Philadelphia's Thriving Market Street

Until the end of the 20th century, Market East was Philadelphia's bustling center for retail commerce. It wasn't always pretty, but the eclectic collage of ever changing businesses illuminated in neon succeeded as the urban equivalent to the sprawl enjoyed by suburbanites.

Seen here in 1953, 13th and Market was a bustling and dense hub of commercial activity. The NE corner of this intersection is now occupied by the block-wide Marriott hotel while the NW corner is occupied by a surface parking lot.

So what happened? It's easy to blame urban flight, but Market East's real estate stock didn't completely crash until the late 1980's, perhaps even the 1990's. Before that the gritty patchwork of businesses and merchants successfully served commuters and locals alike.

In 1965 Snellenburg's department store spanned the south side of Market Street between 11th and 12th in what is now known as the Girard Block, a two story placeholder that has been holding a place for several decades.

As a wave of "improvements" for the surrounding neighborhoods began, it is almost as if Market East's intended renaissance was exactly what sealed its coffin. While large corporate entities such as Aramark, Marriott, and Loews succeeded in bringing a large number of employees to Market East, many of the street's original merchants who at one time serviced these employees had been removed in anticipation of larger development which never came.

Howard's department store, seen here in 1966, is now the site of Aramark headquarters. The lot in the foreground was made for The Gallery at Market East and is now the site of Burlington Coat Factory.

As Gimbels and Snellenburg's closed, the Gallery's JCPenny and Clover were replaced with Burlington Coat Factory and K-Mart. Closing Strawbridges left many Gallery merchants without residual clienette forcing the closures of stores such as The Gap and Guess.

Seen here in 1966, Gimbels department store was demolished for anticipated development and is now the site of surface parking lot nearly the size of an entire city block. It is controlled by predatory land developer Ron Rubin - who has no intention of developing it further.

Today very little remains of Market Street's namesake. Real estate on Market East is so affordable that space formerly occupied by large variety stores such as Woolworth are now occupied by convenience stores such as CVS or Rite Aid. Many businesses use their upper floors for storage or simply leave it empty.

The upper floors of Robinson's space age department store are now used for storage or simply left empty. Surprisingly this uniquely early design is not historically protected.

Unfortunately the fate of Market East seems to rest in the hands of private developers. While several years ago, many could not have imagined it getting much worse, it now serves as a worn example example of what happens when you try to fix something that isn't broken.

The Gallery at Market East today: It isn't aesthetically - or philosophically - worse than any other mall. But as made evident in recent years, it is hurt by the declining, surrounding real estate.

Although it's certainly not the time to start fielding new businesses to rent questionable or risky real estate, it is the time to start looking at what used to work and what we can do at little cost that make places like Market East a little more desirable and look a little less like Thunderdome. While a very small gesture, Burlington Coat Factory seems to understand this and is in the process of renovating the space and improving its curb appeal with new signage, entrances, and window displays. While it's hard to ignore the gaping holes along Market East, many other businesses would be wise to follow suit, and property owners would be wise to encourage it.

Times Square South

Whatever happened to Trinity Capital Advisors' grand plan for 12th and Market's Girard Block? It seems the former site of the Snellenburg & Company Department store is destined to stay the stump it is.

It's sad too, because it's an unkempt blight at an otherwise fine corner. It's the impression most tourists receive when they first leave their hotel room, and the last impression they take home with them. Its gloomy exterior, dirty walls, and sprawling uniformity of unorganized retail and office space discourage tourists from exploring Market East by foot. It no doubt deters big business retail or services from occupying the former Champions' location in the Marriot across the street.

TCA has specificed that they want to take their time with the location, to do it right. What they're really doing is what all big developers do with Philadelphia. They aquire property when its cheap, and then sit on it until a better market returns. I've said before, we're not NYC or DC, and although we're lucky they haven't yet bulldozed the entire block (including the Girard Building which is intended to be demolished as part of the master plan) and we're not stuck with another Disney Hole for two decades, with TCA holding the lease and sitting on their hands we will be stuck with the Girard Hole as it is for a long, long time.

Interestingly enough, the Market East corner of 13th once had a similar stump. It didn't span the entire block of Market or 13th and it's rental spaces were better designed and blended better into the existing urban fabric. However, it was demolished for a surface parking lot which seems to show no signs of being developed. So things could be worse.

Erdy-McHenry

New ideas in architecture often enjoy several years of praise and then spend about twenty years in purgatory. If works survive that period of time as backdrops for newer movements, they undoubtedly receive a revival of appreciation. Frank Furness spent decades in architectural purgatory as his few fans watched example after example make way to a culture that wasn't ready to appreciate his vision. Recently we have seen a revived interest in International Style and even Brutalism, designs that spanned the early to mid-20th century; designs we have spent the past 20 years ruing.

Throughout it all of course we see the blatant reinterpretation of past styles. Toll Brothers and mass market developers continuously crank out colonial interpretations that sacrifice style for luxury. In a culture increasingly concerned with quantity in lieu of quality, fewer and fewer architects can exercise an experimental style on an audience with a declining eye for aesthetics.

We can name a period for most of America's art and architectural history: Colonial, Victorian, Art Deco, Brutalist; but what will we call the turn of the century? The late 90's is a collage of past styles, diluted and reinterpreted. While I'm a firm believer that all style is a reinterpretation of the past, these people didn't even try. Venturi, Graves, and Gehry, idols of our time, are pop culture hacks, "artists" that rely on marketing gimmicks rather than talent to secure a place in history.

Fortunately there still remains an audience for experimental architecture and a badly needed reinvention of style. While the Toll Brothers and the Venturis may dominate the mass market and the one-in-every-city venues (just so Los Angeles can say "We have a Gehry!"), there are a number of refreshingly new designs outside the overrated big league being implemented in city governments, hospitals, and universities.

Erdy-McHenry has reinvented the idea of large scale American architecture. The Radian in particular, one of University City's latest student housing projects, takes a comically out of scale approach to communal housing. It conjures up images of Soviet block housing satirically twisted with artistic cues and a randomly balanced placement of architectural elements. It's juxtaposition to historic West Philadelphia and its towering presence over Walnut Street make this imposing structure seem to hover above the sidewalk like a quasi-futuristic space station - and it works.

With more and more examples being displayed across the city, from North Philadelphia's Avenue North serving as a gateway to Temple University, to the reinvention of the public square in Northern Liberties' Hancock Square, to a simple coffee house adjacent to the Constitution Center, Erdy-McHenry's unorthodox approach to just about everything could fast secure a place in history as the 21st century's Frank Furness.

Go North

The offices that housed the vacant State Office Building and Inquirer annex are rumored to be relocated to the former Strawbridge & Clothier Building. The SOB rumors have stalled following other rumors regarding SugarHouse at Strawbridges, so no one really seems to know what's happening with the 1950's modernist State Office Building and the sprawling, stone Inquirer annex. My advice, before the SOB's landscaped courtyard at Broad and Callowhill becomes an outdoor homeless shelter, start contacting some ideal tenants to take advantage of the space.

North Broad is not the wasteland it once was. Chinatown is spilling over the Vine Street Expressway. The Loft District is filled with renters and offices. The closest grocery store is the overpriced Whole Foods near the Parkway and Center City desparately lacks any sort of big box amenity except for a dying and outdated K-Mart. The Inquirer annex building is practically made for a complex of large scale retail development. It could easily house a grocery store, a gym, and maybe even a Target. It also has plenty of room for parking. Just take advantage of the space before the opportunity is lost to blight.

Parkway Press

Cafe Cret

Perhaps it took the better part of a century, but Philadelphia's own Champs-Élysées - The Benjamin Franklin Parkway - has seen quite a bit of press in the past few years. From the Museum of Art expanding into the Perelman Building to the recent Barnes Museum discussions, Cafe Cret now sits on the Parkway near Love Park while new landscaping will soon be surrounding the Barnes Museum, once the site of the juvenille detention center and a small Hooverville. Although the Calder family hijacked his outdoor work, hope still remains that the outdoor installation space could provide a canvas for local artists and more lush park space.

Parkway 22

The Residences at Rodin

Two proposals still linger on the Parkway: Parkway 22 at 22nd and the Parkway, and The Residences at Rodin. The Residences at Rodin gives off a stately, French flair with its curved roof and scaled appearance while the adjacent Parkway 22 offers more to the modern American skyline. As with much of Philadelphia, this juxtaposition offers an uncomfortable beauty. While city planners have spent the last century attempting to make the Ben Franklin Parkway into a broad French Avenue, it is in fact Philadelphia's broad avenue. Why should the surrounding architecture attemp to represent any other city but our own? Even Park Towne Place with its suburbanized footprint and 1950's minimalism offers a uniquely American comfortability visible from the fartherest end of the Parkway.

Park Towne Place

Reproducing the Champs-Élysées in Philadelphia would no doubt be beautiful, but it would be just that, a reproduction. Reproductions are better left to Disney World and Southern California. Philadelphia has enough of its own unique heritage and history. Our Ben Franklin Parkway is surrounded by cultured neighboods and its own, uniquely American, architectural antiquety. Rather than force new development into a cohesive, master plan, we should do what makes America the rich architectural melting pot that it is and allow developers to contuinue developing this architectural quilt that surrounds the Ben Frankin Parkway.

White Tower Hamburgers

Long after North Broad Street's golden age, White Castle's knock-off and rival, White Tower, founded in Milwaukee, WI had one of their small franchises located at Broad and Race.

Seen here in 1951, the site is now the anchor for the new, grand entrance to the Pennsylvania Convention Center currently under construction. Note the Race Street Fire House in the background, recently demolished in 2008 for the Convention Center expansion.

Majestic Hotel

Past the theaters and clubs, at the gateway to North Broad's indulgent residential end, was the Majestic Hotel at Broad and Girard. A grand hotel which conjures up images of a new era of wealth and society brought about by the early 1900s and immortaliozed by Hollywood, the Majestic was another jewel unceremoniously demolished in 1971. Even in it's dilapidated state in the 1960s one can't help but wonder why on earth this wouldn't have been saved. It was designed by Stanford B. Lewis. Currently a suburban style McDonalds sits on the site with it's own surface parking.