PHILADELPHIA | The Development Thread VIII

[UrbaniDesDev]

I was reading about the Federal Mall North of Chestnut. I see it is being called "Independence Mall State Park"
What was there before that lawn was put in?
I was there last year. It seemed rather pointless. It was a hot stifling day and no shade in site. There doesnt even seem to have any shade trees for the future. It took me a while to figure out what the hell it was. Now that it is there, I suppose it could be transformed into a nice public space, but right now it is n empty lot with grass. It doesnt engage the street or pedestrians. It is an area avoided. It doesnt even showcase Independence Hall, which a real feat considering Independance Hall faces this "Mall". A mish mash of kiosks info booths and bewildered tourists.
Any pics of what was removed. It is like the Mall in DC without the points of interest

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by UrbaniDesDev

Any pics of what was removed. It is like the Mall in DC without the points of interest

http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5417/gonem.jpg

http://www.phillyarchaeology.org/more/nativeamerican/images/slide19.jpg

http://press.visitphilly.com/uploads/photos/1251_l.jpg

http://press.visitphilly.com/uploads/photos/1250_l.jpg

http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/images/presidenthouse3.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/ProvidentAddition.jpg

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/jcaskey1/PHLX/drexel-1.jpg


Dock Street demo:

http://www.phillyhistory.org/PhotoArchive/MediaStream.ashx?mediaId=10573

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b196/bruab/Then%20and%20Now/c5c5bc1e.jpg

http://www.phillyseaport.org/web_exhibit...stitute/images/SCI_building_2-500pxh.jpg
http://www.phillyseaport.org/web_exhibit..._building_Crows-nest_june1925-250pxw.jpg

[teeheee]

Wow, Cro.

That is a goddamn shame. Look at that beautiful building directly across the street north of Independence Hall.

[Johnland]

Originally Posted by teeheee

Wow, Cro.

That is a goddamn shame. Look at that beautiful building directly across the street north of Independence Hall.

Yes. It's actually painful to see these photos of what was torn down.

[volguus zildrohar]

The creation of INHS was a crime. The 50's and 60's of course saw the destruction of wondeful commercial districts all over the country. The sad part is that, in Philadelphia's case, those mistakes are rarely corrected if there ever recognized at all.

[apetrella802]

all buildings ( except for the most historically significant) need to earn their keep, i.e., they need to be economicaly viable. Even the PSFS building needed to find a new use after it became obsolete as an office bulding. It had 8500 sq ft floor plates will small offices off a central corridor. Offices by the 70/80s required 25,000 sq ft of column free space filled with cubicles for knowledge works. As a bank PSFS was built when you had tellers on the banking floor and managers in offices off a narrow corridor(back office operations might be in a different building). Not usable for office space by the 1980s but very good configuration for a hotel where the offices off the narrow corridor could become hotel rooms.

In 1947-1955 most of the businesses in these buildings that were slated for demolition were marginal at best with little or no prospects for finding new businesses to use and maintain them. Of course there was also the desire to save only historically significant 18th c. buildings. Today we wouldn't be so cavelliere about wisking away all the 19th c. buildings that we look upon as architecturely interesting if not so significant.

The mall was, as it turned out,a place to no where but in the mind of Ed Bacon(a city planned not an architect) the mall fit a model of urban space like a Roman piazza from the 17th c.( see The Design of Cities by Bacon) This sounds absurd to us since as I said everyone eventually recognized that it needed to lead somewhere to a destination like the Constitution Center which it does today. Great public plazas in Rome are all surrounded by monumental architecture and full of urban destinations.

So today after 50 years the Mall is a destination with the Constitution Center filling one end of an axis that ends with Independance Hall. But like most people I regret the wholesale demolition of blocks of 19c buildings.

[giovanni sasso]

Originally Posted by apetrella802

all buildings ( except for the most historically significant) need to earn their keep, i.e., they need to be economicaly viable.

you make some good points art, but there were definitely some historically significant (if not solely architecturally significant) buildings that were demolished - and there were plenty of people who did NOT want them torn down. pardon my rustiness - i've been gone eight months now - but if i recall correctly, the original penn mutual building was the first steel framed building in philadelphia, and one could make an argument that the jayne building (penn mu's neighbor) was the first skyscraper in the country. not in the sense we've come to accept, but it was a very tall building (eight stories above ground and two below) in a very short, historic neighborhood, and it even had an observation tower on the roof before it burned.

i agree with the sentiments here that independence mall is an embarrassment, more so every time i see these old pictures. ed bacon had a lot of great ideas (society hill in particular, and even penn center was a noble thought), but the mall was not among them.

hello hello to you kindly folks wondering about my status. i'm still alive out here in the pacific northwest, watching the phillies on mlb.tv, drinking fresh coffee and climbing trees. hope the summer's treating you nicely.

especially you, capsule f!

[Pennsgrant]

We're going to miss Fast Eddie in Harrisburg

PhillyDeals: Taxpayers fund Pa. building amid the slump
By Joseph N. DiStefano-philadelphia Inquirer

Much of the scant construction in Pennsylvania in the near future will be funded by taxpayers, including the projects crammed into the $1.6 billion "Public Improvement Projects, Transportation Assistance Projects and Redevelopment Assistance Capital Projects" signed by Gov. Rendell last week.
My colleague Suzette Parmley has written about the $10 million offered developer Robert Ambrosi for his conversion of the former Pincus Bros. clothing factory in Old City into a hotel, apartments, and stores.

Our Harrisburg staff detailed the state's plans to immortalize the political papers of lame-duck Sen. Arlen Specter and the late Pentagon contract specialist Rep. John Murtha.

There are a lot more like those packed into House Bill 2289. City projects include:

$20 million for the proposed American Revolution Center in Center City, plus $5 million for the Independence Visitor Center.

$15 million for "redevelopment" at the former Tasty Baking Co. at Fox and Roberts Streets bordering Nicetown and East Falls.

$10 million for projects, including the Specter library, at Philadelphia University in East Falls.

$10 million for a "research/education facility" at Drexel University.

$5 million for "mixed-use development" in South Philly's Grays Ferry section.

$5 million for Norris Square Civic Association's redevelopment project in North Philly.

$5 million for Aspira Inc., which has a long track record recruiting and supporting Latino students for college, to "develop" the former Cardinal Dougherty High School in Olney.

$3 million "for a new Community Legal Services building" to house antipoverty lawyers.

$750,000 for "campus expansion" at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine on City Avenue

[Cro Burnham]

WELCOME BACK SASSO! We miss you.

The "Mall" north of Market is a complete disaster and waste, although I believe Bacon was far more successful with the gardens that extend east from Independence Hall and integrate well with Society Hill. Unfortunately, there were several beautiful old victorian, neoclassical, and art-deco highrises (below) that might have been incorporated into the garden network rather than demolished under a more sensitively thought out scheme. It really is sickening to see what was.

Far worse, on a par with the Mall, is the "renewal" of Dock Street. In a city whose relentless right-angled streets and rectilinear buildings, I once read, nearly drove Charles Dickens to madness with boredom, preservation of that 3-block serpentine streetwall of 5 and 6 story buildings would have been incredible (consider Chelsea south of 14th Street in Manhattan or Boston's Northend). The bland suburban campus setting that is there now . . . oooh, it hurts!!! At least the Sheraton could have been designed with a few oblique and acute angles to honor the original street wall and add some curiosity to the street.

In general, in the post-war era, architects in Philadelphia seem to fear anything other than the 90 degree angle when the shape of the parcel might permit otherwise - even the new Barnes design fails to take advantage of the parallelogram shape of its site. Only Erdy McHenry, for all their flaws, seems to understand this.

In Boston, DC, and to a lesser extent New York, architects seem to be fully capable of exploiting the aesthetic advantages of unusually shaped parcels. Not here, where we remain oppressed by the rectilinear red brick faux colonial aesthetic.






http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5417/gonem.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/ProvidentAddition.jpg

http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/jcaskey1/PHLX/drexel-1.jpg

http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b196/bruab/Then%20and%20Now/c5c5bc1e.jpg

[Cro Burnham]

BTW, does anyone know what the tall art deco building on the north side of 4th & Walnut was (upper left corner in this photo)?

Now, its basically just a #9 Bus stop and a lawn.


http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5417/gonem.jpg

[clubbster]

Originally Posted by Cro Burnham

BTW, does anyone know what the tall art deco building on the north side of 4th & Walnut was (upper left corner in this photo)?

Now, its basically just a #9 Bus stop and a lawn.

That was the Irvin Building, which was demolished in 1974.





Source: PhillyHistory

[Busy Bee]

What a tragedy. Thank you Edward Bacon.

[Cro Burnham]

Originally Posted by clubbster

That was the Irvin Building, which was demolished in 1974.

Terrific photo - must have been after they'd already dismantled the top nine floors. I can pretend it's still there every time I wait for a bus at that corner.

[bryson662001]

Has anyone of you been to Atlantic City recently? I don't go anymore, haven't been in about three years. My brother and his girlfriend just spent the weekend there. He hasn't been in a year but used to hang out there and knows it well. They were there from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. They report that the beach had a good crowd (it's one of the few that is free) but everything else is deserted. The hotels, casinos, stores, resturants and even the boardwalk were totally empty of people. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

[Represent]

Originally Posted by giovanni sasso

you make some good points art, but there were definitely some historically significant (if not solely architecturally significant) buildings that were demolished - and there were plenty of people who did NOT want them torn down. pardon my rustiness - i've been gone eight months now - but if i recall correctly, the original penn mutual building was the first steel framed building in philadelphia, and one could make an argument that the jayne building (penn mu's neighbor) was the first skyscraper in the country. not in the sense we've come to accept, but it was a very tall building (eight stories above ground and two below) in a very short, historic neighborhood, and it even had an observation tower on the roof before it burned.

i agree with the sentiments here that independence mall is an embarrassment, more so every time i see these old pictures. ed bacon had a lot of great ideas (society hill in particular, and even penn center was a noble thought), but the mall was not among them.

hello hello to you kindly folks wondering about my status. i'm still alive out here in the pacific northwest, watching the phillies on mlb.tv, drinking fresh coffee and climbing trees. hope the summer's treating you nicely.

especially you, capsule f!

Good to hear from you again Sasso!

[Aaamazarite]

Originally Posted by clubbster

That was the Irvin Building, which was demolished in 1974.

Jeeeez, what a shameful loss for the city. I was just thinking about this building the other day and looking for a good picture of it.

I talked to my wife's great uncle recently who had gone on a business trip to philly and stayed at a fleabag motel in society hill (!) in about 1950-55. He talked about how old office buildings were being squatted in to the point where you could just walk in, go up some stairs, and find yourself in a room where all the furniture had been removed and a bench lining the entire perimeter had been installed. 50-60 people would be there, doing various drugs. This was in old city, in the very buildings we're lamenting being destroyed... I'm thinking the buildings were empty because they were awaiting demo for the INHP.

I hate the INHP too but one also has to consider that some of these buildings were without modern electrical systems and plumbing. I'm a big fan of the Jayne Building but there's no way it would be viable today unless it was completely gutted and rebuilt from the inside, which just makes it a facsimile of its former self.



I just found a great website that has some pics of philly from the 50's and 60's from postcards: http://www.cardcow.com/c/35920/pennsylvania-philadelphia/ some don't have a year marked so it's fun to try and figure out what year its from.

What year do you think this one is from? BFB is still grey, everything's still coal-stained, no gallery, INHP land partially cleared.

[DIESELPOLO]

Hey Sasso! Glad to hear from you man!

[hammersklavier]

I recently heard something on Philadelphiaspeaks.com about the so-called "Kid Agua" building being cleaned out recently. Does anybody have any information on who the owners of this building (which is, I believe, in the 300 block of 12th Street) are and why they chose now to disabuse the detritus of dereliction?

In other news, the lot at the SE corner of Broad and Callowhill (roughly 320 Broad? 1321 Callowhill?) is being leveled and replaced with another...parking lot. Just what we need.

[apetrella802]

The Merchant's Exchange(William Strickland) is wedded to the difficult triangular lot on which it stands better than almost any building in America. The semi-circular Corinthian portico acknowledges and is shaped by the apex of the triangle of land on which it stands in a dramatic fashion.

[EastSideHBG]

Hello there, gio, I hope you're enjoying the new digs!

In a very strange coincidence (or is it?!? Hmm... ) the Inquirer's travel section is featuring Portland, OR this week:

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/travel/