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| JKR Partners - Bridgeview |
So far the renderings are preliminary and have been informally pitched to the Queen Village Neighbors Association, with a more formal presentation planned for the zoning board.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
JKR Partner's BridgeView
So far the renderings are preliminary and have been informally pitched to the Queen Village Neighbors Association, with a more formal presentation planned for the zoning board.
Henri David Ball
Other cities have their eccentric icons. Baltimore, obviously has John Waters with his pencil thin mustache and portfolio of dark comedies (to put it politely), every city in the South seems to have a pageant system of bawdy drag queens, and New York and Los Angeles are professional actors guilds of larger than life personalities.
Of course in Philadelphia, with our subdued sense of pride often bordering on the self deprecating, we never want to brag. Our characters are our characters. You can find them if you know where to look. At times that seems unfortunate, but it's not as if Philadelphians who don't mesh with our Colonial reputation are in any way hiding. Philadelphians tend to like being a well kept secret, but word-of-mouth keeps our festivals and parties exciting.
If you haven't figured out what I'm talking about yet, I'm talking about Henri David and his annual Henri David Ball.
Henri David is Philadelphia's John Waters, as if he needs a doppelganger. David isn't a director, actor, or drag queen. He's not a retailer, an event planner, or a party promoter.
Henri David is a presence. One who, despite his outrageous personas, you'll rarely encounter.
A jeweler for 40 years, David has a shop on 13th and Pine aptly called Halloween. With no sign, no display windows, not even a website, you've probably passed it a thousand times without a clue. David's Halloween, where he crafts his custom jewelry, is in an unassuming row house, and like the best things in Philadelphia, not on display. Halloween is by appointment only.
Don't let this fool you, David is no curmudgeon hiding from the public eye. For one night every year David has thrown one of the city's most lavish parties each Halloween since the late 60s. It's almost as if he spend the year saving up for the spectacle.
What started out as an excuse to wear his costumes turned into a local phenomenon, one which, had it taken place in Chicago or Seattle, would have likely morphed into a national event. But that's not Philadelphia. John Waters once told Henri David, "you have more freaks than I do. You do good here," and luckily for us, David has kept all the freaks for ourselves.
The 45th Henri David Ball will be held on October, 31st at the Sheraton Center City Hotel on 17th Street. Tickets are $25 to $60 and can be purchased at Halloween at 1329 Pine Street or by calling (215) 732-7711.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
iPic's Boyd Theater
A long fought preservation battle at The Boyd Theater near Rittenhouse Square may be coming to a close, with a pretty shitty compromise to history buffs. In The Boyd, Philadelphia has Center City's sole remaining historic movie palace. What's more shocking, this Art Deco masterpiece is nearly in tact and entirely usable.
iPic Theaters has pitched a proposal to tear down the luxurious and historic auditorium to build, well, what it calls a "luxury" auditorium.
Sometimes I think that people who toss around words like "luxury" don't really understand what it means. To the tasteless cretins at Florida's iPic and the fat slobs cozying up to a 64oz soda at one of iPic's "successful" locations in - shocker - Scottsdale, Austin, and Phoenix, here's a tip: Philadelphia is not Scottsdale, Austin, or Phoenix. If you want to build that shit here, do it in New Jersey. Don't bulldoze Center City's one and only remaining, and functional, historic movie theater and then use the carcass to market yourself as iPic's Historic Boyd.
It's tacky.
Center City has room for one of iPic's theaters. There's plenty of vacant land, surface parking lots, and perfectly boring office buildings with room for a multiplex right around the corner.
Hello, Market East? Why The Boyd? Does iPic see itself as The Boyd's (misguided) salvation? Or do they view its marquee and prominence in historic circles as a jankey marketing ploy? Don't answer that, we all know the answer.
It's no surprise that a company from Florida knows nothing about Philadelphia's history or how we perceive it. But it seems as if a company that solely develops movie theaters knows absolutely nothing about cinematic history either.
The industry has changed, I understand that. Multiplexes are great things. Luxury multiplexes are even more amazing. Someday we may even be fighting to save The Bridge or The Pearl, both of which are beautiful works of modern architecture, someday as significant as The Boyd.
But single screen movie houses still serve a purpose as dollar theaters and boutique cinemas around the country that invented celluloid. The Boyd isn't just Philadelphia history, it's American history as important as anything on Society Hill.
Of course iPic will have no problem proving getting the Historic Commission to green light the demolition. Proving cost prohibitions to the commission has become as easy as getting free swag at the convention center: just show up.
It's a wonder Philadelphia even has an Historic Commission if its sole purpose isn't to protect the city's history. It's as if the consultants developers hire to prove their historic properties are lost causes are somehow...hired by the developers.
Wow, that seems fishy. I mean that's like hiring your brother to come to your personal injury suit to prove that your neck hurts. But that's exactly what iPic did. In fact, that's what every developer seeking a demolition permit does.
iPic themselves commissioned an EConsult report to prove that restoring the Boyd would cost between $41M and $44M. It's a far fetched notion based on little more than iPic's effort to prove it's damn expensive, but it's also complete bullshit.
What does that $40M get you? If you wanted to show movies in the Boyd, you could simply open the door and tell people to bring a chair. Where's EConsult's estimate for a new screen, seats, and a fresh coat of paint?
EConsult's report for The Boyd's rehabilitation is an estimate for rebuilding The Boyd from the ground up. But more importantly, where is the Historic Commission's independent audit?
$40M is outrageous, on par with stabilizing the SS United States. Philadelphia's historical community, which perplexingly is in no way affiliated with the Historic Commission, has become so numb to these astronomical and subjective estimates that no one bothers to question these bloated claims.
Unfortunately, with no support for the commission charged with protecting the city's history, The Friends of the Boyd has had to tackle the preservation efforts with little more than a Facebook page and a website.
The Boyd is one of many examples of the commission's neglected duties, leaving every protected landmark in the hands of a few devoted volunteers who have to battle developers drafing their own cost prohibitions.
iPic Theaters has pitched a proposal to tear down the luxurious and historic auditorium to build, well, what it calls a "luxury" auditorium.
 |
| Nice "luxurious" brick wall. |
Sometimes I think that people who toss around words like "luxury" don't really understand what it means. To the tasteless cretins at Florida's iPic and the fat slobs cozying up to a 64oz soda at one of iPic's "successful" locations in - shocker - Scottsdale, Austin, and Phoenix, here's a tip: Philadelphia is not Scottsdale, Austin, or Phoenix. If you want to build that shit here, do it in New Jersey. Don't bulldoze Center City's one and only remaining, and functional, historic movie theater and then use the carcass to market yourself as iPic's Historic Boyd.
It's tacky.
Center City has room for one of iPic's theaters. There's plenty of vacant land, surface parking lots, and perfectly boring office buildings with room for a multiplex right around the corner.
Hello, Market East? Why The Boyd? Does iPic see itself as The Boyd's (misguided) salvation? Or do they view its marquee and prominence in historic circles as a jankey marketing ploy? Don't answer that, we all know the answer.
It's no surprise that a company from Florida knows nothing about Philadelphia's history or how we perceive it. But it seems as if a company that solely develops movie theaters knows absolutely nothing about cinematic history either.
The industry has changed, I understand that. Multiplexes are great things. Luxury multiplexes are even more amazing. Someday we may even be fighting to save The Bridge or The Pearl, both of which are beautiful works of modern architecture, someday as significant as The Boyd.
But single screen movie houses still serve a purpose as dollar theaters and boutique cinemas around the country that invented celluloid. The Boyd isn't just Philadelphia history, it's American history as important as anything on Society Hill.
Of course iPic will have no problem proving getting the Historic Commission to green light the demolition. Proving cost prohibitions to the commission has become as easy as getting free swag at the convention center: just show up.
It's a wonder Philadelphia even has an Historic Commission if its sole purpose isn't to protect the city's history. It's as if the consultants developers hire to prove their historic properties are lost causes are somehow...hired by the developers.
Wow, that seems fishy. I mean that's like hiring your brother to come to your personal injury suit to prove that your neck hurts. But that's exactly what iPic did. In fact, that's what every developer seeking a demolition permit does.
iPic themselves commissioned an EConsult report to prove that restoring the Boyd would cost between $41M and $44M. It's a far fetched notion based on little more than iPic's effort to prove it's damn expensive, but it's also complete bullshit.
 |
| $40M? I'll go to Home Depot and get some paint and spackle. |
What does that $40M get you? If you wanted to show movies in the Boyd, you could simply open the door and tell people to bring a chair. Where's EConsult's estimate for a new screen, seats, and a fresh coat of paint?
EConsult's report for The Boyd's rehabilitation is an estimate for rebuilding The Boyd from the ground up. But more importantly, where is the Historic Commission's independent audit?
$40M is outrageous, on par with stabilizing the SS United States. Philadelphia's historical community, which perplexingly is in no way affiliated with the Historic Commission, has become so numb to these astronomical and subjective estimates that no one bothers to question these bloated claims.
Unfortunately, with no support for the commission charged with protecting the city's history, The Friends of the Boyd has had to tackle the preservation efforts with little more than a Facebook page and a website.
The Boyd is one of many examples of the commission's neglected duties, leaving every protected landmark in the hands of a few devoted volunteers who have to battle developers drafing their own cost prohibitions.
Neighborhood? What neighborhood?
When Pennsylvania decided to move forward with a convention center expansion tentatively planned since the 90s, a number if iconic and historic properties were lost. In the 1980s this neighborhood without a name was virtually indistinguishable from Callowhill to the north. Monolithic warehouses and turn of the century factories-turned-offices butted right up against Philadelphia's City Hall.
We've all heard what happened. 676 tore a chasm between Center City and Callowhill, a new Market East Station rendered the Reading Terminal headhouse irrelevant, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center eradicated what remained.
Of course there are countless ways this could have been done better. The PCC could have straddled the Expressway. It could have made its home somewhere in the wasteland of North Broad closer to Spring Garden. Reading Terminal could have been renovated instead of moved, incorporated into the convention center instead of being relocated underground, leaving the viaduct unused and unmanaged, and acres of surface parking too costly to cap.
I suppose we're lucky that the state decided to incorporate the headhouse and terminal into its convention facilities considering the city once toyed with the notion of tearing it down.
But the wounds of poor design have yet to heal. The convention center's northern façade, if you can even call it that, hovers over Race Street topped with unflattering utility equipment. It's windowless walls and sterile sidewalks point a middle finger at what's left of the neighborhood it destroyed, calling landhoarders to demolish what's left for parking. Parking that the center inexplicably wasn't required to provide for itself somewhere within its three block sarcophagus.
The first blows came at a time when few fought to preserve Center City, and those concerned citizens were busy fighting city planners from dropping the wrecking ball on their own neighborhoods at places like South Street and Chinatown. City Hall had an itchy trigger finger and to them, our historic architecture was synonymous with an era they wanted to forget.
Much of that attitude lingers on Market East and North Broad Street. It's easy to forget that politicians don't write for architecture blogs, and many of their citizens share the same blind eye toward our abandoned infrastructure. When most see an abandoned warehouse or factory, when they see the old Robinson's Department Store on Market Street, they don't ignore the grime and only see blight.
Comment sections and message boards are filled with the same rhetoric when it comes to the neighborhoods around the convention center, Market East, or North Broad, "bulldoze it all." Of course the assertion is ridiculous to anyone who remembers the fact that we already did, and the deplorable end result of our destruction is a city calling for more.
With the exception of several historic buildings on Arch Street, the nameless convention center neighborhood is as bland and unrecognizable as the center itself. The Metzger Building and Lithograph Building are gone. A Herculean feat was employed to demolish the massive Odd Fellows Building. Perhaps the most tragic loss was the Race Street Firehouse, historically significant in more ways than one. Its bizarre gargoyles were removed, put into storage, briefly fought over by several historic institutions before being as forgotten as the building itself. A few short years later, it's unclear where they ended up or if they're simply collecting dust somewhere.
It's almost fitting that the neighborhood's soul would be lost when the six creatures charged with warding off evil were removed and locked away.
Luckily the misdeeds of city planning have shown little interest in Callowhill and its organic development remains largely in the hands of private developers. Unlike Northern Liberties or Passyunk Square, Callowhill stands to be more than an island of self sustainment.
While many of the neighborhood's former industrial relics remain vacant or underutilized, its most iconic landmarks haven't met the wrecking ball of haphazard development.
Post Brothers Goldtex Apartment building is a large investment in not only Callowhill's community, but also stands to bridge a long lost gap between Center City and its neighborhood. With small, pricy units comparable to Rittenhouse or Washington Square, the endeavor is a risky one. But if it proves successful it will pave the way for other developers to tap the neighborhood's vacant land and unused warehouses, as well as ask why the blocks between Race and Vine aren't lined with restaurants, bars, and apartments.
We've all heard what happened. 676 tore a chasm between Center City and Callowhill, a new Market East Station rendered the Reading Terminal headhouse irrelevant, and the Pennsylvania Convention Center eradicated what remained.
Of course there are countless ways this could have been done better. The PCC could have straddled the Expressway. It could have made its home somewhere in the wasteland of North Broad closer to Spring Garden. Reading Terminal could have been renovated instead of moved, incorporated into the convention center instead of being relocated underground, leaving the viaduct unused and unmanaged, and acres of surface parking too costly to cap.
I suppose we're lucky that the state decided to incorporate the headhouse and terminal into its convention facilities considering the city once toyed with the notion of tearing it down.
But the wounds of poor design have yet to heal. The convention center's northern façade, if you can even call it that, hovers over Race Street topped with unflattering utility equipment. It's windowless walls and sterile sidewalks point a middle finger at what's left of the neighborhood it destroyed, calling landhoarders to demolish what's left for parking. Parking that the center inexplicably wasn't required to provide for itself somewhere within its three block sarcophagus.
The first blows came at a time when few fought to preserve Center City, and those concerned citizens were busy fighting city planners from dropping the wrecking ball on their own neighborhoods at places like South Street and Chinatown. City Hall had an itchy trigger finger and to them, our historic architecture was synonymous with an era they wanted to forget.
Much of that attitude lingers on Market East and North Broad Street. It's easy to forget that politicians don't write for architecture blogs, and many of their citizens share the same blind eye toward our abandoned infrastructure. When most see an abandoned warehouse or factory, when they see the old Robinson's Department Store on Market Street, they don't ignore the grime and only see blight.
Comment sections and message boards are filled with the same rhetoric when it comes to the neighborhoods around the convention center, Market East, or North Broad, "bulldoze it all." Of course the assertion is ridiculous to anyone who remembers the fact that we already did, and the deplorable end result of our destruction is a city calling for more.
With the exception of several historic buildings on Arch Street, the nameless convention center neighborhood is as bland and unrecognizable as the center itself. The Metzger Building and Lithograph Building are gone. A Herculean feat was employed to demolish the massive Odd Fellows Building. Perhaps the most tragic loss was the Race Street Firehouse, historically significant in more ways than one. Its bizarre gargoyles were removed, put into storage, briefly fought over by several historic institutions before being as forgotten as the building itself. A few short years later, it's unclear where they ended up or if they're simply collecting dust somewhere.
It's almost fitting that the neighborhood's soul would be lost when the six creatures charged with warding off evil were removed and locked away.
Luckily the misdeeds of city planning have shown little interest in Callowhill and its organic development remains largely in the hands of private developers. Unlike Northern Liberties or Passyunk Square, Callowhill stands to be more than an island of self sustainment.
While many of the neighborhood's former industrial relics remain vacant or underutilized, its most iconic landmarks haven't met the wrecking ball of haphazard development.
Post Brothers Goldtex Apartment building is a large investment in not only Callowhill's community, but also stands to bridge a long lost gap between Center City and its neighborhood. With small, pricy units comparable to Rittenhouse or Washington Square, the endeavor is a risky one. But if it proves successful it will pave the way for other developers to tap the neighborhood's vacant land and unused warehouses, as well as ask why the blocks between Race and Vine aren't lined with restaurants, bars, and apartments.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Are the Feds Investigating L&I?
With the tragic collapse of 22nd and Market four months behind us and every civil lawyer in town pointing grieving families at the biggest pots of dough, nothing has gotten any simpler.In the real world this would be complicated. But this is Philadelphia where complicated is the status quo.
City Hall has ruthlessly kept its own Licensing and Inspection department out of the equation despite the fact that the office was the sole governing body in charge of granting this permit and despite the fact that one of its own committed suicide in the days following the collapse.
In the wake of the chaos, those in the city scrambled to find a warm body to pin this on. They struck gold with crane operator, Sean Benschop, high on pot and prescription pills at the time of the collapse. Our own mayor's office went as far as to pronounce Benschop's guilt before a trial date had even been set, before any evidence had been presented.
It certainly paints a picture of a town when its top leader is the first to cast the stone of mob justice.
While the city's managed to keep its nose clean despite many in the media calling for L&I's head, the latest complications may be aimed at the city's mismanagement.
OSHA and the Federal Department Labor have subpoenaed documents from the site's architect, Plato Marinakos. Marinakos has officially pleaded the Fifth Amendment, which always sounds shady.
While everything that surrounds this project and investigation just reeks of shade, with the mayor's office and City Hall throwing everyone under the bus, can you really blame Marinakos for resisting the urge to incriminate himself on behalf of the city's mismanagement?
Think of it like this. Any documents Marinakos employed in the demolition site would have been approved by L&I before demolition began, L&I would have their own copies, copies that should have been reviewed both times a 311 call reported a violation.
Marinakos' has reason to be skeptical of any investigation in which the city plays a role, a city in bed with L&I. In this instance his Fifth Amendment right may have been executed to consult with lawyers before Nutter puts him on the chopping block in the middle of City Hall.
The city doesn't want to be involved. In fact, it can't afford to be involved.
If L&I finds itself as part of prosecutors' investigations, development in Philadelphia ceases. L&I grants every license and permit for demolition and construction in the city. If that department were to be investigated by any agency, all projects would come to a grinding halt until the investigation ends.
What's worse, if the investigation were to find any misdeeds on behalf of L&I at this or any other project - and if their reputation is any indicator, it likely would - it begs to question when every other project in the city would have the green light to resume.
Would every project approved by L&I need to be re-evaluated by an independent agency? Would previous projects need to be investigated? How long would that take?
It would be a nightmare for the city. Considering this potential scenario, City Hall's ruthless efforts to keep L&I out of the discussion at all costs starts to make sense, however unethical.
The request for Marinakos' documents wasn't made on behalf of the city, it was requested by Federal investigators. If the Feds are sniffing around, this could mean more trouble for the city than it means for Marinakos, Benschop, or any private defendant named in this whole tragedy.
OSHA and the Department of Labor know that the documents used in the demolition of 22nd and Market should be on file with L&I. In the wake of Marinakos' Fifth Amendment claim, couldn't they just pull the same files from the city?
Well, they likely already have, or have already discovered that L&I didn't file anything. If they're going straight to Marinakos for documents, they're not going after Marinakos. They're trying to find out who screwed up at L&I.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
C.H.U.D. found on SEPTA
In 1988, Animals on the Underground were discovered by Paul Middlewick. They're adorable, right?
So I went hunting for some cute animals on our own SEPTA. But being Halloween, Philadelphia, and someone with no Microsoft Paint skills, all I found was a C.H.U.D.
So I went hunting for some cute animals on our own SEPTA. But being Halloween, Philadelphia, and someone with no Microsoft Paint skills, all I found was a C.H.U.D.
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center
You know what's scary about walking across the Ben Franklin Bridge to Camden? Camden.
It's a bizarre place, to put it nicely.
What's more terrifying than the Camden your faced with when exiting the New Jersey side of the Ben Franklin bridge is the Camden just on the other side.
That could change, although I emphasize "could."
Remember Philadelphia's proposed World Trade Center on the Delaware River? It found its way into the dreams of hopeful skyscraper nerds far after its inception and lingered long after it was dead, despite the fact that it was a downright ugly complex that looked like the product of a 1995 K-hole.
Well Camden's Waterfront Renaissance Associates haven't given up on the idea.
Deeming Philadelphia's Delaware River "no longer appropriate" (for no apparent reason), the Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center established in 2002, is eyeing the former site of Camden's Riverfront State Prison.
It's not a horrible idea. Philadelphia's World Trade Center is currently on JFK Boulevard. Despite available land in the West Market vicinity, it's pricy and development costs in the city can be prohibitive, particularly for projects of this size.
What Philadelphia's northern Delaware River once offered in the early 2000s, Camden now holds: cheap land and an eager municipality.
Camden's location in its own right is iffy, but its home to Cooper Medical, Rutgers, and the NJ State Aquarium. Despite the World Trade Center's proposed height, it appears to be largely suburbanized, the only architectural model that seems to work in NJ.
It's highly speculative at this point, but given Camden's national reputation it's not likely a site to be hounded by neighborhood opposition.
It's a bizarre place, to put it nicely.
What's more terrifying than the Camden your faced with when exiting the New Jersey side of the Ben Franklin bridge is the Camden just on the other side.
That could change, although I emphasize "could."
Remember Philadelphia's proposed World Trade Center on the Delaware River? It found its way into the dreams of hopeful skyscraper nerds far after its inception and lingered long after it was dead, despite the fact that it was a downright ugly complex that looked like the product of a 1995 K-hole.
Well Camden's Waterfront Renaissance Associates haven't given up on the idea.
Deeming Philadelphia's Delaware River "no longer appropriate" (for no apparent reason), the Greater Philadelphia World Trade Center established in 2002, is eyeing the former site of Camden's Riverfront State Prison.
It's not a horrible idea. Philadelphia's World Trade Center is currently on JFK Boulevard. Despite available land in the West Market vicinity, it's pricy and development costs in the city can be prohibitive, particularly for projects of this size.
What Philadelphia's northern Delaware River once offered in the early 2000s, Camden now holds: cheap land and an eager municipality.
Camden's location in its own right is iffy, but its home to Cooper Medical, Rutgers, and the NJ State Aquarium. Despite the World Trade Center's proposed height, it appears to be largely suburbanized, the only architectural model that seems to work in NJ.
It's highly speculative at this point, but given Camden's national reputation it's not likely a site to be hounded by neighborhood opposition.
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