateway to Germantown, with Septa's Route 23 a short pass through Wayne Junction away. The 23's trolley tracks are
still there on Germantown Avenue, as are the 56's in the center of Erie Avenue. While those sit idly wondering if Septa will make good on its 1992 promise to make the
trolleys' suspension temporary, the Broad Street Subway rumbles underfoot.
It's a vast expanse with the proverbial Ton Of Potential, in need of direction to recognize that Potential. Temple University's healthcare expansion just down the
street is a start, and thanks to a grant from the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission, the city Planning Commission is embarking on a master plan study with
a consulting team led by Gannett Fleming.
The purpose of the Broad & Erie Transportation and Community Development Plan is to create a blueprint for economic development and neighborhood
revitalization according to Transit Oriented Development principles and guidelines for the design of commercial areas and urban neighborhoods.
This, of course, goes hand in hand with the neighboring TOD plan for Germantown and Wayne Junction, which is now complete -- view the report HERE.
The first public meeting and workshop for the Broad & Erie plan is tomorrow at 6pm at the Resurrection Life Church at 17th & Tioga. For more info on it, visit the
Planning Commission's web site HERE.
Where the Beury Building will fit into it specifically remains to be seen. Following news of the sale of the State Office Building to Bart Blatstein last year, Inga
Saffron floated the idea in a column HERE that the
state could relocate its hundreds of employees there. Doesn't seem like that's going to happen, as state workers appear to be moving to the Strawbridge's Building
that's also been eyed for yet another Foxwoods relocation and a Target.
Among the urban exploration scene (which got a bit of face time in the Inquirer a couple weeks ago, online HERE and as always accompanied by intelligent
commenting), the Beury Building is a legend. GoDDoG215, one of the central characters of Joelle Farrell's story, and I have been in touch a few times about a
collaboration, but his efforts there are beyond my own threshold. He's treaded the stairs of the 14 story building to its roof, at sunset, and put his photos,
including the one at right, HERE.
While the Beury Building's fate is unknown, it's at least protected from demolition . . . for now. In Philadelphia, as we well know, that's not always forever. But
surely it will come up in the Planning Commission's discussions tomorrow night.
It's also a possible candidate for discussion at this evening's Preservation Alliance happy hour at the Solefood bar at the Loews. From 5 to 7, the Young Friends of
the Preservation Alliance are hosting a get together that includes a talk on the Loews' home PSFS Building.
–B Love
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13 March 09: Surely You Jest
by Nathaniel Popkin
March 13, 2009
I've been reading D.T. Max's profile of the late novelist David Foster
Wallace, which appeared in last week's The New Yorker. Wallace apparently struggled -- in his writing and in his life -- to come to terms with what felt to him like
an increasingly vapid and seemingly inane American way of life. He searched for and examined the space between society's manic noise (Gabriel Winant's Salon.com
encounter with CNBC, "Why is Jim Cramer Shouting at Me?" is an awfully succinct
example) and the human heart. His point, as Max notes, is that "America was at once over-entertained and sad." Wallace's final, unfinished The Pale King, part of
which will be published next year, is about IRS agents who are forced to master intense tedium. He hoped, Max thinks, that it "would show people a way to insulate
themselves from the toxic freneticism of American life."
Max had access to Wallace's notebooks. In one of them, a plot for The Pale King emerges: an evil cell inside the IRS wants to steal the secrets of another IRS agent
who has great powers of concentration. Here in Philadelphia -- not so much over-entertained and sad as over-medicated, under-educated, and angry -- something similar
might be happening right now. I think a rogue cell in a hidden corridor of 1234 Market Street is plotting to take down the agency.
A couple of weeks ago, my good friend Peter Siskind was over for bagels and lox. "Check this out," he said. He pulled out of his wallet his son Leo's March
"city-only" monthly pass, the one that costs $78. (Leo, 8, may be Septa's most appreciative and knowledgeable rider. At 5, he had memorized the entire Septa system.
You could call him from any location to find the best route to your next destination.)
It might be useful to remind ourselves of a few things before we have a look at Leo's pass. Septa monthly passes usually promote annual events, non-profits, cultural
and education institutions, museum shows, etc. The implied message: "You can get there on Septa." It has the effect of reinforcing an urban dynamism. By
advertising Temple's Fox School of Business, my March "zone 1" ($84) monthly pass falls a little short of this cosmopolitan ideal.
It costs about a billion dollars to run the system (fares and passes cover two-fifths of the cost), and though Septa has secured increased and more consistent
government support, by necessity it also has more aggressively pursued other sources of income. In this fiscal climate, every dollar counts; and despite the failure
of the "free market," public agencies are still wed to private sector management theories. So Septa chases every revenue source it can, among them, retail rent,
parking rent, advertising, and the sale of scrap metal. All this amounted to almost $30 million in FY 2008. Revenue generated by the sides and backs of buses, the
ceilings of trains, the walls of subway cars, and on weekly and monthly -- and event -- passes counts toward this $30 million (but exactly how much so is not revealed
in the agency's annual budget).
Septa over the years has survived strikes and economic downturns, the unending restructuring and decentralization of the region's economy, and the uncertainty of
public funding. Dedicated funding from the Commonwealth only came last year. But it's seemingly always threatened by the possibility of accident, injury, and the
death of passengers -- there are 2.54 accidents, for example, per 100,000 miles traveled by city buses -- and also by rampant unsupported claims of injury. Interning
in Septa's executive office during the summer of 1989, I remember when a call came in to the woman in the cubicle next to mine: a four-year-old's head had gotten
stuck in a subway turnstile. He was badly hurt -- and I recall how seriously the event was taken, not just as a matter of safeguarding corporate liability but out of
pure human empathy and care. That summer marked the final end of the 1980s real estate boom, and a recession was beginning. To long-time Septa veterans, it meant
that the office would most certainly see an increase in false claims. There was easy money in suing Septa for whiplash.
In FY2008, Septa spent $39.7 million on injuries and damage claims, up from $34 million in FY2007; the agency also spent over $5 million on legal work related to
litigation. (Source.)
So it can only be that a rogue cell operating in Septa's entrepreneurial revenue department substituted the intended, community-supportive monthly pass art with
this:
I will say that "Personal Injury" is only one of many categories of law this firm pursues. Wadud Ahmad and Joseph Zaffarese are both former assistant District
Attorneys, and despite occasional trouble with a bloody homonym -- they've "one
countless cases," for example -- are "winning" lawyers who seem to be active participants in the civic life of the city. There is no reason to believe they are
ambulance chasers employed by an evil group who has infiltrated Septa's business office.
Ads like this do appear on buses and subways -- the 47 this morning announced the legal services of "Your Harvard Lawyer" -- among various offers of products and
services.
But the pass -- that ticket to ride -- symbolizes everything, making this feel profoundly, achingly, hilariously, numbing. The flag propped up yet again to prop up
someone, and pixelated to meaningless oblivion . . . the aggressive stance, the certain claims, the exhaustive pandering. They might have simply sold the ad space to
a car dealership.
This, I guess, is something like a world of infinite jest; the harder you think about it, the sicker you feel.
–Nathaniel Popkin
nathaniel.popkin@gmail.com
For Nathaniel Popkin archives, please see HERE, or visit his web site HERE.
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12 March 09: Is this what Willis was talking about?
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I don't think Sears will ever return again, my friend. If Philadelphia is married to its past, Chicago tends to do pretty well to divorce itself from it. At least
when it comes to demolition and name recognition.
The news out of Chicago today is that the Sears
Tower will soon be renamed the Willis Tower. As a hopeless romantic, this makes me sad. The Sears Tower has been the tallest building in America since it opened in
1973, and it was the tallest building in the world until the Petronas Towers opened in 1996 in Malaysia, and even then Sears' antennae were far taller than both
Petronas and Taipei 101. (The Burj Dubai blew everyone out of the water, though, and it's still under construction.)
But the cold realist in me, like much of Chicago will do after its kneejerk nostalgia, just shrugs. For one, people will probably just keep calling it the Sears Tower
just like they still call US Cellular Field "Comiskey Park" and just like people here still call Martin Luther King Drive "West River Drive". Two Liberty Place's
potential rebranding as the Unisys Tower is a little different since an official renaming was not part of the deal, but a big stupid ugly sign two-thirds up the side
of the building was.
The Willis Group Holdings insurance brokerage, though, does get naming rights as part of their move into 140,000 sq ft of space in the Sears Tower. The Sears Roebuck
company hasn't even occupied the building since 1992, two years before their enormous office and warehouse building on Roosevelt Boulevard here was demolished (and
replaced by the Home Depot complex there now).
If American Commerce Center (whose story broke on this site a year ago tomorrow) lands a major tenant, you can pretty well bank on it that part of the deal is that it
will be named for it. GSK Place? TD Tower? Comcast 2? Guess we'll see.
Sears Tower's name, meanwhile, is getting a makeover, which ultimately will have very little impact. I don't know much about the Willis Group, but I can picture a
press conference similar to the one Lincoln Financial Group held the week the Daily News christened the Eagles' new stadium "The Linc" asking people to call it by its
full name "Lincoln Financial Field". Mmhmm.
What will have a nice little impact, though, is the renovation happening at Sears Tower's Skydeck. The observation deck made famous in Ferris Bueller's Day Off is
getting its own makeover that will feature a new extendable/retractable glass box that hangs four feet out from the side of the building. Much like Toronto's CN
Tower already does, you'll be able to stand on the glass and see 103 storeys straight down.
–B Love
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12 March 09: Three-peat
(With apologies to Pat Riley.)
While Tim 'EskimoLuv' Emgushov's three-peat in the Philly Skyline Chili Cookoff comes as little surprise to those who've been there to bear witness, he definitely had
to earn it last night at the Tritone.
The quantity of competitors dropped from 8 to 6 this year, but the quality of the chili more than made up for it -- the competition as hot as a mouthful of habaneros
and cumin. Of course Eskimo's Handsome Boy Chili
focused less on those and more on meats, this year an unprecedented 10 of them, including two kinds of bacon and several kinds of chorizo he found at Cousins
Supermarket in Olney. Sweet as honey, that Eskimo's meat.
As usual, the votes were tallied by an independent counsel (the team of Greg and Pier handled the honors), and they looked like this:
HONORABLE MENTION (and winner of mention on phillyskyline.com): Bee Love's Tenderloin, a hybrid of Fishtown
store meats and Appalachian
venison tenderloin, and a nod to the memory of Philly's Tenderloin. In the long list of notable Philadelphia demolitions, the Tenderloin may be the only entire
neighborhood there, decimated by the Ben Franklin Bridge, Independence Mall and 676/95. It's described in by Charlene Mires' Independence Hall in American
Memory as "a skid row of taverns, brothels and single-room-occupancy hotels" in 1955 as Independence Mall is under construction.
Also garnering honorable mention are Manayunk's husband and wife team of Todd and Peaches Pascarella, whose Four Bean Piggybutt and
Package Stimulus, respectively, may have canceled each other out in the voting. We haven't heard the last of Peaches, though, as she has big plans for a big
photo essay in the spring thaw.
THIRD PLACE (and winner of an 8x10 Philly Skyline print from the currently defunct South Street Bridge view): The Society Hill
tagteam of Jojy and Brad, It's Always Sunny in Chili. A fine showing, but perhaps Charlie's wild card would put them over the top.
RUNNER-UP (and winner of a gift certificate to DiBruno Bros): Pete Mohan and his Northern Liberties Squirrel Stew. Pete made
no explicit mention of his ingredients, but to come in second behind only the defending champion is a testament to NoLibs' vermin.
CHAMPION (and hoister of the Philly Skyline Chili Chalice): The winner and still champion! The heavyweight crown stays with the
three time champ, Tim Emgushov and his Eskimo's Handsome Boy Chili.
So there we have it, another year, another successful Philly Skyline Chili Cookoff, and another chili championship for the eskimo.
A huge thanks to everyone who came out, a big shout to our independent math counsel of Greg and Pier, and a job well done to Dave, Rick, Rich and Mark at the Tritone
for running the show. And a special thanks to Joe Minardi for taking the photo seen here. Joe's previous efforts on yr Skyline are HERE.
Let's do it again next year.
In many meats,
–B Love
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11 March 09: It's come to this
Howwwwwdy, folks.
Tonight's the night, tonight tonight -- Texas is coming to Tritone. Or perhaps it's Cincinnati, or maybe even East Oak Lane's Eskimoan import. You have to come out to
find out for sure. It's five whole bucks and you get to be the judge of who will hoist this year's Chili Chalice. Three people couldn't stand the heat and have left
the kitchen, so there stands an even half-dozen entrants. Times that by their respective number of meats, and we've got ourselves an infinite meat festival down in
G-Ho.
Because that Philly Skyline Chili Cookoff 2009 is this evening, I'm going to focus my efforts therein today, but in the interests of cutting your worktime
productivity, I offer the following:
• si.com: With the Sixers'
"Spectrum Game" coming up on Friday (they really should have done more of those this year if they truly want to sell tickets), Sports Illustrated rolls out a number
of photos from the Sixers' storied past, including Moses Malone on the Parkway with the circa-'83 skyline in the background (One Logan Square is under construction),
a superfly Dr J, and a shirtless Charles Barkley before it was offensive to see a shirtless Charles Barkley.
• mets.com: As though we needed any more reason to hate the baseball
team owned by Bernie Madoff pal Fred Wilpon, the Mets have finally announced their OUTRAGEOUS ticket prices and sale to their new ballpark, the one they're getting
$20M/year for the next 20 years from the bank you and I have already assisted and which obviously contributed to their signing of Francisco Rodriguez and JJ Putz in
the offseason. Single game tickets to the Mets' new Citi Field go on sale this Sunday, March 15. The Phillies play three series there this season -- Wed-Thur May 6-7,
Tues-Thur June 9-11, and Fri-Mon August 21-24.
• phillycleanup.com: Mayor Nutter rolled out the details on this year's citywide cleanup, to be held
Saturday April 4th. No word on whether the event will have the city issued trash bags we thankfully do not need to use.
• septawatch.org: How to be prepared for the
possible Septa strike this weekend. For once, this web site is gonna go easy on Septa here: I hope it all works out. As noted in an open letter to Septa on Philebrity, the Transit Union Workers
are out of their goddamn mind if they shut down the city's buses, trolleys and subways for not being able to get a 6% raise in this economy. Take one for the
team and your city, you yutzes, people are losing their jobs and their healthcare, and you guys want a raise.
That's all for now. Tonight, chili. Tomorrow . . . THE WORLD. (of pain)
–B Love
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10 March 09: Spontaneous Inspection
Here we are, Day 5 of a 10 day Beer Week, and at this halfway point, things are looking up. Looking up like Philly Skyline, mattafact, looking up like a Philly
Skyline that doubles and dances the more you support the hometown cause -- the cause being our undisputed stake as the country's best beer drinking city.
Brooklyn Brewery's Garrett Oliver is going to be hanging with superstar chef Jose Garces at his flagship Amada this evening, and the Yuengling Bock tour, the grand
rollout of a Yuengling's first new beer in ages, makes a stop at the Cherry Street Tavern this evening. (That beer is also a limited run -- 2,244 barrels -- so get it while you can. I love Yuengling -- they are the bridge between
the beer snob and the frat boy with no tongue . . . everyone can agree on a lager. Or perhaps a new Bock.)
But my money for this evening is on the chocolate & cheese pairing with Sam Adams. Sam Adams, Bostonians though they may be, were along with Dock Street and Yards
pioneers in the renaissance of craft beer in Philadelphia, operating the early-90s brewpub currently occupied by Nodding Head (who also has a handful of beer week
events). Candi. The chocolate and cheese event is at 6, down at Front & Christian, For Pete's Sake.
Candi.
And of course, Septa and its famous Beer Week Day Pass, above right, will get you there. Using that Skyline Inspection success story (Don Russell, pka Joe Sixpack,
even told me the publicity the story generated was great), let's take this moment to see how the Philly Skyline is looking around town . . .
* * *
I have to start here. There's just way too much that's wrong with this picture. Above all else, the fact that I did not document who made this graphic. So on
this round of Skyline Inspections, I'll start myself off with a big fat F for not being able to finger the organization that made this very recent (the time stamp on
the JPG on my hard drive is from February) "live look" at Philly with a "two year old photo" of the skyline. It's right around two years old because the concrete
slip forms on Comcast Center have been removed, which they were in the process of doing two years and two
days ago when I took my open air hardhat tour with Madison Concrete.
My suspicion is that I took this screen grab from myfoxphilly.com, but without evidence, I don't want to conclusively point the finger at them . . . especially since
they have better updated graphics like this one:
You may have also caught the flashy-swirly graphics they've been using to promote their news and weather forecasts that use a mishmash of buildings like the
Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, in addition to Comcast Center, City Hall and the Liberty Places. Mass media representative Fox 29, you've earned a satisfactory
mark.
[myfoxphilly.com.]
* * *
Mass media representative KYW1060, on the other hand . . . I swear I've called them out before, but our AM radio news station has at least three severely outdated
skyline photos in the random-photo-javascript header thingy on its all news, all the time web site. There's this one, from around 2003 when the St James was under construction. And there's this one that looks like a low-res scan of a print photo taken in the 90s from the
Art Museum.
But my favorite, and probably the most Philadelphian of them, is the one above. City Hall's shaft sculptures still have their pre-2005-scrubbing patina,
and the Franklin Plaza hotel that's been a Sheraton since 2006 is not only still a Wyndham, but the 'H' in the sign is burnt out.
So for your 'WYND AM HOTEL'
graphic, KYW, you get an unsatisfactory mark, but a thumbs up for the HA HA graphic. Or should I say A A.
[kyw1060.com.]
* * *
If I have never mentioned Ekta in this space, consider this my all out endorsement. Tiffin Restaurant at 7th & Girard has been riding the wave of Best Indian Food
Ever since it opened a couple years ago, and rightfully so. But somewhere along the way, creative differences convinced chef Raju Bhattarai to do things his own damn
way, so he did. Ekta opened here in Fishtown unbeknownst to me while the wife and I were honeymoonin' up in French Canadia last summer. Using that measurement, I
guess it's been since before last summer that I've been out to Tiffin.
No disrespect to Tiffin, which changed the Indian game in Philly and who, you know, actually has tables and seating (i.e. is a restaurant, not take-out only, as
Ekta more or less is), but man . . . having Ekta right around the corner has been a godsend. The chef from Tiffin, moving his own operations about ten blocks
closer to Philly Skyline headquarters? Yes please!
And as we can see from the graphic at left, Raju and company are equally fans of Philly Skyline. This graphic -- "profile still a work in progress" -- exercises a
fine artistic license in representing Ekta's home at Marlborough & Girard. Between Ekta's wafting curry and the local Obama headquarters from the campaign a few doors
down, pasty Fishtown can barely recognize itself any more. Ekta = Unity indeed. I recommend the mutter paneer (cashew sauce), the murg badami tikka (chicken breast
cooked in eggs and sour cream and served with sauteed onions and red peppers), and don't forget an order of peshawari naan, which may very well be the best bread made
in the city. (Sorry, Amoroso/Carangi/Metropolitan.)
Ekta, your skyline is satisfactory, but your food is as divine as Ganesh.
[ektaindiancuisine.com.]
* * *
Talkin' bout satisfactory artistic license, let's head up North 3rd for Northern Liberties' finest purveyor of glass and mirrors, Cristalvetro. The family owned
business has been around for decades, custom making glass and mirrors like the one seen here. (Vintage Steelers hat sold separately.) The tiled mirror pieces form a
Ben Franklin Bridge and Comcast-friendly skyline as well as a City Hall tower whose girth is matched only by the Ukrainian Cathedral for Really Long Names a couple
blocks over from Cristalvetro.
Here's looking at you -- twice! -- Mirror Guys. That's a satisfactory skyline.
[cristalvetroglass.com.]
* * *
I don't often say this around here, but Philly Mag nailed it in the current issue's budget story. The story itself, a special report collaboration by the
magazine and Philadelphia Forward (whose Brett Mandel is running for city controller in the May primary), offers twelve suggestions to Mayor Nutter on how to trim the city's notorious
fat from the city's notorious budget.
It's also accompanied by a series of fantastic illustrations by Headcase Design, including the
balancing-act-mayor-and-skyline seen at right. (Do we really have 6,000 city-owned vehicles here??? Jesus.) A satisfactory job indeed, Philly Mag (and Headcase).
[phillymag.com.]
* * *
Well well well, look what brown has done for us. BIG UPS to my man Zur from Zur-land for this heads up. The world wide web site of the United Parcel Service is not
only free of that hair-helmet white-board jackass (and that "Such Great Heights" song by the Postal Service . . . I see what they did there), it is also Philly
friendly.
The landing page of the world's largest package delivery company, based in Sandy Springs, Georgia (a typical suburb of Atlanta), has this Roger Clemens looking
delivery man on South Broad Street during the time Calder's Swedes and Indians were getting their scrubbing. It may be an old picture, but it's the sentiment that
counts . . . thanks UPS, Philly truly is the city that loves you back for taking us to the worldwide delivery masses. That's a satisfactory sentiment.
[ups.com.]
* * *
This one here is a shout to South Philly's Josh Richards, who sent along this photo of his messenger bag after the last official round of Skyline Inspections (in
January, not the emergency Septa edition). Says Josh:
I thought to myself, I bet this guy would really dig my bag. I had a friend draw the line for me in 2006 (pre-Comcast) and I had the good folks over at
ReLoad stitch it into my bag. I get more compliments on it than a model at a carshow.
Tell you what Josh, I really do dig that bag. But I think you may want to see if the good folks at ReLoad stitch you in a Comcast Center and Murano, and maybe even a
Ritz since we're going over to City Hall.
Jess kiddin, of course, it's a fine bag, and I bet if ReLoad mass produced (updated) bags, they'd make bundles of cash that would fit right in those bags. That bag is
a satisfactory skyline bag.
[reloadbags.com.]
* * *
When I saw the embroidery on Josh's bag, it made me think of the New Era "City Deep-Skyline" series. This Phillies hat, officially licensed by Major League Baseball,
has a pre-Comcast-and-Murano skyline, which I suppose is acceptable since the series ran in 06-07 or so, and it's one of the less offensive graphic-happy offerings
you'd find at, say, Lids in the Gallery. I'd say they should update it, but as baseball cap fashions go, this is already three years ago, back when the Phillies were
missing the playoffs.
Satisfactory ballcap? Sure, but not as satisfactory as this
one.
[hatland.com.]
* * *
Welp, as is the custom 'round these parts, we're gonna go ahead and send it home with a Philly Skyline Philly Skyline of our own for critiquing. LATER DUDES.
–B Love
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9 March 09: Complex constructs
I noticed the other day that it had been since the first weekend in February that we paid a visit to 10 Rittenhouse Square, the only remaining dedicated Philly Skyline
construction section still going. That building is nearly all cased up in glass, and the steel frame support from the Walnut Street side of the former Rittenhouse Club has been
removed (though the construction fencing still remains).
Except for the last few sets of windows to be installed, the appearance of the exterior is much like it will look come summertime, when the first residents are moving in. While
the back story of the real brick/brick paneling was at the center of this site's hard hat feature last
summer, I can't help but see those precast panels as precast panels, real bricks or not. The way this complex folds around in an L-shape from Walnut to 18th & Sansom and
incorporates the Rittenhouse Club and part of the Alison Building is really interesting, I think, but it tends to look better from farther away. Even from the middle of the
Square, where over the weekend tons of people were enjoying the gift of early spring, you can see the lines between the floors, giving it more a building-by-numbers look than
the latest permanent exhibition in the architecture museum that is the periphery of the city's most beloved Square.
The 10 Rittenhouse construction update section, live since Rindelaub's Row and Y2K+6, is right HERE and is up
to date as of the weekend. The project's official web site is HERE.
* * *
Just around the corner is that other condo project with the same surname but from a far different family. 1706 Rittenhouse Square is up to the 11th floor, a little over
one-third its full height. They've installed the first row of glass, which won't be a true preview of the finished product until the concrete is treated and painted. That
project's official web site is HERE.
* * *
Finally in this brief construction update is this look at 777 South Broad. The city's first LEED certified (to-be) mixed-use building is about halfway there, mass-wise. It's
hard to envision a bunch of plywood as curving corners derived from art deco, but that's what Dranoff's building, designed by JKR Partners, has designed for this otherwise drab
stretch of Broad between South Street and Washington Avenue. More so than Symphony House, 777 has the chance to be the proverbial injection of life so many
developers and architects talk about.
That project's official web site is HERE.
* * *
Last call for chili cookoff entries -- hit me up by tomorrow morning if you're interested by clicking the graphic below. Even if you're not cooking, be sure to stop by. It's a
paltry five bucks -- you'll get more chili than you can eat (and you can vote on who's best) for less than some places even charge for a single beer. It's this Wednesday, two
nights from now, at Tritone down in the Ho.
–B Love
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6 March 09: Th-th-th . . . this is a journey into sound
I got so much trouble on my mind . . . REFUSE to LOSE.
This week, while I was out practicing for Beer Week, contemplating snowdrifts, and wishing I was in Florida (which is honest to god the first time I've ever uttered such
nonsense . . . for some reason, the winter here has dragged on longer than even a winter lover like myself has cared to endure, to such a point I actually wanted to go to
Florida . . . I mean, I didn't choose that the Phillies train there, but you can't front on 76 and sunny on a Saturday afternoon in late February/early March), Penn caught the
ear of local media outlets with a press release about Penn Park, which will replace the concrete mess in the foreground of this photo by 2011.
While Penn Park isn't particularly news to anyone who reads this site or Plan Philly or has been following Penn Connects, the press push this week did come with a new model and rendering by architect Michael Van
Valkenburgh that brings some details to the concept. Check it out all tiny below, or bigger and more legible in Adine Mitrani's story for the Daily Pennsylvanian HERE.
While credit is due to Penn for acquiring the land and creating open 'public' space, this initial official rollout doesn't exactly drop any jaws. Grass is better than parking,
obviously. Using native trees and low maintenance grass sensitive to being in the Schuylkill's flood plain, excellent.
But this $40M park looks interim. And that it's largely for athletic use smacks of an irony that's a little difficult to digest, considering ten years ago Penn put up enough of a
fuss that Daniel Keating's Phillies ballpark proposal for the same site was never seriously considered, with unrealistic efforts by Mayor Street focused on Chinatown and the
Phillies themselves never really venturing outside of the stadium complex. (I was unrelatedly putzing around on the Wayback Machine the other day and came across Inga Saffron's
column about the Citizens Bank Park announcement from July 1, 2001 HERE.)
The past is the past, and Citizens Bank Park is a fine ballpark and all, but the What Ifs are hard to ignore when Pittsburgh, whose baseball team will set an MLB record this
year with its 16th consecutive losing season, essentially has the ballpark Philly would have here. Yeah yeah, traffic concerns. It's always traffic concerns. Never mind
that 30th Street Station, home to Amtrak, New Jersey Transit, and every single rail and trolley line in Septa's system (except the BSL & the 15, I guess) is two blocks
away, or that the site is within walking distance to pretty much all of Center City.
Clearly there is a difference between 45,000 people 81 nights a year (closer to 90 for the WFCs) and a few dozen coeds occasionally playing tennis and soccer. Still, imagining a
Philly Skyline rising directly above right-center rather than three and a half miles in the distance and obscured by a Theme Tower is just something you're going to have to get over, Bee Love.
It's 2009, not 1999, so here then is Penn Park. Right on. A riverfront park that's blocked from the river by four-trains-wide railroad tracks, four lanes of interstate traffic
and two acceleration ramps feeding them. Penn president Amy Gutmann describes Penn Park in Vernon Clark's Inquirer article HERE as "further link[ing] University City and Center
City." What will really further link University City and Center City is the pedestrian bridge at Locust Street, connecting Penn Park with the east bank's Schuylkill River Park.
The rumor mill of the past couple years has found that bridge at the far end of the 30 year master plan, alas, and it's painfully easy to remember that Penn kicked in nada to
that other further link to UC and CC, South Street Bridge.
Anyway. Just a few sticks in the mud in what is otherwise, rightfully, good news. That this hideous longtime parking lot will be a park in two years, on the front end of that
master plan, is actually great news. May it serve as the catalyst for growth Penn expects it to be.
I wonder if the softball park will have a large, tall mesh along the Amtrak
lines like Widener's baseball field has along I-95 in Chester. I also wonder how long it will be before Penn Park starts chipping off smaller parcels for new buildings like
Hill Field has seen. (There's room for it, I'm just wondering aloud.)
Drexel Park and Penn Park, the city's two newest parks to come about. No word yet on when additional cleverly named parks like Temple Park, La Salle Park and St Joe's Park will
come about, nor if a PU-built Philadelphia Park will feature horse racing and slots machines.
(Image of Penn Park model from Penn
Connects.)
* * *
Natalie Kostelni reported in the PBJ print edition that the Waldorf-Astoria
formerly known as 1441 Chestnut is apparently moving forward. Tim Mahoney and his Mariner Commercial are opening their sales office for the 58 story, 670' hotel-condo tower in
the space last occupied by the Sharper Image. (Tim, if you're reading this, my warranty on a pair of SRS-WOW headphones I bought there is still good -- can I trade them in for
an upgrade?)
Speaking explicitly on the economy, he said he's marketing the building for "a 2012 and 2013 market." A new web site at waldorfphiladelphia.com has gone live and features a handful of new renderings by architects Cope Linder like the one seen at right.
(Image of Waldorf-Astoria rendering from waldorfphiladelphia.com.)
* * *
Just a subtle reminder here: PHILLY BEER WEEK BEGINS THIS EVENING! Mayor Nutter will be at Comcast Center to swing the Hammer of Glory and ceremoniously get things going with
the opening tap. Unfortunately, Carlos Ruiz is representing his native Panama in the World Baseball Classic and will not be on hand to dump another can of WFC beer on hizzoner's
head.
But you can! In fact with recent news suggesting that Philadelphians' trash collection will incur either a $5 weekly charge or a requirement to use city-issued trash
bags, and the inevitable raise of some city tax (looks like it's leaning toward sales or property), you just may want to.
Philly Beer Week runs from today till next Sunday -- it's the best ten day week of every year.
(Image of Chooch-Nutter beer love is a screencap from the WFC locker room celebration from NBC10, posted by Big League Stew to Vimeo.)
* * *
Of course, to get to all of the great Beer Week events, you'll need to buy one of Septa's Beer Week Day Passes. Which, naturally, have disappeared from Septa's web site just in time for you to use them. If you make it to a sales window,
be sure to collect all three versions.
Speaking of the Septa Day Pass, Septa Watch passed along word from a
reliable source that Septa is planning on soon rolling out an all-new $10 Day Pass that will be good on all modes of Septa transportation, including regional rail, and a
similar family pass, $25 for five people for the day.
These are significantly better than the "convenience pass" Septa offers now that is not very convenient at all, especially for those of us who had used their previous Day
Passes. A pass valid for a full day is good for tourists, good for people who don't use Septa enough to buy a weekly or monthly pass, and good for people who like a good
day-long challenge of exploring the whole region without driving.
If this Day Pass rumor turns out to be true, Philly Skyline will host a photography steeplechase, so to speak, with a set starting point and end point, and everywhere you go in
between will be entirely up to you. At the end of the big day, we'll take all our best photos and put em into a big feature here on the site, and if some gallery wishes to host
us, we can even throw a big party with our stuff hanging on the wall. How cool would that be?
Go 'head Septa, let's make it happen.
* * *
A minor bit of Skyline business with a major bit of props go out to Daily News photographer David Maialetti and AP photographer Matt Rourke for their photos of the Harlem
Globetrotters publicity stunt on the roof of the Spectrum yesterday. On the front page of today's Inquirer is a certainly unique photo with the clown princes of basketball and
the skyline in the background. Rourke HERE, Maialetti HERE. Pretty great stuff.
* * *
Speaking of the Spectrum, if you're like me and are as irked by its unnecessary forthcoming demolition as you are by not only the Eagles' sorry-assed attempt to re-sign Brian
Dawkins, but Joe Banner's nerve to blame it on Dawk, then is there ever a happy hour for you. On Monday the 16th, the day after Beer Week's closing ceremony, you have until 5 to
shake off the hangover, because there's a historic preservation happy hour planned at the studio lounge at the Loews.
Reading Terminal Market general manager Paul Steinke, who wrote the nomination for the state historical market at the Loews' home PSFS Building, will speak briefly on the
history of the building. The happy hour is sponsored by the Young Friends of the Preservation Alliance and is open to the public, essentially anyone interested in historic
preservation. There's no guarantee that the Spectrum will be among the historic preservation topics, but I think it should be.
Greg has the details at Urban Direction.
* * *
Welp, I think that'll do 'er for this thin week on yr Skyline. The office is almost in order, and that's the first step into the future. It's gonna get up into the 60s this
weekend, so pack your shades on your way to Beer Week. We'll leave with another look at what will soon be Penn Park, which we got a sneak peak of a month ago. Have fun out there
and be safe.
–B Love
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5 March 09: St Adalbert, the follow-up
A super huge thank you goes out to Trudy at St Adalbert Church in Port Richmond for her exhaustive research. You might remember from the February Calendar Companion post
(2 February 09: Church Alley Skyline) that we were left without an architect for this biggest and most visible of the big
three churches of Allegheny Avenue. Well, Trudy went hard to work and reported back today that the architect is . . . Louis H Giele!
A funny thing happened on the way to finding out more info about Giele in his entry at PAB. Turns out St Adalbert is listed to his credit there, but I didn't catch it before because there are two entries for St Adalbert. Tighten up, PAB!
Looks like Giele designed a good number of Catholic churches, including this enormous Polish beauty in Port Richmond. He also designed St John Cantius in Bridesburg and St
Charles Borromeo in Brooklyn. Philly's St Charles Borromeo Church, at 20th & Christian in G-Ho, was designed by Edwin Forrest Durang, the architect behind the Nativity BVM
Church, one of the other two on Church Alley in Port Richmond.
How about that!
NAME: SAINT ADALBERT CHURCH.
ALLEGHENY AND: THOMPSON.
FOUNDED: 1885.
OPENED: 1898.
ARCHITECT: LOUIS H GIELE.
The Philly Church Project has more info on St Adalbert Church HERE. The church's official web site is
HERE.
Thanks Trudy!
–B Love
PS: Speaking of calendars, a second huge thank you goes out to everyone who's purchased calendars at the clearance sale price (after passing up two months at standard retail
price . . . I kid because I love!). Due to the rush, I ran out of envelopes but am now restocked, so if you haven't received yours in the past few days, you'll receive it in the
next few days. If you haven't bought one and would like one, click right 'ere:
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5 March 09: Calling all cooks, calling all drinkers
Chili cooks and beer drinkers, that is. Man, I'm a cot dang moe-ron -- in my first announcement about the Philly Skyline Chili Cookoff 2009 last week, addressing the name change
from Chili Skyline Cookoff to Philly Skyline Chili Cookoff, I left the all caps invitation/entry form in the 2008 format. I've fixed this and would like to use the opportunity
to again extend the invitation.
We're still taking entries, so if you've got that chili specialty, a killer recipe, a little beef or chicken or turkey or venison or pork or
bacon or boar or emu or any old meat of your liking, please -- put it to the test.
The Philly Skyline Chili Cookoff 2009 is next Wednesday, March 11, at one of Philly Skyline's old G-Ho favorites, Tritone, and it's a whole lot of food, folks and fun.
TO ENTER THE PHILLY SKYLINE CHILI COOKOFF, 2009, PLEASE CLICK
HERE.
* * *
As it turns out, our event is right smack in the middle of Philly Beer Week (but is not an official Beer Week participant, support the cause though we certainly do).
The second annual Philly Beer Week kicks off tomorrow at a place readers of this site know a thing or two about, Comcast Center. Craig LaBan's preview is in today's Inquirer, and Joe Sixpack has appropriately been a shining star, his Daily
News preview HERE and his blog
HERE. (Check out that Hammer of Glory!) Foobooz has been on top of every Beer Week
story HERE, and the latest Weekly has a great History of Beer in Philadelphia story by DMac, which the Weekly was kind enough to hold onto and publish as
the cover story after they canned him. Here's hoping he holds onto philadelphiawilldo.com and brings it back anew.
Mayor Nutter will again be swinging the Hammer of Glory to ceremoniously kick off Beer Week. The Opening Tap event is going to be insane -- look at the list of participating
breweries HERE -- Yards, PBC, Dock Street, Manayunk and Earth Bread & Brewery will all have their beer
from across town, and tons of other regional favorites (Dogfish, Tröegs, Sly Fox, Victory, Flying Fish, and the best brewery out there as far as I'm concerned, Stoudt's)
will all be there. That's tomorrow night at 7 in the lobby of Comcast Center. I wonder if they've put together a video homage to beer for the big screen. Tickets are $40, and
you can buy em HERE.
Some other highlights to look forward to . . .
• Johnny Brenda's is hosting a stout brunch on Saturday, for which there will be ten different stouts on draught, an Irish breakfast menu and special oysters for
the event.
• Later that night, Doobies is hosting Nator Night (as opposed to Nader Night, which I think I went to there in 2000, only to leave with an eight year hangover),
with specials on the Troeganator and Doobies' signature burganator -- a burger with bacon, pepper jack, mushrooms, onions & BBQ sauce.
• Tuesday the 10th out in the suburbs, former Phillies announcer and current Anchor Brewery man Andy Musser will be hosting a night of beer specially brewed by the popular San Francisco outfit at Brother Paul's in Eagleville.
• Friday the 13th is gonna be off the hook, with Grey Lodge's registered trademark Friday the
Firkinteenth, where Scoats and his crew are planning on 30 firkins for the event, which begins at 9am. Later that morning, Yards is hosting the much-anticipated-by-me Smoke
Em If You Got Em event with smoked beer, smoked meats, and smoked cigars. And that's just the morning -- your whole Friday is still ahead of you!
All told, it's going to crazy -- and crazy good. There are 670 events, and if that doesn't make Philly the best beer city in the nation, I'd like to see someone convince
me who's better. (Go ahead Portland, try.) Lots of local and non-local brewers to meet (Yards, Rogue, Long Trail), lots of beer writers to meet (Lew Bryson, Don Russell), and
lots of places to meet em. Every great bar in the city is participating -- Sidecar, Good Dog, Memphis Taproom, Standard Tap, JB's, Prohibition, Devil's Alley, Devil's Den, Local
44, Doobies, POPE, Grey Lodge, the breweries and brewpubs themselves (Yards, PBC, Dock Street, Manayunk, Earth), and even a bunch in the suburbs.
Philly Beer Week. Yeah man. Get your Septa Beer Week Day Pass and meet me there.
–B Love
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4 March 09: New York interlude
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Hey there good buddy. Philly Skyline is taking today off. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
In its place today, let us take a short ride on Acela, or a longer ride on Septa/NJT, or maybe roll the dice and either drive the Turnpike or Bolt Bus/Chinatown Bus the
Turnpike. For this latest installment of Zoomification, we're heading to New York City circa three years ago. By and by, my interest in New York has dissipated, but there was a
time that its proximity was a huge part of why I was even in Philly. Three-day, five-borough weekends were regular photography adventures, ones that brought me the closest I've
been to assault or worse from a drug dealer (and this was in Manhattan, no less), an unintentional stumbling upon Miles Davis' grave, and a Backburner Big Idea to do a whole
other web site with just my NYC photos. It got as far as registering the domain nyc5boros.com and putting a holding page up . . . I may come back to this one of these days, but
it's already live on this panorama, stitched together from around 15 photos taken at the dock of the Staten Island Ferry.
–B Love
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3 March 09: Snowy Skyline
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One more in the snow before the wind blows it away or the sun melts it by day. Wear your sunglasses out there.
While taking this photo, I wished that I had a ski mask and goggles on . . . who knew it's so windy down by the river? Also while taking that photo, there was a city-issued
van doing donuts on Beach Street at Cumberland, the stretch where it looks like the Fast and the Furious on summer Sundays. (It looked like fun.) There were also some local
teenagers taking their snow day down by the river with a case of some awful wine cooler. Who can blame them? Think they packed out what they packed in?
I wonder where a place's history stops and starts. That Cramp Building with the snow blowing off it in the right side of the background there is gonna be gone when PennDOT
comes through with its new Girard Ave Interchange on 95. Does anyone care?
Probably a little, but not enough to stand up for it, à la the Spectrum/Shirt Corner/Odd
Fellows/St George's/Adams Mark/Liberty Bell Pavilion. Progress . . . is the same expressway, rebuilt.
I wonder what it was like the day the last ship rolled out, or the day the padlocks went up. I wonder what it's gonna look like in 5-10-20-50 years.
–B Love
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2 March 09: Vignette volleyball 4
Piers for my ore and Jameson for my piers, that's where we are in the fourth serve-and-volley from Philly to Clearwater. It's a hell of a place to be, and one in which
we can all get together and get on down with a splash of brown.
BOTTOMS UP.
–B Love
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2 March 09: Vignette volleyball 3
In which we find . . . a fort? That tree's personal fortress? A landscape architect's own private mission on Anderson-land in Port Richmond/Fishtown/Kensington? Is
it post-industrial magic? Is it a customized farewell from Philly homerun wall for Pat the Bat?
Swing for the fences, Pat!
–B Love
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2 March 09: Vignette volleyball 2
9.3"??? I don't know that I buy that. Maybe
in the snow drifts, but out back on the patio and up on the deck, there might be five inches.
Up there on the Delaware, there were patches of dusted grass lying low next to a foot and a half's worth of drift. This frozen field above the PECO Delaware Substation
had drifts aplenty.
Down in Clearwater, it was all love for Pat, who by
the way will be honored with a pregame tribute in the Friday April 3rd 'On Deck' game with the Rays at Citizens Bank Park, the first there this year. The regular season
opener (which is also MLB's official opener) is that Sunday, the national game on ESPN.
–B Love
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2 March 09: Vignette volleyball
It is the Second Day of March in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Nine. We had yet another Storm of the Century warning come and go, and if the end of the storm out
there right now this second (at 2:40pm) is any indication, it . . . ehh, it was all right. Not the 14" we could have gotten, and way too windy to really enjoy
it. But I'll take it, since it's March and it'll be warm enough to make us forget it even happened before you know it.
Anyhow, with this probably being the last Snow Day of winter 08-09 (never know, we might get a foot-deep overnighter before it's all said and done), I hereby decree
that the rest of this day shall be a photo volley -- Winter on the Delaware vs Winter on the Gulf of Mexico, snowy, 23° and windy as hell vs sunny, 76° and
windy as hell, PR F'n K vs W F'n C (Port Richmond Fishtown Kensington vs World Series Champion). Snow photos by myself, taken this morning along the Delaware
Riverfront, sun photos by Jimbo Dietrich, taken Saturday afternoon in Clearwater, Florida at the first rematch of the World Series and Pat Burrell's first trip to
Phillies spring training in a different uniform.
Additional photos to follow.
–B Love
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2 March 09: Calendar Companion:
A vintage port
Happy March, people. This month's turn of the calendar takes us down to a South Philly place so many of us fly over on the final approach to the Airport (January's
calendar subject) or zip past overhead on the Walt Whitman Bridge or down I-95 with little a thought, but there it is with hundreds of ships, thousands of employees
and millions of dollars in commerce.
The Packer Avenue Marine Terminal is the Port of Philadelphia's figurehead. The Philadelphia Regional Port Authority (PRPA), the independent agency of the state that
oversees regional maritime trade, has its corporate offices in a nondescript building in Port Richmond near the Tioga Terminal and operates several other piers and
transfer stations, but make no mistake, Packer Ave is its powerhouse, the largest facility in its jurisdiction.
Philadelphia has always been a port city. The earliest growth of the city came as a result of the port, close enough to the ocean for international trade but far
enough inland for access to fertile farmlands. From the colonial days to the industrial revolution, there was no singular port, but rather several disparate private
entities operating piers and anchorages of different sizes all along the riverfront. The city's Department of Wharves, Docks, and Ferries was created in 1907 to manage
and regulate the collective riverfront. That evolved into the Port Division of the Department of Commerce in 1951, and in 1965 the more powerful, quasi-public
Philadelphia Port Corporation (PPC). That agency built the Packer Avenue and Tioga Marine Terminals in the early 1970s. The subsequent growth ultimately proved too
much for the city to handle and assistance was requested from the state. As a result, the state's PRPA was created in 1990 and immediately replaced the
city's PPC.
The state very much keeps an active role in the port, most visibly Governor Ed Rendell's years-long lobbying for channel deepening. (And for what it's worth, his
former chief of staff John Estey is the current Chairman of PRPA.) The deepening of the channel would take it from its current depth of 40' to 45', and that extra five
feet could allow for much larger vessels to navigate the Delaware. It would also be, as you might recall from a June 2007 Popkin-Maule essay, a primary impetus to begin construction on SouthPort, the 87 acre southward
expansion of the Packer Ave Marine Terminal.
The deepening is an enormously expensive and controversial undertaking. At a cost of $379 million, 26 million cubic yards would need to be dredged from the floor of the estuary, 102 miles' worth from Camden's Beckett Street
Terminal to the mouth of the Delaware Bay between Cape May and Cape Henlopen. The last time the channel was deepened was in 1942; perhaps not unrelatedly, the
Delaware's pollution peaked in the 1940s.
The environmental impact cannot be understated, considering the disruption scraping five feet off the riverbed will have on those who make it their habitat, and the
fact that those millions of cubic yards will need to go somewhere. Some of it is scheduled to go into filling in gaps between piers to create SouthPort; some of the
sand from the Bay will go to reclaiming eroded Jersey beaches. The leading argument for the deepening is the most obvious, especially now: jobs. The deepening itself
is a five year job, and if SouthPort happens because of it, well over a thousand high paying jobs will go online.
Packer Ave is the largest and busiest single port facility in the Philadelphia area. Paper products from Scandinavia, meats and produce from South America, and tons
and tons of containers pass through daily. As well as, since 2003, military cargoes. The facility is one of 14 designated by the Department of Defense as a Strategic
Military Seaport.
If SouthPort happens, Packer Ave's physical space will nearly double and the volume it handles could triple. For now, its seven existing cranes along the Delaware
Riverfront just below the Walt Whitman Bridge may be a sign of things to come.
* * *
NOTES & SOURCES:
• Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, Packer Avenue Marine Terminal
• Philadelphia Regional Port Authority, Dredging News
• PA Dept of Environmental Protection, "Governor Rendell Says
Delaware River Channel Deepening Project is a Milestone for Maritime Commerce"
• Philly Skyline: Packer Avenue Marine Terminal, 6 June 07, text by Popkin, photos by
Maule
–B Love
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