As 2004 wound to a close, the secret that Liberty Property Trust was trying to land Comcast as a lead tenant for its One Pennsylvania Plaza project at 17th & JFK was such a bad secret that not only did the Center City Building Owners Association line up against Liberty, claiming it was trying to bilk the state out of taxpayer money for Keystone Opportunity Zone designation, but also against Comcast, going as far as making a web site keepphillycompetitive.com (which linked to a Comcast watchdog site). The rest of the state seemingly had the association's back.

In November of that year I attended the Eagles game in Pittsburgh, where the Steelers had the previous week defeated the New England Patriots, leaving the Eagles the only undefeated team in the NFL. While rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers to a 27-3 defeat of the Eagles, a small-engine plane circled Heinz Field and the tailgaiting parking lots with a sign that said "TAX BREAKS FOR ALL PENNSYLVANIANS, NOT JUST COMCAST." It was present because die-hard Eagles fan Governor Rendell was of course at the game.

In the end -- or the beginning, I should say -- a KOZ designation was not awarded. Instead, in January 2005, Liberty announced that it had in fact landed a lead tenant named Comcast, and Governor Rendell managed to pull off a $45M state grant to kickstart the project, which I've always said is a fair compromise considering the public works aspect of the project.

Two months later, in March 2005, Liberty and Robert A.M. Stern held an opening ceremony on site at what had become a very deep pit. Liberty's reps, Mayor Street and Bob Stern himself spoke about what this new building could and would represent to the city, and that Liberty and Comcast marched to the beat of a different drum. They commemorated this concept with three different drum troops and a souvenir pair of drumsticks enscribed with "Comcast Center". There was a six foot ice sculpture of the newly reconfigured tower, and the beef tartar was simply out of sight.

Fast forward over two years, nearly a thousand feet, and two thousand Philly Skyline photos later and we're at the top, the very top. On Monday, June 18th 2007, Liberty and Comcast marked the topping off ceremony of its tower with a ceremonial beam with the traditional evergreen tree and American flag. This beam was different and represented more. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts honored his father Ralph (who founded Comcast 45 years ago) and paid respect to the late Willard Rouse, Liberty's founder, by recognizing that tomorrow, June 19th, would have been his 65th birthday and that he would rather kick off a major project than retire. More to point, though, this beam had a certain . . . figurine, if you will.

Comcast took it upon themselves to rectify what Rouse and Liberty may have offset twenty years ago, the so called Curse Of Billy Penn. Recognizing that no Philly sports team has won a championship since Liberty's One Liberty Place opened in 1987, Roberts announced that they would include a sculpture of William Penn on the beam to be placed at the highest point in the city.

Here are 30 photos from the topping off ceremony.