tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29079735847829999762024-03-29T05:45:05.965-04:00Philly BricksA Playful Look at Architectural NonsenseUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger943125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-88168657245026216272023-06-21T19:26:00.004-04:002023-06-21T19:29:27.146-04:00Be Careful What You Meme For<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcITxO0XUHjXDoLGOPgkO0uHlwUPl9YrY3ky-bgdzPt_fkxbuZR8d09AQNh4FdRnfk8emvHPng7bHwnzmHNJYkrG8sB_0xIRkLSH9XPrjcPz3ZWKLIi0zmAS2IHCuBrxvOZdh7-wcwo094FxUWpwM47-zruuCZNIHMenchCFAoMLk-cOu56GnNSphO3St/s567/355697461_610014304588603_8561987947417884832_n.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="567" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglcITxO0XUHjXDoLGOPgkO0uHlwUPl9YrY3ky-bgdzPt_fkxbuZR8d09AQNh4FdRnfk8emvHPng7bHwnzmHNJYkrG8sB_0xIRkLSH9XPrjcPz3ZWKLIi0zmAS2IHCuBrxvOZdh7-wcwo094FxUWpwM47-zruuCZNIHMenchCFAoMLk-cOu56GnNSphO3St/s320/355697461_610014304588603_8561987947417884832_n.jpg" width="282" /></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">As they are wont to do, a meme's making the rounds that both grossly generalizes and exaggerates an important sociopolitical topic and does nothing but serve its antagonists. The meme claims that a home in an unspecified location cost $230,000 when it was well taken care of in 2009, and a decade later had an asking price of nearly a million after it had been abandoned and fallen into a state of disrepair.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">The kicker: "EMPIRE IN DECLINE"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Let's dissect this.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Setting aside the alleged market valuation for this home in 2019, Zillow states it was built in 2007. Its current abandonment is true and can be confirmed in real estate databases. Given this was new construction built just before the housing market crash, its initial asking price could be correct, but its current state is an indictment of that housing market crash, not the current housing crisis.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">In all likelihood, the original owner took advantage of pre-Recession predatory lending and abandoned the home when they could no longer make payments, or when the home's tax-value dropped below what they owed. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">If this home were in parts of the West Coast, New Jersey, or Northern Virginia, the current asking price of nearly $1M could easily be believable. But if it were in the Rust Belt, the Midwest, or smaller cities in the South, $1M is a leap. It's actually in Detroit, and it's asking price is a gross exaggeration. The current price listed on Zillow is a mere $15,000, or roughly the cost of a used Kia on Carvana.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">All of that is problematic, from the cost of housing in California and Colorado to the price of a ten year old Sorento. But most problematic is the fact that the maker of this meme chose to completely fabricate the scenario, exaggerating the current cost of a home by well over 6000%, when they could have easily made their case using current listings in Portland or Denver.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">This sort of false flag does two things that don't help underfunded prospective homeowners: 1) it throws chum to the naysayers who will rightfully call this out as "fake news," but for all the wrong reasons, solidifying their claim that the housing crisis doesn't exist and any reference to it is just bad Photoshop, and 2) it normalizes exaggerated home values well beyond the West Coast and Long Island; it coerces even savvy readers into thinking, "if $989,000 is fake, then $50,000 is pretty damn good," when in reality, its $15,000 asking price is already too high. Detroit's Land Bank should be offering this home for free to anyone willing to make it livable. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Memes are a quick and easy way to make a point, but unless they're completely factual they can do more harm than good. This meme would have, and could have, been a sturdy case if it had shown abandoned new construction built in pre-Recession Fairfax, VA with a price tag of almost $1M. Instead they chose to lie, either because they were lazy or because they knew lying would make their meme go viral. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Either way, it does nothing to quell the reality of the current housing crisis.</span></p><p style="text-align: right;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfA150qG-1Mb9RMvCKZDLuPPaAJSI6qrBk3OQYYLgVI9ltxGdqGlDI-Jd48_L5TfLsSws-UV6JSf0LSjYmXpArVY8VjQWieCQDX3ybymdHxG-_yppn4IgI_-Vq_IEPkjv2TAWrMhyU-4AIPUowfYJZZmXlq8KQHjOcQsUZ93I0XhbIA7o0axf7DcJfbh3K/s1029/IMG_3506.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1029" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfA150qG-1Mb9RMvCKZDLuPPaAJSI6qrBk3OQYYLgVI9ltxGdqGlDI-Jd48_L5TfLsSws-UV6JSf0LSjYmXpArVY8VjQWieCQDX3ybymdHxG-_yppn4IgI_-Vq_IEPkjv2TAWrMhyU-4AIPUowfYJZZmXlq8KQHjOcQsUZ93I0XhbIA7o0axf7DcJfbh3K/s320/IMG_3506.jpg" width="233" /></a></div><p></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-61997817319071166632023-03-16T20:12:00.003-04:002023-03-16T20:29:16.463-04:00The Bell Curve of Garbage<p><span style="font-family: arial;">When Gertrude Stein returned to Oakland in the 1930s and found her home was gone, she famously quipped, “there is no there there.” It’s hard to imagine what she’d say about the Bay Area today. It’s impossible not to reflect with similar sentimentality when I return home to Virginia. My childhood house is still standing; the barn has collapsed, the land has been subdivided, and a cheap tract home sits where our chickens once roosted in a white out-building reminiscent of a Wyeth painting.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="9a09"><span style="font-family: arial;">My grandparents recently passed away and their own farm is being eyed by real estate developers. It’s near the heart of Virginia Horse Country, much of which has been absorbed into the lifeless suburbs of Washington, DC. Of course the farm doesn’t need to be developed. It’s a fully capable farm. But there’s nothing historic about it; and today’s working farms are corporate factories with concrete warehouses.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="f0ce"><span style="font-family: arial;">Built in the 1970s, it’s a handsome Colonial reproduction. As a young architectural aficionado I’d sit on the bright shag carpeting of any room comparing the crown molding in my<em class="markup--em markup--p-em"> Elements of Design </em>book to the details that circled above, shaded in the colors of the Nixon era: Harvest Gold, Robin’s Egg Blue, Pea Green. To date, the house is a time capsule of a decade quickly becoming history relegated to more books than memory, entirely untouched since it was built. At nearly 4000 square feet, any sane family should consider it more than enough. But today’s families don’t want wainscoting and a formal library; they want endless square footage and an open concept full of stainless steel appliances stretching to the front door.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="42d4"><span style="font-family: arial;">What will likely happen is what’s happened in my own hometown two hours away where handsome estate houses sit amid the cul de sacs of indistinguishable McMansions that have eaten up their respective farms. Nearby are the cavernous concrete warehouses brandished with Tyson or Perdue. When you enter the idyllically named town of Pleasant Valley you pass its iconic schoolhouse and abandoned train station, but as you turn and approach the crest leaving the quaint village you’re faced with miles and miles of these factory farms belching steam, launching big rigs headed for I-81.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="24bd"><span style="font-family: arial;">Pleasant Valley’s train station hasn’t seen service in over half a century, nor has the larger station in the nearby city of Harrisonburg. Both will soon receive a makeover with an obligatory coffee shop, maybe a brewery and a weekly farmer’s market filled with the cultivations of upwardly mobile hobbyists. Neither will ever see a train again; the tracks have been stripped for bike trails.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="14e1"><span style="font-family: arial;">I don’t even need to say the word for you to know what I’m talking about. It’s both lost all meaning and become ubiquitous with America. It doesn’t just happen to our city’s cultural neighborhoods; it is happening to the heritage of an entire nation: the proliferation of sameness, driven by the age of social media and marketing algorithms that mine our data and merchandise mediocrity, coaxing us to strive for the swell of a press-board Bell Curve.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="aaa3"><span style="font-family: arial;">Never resigned to let what works work, we refuse to allow history to live in America. Instead, we memorialize it in historic districts. We don’t have artist colonies; we have loft condominiums named for the artists that once worked in those buildings. We don’t have Black, gay, or ethnic neighborhoods; we have flags adorned with Civil Rights leaders, rainbow crosswalks, and street signs with Chinese characters. We designate our authentic heritage with these tokens to quell the insecurities of those who’d rather forget who they’ve replaced; to tell them authenticity isn’t necessary when diversity has been brandished on a NPS marker. Too few people want to live authentically, and those who do are pummeled into submission by Big Box department stores and fast casual chains. At one time the authentic would flock to the distant corners of this country: Key West, Provincetown, rainy cities like Seattle and San Francisco, or Savannah or Charleston. But this sameness has found its way there too where bloated vacation homes in a style that can only be described as universal overshadow the legacies that the 21st century generation has deemed fit to be salvaged, often restored to unreal geometric perfection. It’s expected; there are no surprises.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="4b84"><span style="font-family: arial;">These places are great repositories of history, but at best, that’s all they are now. When you start digging into their pasts and considering what it had been like when they were authentic, when they inspired some of America’s truly great early- and mid-century artists and writers, well that’s a sad rabbit hole to fall down. Provincetown’s and Key West’s artistic legacies are million dollar tiny homes and art colonies fashioned out of long unused fishing piers that only the most wealthy can afford to sustain. Once the inspirations for Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Jared and Margaret French, and Paul Cadmus; what now passes for art in these places is motel art doled out by wealthy retirees and, of course, the immediately ephemeral works of Instagram influencers hustling a Lululemon sponsorship.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="8551"><span style="font-family: arial;">Today’s society has even sanitized and monetized cultural misfits and ethnic minorities. <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Black Panther: Wakanda Forever</em> is part of a multi-billion dollar franchise studded with millionaire stars being lauded in a MasterCard commercial as a groundbreaking moment in Civil Rights. Drag queens, once raunchy underground performers, are now the stars of reality shows and headliners at children’s birthday parties. In either instance, the authentic realities of those communities are still being ignored. What has MasterCard or Disney done to curb violence towards Black people? What are mothers who hire drag queens like they’re circus clowns doing to challenge the proliferation of laws aimed at banning drag performances altogether?</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="f76b"><span style="font-family: arial;">As always, when authenticity rears its head, neither will even bother to look in the rear-view mirror.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="b572"><span style="font-family: arial;">America’s cultural consensus has always been in its status quo, but when the cultural mileposts were authentic, those who had less strived for more, and those who had more were interesting. Now the American Dream is to be a YouTube personality and sell an auto-turned single to Apple Music. It’s an air conditioned summer house where a family can stream Netflix from somewhere else, and the kids can play Minecraft.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="7c85"><span style="font-family: arial;">A commercial for Kenzie’s song <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Paper</em> has been running ad nauseam on Hulu. Of course, I had no idea who she was. No one did. That’s why she’s advertising her single during commercial breaks. She’s an 18 year old alum from the television show <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">Dance Moms</em>. The song is aggressively bad: the lyrics, her lack of vocal range, the expressionless look on her face that tells you she’s a child star in the age of social media. I mentioned this to an old college friend who has written music and now writes music with her daughter who has an amazing voice, and she immediately knew what commercial I was talking about. She and her daughter had had their own fits every time it aired. Her daughter will likely have a successful career in academia someday, but she’ll never make the kind of money generic pop stars make because she refuses to sell her soul on TikTok. But what’s worse is, she’ll only ever reach those with an academic interest in music. Because America’s status quo is no longer confronted by authenticity, freshman auditions for music programs are largely spent weeding out prospective students whose relationship with music is limited to <em class="markup--em markup--p-em">American Idol</em>.</span></p><p class="graf graf--p" name="578e"><span style="font-family: arial;">Generation after generation, we look back at the past through rosy glasses and lament how much better things were. That hot take is universally criticised because, in many cases, they simply weren’t. But it’s time we start looking at the things that were, particularly art and culture. Well crafted oil paintings languish in gallery windows while bananas duct taped to walls sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. What’s even worse than that mere price tag (and the blatant money laundering in the professional art world) is the attention that these shams absorb. We are headed for an artistic and cultural dark age, if we aren’t already actively entrenched in it. But it’s flipped. While the Dark Ages, at least as they are popularly understood, were a rejection of progressive values finally enlightened by the Renaissance; ours is one driven by a false progressivism set out to look authentic online while pillaging it in the real world. It’s depressing to consider exactly how much worse it can get, but it probably will. After all, we’re no longer in the Wild West of the dot com era, we’re only in its Roaring Twenties.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-88510816987891840152023-02-09T18:50:00.003-05:002023-02-09T19:08:03.536-05:00Hands Off Chinatown<div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">I've heard time and again how the newly proposed Sixers Center City arena at the beleaguered Fashion District Mall would be "good for Chinatown," almost as much as I've heard 10th and Market isn't in Chinatown, and both are equally insulting.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">There's this "<i>I</i> know what's good for <i>you</i>" mentality in Philadelphia that has historically driven development in communities that never asked for it, often with questionable outcomes. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">If a new arena would be so great for business, why aren't any other neighborhoods begging for it in their backyards?</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Those who NIMBY casinos and stadiums out of their own neighborhoods are often the first to applaud those developments when they're proposed where they don't live.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqPAG_C8kh1QH8jpNx4dgKbShjb2qJbHDQ8VOpeqciHRPjqC2sNyhPYztPwhRoFIDNutdDWlTr3IxZinfd1J0-v-tP1L6Gm7pwXnkL3ZA2c88duOP3suQNOP-Ike2VVmbIaBEAPD7KMLVPxHi0J-0zVtTAw2Uz9y8FXjKA-Tn4MLElARh8lUXDhZMFuw/s1000/e6d990f0-505f-4353-875c-e9f3405e8055.sized-1000x1000.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="563" data-original-width="1000" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqPAG_C8kh1QH8jpNx4dgKbShjb2qJbHDQ8VOpeqciHRPjqC2sNyhPYztPwhRoFIDNutdDWlTr3IxZinfd1J0-v-tP1L6Gm7pwXnkL3ZA2c88duOP3suQNOP-Ike2VVmbIaBEAPD7KMLVPxHi0J-0zVtTAw2Uz9y8FXjKA-Tn4MLElARh8lUXDhZMFuw/s320/e6d990f0-505f-4353-875c-e9f3405e8055.sized-1000x1000.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To say other neighborhoods don't need the proposed arena's injection of business implies there's something wrong with Chinatown. Most scoff that it's a low income area, which isn't completely true or its entire story. It's an immigrant community with as much wealth as poverty. To attempt to lift its built environment to the pedigree of, say Old City, doesn't lift up its residents most in need, it displaces them, a false solution and the foundation of the both hailed and hated g-word.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><span>Chinatown as a neighborhood isn't struggling. In fact, when COVID-19 blasted its way into Philadelphia, Chinatown was the first to respond. As a result, when pandemic-induced shutdowns ran roughshod through our neighborhoods, closing down countless businesses, Chinatown came out the other side bustling as it ever had been, if not more so. </span><span>Those who claim Chinatown would benefit from an arena's business are either woefully unfamiliar with the neighborhood or, most insidiously, think Chinatown doesn't need</span><span> </span><i>more</i><span> business, they're saying it needs </span><i>new</i><span> business, business that caters to a broader and more homogenized Philadelphia. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Chinatown is more than just business. Like the Gayborhood or the Italian Market, Chinatown is comprised of homes, schools, and churches. In these cultural enclaves, businesses serve as byproducts of their denizens, not tourist attractions. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">That's not to say they're isolated or unwelcoming, but </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">the dichotomy doesn't help a community's members, it alienates them. </span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">What's unwelcome are outsiders trying to alter what works well within community to quell the insecurities and discomfort of those who visit. You wouldn't go into a neighbor's house and start rearranging their furniture the way you like it on the off chance you might stop by again. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">As a community, Chinatown knows the intent behind the support for the Sixers arena more than any other in Philadelphia. The reason the arena's been proposed for 10th and Market is the same reason The Gallery, The Pennsylvania Convention Center, and the Vine Street Expressway were dumped there. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">To city planners and politicos who remember Philadelphia's darkest days, Chinatown is Center City's last perceived remnant of midcentury blight. Once wedged between Skid Row and The Furnished Room District's flophouses, they want it gone. Like the stunning movie theater at 22nd and Market that was completely ignored by preservationists because it had since become a strip club, Chinatown is guilty by its historic association with neighboring red light districts, </span><span style="font-family: arial;">and City Hall has been trying to eradicate it for 50 years. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Chinatown, vibrant as it is, is a self-sustained community that hasn't succumbed to the sterilization and organization of redevelopment. That in itself should be enough to tell everyone else to leave it alone, especially in this era of progressively woke cultural awareness. But this is a 21st century American city, and xenophobia has managed to ferret its way into the most self-righteously progressive circles. In today's Philadelphia, a</span><span style="font-family: arial;">nything that doesn't cater exclusively to the status quo must be reinvented, even when the status quo has literally everywhere else to eat craft burgers, drink local brews, and drop $50 on a candle making class. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Despite the fact that all efforts to tame Chinatown's authenticity have been abject failures (see the aforementioned G</span><span style="font-family: arial;">allery mall, Pennsylvania Convention Center, and Vine Street Expressway), </span><span style="font-family: arial;">City Hall is still willing to capitalize on the idea of Chinatown, as long as it becomes anything it never was. Like the rainbow street signs that cropped up throughout the Gayborhood just before it was callously renamed "Midtown Village," City Hall and the Sixers will undoubtedly flood the area with all the dragon-branded trappings of what anyone shopping for a Mogwai might expect to find when searching for a stock photo of "Chinatown." </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Look at DC if you want to see the future of our Chinatown: garishly stereotypical fanfare bordering on the offensive, fast casual chain restaurants, and a few authentic holdouts wedged between a Starbucks and a Smashburger like the lingering apartment house at the end of <i>Batteries Not Included</i>. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">It's either ironically aloof or deliberately hypocritical that those who support this Sixers arena are quick to point out that 10th and Market isn't technically Chinatown, right after rhetorically pondering why Chinatown doesn't want its business. Google Maps might not place 10th and Market within the confines of Chinatown's official borders, but after being boxed in by an expressway and the sterile walls at the ass end of a convention center, Chinatown's had nowhere else to grow. Early renderings for the Fashion District's redesign even show Chinese imagery illuminating the ceiling of its 10th Street underpass. The city, and those championing the Sixers arena, know very well that 10th and Market isn't just part of Chinatown, it's its gateway. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Sixers Center City arena might be great for business, but only those antithetical of everything Chinatown is. What's more, once </span><span style="font-family: arial;">Ocean Harbor and Four Rivers become a P.F. Chang's and a Panda Express, those who pushed for the Sixers arena will be lamenting the loss of one of North America's last great Chinatowns, a loss at their behest. And aside from mega-cities like Chicago or New York where downtown real estate is so valuable they're forced to build as densely as possible, America has repeatedly set precedents that downtown arenas do nothing positive for the neighborhoods they encroach upon. Even in Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Convention Center not only obliterated dozens of historic properties to make way for its presence, its expansion continues to eat away at what's left of the west side of Chinatown for its asphalt prairies, plaguing its lingering residents with noise from conventioneers who treat Camac Street like a suburban Walmart parking lot. When no large conventions are being held there, it's a ghost town.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmd4A4NdhdUH6wFAILgdVherUcdcotz9SzFaj_jUh-6R-IOOv07VofZdJdDm-mjqkXVgkb4UYvXDLLwpZUXvymAUeoK4h3E5jcurR7rl9J0mbZ8zLD5LtYkIww95NdKW62iYrqn0FJhYAm5qRChYc-NTUmNXrX8XRGK6C-kqq1zffs6LqhbngFnsE8bA/s735/1923_Chinatown_Sixers_Coalition.2e16d0ba.fill-735x490.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="490" data-original-width="735" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmd4A4NdhdUH6wFAILgdVherUcdcotz9SzFaj_jUh-6R-IOOv07VofZdJdDm-mjqkXVgkb4UYvXDLLwpZUXvymAUeoK4h3E5jcurR7rl9J0mbZ8zLD5LtYkIww95NdKW62iYrqn0FJhYAm5qRChYc-NTUmNXrX8XRGK6C-kqq1zffs6LqhbngFnsE8bA/s320/1923_Chinatown_Sixers_Coalition.2e16d0ba.fill-735x490.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Philadelphia might be booming on paper, but it has no shortage of developable real estate. The Sixers could have proposed an arena as part of the emerging Schuylkill Yards or Penn's Landing's waterfront redevelopment without upending a community. But City Hall and the echo chamber of those who don't live in Chinatown and rarely visit have hypocritically deemed this locale most fit, all because this neighborhood refuses to bend to their pressboard idea of 21st century American urbanism.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">From the Gayborhood to Fishtown, from Spruce Hill to the Italian Market, this city has spent the last half century trying to eradicate anything culturally unique while claiming to be one of the nation's most diverse cities. There's isn't a more eloquently deserved word for this but "gross." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Of course all of this should be moot. Ignore the bevy of land available for an arena along the Delaware River or atop the Schuylkill Yards (dare I even mention the mythical "Bellweather District" at the demolished Sunoco plant that will likely rival Chernobyl as a superfund site well into the 21st century?), and there's a perfectly great neighborhood surrounded by ample parking right on a subway line where a new Sixers arena won't bother anyone. And that's exactly where it is. </span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-64667215973935199952023-02-01T18:49:00.003-05:002023-02-01T18:49:57.641-05:00What is Art?<div class="Ar Au Ao" id=":113"><div aria-controls=":13t" aria-label="Message Body" aria-multiline="true" aria-owns=":13t" class="Am Al editable LW-avf tS-tW tS-tY" g_editable="true" hidefocus="true" id=":10z" itacorner="6,7:1,1,0,0" role="textbox" spellcheck="false" style="direction: ltr; min-height: 240px;" tabindex="1"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Several years ago a friend of mine in San Francisco
was complaining about “another classic car show” taking up space. I was
instantly jealous. Not only was a car show set up in his neighborhood, but to
see one in California, the capital of car culture, and in a city as wealthy as
San Francisco? I can only imagine what amazing feats of artistry and engineering
he was taking for granted. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">But his gripe also stuck with me, and it periodically rears its
ugly head, particularly when one of my more artistically minded friends takes a
swat at car culture. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGQifSTpEOSY_T2eGEKSRiP-JQpr6oWxxcd5yy6IKMK0SbB5cTAEzX-GBMDtUferXOufOj4tugmnxMhh-tQ1ifqMM6dBKEfRo9WavunMRSJOhDyRQmgTuSILbtY850y3of6FB9WptCDPPYnaIQVtY15-kKAJuDmGgQbi64pfPwt8A3-Xlc3TnnHICxsw/s1576/IMG_1715.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="929" data-original-width="1576" height="189" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGQifSTpEOSY_T2eGEKSRiP-JQpr6oWxxcd5yy6IKMK0SbB5cTAEzX-GBMDtUferXOufOj4tugmnxMhh-tQ1ifqMM6dBKEfRo9WavunMRSJOhDyRQmgTuSILbtY850y3of6FB9WptCDPPYnaIQVtY15-kKAJuDmGgQbi64pfPwt8A3-Xlc3TnnHICxsw/s320/IMG_1715.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Stout Scarab</span></td></tr></tbody></table></p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Automotive design is one of the most ignored, if not one of the most
maligned art forms. When Maurizio Cattelan taped a banana to a wall, critics
lined up to gawk at his outsider work of art. But when tons of gracefully bent
steel and chrome are displayed on the streets of a major American city - for
free - those same critics brush it aside as a problematic product celebrating
traffic jams and climate change. The men and women who restore priceless pieces
at the Philadelphia Museum of Art are revered as artisans. Mechanics are
"grease monkeys." </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxBl1vz2xffjk1YNWhZDdbun2CwEpFw8AgkcYWP_2Kx-cRU5NqeudO0Cwf3zlMyPxpSze5sfemeYJvKf0GqBKL3Au29psF2NYTOt7CRebpc4m0dMB7fTwgiN5PiTknTP88aHxxIPfayyQW_Po-8nHl-rTcDrckt-s9eWQH9N8XfpVOJNMcVwMpEXtBmA/s1800/IMG_1712.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1800" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxBl1vz2xffjk1YNWhZDdbun2CwEpFw8AgkcYWP_2Kx-cRU5NqeudO0Cwf3zlMyPxpSze5sfemeYJvKf0GqBKL3Au29psF2NYTOt7CRebpc4m0dMB7fTwgiN5PiTknTP88aHxxIPfayyQW_Po-8nHl-rTcDrckt-s9eWQH9N8XfpVOJNMcVwMpEXtBmA/s320/IMG_1712.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">1948 Timbs Buick Streamliner</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s true, art serves solely to inspire. And while the Stout
Scarab and the Phantom Corsair are certainly inspirational, cars are first and
foremost tools that take us from one point to another. It’s hard to consider
automotive design an art form when your primary reference point is a parking
lot full of indistinguishable crossovers. But it’s difficult to say how many
art academics are aware of the Jonckheere Phantom or the Timbs Streamliner
because there’s a willful ignorance in the traditional art world when it comes
to artistic genres that blend artistry and purpose. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">On the first day of my 10th grade art class, my teacher picked up a Swingline stapler and said, "everything is art". No statement has ever been truer. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamgDk8zbB80RB_mLZTaWJqLIlWdNq83l4Lh0ZsAZrHv6EU_wxI17FfXdRDa3vZT18EQaZ5m0ckCYZbvjkXVfIyu2DlBHHCgh6YaiyQQJM6L-MUBwJT-7FEUJeFh5s_U7Bk6BSnzd_rr6oGmKVE0Y8GV8DR75S3KCuSB9AVxfbAXHMK7xuOPzSMW6NsA/s2048/IMG_1713.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1195" data-original-width="2048" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiamgDk8zbB80RB_mLZTaWJqLIlWdNq83l4Lh0ZsAZrHv6EU_wxI17FfXdRDa3vZT18EQaZ5m0ckCYZbvjkXVfIyu2DlBHHCgh6YaiyQQJM6L-MUBwJT-7FEUJeFh5s_U7Bk6BSnzd_rr6oGmKVE0Y8GV8DR75S3KCuSB9AVxfbAXHMK7xuOPzSMW6NsA/s320/IMG_1713.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Jonckheere Phantom, or "Round Door Rolls"</span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">It’s hard to ignore the
political influences. The art world is significantly Left leaning while
the automotive lobby is staunchly on the Right side of the political spectrum.
But that’s not a complete assessment of either realm. Popular automotive outlets
like <a href="https://www.theautopian.com/">Autopian</a> and <a href="https://jalopnik.com/">Jalopnik</a> are considerably woke, and while galleries and
museums might benefit from Left leaning initiatives, Republicans are avid art
collectors. Still, both are propelled by the stereotypes of their perceived
alignments. Trump paraphernalia is in no short supply at neighborhood car shows
and the Concours oozes old money conservatism. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">That’s unfortunate. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqtyOuRZSnhAcKHWbdCuBKAZumBP70p4Z08U0moIXFUCjhxd1O82GptoLiaTRpNBcCHTRw1uzl-U3nUQdbY_iH3gN92-d80-CVxZPdZvjvWAgJTjHE07_oRYNQM2a2nDI4-jhqB09TYTwAsDoaSBCRpLdgRgFsmWG_4cIs3yFVfaC4FMNQO3KdSVeOFw/s1920/IMG_1714.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1920" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqtyOuRZSnhAcKHWbdCuBKAZumBP70p4Z08U0moIXFUCjhxd1O82GptoLiaTRpNBcCHTRw1uzl-U3nUQdbY_iH3gN92-d80-CVxZPdZvjvWAgJTjHE07_oRYNQM2a2nDI4-jhqB09TYTwAsDoaSBCRpLdgRgFsmWG_4cIs3yFVfaC4FMNQO3KdSVeOFw/s320/IMG_1714.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Phantom Corsair</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Public art museums should
be repositories of inspiration to be enjoyed by the masses, and the designs of <span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">Giorgetto Giugiaro and John Z. DeLorean should be held
to the same esteem as the works of Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock. Sadly, in a world of
growing polarization that traffics in pigeonholing people into undeserved
buckets, art people are “smart” and car people are “stupid.” That’s not fair.
To quote Puddy from <i>Seinfeld</i>, “I don’t know too many monkeys that can take apart a fuel
injector.”</span></span></p></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-48114808888034157622022-11-03T19:11:00.000-04:002022-11-03T19:11:03.497-04:00A Candlelight Tribute to...Taylor Swift? <p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobhKSa4XWaE3F_Q7oI-kFK54iJstSDkyp_bvm6KNI7jYKSd2tkMT7R71p0NnL5l83zpmvU-gJXCJotC3r8QK98qmie_dwY-IsQfUZ5GMclIy2yiamC0nnpRkqhwNNUqNupGnX4GgELBkx2Zx-dgeTaOyBt9hUtbpnT5AVwO2dMa39wNF6uJpX8ubrOw/s496/Taylor.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="496" data-original-width="487" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhobhKSa4XWaE3F_Q7oI-kFK54iJstSDkyp_bvm6KNI7jYKSd2tkMT7R71p0NnL5l83zpmvU-gJXCJotC3r8QK98qmie_dwY-IsQfUZ5GMclIy2yiamC0nnpRkqhwNNUqNupGnX4GgELBkx2Zx-dgeTaOyBt9hUtbpnT5AVwO2dMa39wNF6uJpX8ubrOw/s320/Taylor.png" width="314" /></a></div>Nothing fiddles while Rome burns quite like a <a href="https://feverup.com/m/107655" target="_blank">candlelit tribute</a> to mediocrity atop a school shutdown for gentrification's bird's eye view of the city it set ablaze. <p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Satire is dead, folks. Not even Tina Fey could write a joke this good.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0800 Mifflin St, Philadelphia, PA 19148, USA39.9254922 -75.16030719999999111.615258363821155 -110.31655719999999 68.235726036178846 -40.004057199999991tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-29554166406933377002018-05-22T21:09:00.004-04:002018-05-22T21:09:55.042-04:00Homophobia Shut Down 12th Street Gym<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I were to tell you there was a fitness center in the heart of the city that had a swimming pool, racquetball court, basketball court, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sauna,</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> sun deck, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">about ten thousand square feet of gym equipment, and sprawling classrooms for endless free classes, you'd think I was crazy. If I told you it cost about $29 a month, came with two free training sessions, seven individual guest passes, all without the nefarious upsell and membership cancellation practices of corporate gyms, you'd have me committed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But it did exist, for nearly three decades, and it finally closed its doors because New Philadelphians and Millennials have turned Philadelphia into a hot-bed of pro-corporate snobbery. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHCgy8c3wdvzIO5JlSQDIndlRFaARmLncRjaMNcx1FEkf90kHhVUUKhQW0tEF4HEpJ1RjNO1e8D3mHVa9yd7I5mCWGK90zHvyMU0GCrmbOrdbPHsaj7FS0W-HsPNonawh2_yxvYC4oKnI/s1600/download.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="136" data-original-width="369" height="117" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHCgy8c3wdvzIO5JlSQDIndlRFaARmLncRjaMNcx1FEkf90kHhVUUKhQW0tEF4HEpJ1RjNO1e8D3mHVa9yd7I5mCWGK90zHvyMU0GCrmbOrdbPHsaj7FS0W-HsPNonawh2_yxvYC4oKnI/s320/download.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the outside, 12th Street Gym is unassuming. The only thing indicating it's more than a warehouse along the Gayborhood's 12th Street Strip is the stunning mural of LGBT rights activist, Gloria Casarez. Once a gay bathhouse - community code for a den of anonymous sex - the gym had a hard time shaking its former reputation. Many straight men and women no doubt avoided the notion of joining a "gay gym," while gay men scoffed at the connotation it carried, all despite its bevy of services and modest membership price. Nonetheless, it catered to over 4000 active members, many dedicated for a long time. I'd been a member myself since I moved to Philadelphia in 2004. When 12th Street Gym closed, I declined the extended membership offered for Philadelphia Sports Club, and like so many others, opted for Optimal Sports Health Club nearby at Walnut and Juniper. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Optimal is a fine facility, casually referred to as "the other gay gym." The day after 12th Street closed, Optimal was taxed with a barrage of new members. Underestimating just how many would reject PSC's offer, Optimal quickly annexed an additional 800 square feet of space. Still, the gym is small, roughly the size of one of 12th Street's many floors. It's practical. There is no common space, no juice bar, and it's tucked down a small street. Once again, like so many LGBT venues in Philadelphia, the community has been hidden from plain site. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What made 12th Street Gym so popular with those of us who embraced it, and the very reason we sought out Optimal in lieu of PSC, is that it was more than a fitness center, it was the Gayborhood's community center. With more and more mainstream development expanding throughout the neighborhood, with developers adopting the phrase "Midtown Village" beyond the confines of 13th and Chestnut, it's not hard to feel the pangs of gentrification. We need places like 12th Street Gym, places to gather beyond booze and hookups. I like Optimal, but it isn't one of those places. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Midtown Village" itself, though it started merely as a business collective along the once-beleaguered 13th Street, is a concept met with understandable reservation within the LGBT community. Real estate agents use the term to sell and rent apartments to those who might be skittish about living in a "gay ghetto." You wouldn't be hard-pressed to overhear a few sipping mimosas at Green Eggs Cafe, even cocktails at Woody's, espouse how the neighborhood is changing without a hint of dismay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed it is changing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Woody's, once Philadelphia's go-to gay bar, is now avoided by local LGBT individuals: it caters to bridal parties on some sort of safari. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While this change may be good for developers, it's not for a still-marginalized community. Exposed by the apparent connotation in the word "Gayborhood," a brand only whispered by heterosexual newcomers, is a latent underlying homophobia more dangerous than arbitrary protesters at a Pride parade. Why? Well it's hard to know your enemy when they're self-professed liberals from Park Slope who don't want to admit they don't want you around their kids. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This discrimination would be far more apparent were developers renaming the Italian Market. What would it say about race if real estate agents began referring to Chinatown as "East Market Village" because, for some reason, they had a hard time moving condos in an ethnic enclave? But that's exactly what's happening in the Gayborhood, and it's going unchecked. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">12th Street Gym had financial problems, that's very true. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Several years ago, the Department of Licenses and Inspections slapped them with a fine for inadequate fire doors necessitating $500,000 in renovations.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, as I was getting my hair cut at Rossi's next to the gym shortly after it closed, I was talking about those exact problems with several former members and my barber, and it became clear that the gym easily could have crowd-funded the money needed to remain open. $500,000 is by no means a small sum, but the LGBT community is by no means loose. Thanks to dealing with a whole lot of shit, we're a tight group that comes to the aid of one another. In a few years, even a few months, we could have raised the funds. I would have gladly pitched in one of those thousands. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The truth is, 12th Street Gym didn't fit in with what the city is becoming. The gym didn't close when it failed to meet L&I's standards, it closed when a development company from New York purchased the property. No doubt two lawsuits regarding a handsy massage therapist didn't help matters, but the second lawsuit was incredibly sketchy. In a facility as large as 12th Street Gym, and one that had been open for so long, these unfortunate cases happen. That's why gyms, therapists, and trainers pay massive insurance premiums. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">None of this would have closed 12th Street Gym a decade ago. L&I's fire safety standards haven't changed that substantially, if at all in the last ten years. But L&I and other city agencies have been working at the behest of gentrification, targeting locally owned businesses and granting passes to the corporate conglomerates that fall in line with developers' largest profits. It wouldn't be hard to imagine Midwood Corporation flipping the bill for $500,000 in renovations if they could land a corporate tenant like Planet Fitness, or something more marketable to the "Midtown Village" set. 12th Street Gym just didn't fit the mold of newcomers, and the L&I violations and lawsuits proved worthy scapegoats to shut the place down. In 2018, gay owned and operated businesses still carry a stigma amid the happy couples pushing baby carriages through "Midtown Village." And that's profoundly sad for those of us not born with the privilege of being "normal." </span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-86298352311258906432018-05-20T21:23:00.002-04:002018-05-20T21:23:53.831-04:00The Status Quo of Optimization<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Among all the "four letter words" the internet age has wrought, none may be as underhandedly ugly as "optimization." Among the obnoxious buzzwords pouring out of cubicle pools, it's far from the newest. But it reigns over every facet of today's corporate realm, public or private, as a positive way to maximize profits, but because it's so complicatedly metric-driven it's hard to explain the damage it does to the spirit of product development and design in a sentence or two. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">When I joined the ranks of information technology nerds in the late 1990s, the internet was the Wild West. It was also merely supplemental, like a telephone or answering machine. It didn't run our lives, it simply enhanced it. The first wave, you might say, of the Technological Revolution was rooted in this simplicity. The internet just made lives a little more convenient. Optimization wasn't central to development. Graphic designers designed interfaces and product experts made decisions based on experience. Today, let's call it the second wave, or post-boom, development is driven not by experts but optimization: algorithms that determine exactly what will sell the most units, and in many cases keep you engaged with a product as long as possible. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We binge, and profits soar. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnhnSc0PUNdGeQStUv8qPwL3JS-BIFn1yVZEien7ddzQfhvc9Ppri-XTx6OHBOR3V_5eSeSMfV0OB8a5EM_fpwFhs_cl9O9h9UdYJeEJm2a9DlzETOrAvx3RKfiI9rVEVxGuLiQIZOGWZH/s1600/ScreenShot2014-08-21at2.21.22PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="602" data-original-width="910" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnhnSc0PUNdGeQStUv8qPwL3JS-BIFn1yVZEien7ddzQfhvc9Ppri-XTx6OHBOR3V_5eSeSMfV0OB8a5EM_fpwFhs_cl9O9h9UdYJeEJm2a9DlzETOrAvx3RKfiI9rVEVxGuLiQIZOGWZH/s320/ScreenShot2014-08-21at2.21.22PM.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The good ol' days</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The problem, though, with optimization is that it doesn't build optimal products, only optimal profits. When you eschew designers and experts for algorithms and metrics, you're merely seeking to reach the largest audience. And the largest audience is squarely in the middle of the Bell Curve. It's average, the status quo, not good or bad but too boring to really note. Take Netflix, for example. The online streaming service put nearly all brick-and-mortar video stores out of business. That in itself is not necessarily a bad thing, just marketplace evolution brought by invention. But over the last year, in the name of optimization, Netflix's content has gone unarguably downhill. There are diamonds in the rough like <i>Stranger Things</i> and <i>Arrested Development</i>, but rather than pay for the rights to great movies, their catalog of full of oddball foreign films, found footage b-movies, and hoards of forgettable television shows that users will binge watch because nothing else is available. It's right to point out that Amazon owns the market for online movie rentals, but it's also true that Netflix abandoned its unique model for the status quo of optimization.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">So what's this got to do with architecture and urban planning? Well, architecture, like everything else, has joined the optimization movement. The most notable examples in Philadelphia would be Toll Brothers and OCF Realty, where sturdy and unique buildings are demolished for cheap construction not built to last. Rather than convert landmarks like the Society Hill Playhouse, the Royal Theater, the Boyd, Frankford Chocolate Factory, and countless 19th Century row homes for a handsome return, profits are optimized by metrics dictating low-cost construction. Our modern culture has been so groomed to not only tolerate it, but desire sameness squarely within the status quo. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Cheapness is in vogue. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Built to last as long as a tax abatement</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This has been going on in the suburbs for decades, one might even say since the suburbs were invented with Levittowns. Today, McMansions are the status quo of desirability, symbols of wealth and status that ironically fail to stand out among the crowds of sameness. It's as if the housing market's target audience wants to display a status symbol while blending in. Keeping Up With the Jones's is an exercise in futility when you're either afraid to stand out or live within your means. Urban centers used to be a reprieve from such pointless efforts, but the trend is tiptoeing back downtown. Once home to the opulent excess of the Gilded Age and Roaring 20s, each mansion more grand and storied than the last, followed by eight decades of artistic Bohemian diversity, cities are now full of cheap construction, canned design, and flash-in-the-pan businesses that will never survive long enough to become institutions. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">You'll re-think this investment the first time you need to replace that massive roof.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br />Architecture, too, suffers as much as the urban planning and business concepts, and not just in the cases of press-board row homes clad in plastic and metal panels paraded as some sort of "modernism." The most lauded skyscrapers pale in comparison to the landmark limestone towers of the early 20th Century, even some mid-century Brutalist examples. For well over twenty years, glass curtains have been the optimal status quo. Some critics and architects might argue that the use of blue glass is intended to allow the building's height to blend in with the sky. But that's a cop out, and unnecessary. Why would a company spend upwards of a billion dollars to build something that fails to make a statement? You wouldn't spend $5000 on a wedding dress that looks like every other dress in the crowd. The reality is, glass is the optimal alternative to stone and brick and the employment of a curtain is an affordably chic way to cut the cost of designing anything more dynamic. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In places like New York and other skyscraper-heavy cities, there's little incentive to truly stand out when the most basic design is financially optimal. It's also not hard to stand out when the bar has been driven so low. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Of course all of this may be coming to a head, and a lot of that has to do with the unrealistic profits demanded by optimization, especially within publicly traded companies. It also has to do with our unsustainable disposable society. When million dollar homes built by companies like Toll Brothers begin to fall apart, the market may begin demanding quality over excess. Everything from smartphones to cars are built to be discarded and planned obsolescence can't last forever. Likewise, there will come a point where there are simply no profits left to meet quarterly goals. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This happened in some small part during the last Recession and on an unprecedented scale in the Great Depression. If history repeats itself, and given the election of a neo-Herbert Hoover, it is, the Technological Revolution will end very much like its Industrial counterpart in 1929. That's not bad, though. Like the late stages of the Industrial Revolution, optimization has come to replace innovation. We're not inventing anything but perpetual and exponential profits. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Our society has become more financially polarized than any era since the Roaring 20s. The waste of our excess is unchecked. When the market inevitably collapses it may hit harder than it did in the 1930s, but we'll be forced to recon with our disposable society, economic polarization, and the fast-fashion way we attack architecture and corporate design in general. Quality and optimization can't go hand in hand, but quality can be forced by financial hardship where longevity becomes necessity. We might build smaller and live more simply, but we'll re-learn an appreciation for history and building things to last. We'll also be forced to reject optimization's cheap and boring status quo. The next Depression will be rough, but it will bring welcomed change. </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-38275599701146011152018-05-13T21:18:00.002-04:002018-05-13T21:18:21.355-04:00More Historic Loss in the Midst of Preservation Month<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadZ1QekErigNh-5M0zW3CgVTgfb3E7rGb-D3zVouRZ9xvjW3MweN1eeQPnfr-Abt1q1CCARLSo0yBvo75qgJ70bCf8UjlE7ax-e8knd6JzC-739bfVO44tDveNMMw6R2KaQK_R7qIHdfv/s1600/christian-street-baptist-church-is-slated-for-demolition-developer-ori-feibush-plans-to-build-townhouses-on-the-lot.0.224.5344.2558.752.360.c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="752" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiadZ1QekErigNh-5M0zW3CgVTgfb3E7rGb-D3zVouRZ9xvjW3MweN1eeQPnfr-Abt1q1CCARLSo0yBvo75qgJ70bCf8UjlE7ax-e8knd6JzC-739bfVO44tDveNMMw6R2KaQK_R7qIHdfv/s320/christian-street-baptist-church-is-slated-for-demolition-developer-ori-feibush-plans-to-build-townhouses-on-the-lot.0.224.5344.2558.752.360.c.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">After this month's demolition of the historic Frankford Chocolate Factory, thanks to an endless array of loopholes within the city's preservation-dedicated agencies, another element of mismanagement has allowed the same developer, Ori Feibush of OCF Realty, to demolish the Christian Street Baptist Church. </span><br />
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In this instance, this <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2017/11/20/christian-street-baptist-church-ori-feibush-demo.html" style="color: #1155cc;">Historical Commission voted 5-4 to protect</a> the 19th Century Italianate church with two abstentions. It's those abstentions that allowed the church to remain unprotected despite a vote in favor. As it turned out, the Department of Planning and Development requires the Historical Commission to grant at least six votes in order to protect a building. This all happened nearly six months ago, and since then no re-vote has been cast. </div>
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Chalk one more up to the nation's first World Heritage City in the midst of Preservation Month. It's curious why two of the Historical Commission's members declined to vote. After all, they're the primary body responsible for making these sometimes tough decisions.</div>
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Did those two members just not bother showing up?</div>
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Feibush, who paid $1.5M for the property, briefly held out in search of a buyer willing to convert the church into apartments. It certainly wouldn't be unheard of. There are a number of converted churches in the city and surrounding areas and they make breathtaking living spaces, some fetching much higher prices than newly constructed town homes. Feibush even offered to let the property go for $1M, but claims no offers were made.</div>
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In the wake of the demolition of the Frankford Chocolate Factory and other properties razed by Feibush and OCF Reality, this all sounds a little sketchy. Though it seems Feibush extended an olive branch after his much-criticized demolition of the factory (which reminded many he also demolished the Royal Theater), <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/business/real_estate/residential/philadelphia-historic-preservation-ori-feibush-christian-street-baptist-20180420.html" style="color: #1155cc;">he only extended that offer for a month</a>. As of Thursday, <a href="https://philly.curbed.com/2018/5/10/17340490/neighbors-plan-bella-vista-christian-baptist-church-ori-feibush" style="color: #1155cc;">demolition was back on</a>, with hopes to quickly ready the site for two buildings comprised of eight apartments.</div>
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Like the factory and the Royal Theater, this speaks to the erratic fashion under which Feibush conducts business. Unlike developers with firm project plans, i.e. Carl Dranoff and Eric Blumenfeld, Feibush targets threatened sites, moves quickly and confusingly. Before the dust settles, he's often erected one of his superfluously cardboard carbon copies and preservationists are left scratching their heads, wondering what exactly just happened before he's moved on to his next idea. This is characteristic of a developer who once ran for City Council which, would he have won, would have imposed massive conflicts-of-interest were he ever to sign the death warrant of a property he stood to profit from. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOfLdy595oI_dUmeFEDJ8VxrcikhSurDlcpXD6XPIVYZY2an_fV3tSGX4xxdw2ZxllXIfXb0u5QMG9tulMD7e7qxZyzYeqktb8M7m4p4QL0Jl-gij1_u2tm5VydgJqs8ZKIIfzYQZN3CF/s1600/royal-theater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIOfLdy595oI_dUmeFEDJ8VxrcikhSurDlcpXD6XPIVYZY2an_fV3tSGX4xxdw2ZxllXIfXb0u5QMG9tulMD7e7qxZyzYeqktb8M7m4p4QL0Jl-gij1_u2tm5VydgJqs8ZKIIfzYQZN3CF/s320/royal-theater.jpg" width="320" /></a>But as it currently exists, Feibush and OCF Realty function within the confines of the law, however unethically they may exploit the spirit of it. Why can't Feibush himself convert the Christian Street Baptist Church into four or six unique apartments? He might not see the same expansive profit of a tear-down replaced with cheap construction, but he'd easily make back his investment. As many noted while he began razing the Frankford Chocolate Factory, residential conversion of these urban properties was the status quo in the 1980s and '90s, most notably in Callowhill's lofts. </div>
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OCF Realty seems to have found a loyal and steady flow of income in Millennials and New Philadelphians who don't really understand Philadelphia's history, or care to. </div>
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While neighbors ferociously opposed Feibush's plans for Christian Street, their opposition was almost exclusively surrounding (you guessed it) parking. It's a just complaint. While the site would get eight cars off the street, it would bring eight cars to an already congested and car-heavy part of town, all a few blocks from a subway and next to several major bus routes. However, given that the church is not technically under any historic protection, arguments regarding parking may have been the pragmatic way to make a case for saving a beautiful old building and neighborhood landmark. </div>
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None of this matters so long as Feibush owns the church. Anyone remotely familiar with development in Philadelphia is aware of Feibush's nefarious track record for sameness crammed with "luxury" amenities. <a href="http://mcmansionhell.com/">McMansionHell</a> could franchise a subsidiary dedicated to piss-poor post-post-modern urban architecture without ever straying from OCF Realty's website. </div>
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Feibush and other one-trick ponies like Toll Brothers don't have a vested interest in Philadelphia that doesn't solely benefit their bottom lines. Preservation isn't as profitable as new construction, it never will be. This is exactly why we have organizations like the Historical Commission, the Preservation Task Force, and the Register of Historic Places. They are the gates between history and profit-blinded development. </div>
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Hope for preservation can't exist when those charged with protecting history aren't willing to do their jobs, or bother to do something as simple as vote. In Philadelphia, preservation currently only exists in hindsight, and in those of us who can do nothing but look at falling buildings and shake our heads. Currently we're seeing a level of historic loss not seen since the post-war demolition spree responsible for some of the city's largest urban voids: Dock Street, Penn's Landing, Vine Street. By now, we should know better. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-48882747626180597512018-05-08T21:54:00.000-04:002018-05-08T21:54:19.340-04:00Shop Local<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">In the wake of Starbucks' 911 call that led to a perp walk of two innocent black men, the company has taken to an apology tour, an in-person meeting between their CEO and those arrested, and shutting down for a day to conduct obligatory sensitivity training. But if you followed Chipotle's embarrassing diarrhea fiasco or Facebook's less-than-grueling two days in front of the Senate, you can certainly spot a trend: feign shock from the top down, promise future accountability, and keep an apologetically low profile during Twitter's 48 hour attention span.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Wash, rinse, repeat. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">I have to wonder when the general public's patience for the corporate excuse-mill will begin to wane. Or if, in the age of rapid-fire social media, the past's inability to instantaneously expose all ill-repute has simply been traded for our collective 21st Century ADD. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;">A month later, does anyone but those afflicted remember that this even happened? No doubt <i>The Onion </i>is already drafting satirical replies to Starbucks' closure on the 29th #FML #ThisIsTheWorstThingThatsEverHappenedToAnyone.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Aside from recent gun reform debates that went on for an unprecedented month, I can't remember a post-smartphone boycott that lasted for more than a few days. Stocks inevitably fall for a few hours, but the cycle has been so normalized </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">that even Facebook's value managed to surge while the Silicon Valley's prodigal son was testifying before Washington. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Wall Street owns our outrage, even when it's directed at them. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;">Shareholders know that corporate remorse is designed to benefit themselves, and it's time we begin to recon with this, and what it means as consumers and suppliers. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 12.8px;">Public corporations (pick one) function under business models layered far more insidiously than simple bigotry as the street knows it, and treating the symptoms that expose themselves the way they did at Starbucks is akin to bandaging a malignant tumor. The response - be it Starbucks' apology, Chipotle's investigation and blame-game, or whatever Southwest decides to do about the commercial airline industry's first death in almost a decade - is always a measured calculation backed up by data that proves it won't just repair its stock price and image, but actually advance it.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">We expect this from politicians, but when perceived ideologue CEOs tout the same modus operandi, brand loyalists continually return to freely advertise their products by literally wearing and carrying their logos. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">"They've learned" and "they're actually better now" become the aftermath's rally cry from consumers who either don't want to kick the habit of their guilty pleasures or are afraid to admit they ever shopped somewhere so blind-sidedly money-minded in the first place. In the end, inevitable Starbucks apologists (among others) will sound like religious Trump-supporters excusing his extra-marital affairs. We all know better, but continue to embrace whatever is offered up so long as it supports our fractured ideals or ability to be as lazy as humanly possible. </span></span></span><br />
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Any "good liberal" wants to assume Starbucks is a good company. They offer benefits to part-time employees and pay more than the minimum wage. But we ignore the fact that these decisions themselves are also the results of pre-packaged analytics that have invented an infallibly profitable model.<br />
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Remember those dastardly deeds carried out by Facebook's partner in crime, Cambridge Analytica? They don't exclusively apply to "free" ad driven companies like Facebook and Twitter. Starbucks analyzes the very same type of information. It's gathered through in-app purchases, registered gift cards, and social media, then used to determine what it needs to maintain its customers and grow.</div>
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In the realm of public corporations, we're more than customers, we're extensions of their products. Companies like Starbucks continue making money off us long after we've walked out the door.<br />
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If the Senate was really interested in (or understood how to) put the kibosh on Facebook's ill repute, one would have suggested banning targeted advertising altogether. </div>
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Most would like to think we shop ethically by supporting companies that seem to support us back. But public companies don't have a social consciousness. Companies that offer unisex dressing rooms and wedding cards for same-sex couples don't do so at the behest of LGBT equality, only popular opinion and how it can be monetized.<br />
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Just watch as the outcry over gun reform and school shootings returns to a stable baseline and you'll see the banks and retailers who promised they'd block the purchase and sale of AR-15s back away from the subject or ignore they ever made such statements in the first place, none of which were very specific to begin with. </div>
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The only business you can trust is the one you know. Whole Foods isn't expensive because it's healthy, it's expensive because it's fostered a clientele that assumes anything affordable is unhealthy. Does anyone really think Jeff Bezos is worth $119 billion because he wants his customers to reap the health benefits of kale?</div>
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Likewise, Starbucks has strategically weighed the pros and cons of catering to a niche, and whether their bottom line dictates change or it's more profitable to just weather the storm.<br />
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The sad truth is, this Starbucks has long been known locally as the "racist Starbucks" and that's never been formally addressed. S<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">omething about these two men didn't sit well with the manager and by extension, the clientele her company caters to. That doesn't inspire a lot of hope that anything will be remedied on May 29th but Starbucks' stock value; then it can return to the status quo. </span></div>
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Like any massive company, Starbucks can always play it off by pointing out their "diverse" staff and clientele, but let's not tiptoe around the obvious: no Starbucks looks like the crowd at Dunkin' Donuts, and Starbucks doesn't want it to. </div>
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Black, white, Indian, Asian, gay, trans, Hispanic...Starbucks customers are of a certain demographic, apparent tax-bracket, and a look that is colloquially "white." The police were called on these two men because they were <i>black</i>, and the thin racial veil that Starbucks (et. al.) surfs under is every bit as deplorable, if not more, than textbook black-and-white racism. </div>
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The fact that Starbucks claims arbitrary training will somehow eradicate racial bias among its 238,000 employees isn't just disingenuous, it's offensive. If erasing 241 years of institutionalized American racism were as easy as a poorly produced corporate video and a jam session with Linda in human resources, we'd all go through it in elementary school and I wouldn't be writing this. </div>
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To Starbucks, and any corporation that gets caught with its pants down, this isn't about social progress. It's about their bottom line. Blatantly bigoted events like this should be used to explore why businesses are obligated to welcome everyone. Instead, they're used to advertise a brand's image as inclusive and compassionate while explaining to managers how much money each specific minority spends in their stores per annum. </div>
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Doing otherwise would negate the bottom line. They've gamed the process so well that they know exactly how to spin the worst press into free publicity. </div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Starbucks has long established itself as classist, at best. They have "a look." It behooves their investors to expect this mentality of their customers, and manifests itself when franchisees call the cops on people who don't blend in. If they openly catered to the demographics of a roadside gas station, i.e. everyone, they might lose the honey pot of self-righteously woke customers who excuse their own covert racism by re-Tweeting YouTube videos of Beyonce at Coachella. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Handing your money over to Wall Street darlings shouldn't be second nature, only a necessary evil that comes with credit cards and cable. In cities like Philadelphia, especially, brand loyalty should be the realm of local chains like Saxby's and La Colombe, and even then only when owner-operated businesses aren't available.</span></span></div>
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Shop local - Green Street, Last Drop, Square One - only then can you really know why you should, or shouldn't, support a business. By the time any company has ballooned to the size of Starbucks, it's nothing but under-vetted employees operating within a vacuum of data points telling them exactly how to keep Wall Street happy. And how prejudiced they're allowed, or need, to be. Any apology, response, or sensitivity protocol is every bit as soulless as this profitability matrix because each is merely a cog in exactly that machine. </div>
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No one needed to wait for two peaceful black men to get handcuffed in a Starbucks to find a reason to avoid a corporate chain. Our default setting should be supporting our neighbors, not Wall Street. I'm not sure when that became such an impossible idea. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-65551276171364341882018-05-07T21:22:00.000-04:002018-05-07T21:22:24.314-04:00What to Do About Philadelphia Magazine<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In Ashley Primis's article, <a href="https://www.phillymag.com/news/2018/05/05/south-street-philadelphia/">"What to Do About South Street,"</a> <i>Philadelphia </i>Magazine does what it does best: pose a question nobody asked and then spend a whole bunch of words complaining about the magazine's namesake. If the title rings familiar, it's not unlike Annie Monjar's 2011 tone deaf piece, <a href="https://www.phillymag.com/news/2011/10/27/eastern-state-penitentiary/">"Do We Really Still Need Eastern State Penitentiary?,"</a> where another transplant ruthlessly berated one of the nation's most revered historic landmarks. If either's arrogant unfamiliarity with Philadelphia also sounds familiar, you've likely read Ernest Owens' <a href="https://www.phillymag.com/author/ernest-owens/">regular rants</a> about the city's LGBT community and a neighborhood Primis herself once referred to as <a href="https://www.phillymag.com/property/2017/04/08/spring-arts-development-cohen-grossman/">"the former Gayborhood"</a> without a hint of remorse. </span><br />
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All part of a cynicism that's become disturbingly common in <i>Philadelphia </i>Magazine, it's certainly worth noting that none of these three writers are native to the Philadelphia area. It's not as though journalists aren't welcome to cover subjects they aren't intimately familiar with, but hit-jobs are usually reserved for those rooted in the subject matter. Otherwise they can sound ignorant at best or prejudiced at worst. For example, Owens has spent a number of his stories criticizing events and venues he boycotts. </div>
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Ironically, shortly after lauding South Street's uncharacteristically posh new venues and making some comment about lattes, Primis gushes about her first experiences on South Street, claiming - accurately - that one "couldn't build something like South Street today." She then begrudgingly likens to strip to an aging rocker, specifically Keith Richards, who might be the human embodiment of the street, now or thirty years ago. </div>
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The article is weird. Primis waxes and wanes between an appreciation for the street's past and vitriol, even copping to her own unfamiliarity with a street she's lived on for ten years. Perplexing, she lands on saving the street's inherent grit by essentially turning it into a kid-friendly shopping mall with a grocery store. Fun. </div>
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While it's true South Street has seen better days, it's also seen worse. Like many neighborhoods once emblematic of Philadelphia's Bohemian mid-century past, it's facing the growing pains of a city on the rise. But the knee jerk reaction to treat it as the status quo and propose stuffing it with upscale boutiques selling $900 jackets only provides residents and tourists with more of the same. South Street could use an injection of new businesses, but treating it with the same canned response employed everywhere from Kensington to Passyunk Square, or suggesting some sort of cohesive makeover, strips away an eclectic appeal formed through decades of urban evolution. </div>
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It's also shortsighted because, as opposed to the aforementioned neighborhoods, South Street isn't necessarily outdated, just not <i>Philadelphia </i>Magazine's apparent cup of tea. But that is the exact problem with the magazine's flawed take on Philadelphia, and gentrification in general. South Street thrives in the summertime and sees no shortage of business during the winter months. It's a destination attraction drawing people from all over the world, and they seem to like it. It's the sole locale for Baby Boomers, the bane of gentrifiers and the ilk writing for <i>Philadelphia </i>Magazine, to find a concert from their youth without hoofing it out to York County. </div>
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What's troubling about <i>Philadelphia </i>Magazine's sort of commentary is that, in a city of a million and a half residents, and a massive geographical footprint for the mid-Atlantic, there's seemingly no room to leave something that hasn't failed well enough alone. </div>
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South Street will hardly be the first casualty of this urban dementia. Nearby, the Gayborhood might appear to be thriving with its abundance of bars and restaurants, but the LGBT community itself has been scattered throughout the region by sky rocketing rents and corporate chains. Recently, 12th Street Gym, a vast and wildly popular business that was as much an LGBT community center as a fitness center, was forced to close after being purchased by a New York-based developer and targeted by the Department of Licenses and Inspections. When the luxury apartment building Commonwealth 1201 opened, the Mazonni Center left the Gayborhood for Bainbridge Street. The Italian Market too may soon see its own luxury apartment development at the corner of 9th and Washington, inevitably altering a unique streetscape that still retains the provincial aesthetic from some of the nation's earliest immigrants, catering alongside some of our most recent. </div>
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Most unnerving in Primis's assessment is her awe inspired witness to the reclamation of, among other areas, the Gayborhood's re-branded "Midtown Village." Coupled with her former jab at the Gayborhood, I can't help but read the thinly veiled homophobia shared by so many neo-liberals who desperately want to appear progressive while harboring resentment for anything that doesn't cater exclusively to their brand. "Midtown Village" reclaimed the LGBT community's safe space for a bunch of homophobic frat boys and real estate agents who know their clients are too covertly bigoted to buy condos in a neighborhood with the word "gay" in its name. </div>
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With so many costly and already-posh neighborhoods straddling the river, where does this gut instinct to terraform every last square foot of real estate in the name of sameness come from? With an almost hostile disdain for anything not clad in glass, plastic, and steel; sanitized to suburban perfection, one has to wonder why those moving to Philadelphia in droves ever bothered to move somewhere so oddball in the first place if not to simply bully a bunch of weirdos into submission like they did in the high school cafeteria where they once reigned supreme. </div>
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South Street is an institution. It's empty storefronts could be filled with something far more dynamic than more restaurants. Our foodie scene once rivaled some of the world's best, but an influx of high-end poverty appropriation - fancy tacos and french fries - has turned a scene once brimming with quality and panache into one that's exhaustively cliche. Instead, the evolution that South Street demands is one reflective of its past: art stores, tattoo parlors, shops packed with oddities, and lots and lots of color. What's wrong with head shops and districts that cater to those not shoving $2000 baby carriages through our narrow sidewalks? Primis points out the diversity of the South Street strip - diversity that can be hard to find commingling in Philadelphia - but her pitch to turn it into a destination for the spendthrift threatens to make it about as "white" as Starbucks on a Monday. </div>
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This is the Philadelphia <i>Philadelphia </i>Magazine wants, despite hiring Chicago muckraker Ernest Owens to challenge its straight, white image of yoga and beer gardens. </div>
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Misunderstanding this, not to mention taking aim at nearly everything that defines Philadelphia as something apart from a New York borough, has made <i>Philadelphia </i>Magazine the least Philadelphian local outlet, and continues to prove that it's incapable of shedding its notoriously banal past. Not only do the magazine's contributors not <i>get </i>Philadelphia, they simply don't <i>want </i>to. Unfortunately they speak for a voluminous influx of new residents who never liked Philadelphia much to begin with, and came to remake it in their own boring image. Sameness is the enemy of diversity and what once made cities great. Why is Philadelphia, and its namesake magazine, defiantly embracing the most basic elements that ruined New York, San Francisco, and Seattle? </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-11860604298879045312018-05-03T21:40:00.000-04:002018-05-03T21:54:11.353-04:00Odd Bedfellows: Frankford Chocolate Factory<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Inga Saffron's articles at the Philadelphia <i>Inquirer </i>and <i>Daily News</i> are some of the region's most "don't miss" reading. And like some of the best binge-worthy television shows, most are great, but occasionally there's that one that truly stands out as astounding. If the architectural critiques found within Philly.com were Season 3 of <i>Twin Peaks</i>, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/inga_saffron/grojlart-hidden-city-ori-feibush-frankford-chocolate-factory-dennis-carlisle-20180503.html">today's column</a> is easily Part 8, right down to its inexplicable and stunning nuclear detonation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Hard hitting and investigative journalism is hard to find in the age of the internet. In the column titled, "What's the connection between a Philly blogger and the demolition of the Washington Ave. chocolate factory?," Saffron expands well beyond the confines of architectural design reviews and local development news to explain exactly why the "fuddy-duddy legacy media" still matters. Held (mostly, we hope) to journalistic ethics standards, the legacy media, especially print (and its online counterpart), enforces conflict of interest guidelines, clearly notes sponsored content, and resists click-bait and high-revenue-generating infotainment. In a frenzied 24-hour news cycle competing for advertisers, it's easy to overlook when some of the largest media outlets (looking at you CNN and FoxNews) treat fact checking like old hat.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But they're also competing with the internet's vacuum of anonymity: blogs, message boards, YouTube videos, even user generated content in the comments sections. That the legacy media of print journalism and the nightly network news have managed to survive, barely, amid an echo chamber of subjectivity doing little more than preaching to its own choir is utterly amazing. That Saffron managed to use its platform to turn on that very blogosphere in an objective and insightful way is unprecedented, and it's why she has a Pulitzer Prize. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Like <a href="https://hiddencityphila.org/2018/04/frankford-chocolate-factory-demo-calls-motivation-process-into-question/">Starr Herr-Cardillo's column for Hidden City</a>, Saffron points out the shady connection between Point Breeze developer Ori Feibush's demolition of the Frankford Chocolate Factory and Dennis Carlisle, a.k.a., GroJLart, <a href="http://philaphilia.blogspot.com/">blogger</a>, <a href="https://hiddencityphila.org/author/GroJLart/">contributor to Hidden City</a>. and long-time favorite foul-mouth of architecture nerds throughout the tri-state area and beyond. In short (you should really read both columns for yourself), Carlisle had nominated the Frankford Chocolate Factory to be placed on the Historic Register in December. In January he was hired by Ori Feibush's firm, OCF Reality. In March, still writing for Hidden City, an outlet championing above all historic preservation, he appeared before the Historical Commission to retract its nomination, a retraction that was denied. To ultimately bring the factory down, Feibush hired his own engineers to deem the building unsafe, and demolition was finally granted by the Historical Commission and L&I. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">By then, Carlisle's identity as GroJLart had been exposed, at least to the small, but vocal community of preservationists familiar with his work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Herr-Cardillo's column delved into the nitty-gritty of the unusual process that led to the factory's demolition, but it was uncharacteristically passionate for the outlet. With GroJLart's columns aside, Hidden City can be described as dry. Those who love architecture and local history routinely pour through its virtual pages, but the articles might be too lengthy and bespoke for some's taste. After speaking with Herr-Cardillo briefly on Instagram, she used the word "hopeless," a sentiment all of us vested in the city's built history can surely sympathize with right now. Those at Hidden City undoubtedly felt duped by Dennis Carlisle. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The fact that no laws were clearly broken in order to raze a building on the National Register, that Feibush could refuse an independent engineering assessment in lieu of engineers he himself hired to deem the property unsafe, categorically puts every historic building in Philadelphia in jeopardy. We've seen this all play out before in one way or another, the most insidious tactic being the economic hardship exemption that allows developers to demolish often historic structures when they can prove renovation or reuse unprofitable, as if millionaire developers deserve the same exception that the variance was designed for. "Hopeless" is really the only way to describe how preservationists, and people who simply love what Philadelphia <i>is</i>, feel right now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Saffron took a somewhat different route in her column, calling out the odd marriage of a demolition-happy developer and a journalist focused on historic properties, and particularly the fact that the OCF Realty employee who retracted the factory's historic nomination was anonymously moonlighting as a preservation-minded writer. In general, she pointed out how this is another example of the dangers of anonymity in journalism, comparing Carlisle to none other than FoxNews muckraker, Sean Hannity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Without a massive overhaul of multiple layers within the city government - L&I, the Historical Commission, the Register - it's clear this is just getting started, especially with a growing population and an inexplicable demand for more new construction in a city with an abundance of handsome and affordable old homes. In a New Philadelphia that would consider everything I've personally lived in a "shell" just because it's cheaper to tear down than add central air, nearly every house in the city is threatened by developers. Like Pearl Properties' demolition of the Boyd Theatre's auditorium, Southern Land Company's razing of nearby Sansom Street, and Toll Brothers at Jewelers Row and the Society Hill Playhouse, Ori Feibush is another in a line of developers providing more blueprints for how to abuse the intended purpose of our city agencies. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Of course Feibush might be the lowest common denominator, evident in his shoddy construction and poorly chosen architectural merit. Unlike the others mentioned, Feibush is a slumlord for the upper-middle class and behaves every bit as erratic. Private developers are capitalists who begrudgingly work within (or around) city ordinances to turn a handsome profit. It speaks to arrogance, and perhaps even more conflict of interest, that a private developer would run for office as Feibush did in 2015, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">a trait he shares with President Donald Trump. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Like Trump, Feibush hasn't kept professionally silent when challenged. Instead of deferring to lawyers and spokespeople, Feibush has taken to Facebook to defend the demolition of the Frankford Chocolate Factory. Using a handful of dimly lit videos of damp rooms within the factory, he seemingly "proved" that it was in imminent danger of collapse. Never mind the fact that it looked like any warehouse that had sat empty for a decade about to be rehabbed, apparent to any developer or architect who has converted a factory in Brewerytown, Callowhill, Fishtown, or Kensington; attempting to justify his actions on Facebook was an unnecessary means to keep himself in the spotlight inviting more critics to rake him over the coals. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">As the bottom rung of online media, social media is a juvenile platform to speak to those who've already made up their minds. Friends of his will vocally agree, pointing to the videos of an abandoned warehouse to say "good riddance." Opponents might view them with frustration, ignore them, or call out images so blatantly designed to look bad before Facebook's firing squad. None of this matters because, on social media especially, opinions can't be swayed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Professional demolition men, nefarious as the likes of Toll Brothers can be, know how to keep quiet until the dust settles. Dennis Carlisle knew to go dark on social media the second he was outed as GroJLart. Maybe Feibish should have spent some time reading Carlisle's columns and heeded what he once had to say about historic preservation and architecture instead of just hiring him for his pending historic nomination. Or maybe, like our President, Feibush will continue to buy his way throughout the poorest parts of the city, remaking them in his cheap and tacky image, fired up by columnists who might as well be resurrecting Graydon Carter's riotous <i>Spy m</i>agazine until he's got enough personal social media stock to run for Mayor and really fuck things up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">That f-bomb's for you, GroJLart. We all need jobs, and I know how easy it is to sell out. </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-9511302394750261952018-05-01T20:05:00.000-04:002018-05-01T20:38:42.593-04:00The Frankford Chocolate Factory<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">May is Preservation Month. How are you celebrating? Well to kick it off, developer and failed City Council candidate Ori Feibush began demolition on one of the last remaining Civil War era factories in Philadelphia, the Frankford Chocolate Factory, not six months after it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. A little over a year ago he demolished the Royal Theater, one of the oldest black theaters in the nation, also on the Register. The latter was allowed by a technical loophole in the Register that often only requires salvaging a facade. The former, pure greed and spite.</span><br />
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When Feibush ran for City Council back in 2015 he ran on a platform of unapologetic gentrification. He lost because the only yuppies who would have voted for him in his Point Breeze district are transplants out-priced from somewhere else, still registered to vote in already pillaged neighborhoods like Brooklyn's Park Slope. Cozying up to six decade City Council veteran and resident crone Anna Verna probably didn't help his bid. As a developer who is pro-construction to a fault, it's odd that he aligned himself with the woman proudly responsible for the Stadium District's longtime lack of anything but stadiums and parking lots. </div>
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Of course this isn't completely Feibush's fault. Developers are cold and calculated, money is money, business is business. They're why we have organizations like the National Register, the Historical Commission, and City Hall's recently established done-nothing Preservation Task Force. But where developers fail to recognize the long-term value of history, bureaucratic government agencies are staffed by flunkies waiting in line for a pension job at the DMV. They push paper around for months while developers open up historic properties to nature's elements and let them rot just in time for some sycophant from L&I to slap a red and white "condemned" sticker on the door.</div>
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Last year Mayor Kenney, who himself ran on a promise to end historic demolition, created the Preservation Task Force which immediately presided over some of the city's biggest losses. He solicited advise from the National Register which has grown so frustrated with the city's unwillingness to heed anything they have to offer that they don't bother returning our phone calls. He declared a "Preservation Crisis," seemingly for the sake of declaring something.<br />
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All of this right after UNESCO named Philadelphia North America's first World Heritage City.</div>
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Every public organization charged with protecting the city's portfolio of historic properties has turned into demolition's loudest advocate, and the private ones are stuck with a backlog of unprotected buildings while they try to save the protected ones crumbing under the city-enabled wrecking ball. That is when they're not being sued by developers, stuck in court, defending the right to do their jobs. </div>
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Feibush attributed the abandoned Frankford Chocolate Factory to all of the ills in Point Breeze and Graduate Hospital over the last two decades. As if one block sealed so tight it's never been tagged by graffiti artists was solely responsible, or had anything to do with, the neighborhood's blighted past. Washington Avenue is industrial, so industrial the factory he's demolishing hasn't even yet been rezoned for his proposed project. Big rigs roar past spewing diesel fumes, it's lined with gravel warehouses, suburban-style shops, parking lots, and truncated by a crumbling concrete viaduct. Certainly these contribute to the neighborhood's lack of residential appeal, not to mention neo-Jim Crow-ism that manages to keep the area as poor and poorly educated as possible. </div>
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Apparently he thinks one block of "luxury" apartments and townhomes will remedy fifty years of housing inequality, but what he builds and his firm OCF Realty manages, is the flip-side of urban blight, or just a more insidious kind. Low quality, cheaply constructed McTownhomes crammed with superfluous amenities like granite and stainless steel at $700K a pop, each outfitted with ample parking so residents never have to mingle with neighbors who've lived there longer than Feibush's personal prejudices can stand. </div>
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Let's not pretend race isn't a factor. Developers like Feibush are just too two dimensionally minded to see where race and class intersect. He's systematically removing everyone who can't afford one of his properties, and in Point Breeze those people are black. The Frankford Chocolate Factory could have been converted into art studios or, dare I say, affordable housing. Feibush could have gotten a handsome kick back from the state for either, not to mention points for a future run for office. But he knows as well as his yuppie posse that people who need a garage for their weekly excursions to Target, Target, Target, or Whole Foods dread living near anything subsidized, even if the tenants are war veterans or retirees. Ironic considering how many of them have "Namaste" slapped to the bumper of their SUVs.</div>
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No architects have stepped to the plate with a rendering for what's to replace the Frankford Chocolate Factory, but be sure to expect more of the same. Post-post-"modern" townhomes with concrete causeways and garages where yards would logically be, an apartment building reminiscent of the new beast at Broad and Washington, all clad in randomly colored plastic panels that mask exactly how uninspired the buildings actually are.</div>
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They'll be pitched as "luxury," demand a price that makes rational people scratch their heads and wonder why anyone wouldn't rather spend less money on house in Society Hill, and constructed to last exactly ten years. The purchase prices will be justified with ten year tax abatements ensuring residents will contribute absolute zero to the community before their mashed potato board palaces need to be demolished and replaced. Funny how these human kale chips hate subsidized housing, except when it comes with a private swimming pool and in-house Starbucks, and is only available to those making well over six figures. </div>
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What truly sucks is that in fifty years - if our country hasn't suffocated under the waste of our excess - is that cities will be riddled with the pockmarks of demolished 21st Century construction. It's bad enough we don't keep our bloated cars and gigantic flat screen televisions for more than a few years. Who knew money grubbing development firms like Toll Brothers, and those Feibush so wishes he could play golf with, would find a way to make cheap construction the vogue? A lifetime's single biggest investment is now every bit as disposable as an iPhone. Thank HGTV and Bravo's <i>Million Dollar Listing</i> (remember when Bravo showed operas?) for convincing latte sucking Netflix zombies that a house is nothing more than a short-term sensory deprivation chamber designed to be flipped the second the mortgage goes through. Anyone else miss when houses were <i>homes </i>and lived in long enough to watch your kids grow up with marks on the door frame? </div>
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The Frankford Chocolate Factory could have been this, and even more. Over a century ago when it was constructed, buildings were built under the assumption that they would never be demolished. Feibush could have profited off its conversion into lofts and shops, even lined its north face with modern townhomes. Eric Blumenfeld did it with the Divine Lorraine and he's doing it with the Metropolitan Opera House, to meticulous detail. Feibush is just a small-fry, a Donald Trump wannabe, a mini-mogul with an ego big enough to run for City Council, and too deluded to realize he lost because long-time Point Breeze residents are wise enough to spot a villain. </div>
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Unfortunately for those of us who get Philadelphia, history, and cities in general, City Hall has rolled out the red carpet for urban newbies and late-generation Millennials who see it as nothing but a bedroom community and "cheap" real estate, the "Sixth Borough," a suburb that might as well be Newark, NJ. Feibush is no doubt an unequivocal dirt bag, but he's doing his job within the confines of the law and marketplace. Those who refuse to recognize that dense neighborhoods require individual scarifies for the collective betterment of the city, they're the ones who bring down buildings like the Frankford Chocolate Factory. They'd rather have the cold isolation of large townhomes and Soviet style apartment blocks than anything integrated into the unfamiliar and unexpected world outside their sterile cubicles. </div>
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We like to think future generations will look back and marvel at all of the technological advances we've made, but they'll probably just wonder how people so wealthy and privileged managed to built and live in such soul-sucking shit-cans. Or maybe developers will find a way to make construction even cheaper and more profitable, and the future will look at the soggy remains of Feibush's garbage-architecture the way we revere the lost works of Frank Furness and Willis G. Hale. Maybe, but I would like to think the well of American standards has a bottom, and I hope with whatever replaces the Frankford Chocolate Factory we've finally scraped it. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-980850276394404922018-04-17T21:26:00.003-04:002018-04-17T21:26:32.668-04:00The Starchitect Sell-out<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">With Foster + Partner's Comcast Technology Center taking shape and Frank Gehry futzing around the Museum of Art, it's time to take a look at the way some of the world's most revered architects interact with Philadelphia when invited. For all our progress and growth over the last two decades, Philadelphia's reputation still sulks in the shadows of New York City's size and Washington, D.C.'s power, and it's evident in the quality of design world class architects bring to the drafting table when they're employed here. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Frank Gehry's largest ambition for the Philadelphia Museum of Art - carving out the center of its Great Steps - has been nothing short of contentious. The stuffiest in the museum's art community have long wanted to rid the Great Steps of the droves of tourists who commemorate Rocky Balboa's many fictional runs, while fans of the many movies cite the tourism it drives and respect for the cinematic work of art that brings them there. But as architecture, surprisingly few mention the historic nature of the Great Steps themselves and what a precedent it sets to allow a modern architect to upset and reconfigure the work of the renowned and local architect, Horace Trumbauer. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This speaks twofold. With Philadelphia's preservation crisis in full bloom and its task force already proven ineffectual not one year in the making, one of the nation's most historic cities doesn't seem to have a firm grasp on what's historic and how to protect it. Meanwhile, City Hall and those in charge of managing storied institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art are resigned to the notion that any movement is progress. To the powers that be, the fact that Frank Gehry is willing to work in Philadelphia, even with his astronomical tab, is a gift that we clearly don't think we deserve. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Nearby cities aren't to solely blame for our reputation, unless you consider how we Philadelphians react to them. It's primarily on us, and the ingrained inferiority complex we can't seem to shake. Gehry has worked around the world in cities of varying size and prowess. Most of us have seen a few major American cities in our lifetimes, and I'd wager anyone who's traveled west would be willing to point out that there's nothing inherently better about downtown Los Angeles or Seattle. Quite the contrary. These are sprawling cities buried in cars with terrible public transportation. Yet in both, Frank Gehry delivered urban panache without damaging any historic institutions like the Philadelphia Museum of Art. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This inferiority is even more striking in Foster + Partner's Comcast Technology Center. Comcast isn't a company known for innovation (perhaps that's why the word was removed from the skyscraper's name), but it's one of the largest hometown companies and currently dominates the city's skyline. Yet its newest addition is dull at best, especially considering what the company that owns 30 Rockefeller Center should be capable of producing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">To be fair, I suppose, the Comcast Technology Center isn't bad. It wouldn't look out of place in more architecturally savvy cities like London or Frankfurt. But compared to what's being built by companies of Comcast's stature around the world, it's far from unique, even among those designed by Norman Foster's firm. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Its greatest offense is its relationship with the skyline. Technically the tallest, it doesn't relate at all with its surroundings. Its spire or "smokestack" pulls away from Center City instead of rising within it. It spans nearly the width of its block, uncharacteristic of Philadelphia's other skyscrapers occupying no more than a quarter of their block's footprint. These are likely logistical decisions given the building's entrance, but ones that demonstrate Foster + Partner's lack of consideration for their environment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Foster + Partner's job was to design a work of art that dynamically belongs in a gallery of its peers. Instead, he essentially hired Lady Gaga to sing in the Natural History Museum. It doesn't work...for anyone. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And that says nothing of the materials. I guess we have the automotive industry to blame for our now-inability to distinguish between plastic and chrome. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's fine as a stand-alone skyscraper (even if it looks like a cubist vacuum cleaner), but it reads more geographically like a canned response to Comcast's business solicitation. A big company wanted a big name, little more. If anyone knows the masses will ignore the status quo when its forced upon them, it's Big Cable. And that's what its second tower is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Given its similarity to Foster's other skyscrapers and comparatively dated appearance, it wouldn't be surprising if it was a design study or an unused project Foster + Partners had lying around to divvy out to whatever nameless city "wanted a Foster." And that's a shame, because Philadelphia has numerous firms of our own doing even wilder things, if not on the same scale. Hometown companies and institutions like Comcast and the Philadelphia Museum of Art shouldn't be reaching around the globe for architects with no personal interest in our own city, but giving more motivated, and sometimes more astounding, firms a boost towards their potential. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Imagine what Erdy-McHenry or Qb3 could have with the Comcast Technology Center. Instead of building something that looks like it could blend in Manhattan, Comcast could have given a local partner the opportunity to offer other cities like New York and San Francisco something they themselves don't yet have. That's the exact mentality that drove Philadelphia's 19th Century banks to offer the world the designs of America's first Starchitects: Frank Furness, Willis G. Hale, and Wilson Eyre. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Since the last building boom, developers - even massive investors - have been trebidatious about dabbling in more than the status quo. We're no longer getting proposals for towers designed by Winka Dubbeldam and Richard Meier, even wacky mid-rises brought to us by the defunct CREI. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Couple our nefarious inferiority complex with transplants from the cities that generate such a complex, those who view Center City as little more than a bedroom community, and we seem to continue to demand less and less of our city builders every day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Just south of Cesar Pelli's Cira Centre, which will undoubtedly be immortalized in future architecture history books, FMC's Cira Centre South was erected as the tallest building in West Philadelphia with very little fanfare, despite being categorically </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">better than anything currently taking shape across the river. Pelli, a Starchitect in his own right, continues to evolve, as any artist should.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But today, the world's most famous architects, Norman Foster and Frank Gehry have built upon a reputation for doing really great work, and then capitalized on companies and cities that are willing to pay for little more than their name. They're sellouts, blueprint mills. Both have done amazing things in the past, and done their parts to redefine modern architecture. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But there's no reason every new building they touch - even in Philadelphia - shouldn't be even more amazing than the last. </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-32647285599586909942018-04-15T20:54:00.002-04:002018-04-15T20:54:35.617-04:00Whatever Happened to the Coffee Shop?<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Somewhere between a ubiquitous diner and the proliferation of Starbucks stood a brief period where the independent coffee shop reigned supreme, and the chains on the rise were more than just app-driven money mills. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Believe it or not, two decades ago, gastropubs and beer gardens weren't the way flannel-clad Gen Xers spent their evenings. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">There were bars, to be sure, mostly stuffed with stuffy parents sipping Manhattans and complaining about taxes, or sad dives not yet appreciated with a hip sense of irony. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">If we went out to drink, </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">we went out</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">: dance clubs, concert venues, warehouses that were loud, hot, and sweaty. Booze was incidental. Getting together "for a drink" was for old people and alcoholics. When the Slacker Generation gathered to watch the world pass us by, we met up at the coffee shop. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">On the heels of International Coffee Day (do we really need another "Day?"), it's clear that caffeine's addictive personality is sunny as ever. There are six Dunkin Donuts, four Starbucks, two Saxbys, and a La Colombe within two blocks of City Hall, and each does a brisk business. But each operates on a fast food franchise model, not under the cozy notion of a traditional cafe. Even Starbucks, arguably the end result of a fifty year American trend, pales in comparison to its past. Comfy chairs have been swapped out for metal stools which, like those at McDonald's or Burger King, are designed specifically to keep customers from lingering. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">It's unfortunate that an industry built on bringing people together in a warm and inviting atmosphere, welcoming them to lounge for hours, now so blatantly wants to get you and your money in and out as fast as possible. This says nothing of the hours, either. If you want to get out of the house after 7pm, you're options are severely limited. In fact, unless you want a cocktail or beer, there is almost nothing to do after dark.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">What happened? Money is certainly a culprit, as is a spendthrift 21st Century culture of consumerism. As with everything, I'm sure technology can be to blame somehow. And of course, generational rifts drive new fads. Millennials will someday lament the loss of micro-brews the way our parents and grandparents may wonder whatever happened to the Supper Club. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">But this isn't exclusively a case of rosy memories and the frustrations of change. The loss of the independent coffee shop is one in a myriad of examples where another layer of our culture is stripped away on behalf of homogenization and the most profitable status quo. </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">It's a bit odd that cafes have gone the way of music shops and bookstores despite offering one of the few products you can't buy on Amazon. Perhaps it was discarded by fickle Millennials, the coveted goldmine of marketing, because of its mere 90s-ness. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Like all business trends in the 21st Century, metrics drive decisions. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">For all progressives like to tout a European ideal, they sure have a penchant for corporate creature comforts like Target and Chipotle. We should be embracing the notion that exponential profits and "going public" aren't the end-all goal in life, even business. Start patronizing employees who simply love their jobs. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Why aren't we more reluctant to hand our hard earned cash over to corporate entities that view us as nothing more than aggregated data and a transaction?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Of course these are all subjects better fleshed out over a cup of coffee and a cigarette, were there such a place. Maybe we should turn down our nostalgia filters and start looking at Generation X for the insight we once offered, and not just an interim exercise in uselessness. We loved life as we watched it pass us by, and we refused to succumb to "The Man." I'm not sure when that turned into a bad thing, but probably somewhere around the first time a Millennial suggested how much better the world will be once the Civil Rights trail-blazing Baby Boomers start dying. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">They're cold. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Generational debates are a minefield of conjecture, but there is something valid to be said of a demographic raised amid the isolated anonymity of the internet, and their resignation to corporate greed. Their relationships with the largest companies in the world - Apple, Facebook, Google - are every bit as intimate as, if not more so than, those of family and friends. To Millennials, Starbucks is a Mom and Pop and Amazon is Main Street U.S.A.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Wall Street won, and no one should think that's good. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Some corporate ills are impossible to avoid - banks, credit cards, utilities, even careers - but we should all be less willing to sell out to those who only feign an interest in their customers' well being when it can be aggregated for a quarterly prospectus. Be less willing to be a number wherever possible, even if it means using cash in lieu of an app. Such tactics are paraded as streamlined simplicity but really just a nefarious way to continue making money off you long after you've left the store. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">We should all want an independent coffee shop at the corner of our block, not just for the coffee, but for everything it represents. </span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-6189093272772441382018-04-11T20:36:00.002-04:002018-04-11T20:36:59.867-04:00Under Wonderland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Nothing anchors a neighborhood of a certain type like a new Whole Foods. Just ask the <a href="http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/SoDoSoPa">town behind SoDoSoPa</a>. Directly across the street from the Dalian that hosts the upscale grocer, Tom Bock received approval to build a sleek mid-rise of 33 condos behind the Rodin Museum. The site has long been a literal hole in the ground, a gaping maw that exposes parking accessed from, well...I honestly have no idea how those cars get down there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's led at least one person to call this corner Hole Foods. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The premier Parkway-adjacent address at 21st and Hamilton, and the already-excavated land, offer something the Dalian doesn't have: underground parking. A former project abandoned after the Great Recession had already begun construction, so aside from some concrete and rebar, the site is prepped. The Dalian greets Hamilton Street with a glassy facade, but hovers over 21st and buildings along Spring Garden with a hulking and uninviting parking garage. Tom Bock's condominium tower, designed by Cecil Baker & Partners, stands to be far more dynamic with the kind of sunken and unseen parking that should be the rule for all urban developments. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Although <a href="https://philly.curbed.com/2018/4/11/17225302/condo-project-planned-near-parkway-conflict-rail-park">Curbed</a> and <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/business/real_estate/commercial/condo-building-rodin-museum-benjamin-franklin-parkway-hamilton-street-20180410.html">The Inquirer</a> both mentioned the Rail Park's master plan, which runs through the defunct railroad tunnel that would become this project's parking garage, Friends of the Rail Park have yet to comment. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">They might not. The first phase of the Rail Park is scheduled to open this spring and the second phase <a href="https://therailpark.org/the-park/">hasn't been fleshed out</a>. As mapped on the Friends' site, "The Cut" is the mostly-open rail canyon that ends near 22nd and Hamilton. "The Tunnel," easily the most ambitious piece of the park, runs under Pennsylvania Avenue before traveling parallel to the freight tracks that separate the Poplar neighborhood from Lemon Hill. The latter is a favorite of urban explorers and photographers attracted to its vaulted roof and unusual lighting, and easy access to something off-limits. That's also why it's on the Rail Park's site map. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It is a stunning sight to behold, especially in its current state. But the Rail Park itself is a gamble, and how Phase 1 pans out will dictate how it moves forward. Often compared to Manhattan's High Line Park, the Reading Viaduct runs through a more rough-and-tumble part of town. Although Callowhill and Spring Garden are gentrifying rapidly (the Callowhill ZIP code is the forth fastest gentrifying in the country), it will be a long time before the Rail Park offers views of much more than parking lots. It's appeal, like its subterranean western extension, has always been in nature's reclamation and the excitement of trespassing. Sanitized as it will become as a park, it may simply become a place for neighborhood residents to walk their dogs once the novelty wears off. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Even Manhattan's High Line, though lauded and popular, is new. Elevated parks aren't traditional and require structural maintenance, not just seasonal gardening. Time will tell if they're sustainable or if, even in Manhattan, they become the target of inevitable budget cuts down the road. The Rail Park's underground component is a greater gamble in that it's largely untested. While it's fascinating in its current state, it's a one- or two-time destination. As a recreational trail it's just long, dark, and monotonous. Once you leave "The Cut" you're essentially walking into an abandoned subway tunnel, and the westernmost end past the vaulted ceiling is not particularly interesting. In fact, it's western entrance is a bit frightening, coupled by the fact that you'll be walking through the massive, concrete catacomb alongside an active freight line. No amount of lighting will make anyone want to push a stroller through it for a mid-morning walk. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Short of a mandatory Civic Design Review, Tom Back has what he needs to move forward with or without consensus from the Friends of the Rail Park. Given the infancy of the park, it would be hard for Friends to argue such a premier address remain a hole in the ground on the off-chance that they may someday find the means and need to open the tunnel to recreation. It may be for the best, too. Closing the hole will allow those vested in the Rail Park to focus all their efforts on the assets above the ground. Perhaps someday, "The Cut" will connect Callowhill to the heart of the Parkway District. In the meantime, the subterranean tunnel beneath Pennsylvania Avenue will remain the realm of the adventurous looking for more mystique than a park, deep beneath the confines of SoDoSoPa.</span><br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-75937730548595406622018-04-08T23:02:00.000-04:002018-04-08T23:02:27.527-04:00"Not on Rex Manning Day!"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Somewhere between the exhausting praise, disdain, and endless coverage of Millennials and their more-often-than-not parents, Baby Boomers, sit a once-explored, recently-forgotten, and now-nostalgic generation: Generation X. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">If you've ever looked up from a smartphone long enough to watch a movie you didn't live-Tweet, you probably know <i>Reality Bites</i> as the slow, pastiche, embodiment of this "slacker generation," one replete with our Patron Saints, Janeane Gerofalo and Winona Ryder. But set aside easy memes about childhood playground equipment and the first Motorola flip-phone for a minute and you might remember another film that encompasses so many of the cheesy, stereotypical trappings of late-Millennium youth that have become synonymous with the 1990s.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Like most teen comedies, from <i>Grease </i>to <i>Mean Girls</i>, there's nothing particularly novel about <i>Empire Records</i>, and at the time it was hardly a standout in the immediate wake of <i>Clueless</i>. At best it was a poorly performing sleeper that served as a 90 minute commercial for a great soundtrack. And maybe that's what it was, at least commercially. Although it's drawn a significant cult audience in those who may have borrowed it from an older sibling, and it lingers in the back of the mind of most late-Gen Xers who know we've seen it more than once but never really paid too much attention to it; all of us are loathe to admit that, realistically, it's not a great movie. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But that doesn't mean it isn't a decent movie, and most importantly, a movie with heart. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's not without a jaded sense of irony that a movie centered around an independent record store desperate to stave off a corporate takeover was produced primarily as a vehicle to send teens and 20-somethings off to big businesses like Tower Records, Sam Goody, or Columbia House to buy the soundtrack. But it's also apparent that Carol Heikkinen's screenplay was intended to be something else entirely, an indie film when the genre meant something, and if you squint a bit - or ignore its high production value - you can still find fleeting moments of her vision. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Before the likes of Napster, and obviously iTunes, local record stores (and their bookstore brethren) were faced with a similar threat from big box retailers. In a way, these retailers greased the wheels for internet competition by dulling our senses and our perception of what was truly independent. Conglomerates like Tower Records maintained the token gestures of stores like Empire with well trained staff and in-store concerts, so much so that when the time came, we lamented their loss nearly as much as those independent shops we lost before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Of course the frustration over the loss of stores like Tower Records was more out of resignation than idealism. We knew Tower and The Wall were big business, but by the end of the 20th Century they were nearly all we had left, and we knew there was no way a brick-and-mortar record store could ever compete with the Silicon Valley's Borg. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But that's exactly why, in hindsight, <i>Empire Records</i> means so much, maybe even more so than well crafted teen comedies of the 1990s with less corporate intentions. <i>Empire Records </i>doesn't just take us back to our youth the way <i>Clueless </i>does. It takes everyone back to the rift that separated one generation and the next, and introduced an entirely new way of shopping, living, and experiencing each other. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Even at its most ordinary for the era,<i> Empire Records</i> is wrought with the personal inexperience of heartache that today's youth find largely online. Who of a certain age does remember, even relish in, that one we let get away or tried and lost, all without the passivity of dating apps and text messages? Even the worst experiences of our time are beautiful lessons and rosy memories that can't be challenged by today's coldly isolated technology. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We don't love <i>Empire Records</i> for its cheesy sub-plots and dialogue, not literally (though we do love the music). We love it because it represents a place we once experienced that has yet to be replicated. Like the coffee shops synonymous with other '90s classics like <i>Singles </i>and <i>Friends</i>, we watch <i>Empire Records </i>and see a kind of engagement that's gone. We used to hang out at the record store, day or night, drinking coffee or a Big Gulp or from a flask. We related to each other universally outside the confines of texts, SnapChat, or Facebook. It's a type of casual relationship that's been near-completely lost to Tinder, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Who walks into a bar or coffee shop hoping to bump into a friend, not knowing if they'll be there? More so, who goes to a store hoping for the same, and then just hangs out with the staff? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">There is something strong, almost baser, about the excitement of never knowing and the need for this kind of dynamic interaction.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We were called "slackers" because we hung out in record stores, coffee shops, and bookstores, apparently waiting for life to happen. But we weren't: we were soaking up the buzz of life constantly happening around us, all the time, everywhere. We invented the term "people-watching" because people are the most interesting things to watch.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And can anyone really call us slackers in the face of a generation that prefers Amazon and GrubHub to walking to the corner store to interact with someone, all so they can spend more time binge watching the same show the watched last week? The only thing our successors have managed to prove is how lonely laziness and convenience can be, and in the face of an <i>Empire Records</i>' Broadway revival, that a lot of people long for the kind of interaction we have all since discarded. </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-58846541151363112652018-03-31T20:32:00.003-04:002018-03-31T20:32:40.960-04:00Pod Hotel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4jYqgObDoOY2izJi4zRlaEeY9u101nE_CZBzFHWiDBmIt0PLHJy4Hz2P-NTq24L8X_Txzjl7JkidjA4s3dt-2QvaZ_NaUklCeXrOqlChDo579cqlmfBDKtGimXKOkMjwsV4M6Hild0KUj/s1600/Pod-Philadelphia-2-e1522395096148.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1202" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4jYqgObDoOY2izJi4zRlaEeY9u101nE_CZBzFHWiDBmIt0PLHJy4Hz2P-NTq24L8X_Txzjl7JkidjA4s3dt-2QvaZ_NaUklCeXrOqlChDo579cqlmfBDKtGimXKOkMjwsV4M6Hild0KUj/s320/Pod-Philadelphia-2-e1522395096148.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The hospitality industry is no joke. But it's also one that, at least for the last fifty or so years, has been steeped in the expected. That works for me. I'm more interested in the destination than the stay, so any clean bed will do.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Yet with the upcoming W Hotel and several Kimptons, it's clear that those visiting Philadelphia, or perhaps just spending a night in town, are looking for something more dynamic than the flagship name of a major national chain. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="https://www.cpexecutive.com/post/new-pod-hotel-lands-construction-loan/">So bring on the Pod Hote</a>l. Occupying a vacant parcel on 19th Street and a parking lot along Ludlow, the Pod by Modus Hotels and Parkway Corporation won't win any awards for its exterior design, but it will be welcome infill for this long gaping property smack in the middle of the business district. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">While there's no shortage of entertainment in the area, one curious venue stands a few doors down from the proposed hotel's Ludlow entrance. If you think the XXX Forum Theater was gone you'd be wrong. It simply moved a few blocks to this tony address. It will be interesting to see how the hip and trendy guests of the Pod Hotel decide to interact with the sex club next door. </span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-44567335381476636792018-03-31T20:13:00.001-04:002018-03-31T20:13:49.711-04:00East Market<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSD4Fagaze7n4TBElLzMLcouvVGxRBeoKf_LEGbbQ4HNrWIZcSZ5EbzkMBmWGP0D5Pb1iZqwAeWeGIPTAUil17B_CKZSbxRMt4tnXAw55gjVfwahteEkDcMoSi-HRICVZzbkcj1z25JhCH/s1600/20180331_201140.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSD4Fagaze7n4TBElLzMLcouvVGxRBeoKf_LEGbbQ4HNrWIZcSZ5EbzkMBmWGP0D5Pb1iZqwAeWeGIPTAUil17B_CKZSbxRMt4tnXAw55gjVfwahteEkDcMoSi-HRICVZzbkcj1z25JhCH/s320/20180331_201140.jpg" width="279" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">With the first phase of East Market nearing completion, it's about time we starting hearing about the tenants who stand to redefine this long neglected thoroughfare. The massive project is no doubt exciting, and Iron Hill Brewery is slated to anchor part of the ground floor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But signage has already appeared on the prime corner location at 11th Street, and it's a SMDH moment that should make everyone scream "this is why we can't have nice things!"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Yes, that's an AT&T store. Bring on the glamour!</span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-91913790008023156112018-03-31T19:10:00.000-04:002018-03-31T19:10:16.164-04:00Bait and Switch at Jewelers Row?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzdzMrYw3MI2PxGqok4-3S-XQ2p87RXSu2fHh86KXb_OLG91BlHD3EVFIfxFpiFVXWjwxxUROEfTS_14iBCQoWRwLhHGmOttePibtVaVDR7AuTAv23r-feTYIRf1SLm_oh8CYVnm3QASPQ/s1600/v1-1-final-rendering-20180319.752.1128.s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1128" data-original-width="752" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzdzMrYw3MI2PxGqok4-3S-XQ2p87RXSu2fHh86KXb_OLG91BlHD3EVFIfxFpiFVXWjwxxUROEfTS_14iBCQoWRwLhHGmOttePibtVaVDR7AuTAv23r-feTYIRf1SLm_oh8CYVnm3QASPQ/s320/v1-1-final-rendering-20180319.752.1128.s.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Philadelphia's architecture czar, Inga Saffron, is nothing if not critical and she hasn't held back when it comes to Toll Brothers' proposed tower for historic Jewelers Row. When she referred to SLCE's rendering as a "zombie" back in February she may have been speaking about more than just the vacant aesthetic of the building, but the likelihood that the proposal is already dead. Among all parties involved - the Design Advocacy Group, the Preservation Alliance, the Historical Commission, L&I, and City Hall; not to mention numerous online journals like PhillyMag and Curbed Philly - Saffron seems to be the only one willing to sift through the mounting meta data that suggests exactly that.</span><div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Toll Brothers has already received approval from the city and returned to the drawing board more than the two required of the Design Advocacy Group, yet the site remains motionless and no timelines have been offered. Aside from readying the proper paperwork, Toll Brothers is likely assessing the profitability of the endeavor, if they ever planned to embark upon construction themselves at all. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">As Saffron pointed out, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/inga_saffron/philadelphia-jewelers-row-toll-bros-design-review-20180301.html">Toll Brothers has done this before</a>. Abandoning a project that ultimately meant the demolition of the historic Society Hill Playhouse and the redevelopment of a vacant lot on Rittenhouse Square, Toll Brothers simply readied the sites for development then flipped the land for a profit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Until the latest rendering, Toll's tower on Jewelers Row didn't have any private balconies, one of its largest criticisms considering it is intended to be a luxury residential property. It looked more like an office building. They've since added balconies, but only nine and all pointed north, none facing Washington Square Park. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's becoming clear that this is less of a realistic proposal and more a marketing brochure for speculators. Of course, if Toll flips it to a developer more attune to urban architecture, and certainly more daring, this may be good for Jewelers Row. When it comes to urban development, nothing is worse for an eclectic location than a publicly traded company that traffics in the status quo. Toll Brothers isn't necessarily bad at what they do: clear-cutting farmland for bloated mini-mansions. But high-rises and skyscrapers aren't disposable and they alter our skylines ideally forever. SLCE's best rendering to date is blandly corporate, but this is characteristic for Toll Brothers. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The firm doesn't aim at wealthy eccentrics who want to live in a work of art. They aim squarely at the upper tier of the middle class, a wide range of consumers with disposable income who like trendy sameness. They aim at consumers who shop at Whole Foods and lease BMWs. They aim for the <i>most people</i> with the <i>most money</i>. And sadly, most people don't like bold architecture or care enough about history to sacrifice amenities and luxuries. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">But flipping it to another developer is also an architectural gamble. Any firm that could afford Toll's ready-to-build site will be looking for the same exponential profit. SLCE's most recent rendering may simply be a best case scenario, one that could result in demolition for far blander, low-rise infill. A similar bait-and-switch played out on the 1100 block of Chestnut where CREI commissioned a rendering of Winka Dubbeldam's wild Unknot Tower only to flip the land for Blackney Hayes' Collins apartments, the exact kind of dull-your-senses infill we could get out of Jewelers Row.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Unfortunately, given that this probable outcome isn't a bigger source of contention suggests that all those involved in historic preservation aren't intuitively prepared for this scenario. Looking back on this and similar situations, the Preservation Alliance, Design Advocacy Group, and neighborhood organizations look foolish questioning the aesthetics of buildings developers never intended to build. Buildings are astronomical efforts, and much of that comes from just the initial bureaucracy of getting them approved. I'd be curious to hear Toll's response if someone at the Design Advocacy Group had asked if they actually intended on building this tower. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Savvy developers have gotten good at using </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">bureaucracy to their advantage. With far more resources at their disposal than advocacy groups, lengthy meetings and flashy renderings distract preservationists from inferring what may be happening behind the scenes. P</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">reservationists too often wind up looking like children fussing over a drawing, while developers and their lawyers laugh their way through red tape.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-61088046198622449392018-03-29T20:11:00.002-04:002018-03-29T20:11:33.907-04:00Philadelphia's Preservation Crisis<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Like many publicly operated organizations, the city's preservation task force has already proven itself useless. That's a chore in itself given it isn't even a year old. From HUD to the EPA, sometimes I wonder why we invest so much in publicly operated groups. Given their political nature, they shift in purpose through administrations and are often defunct byproducts of campaign promises that never fully emerge. </span><br />
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There's simply no money in altruism, and like for-profit corporations that serve only Wall Street, publicly funded advocacy only subsists as political stock. <div>
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Simply put, the investment in public preservation advocacy would be better spent on the organizations that have no vested interest in demolition and redevelopment. The very fact that private developers, publicly traded firms, and a City Council that banks political capital from redevelopment is in any way involved with the city's Historical Commission, Licenses and Inspections office, or Design Advocacy Group is a huge conflict of interest. Preservation and its impact on our urban fabric should be left exclusively to the experts trained in historic preservation with no interest in anything else, and its autonomy should be heeded. </div>
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In nearly all realms of public life, officials defer to privately funded experts. Allowing the Historical Commission, a tag tag gang of bureaucratic flunkies, to decide what goes, often at the behest of millionaire property developers claiming economic hardship, is no different than Betsy DeVos running slipshod through our public education system. Why are we outraged by one and not the other? Both are charged with one responsibility, enacting the opposite. </div>
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Of course granting private groups like the Preservation Alliance absolute power over historic preservation is a tough sell. There's the knee-jerk assumption that private advocacy with too much authority can run rampant over the financial realities of any municipality. But time and again, advocates - from preservationists to gun reformists - have proven themselves nothing if not compromising. Barring the most storied of historical sites, only facades command preservation in Philadelphia (though the loss of the Boyd Theater's auditorium may, hopefully, challenge this caveat). </div>
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The preservation crisis in Philadelphia can't be understated. Arguably as historic as Boston but considerably poorer, a recent influx of residents, mostly young or empty nested, has overtaken the priorities of our schools and our beleaguered history. In the decades since the New Deal era, Philadelphia's history survived in a preserved decay, uncataloged and untouched by the happenstance of neglect and a lack of development. Enticed by unfamiliar growth for the first time in nearly a century, City Hall and the campaigns of all those within have been fixated on the city's transformation, more often than not to the detriment of our history.</div>
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Charged with the task of organizing that history, private groups are so bogged down with the need for proposed landmarks threatened by development that only the most notable find a home on their lists. And even then, it's meaningless when the Historical Commission is so liberal with granting hardships to developers who simply don't want to salvage a portion of a facade. Meanwhile, incidental row homes built to last forever are routinely swapped out, blocks clear-cut, for new construction chock full of amenities, aimed at transplants with no concern for history, constructed to last maybe a few decades. </div>
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When America's economy finally began to rebound from the Great Depression in the 1980s, it was through a culture of disposability. Everything from phones to cars to homes are designed to be temporary, and it's become our biggest enemy. Preservationists haven't been able to recon with the profitable nature of development itself, acting on the blind assumption that most people would like to save old buildings, and sacrifice luxury and convenience to do so. The only way they can move past this, and possibly be expected to professionally interact with and influence the very nature of our disposable culture is by granting them the autonomy and authority to do what they are academically prepared for: protecting our history in spite of developers equally vested in profitably maximizing every square inch.</div>
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City Hall can't be expected to do this, and maybe we shouldn't want it to. American culture, as much as our fickle desire for fast fashion housing, is driven by individualistic civic engagement. Maybe it's time we hand the reigns of preservation power over to those who actually care about it. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-63686522168332311302018-01-19T21:57:00.000-05:002018-01-19T21:57:56.739-05:00Amazon's HQ2 Pageant<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">When Amazon released the "short list" for its second headquarters, I was expecting a list that was, well, short. Instead, Amazon released something that looks more like a BuzzFeed listicle of America's twenty most popular cities. And that's probably exactly what it was.</span><br />
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Whether Amazon knew it going into this campaign, it's clearly become a lucrative contest, one that has every major newspaper in North America singing praise of the trillion dollar beast. Of course it's not a decision to be made lightly, but considering Amazon's reputable speed of service, it's one that certainly could have been made by now, and maybe already has. Yet by drawing it out for another year, memberships will continue to surge out of cities that hope to be chosen, the press will continue to freely advertise Amazon with puff pieces careful not to damage their cities' odds, and maybe Bezos can squeeze a few more incentives out of the few cities unaware that they're already top contenders. </div>
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Whatever is going on in downtown Seattle's hive mind, I think that Philadelphia is a top choice for Amazon's HQ2. I say that with no bias, because personally I don't want them here. Philadelphia's place in the race is evident to anyone who lives here, but not so much beyond the northeast corridor. Our public transportation is as expansive as any city between D.C., New York, and Chicago, in many cases more so. 30th Street Station's access to other cities is second only to Manhattan. Our universities are keeping more and more graduates in town, which will only grow with Amazon's career opportunities and internships. And above all, our housing stock is considerably cheap.</div>
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Sure, statisticians loves to run means and averages that show property values are on the rise, and that's great, But with Detroit out of the race, few cities of our size, if any, can offer a habitable home for $50,000 or a decent one for $150,000. Normally slums aren't an upside, and that was the fallible conclusion for much of the 20th Century. But when adventurous Gen Xers began working their way back into our cities, paving the way for Millennials to return in hoards, slums have merely become opportunity. To developers, neighborhoods like Kensington and Harrowgate are only as bad as the people who live there. To 50,000 new Amazon employees who know nothing of the city's baggage, or simply don't care, these places are real estate goldmines along the trendy Market-Frankford line. </div>
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Many have speculated that the D.C. suburbs, namely Northern Virginia, will likely emerge as the ultimate winner of Miss Amazon's crown. The Dulles Corridor has been tech heavy since the early days of AOL and MCI, and Metro's new Silver Line connects it to downtown D.C. through the semi-urban enclaves of Arlington and Tysons Corner's growing skyline. While that might sell a location to a tech company like Oracle, Amazon isn't one of many. When AOL moved into an old Boeing office at the end of the Dulles toll road, it was surrounded by farmland. At the time, it ruled the tech sector like Google and Amazon do today, and it defined the region the way Microsoft defined Redmond, WA.</div>
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Amazon undoubtedly wants a location with talent, but short of technology vacuums like West Virginia or Northern Alaska, today's tech talent isn't hard to find. What Northern Virginia provides are established applicants with lengthy resumes, and if I know one thing as a fifteen year veteran of the industry, it's that tech companies are willing to pay threefold for inexperienced college graduates that can be groomed into a company's unique corporate culture. </div>
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Considering we're talking about an industry that boomed a short twenty years ago, what's an established technology region even mean to a company like Amazon anyway? They could plop HQ2 down in the worst part of Camden, NJ or the middle of the Ozarks, and they're going to define that place exactly how they want.</div>
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In that regard, Philadelphia has what all cities have...plus easy access to an ocean that's warm enough to swim in. Compared to other areas on the list - costly Northern Virginia, New York, and Boston, isolated southern cities, and Denver's redundancy - Philadelphia has more pros than cons. Our only real cons are our unions and historic reputation for fucking things up. If Amazon is willing to weather our notoriously frustrating unions throughout construction, the only thing it has to look past is what few ever do: recognizing that "Philadelphia isn't as bad as Philadelphians say it is." Considering Amazon decided to set up shop in an iffy part of downtown Seattle instead of taking the traditional route out to Redmond, I think they're savvy, and unique, enough to see Philadelphia for what it actually has to offer.</div>
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All that said, I'd rather Amazon go anywhere but Philadelphia. Sure, it would be exciting to see what they build and how the city evolves. But the incentives Amazon receives will set a precedent for kickbacks that is already painfully apparent to corporations dancing around Philadelphia. I wonder how many developers have shelved plans for Philadelphia, waiting to see how Amazon's decision plays out, waiting to see how many more handouts they'll be able to demand in its wake. </div>
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This city has been a whore in Colonial drag for the last forty years, and by handing out a few million here and there to developers who do nothing but demolish landmarks under the pretense that they might someday build something better than a parking lot, the pimps in City Hall aren't even trying to be discreet. What's the next developer or corporation going to want knowing Amazon got, say, $1B or more? 50,000 new jobs sounds great, and maybe the investment seems sound, but not if we're paying for those jobs and one company's tax breaks for the next ten or twenty years. Hell, by the time the first ordinary Philadelphian reaps the benefits of Amazon's theoretical HQ2, the Technological Revolution may have collapsed and it could be 1929 all over again.</div>
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But that's where things get really icky, not just in Philadelphia, but in all cities competing for a prize that could be as laboriously fruitless as winning the Olympics. Philadelphia hasn't even disclosed its offer to Amazon, and though it will likely come out at some point, it's being kept under wraps for one or two reasons: It's unrealistically expensive, and in the likely event that we aren't chosen, residents will begin questioning why even a fraction of such a bloated amount can't be put towards our existing infrastructure. How greedy we are to expect our elected officials take care of their own citizens' needs with found money apparently available to a trillion dollar conglomerate three thousand miles away? Speaking even more broadly, Amazon's corporate pageant has driven a rift in a once united country, pitting American cities against one another as if we are embroiled in an economic war. </div>
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Historically, we're bribing a 19th Century robber baron to build a train station or a port, something that will never be appreciated by the masses until it's an architectural relic seventy years later, and a civics lesson in economic ethics. But that's exactly what this contest signals, and why it should be more disconcerting than it is. Whether Amazon winds up here or Northern Virginia, history is repeating itself. And between Amazon, Google, Tesla, Comcast, etc., etc., etc., we are all doomed to repeat it. But we're so caught up in the pageantry of it all, we can't see what awaits us.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-46114014913539040932017-12-31T20:43:00.000-05:002017-12-31T20:43:17.217-05:00Graffiti Pier Can't Last, and That's Exactly Why We Love It<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmA5v3pfvR4Q285PRWnfbphEloCUx46aSanOSowhJLKkQH6MEO5yMFQCNCO6uSMV_475L7xh83zHrlgqLTBqDcWCqg2pXQBj_WWul6RRCH3IYfIiHsMyO3uYsz860Ic2ZkttjqzKKDL9Nc/s1600/GP3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="1000" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmA5v3pfvR4Q285PRWnfbphEloCUx46aSanOSowhJLKkQH6MEO5yMFQCNCO6uSMV_475L7xh83zHrlgqLTBqDcWCqg2pXQBj_WWul6RRCH3IYfIiHsMyO3uYsz860Ic2ZkttjqzKKDL9Nc/s320/GP3.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Allie Volpe at Curbed wrote a wonderful <a href="https://philly.curbed.com/2017/12/11/16739044/graffiti-pier-philadelphia-photo-essay">piece about Graffiti Pier</a> and the allure that may soon escape us. Of course, the fact that Graffiti Pier is being written about in the mainstream media is perhaps proof that its allure will not endure. The fate of the space, properly named Pier 18, has been mentioned in more than passing by the Delaware River Waterfront Corporation. It's included in the master plan for the riverfront and the Director of Communications, Emma Fried-Cassorla, has mentioned that the DRWC plans to incorporate the pier's popular namesake into that plan, in some way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Creating a legal space for ongoing graffiti wouldn't be unheard of. <a href="http://www.writerzblok.com/yard.htm">The Writerz Blok</a> in San Diego was the first park of its kind and there are other similar spaces throughout the country. Considering Philadelphia's proliferation of street art, it makes sense. In North Philadelphia, at 5th and Cecil B. Moore stands an ever changing wall of some of the city's most astounding graffiti. Passing by one afternoon to shoot photos, I ran into the wall's owner who was lamenting over the "shit job" an artist had done overnight. In the background, in broad daylight, a man kneeled down surrounded by paint cans, toiling away on something fresh. "I hope it's better than this shit," the owner said, pointing to a hackneyed series of silver smiley faces on a shiny, solid black background.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">He was busy so he didn't linger long. His attitude towards the graffiti seemed more resignation than pride. If artists are going to continue to tag his wall day after day, it might as well look cool. After all, it's just a concrete wall. The owner is clearly more interested in the its physical purpose than what it looks like.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">5th and Cecil B. Moore falls somewhere between what Graffiti Pier is and what it could become: a safe, publicly maintained, organized art space. But the graffiti at Pier 18 is only part of its allure, and what attracts photographers, explorers, and outsider tourism is what attracts graffiti artists. It is a brutal, crumbling hulk of an industrial past few can even remember. We're drawn to Graffiti Pier for the same reason we're attracted to the Reading Viaduct, the CSS tracks under Pennsylvania Avenue, and traipse through the woods to find the charred remains of The Cliffs Mansion in Fairmount Park.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sure, there's something exciting about exploring what's off limits, telling weary friends and Instagram followers we climbed something we shouldn't. But there's more than that. Like wilderness voyagers who find solace in the forest, urban explorers find something the same in nature's reclamation of our greatest feats of engineering.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">After Eastern State Penitentiary closed, numerous ideas were floated for its redevelopment, from parking to total restoration. What preservationists settled on was something unique, to preserve much of it in its decayed state and safely allow tourists to explore on their own. But Eastern State Penitentiary is as much a product of its era of preservation as it is its storied history. When it opened its doors to hard hatted visitors in the 1990s, urban decay was as much a part of the urban experience as taxes and traffic. Places like the Reading Viaduct and Eastern State weren't white elephants to be endured, they were simply expected. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">It's from this era where much of our fascination stems. From the New Deal to the Oil Crisis, American cities are a mystery to anyone under 40. You can scour the internet and find countless photographs of Philadelphia in its heyday of the Industrial Revolution, but you'll find few of interest between the late '40s and early '80s. Philadelphia was filthy, blighted, and covered with the dust of constant construction and demolition. Places like Graffiti Pier are more than evolving art galleries, they're places where we can experience an era that many didn't bother to photograph.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Sanitizing all of that has been happening since the 1980s, but those more interested in the allure of our forgotten past flock to these places because they allow us to imagine a built environment few ever documented. Change is inevitable, and preservation of that ideal impossible. Several piers have been transformed into parks, the Reading Viaduct is undergoing the same fate, and if the economy continues to bring more residents to the city, Graffiti Pier will lose its allure, either as a museum to graffiti or in total demolition. You can't fight it anymore than you can bring back the past. Even in the midcentury, these spaces were fleeting, constantly under the threat of demolition and transformation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I wish Philadelphia still looked like it did when I moved here in 2004, that the Reading Viaduct still ran trains through Callowhill as it did in the 1970s, and that Graffiti Pier would never change. But what makes these places so alluring, more than anything, is their complete lack of permanence. The only way to make time stand still is to take plenty of pictures. I wish I'd taken more photos in the 1980s and '90s, even when I finally moved to Philadelphia. They'll be another Graffiti Pier, and the beasts we build today will someday crumble and crack, attracting another generation to the history we're creating right now. Nothing lasts forever, and that's exactly what makes Graffiti Pier, and cities, so special.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-35642647610637147852017-12-30T23:47:00.000-05:002017-12-31T19:15:55.944-05:00Boredom and the Two Towers<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">When <a href="http://www.phillymag.com/property/2017/04/29/philadelphia-architecture-cecil-baker/">Sandy Smith at PhillyMag.com</a> dubbed Cecil Baker a "starchitect," I was taken a bit back. Not necessarily because it was printed, Philadelphia Magazine loves touting our own. Rather because Sandy Smith is so well versed in Philadelphia's history, particularly our architectural heritage, that it seemed odd to pair Baker next to our revered starchitects of yesteryear: Frank Furness, Willis G. Hale, William Decker, Wilson Eyre, Samuel Sloan...you get the idea. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">More so, Cecil Baker was the expert consulting on the article's primary point: "How Philly Can Avoid a Skyline of Bland Boxy High-Rises." Yet Cecil Baker's most recent, notable contributions to Center City's skyline aren't exactly avant garde works of art. Comparable cities like Chicago and Miami have erected Zaha Hadid's skysrcapers, Milwaukee has a Santiago Calatrava, and Seattle's main library was designed by Rem Koolhaas. Sure, we've got Lord Norman Foster's CITC rising, a couple Cesar Pellis, and Frank Gehry futzing around the Philadelphia Museum of Art. But when it comes to in-house architects and local firms, Cecil Baker's reputation as a near-starchitect has more to do with his proliferation than it does any sort of signature style.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">To his credit, Baker does give our daring architects their own due, noting Interface Studio, Erdy-McHenry, DIGSAU, Tim McDonald, MGA Partners, and Qb3, any of which might be better equipped to comment on the threat of potentially boring, mid-rise infill. Cecil Baker's latest standouts are fine buildings, and it might be unfair to call them "bland" or "boxy." One Riverside, despite the unfinished appearance of its roofline (I don't know why he didn't finish the top floor with glass), complements its surroundings much better than neighborhood groups had warned. Likewise, 500 Walnut, nearing completion, doesn't distract from its historic surroundings. In fact, the east wall angles away from Walnut Street deliberately to keep its presence in photos of Independence Hall to a minimum. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Both towers try to blend seamlessly into their backgrounds and surroundings. But that is exactly what keeps Cecil Baker from being a starchitect. 500 Walnut's neighboring buildings are far from unobtrusive. Next-door, a Brutalist tower flanks an Egyptian Revival facade. At the west end of the block, a classical office building flexes its marble muscle. None of these buildings, nor Independence Hall itself, are exercises in understatement. They're products of their eras designed to send a specific message, each a piece of the architectural anthropology of our city and nation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">What does Cecil Baker have to say?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Such diluted lack of panache is more excusable at One Riverside, along the Schuylkill Banks where neighbors demanded the built environment not encroach into recreational park space. But across from Independence Hall, long the site of commerce and construction, 500 Walnut's lack of prowess is distracting where it's designed to disappear into the sky. 500 Walnut makes its block look incomplete, unfinished, like the roofline of One Riverside. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">This deliberate lack of presence is far from exclusive to Cecil Baker. In fact, it's become incredibly common. BLT's East Market is designed to <a href="https://philly.curbed.com/2016/11/17/13655266/east-market-ludlow-apartments-renderings">pay homage to the famed PSFS Building</a> across the street. While BLT breaks up the monotony of East Market's super-block by varying the designs of both towers and the renovated Family Court building, the southwest tower is set back atop a curved podium that reflects the PSFS Building itself. This respects and retains the views of the PSFS Building, and the curved wall's homage is commendable, but when concessions trend into how a design will be indefinitely perceived, we lose the sense of confidence that once dominated the field of architecture.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">A stone's throw from Baker's 500 Walnut are I. M. Pei's Society Hill Towers. Now a star amongst meager planets, Pei boldly redefined Society Hill by starkly breaking from the neighborhood's recreated Colonial norm. To this day, Society Hill Towers are both adored and abhorred, but they generate conversation, even from passersby who don't care to know anything about architecture. That's why I. M. Pei is featured prominently in architectural textbooks. It's hard to imagine anything designed by Cecil Baker finding its way into the classroom, but it's not hard to imagine how unsatisfying Society Hill Towers would be had an architect like Baker been commissioned for I. M. Pei's project. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">When Philadelphia Magazine set out to uncover how to avoid becoming a city of "Bland, Boxy High-Rises," Smith went to a firm building just that. That's not to say Baker has designed anything bad. He didn't design Symphony House. But at least at Symphony House, BLT made a statement with a classical design, unfortunately undermined with cheap materials and construction. At Symphony House, Carl Dranoff wasn't just building a tower to sell units, he and BLT were attempting to build a legacy. And that's the exact problem with market rate architects like Cecil Baker, at least where design is concerned. Like most projects today, their buildings are designed solely with profit in mind, and that means skirting the negative press of rogue artistry. They design buildings cram packed with amenities without risking too much visibility. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The most sellable design lands firmly in the status quo. If we want to avoid a skyline of "Bland, Boxy High-Rises," our most prolific architects need to dare to define something new, not just build what moves the most units. More importantly, we need developers willing to hire firms that do just that - firms like Erdy-McHenry and Qb3 - and not just firms that seem safe. The "Bland, Boxy" skyline will become the urban answer to cul de sacs full of McMansions if developers, and their consumers, aren't willing to embrace the truly avant garde, even the wacky. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Artistic innovation happens and new styles are being developed - in Manhattan, Dubai, Beijing, and London - but as Philadelphia becomes more of a bedroom community for out-priced New Yorkers and Washingtonians, our residents are looking at our skyline with less of a sense of pride and more pragmatism. That's boring. We gave architecture history Louis Kahn and Edmund Bacon. Are we winding down to a point of complacency, or are we waiting for the next homegrown starchitect to force us to demand more.</span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-69303266620364106462017-12-29T21:48:00.001-05:002017-12-31T19:11:54.395-05:00Elon Musk vs SEPTA<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">From the highways to the stars, Elon Musk has become a titan in the transportation industry. However, his interaction with SEPTA consultant Jarrett Walker two weeks ago paints a different picture, one of a dismissively arrogant elitist who can't be bothered to craft an informed response to expected accusations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">"You're an idiot" is the way a tween shuts down a conversation on Tumblr. Deleting the comment is what that tween does after graduating to Twitter. Loose tweets sink fleets, and in 2017, two words and a conjunction can do a lot of damage. The juvenile retort was picked up by <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/inga_saffron/inga-saffron-septa-consultant-and-elon-musk-trade-punches-over-future-of-mass-transit-20171226.html">Inga Saffron at Philly.com</a>, but not before it went global on <a href="https://slate.com/business/2017/12/elon-musk-either-hates-mass-transit-or-doesnt-get-it.html">Slate</a>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/dec/21/elon-musk-public-transport-transit-painful-twitter">The Guardian</a>, and <a href="http://fortune.com/2017/12/16/elon-musk-public-transport/">Fortune</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">A week later, he <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk">clarified his Tweet</a>: "Idiots can be very dangerous when they seem smart, but aren't (having 'PhD' in their bio is a dead giveaway), as some policy makers may get fooled." By doubling down on his statement, Musk solidified his attack on Walker, called all PhD holders potential idiots, and insinuated that city agencies can't understand why they value consultants and employees with advanced degrees. Musk's education isn't shy on impressive bachelor's degrees, but the fact that he dropped out of a PhD program at Stanford after only two days might explain his bias, and dare I say insecurity, around those more educated. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">While Elon Musk's ventures range from boring tunnels beneath the earth to hovering miles above it, his bread and butter is the Tesla. But Tesla's Model 3, designed to make his pricy electric platform affordable to a larger audience, has been plagued with problems, from poor quality resulting in large gaps between body panels to delayed delivery. As customers wait for Teslas that may or may not be worth what they'll pay for them, Musk is prepping to put a <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/01/elon-musk-is-putting-his-personal-tesla-into-mars-orbit/">cherry red roadster into orbit around Mars</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Elon Musk is beginning to sound like a dreamer who fell ass backwards into enough money to bankroll a product General Motors shelved twenty years ago, and borrow enough money against that to inflate his ever growing ego. <a href="http://ilovebricks.blogspot.com/2013/08/disco-detroit-and-price-is-right.html">He's the Liz Carmichael of the digital age</a>, only instead of getting an immobile car featured on <i>The Price is Right</i>'s Showcase Showdown, he's launching one into space. Instead of defiantly fighting an automotive industry bent on destroying any innovation not owned by the Big Three, he's working within a market that's largely given up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">He's second wave technology, the tail end of the 21st Century's Industrial Revolution, a market not funded by great products and satisfied consumers, but by venture capitalists and promises of an exponentially altered future that may or may not come. Accusing a SEPTA consultant of fooling policy makers simply because Walker has a PhD is absurd, and infuriatingly hypocritical. The Boring Company, Musk's corporate arm aimed at building a pneumatic tube ferrying passengers between Washington, D.C. and New York City, has been granted conditional approval to dig beneath the Baltimore-Washington Parkway based on nothing more than Musk's own provenance. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Jarrett Walker may be bogged down with the harsh realities of existing transportation systems, but his reputation precedes him. He understands cities, subways, and public transportation that can't simply be scrapped to start over. Musk's aim is two dimensional. He's playing SimCity while holding down on the fast forward button, and his impatience fails to recognize that cities continually need to function as they evolve. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Walker's original tweet holds very real merit. Musk's dream of a megalopolis wherein pods deliver us directly from points A to B is only sustainable for the extremely wealthy. To entirely neglect or ignore public transportation in lieu of a Hyperloop and autonomous vehicles forgets about all the service employees who will never be able to, nor should want to, pay for his innovations, and it clogs our streets with more cars.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Those who embrace electric vehicles, car sharing apps, and automotive autonomy are decidedly progressive, and that doesn't jive too well with Musk's personal disdain for subways and buses. When we call for more bike lanes, that isn't meant to include more auto sharing and electric cars. We want the streets safe and clear of unnecessary traffic, something that can't happen without commuters vastly more willing to share trains and abandoning their unease over mass transportation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">The dictionary defines "idiot" as "a stupid person." Jarrett Walker is a public transportation expert exercising that expertise to make cities work better, dynamically. Whether or not Musk is incapable of understanding that - what will make cities work - I can't say. But maligning a stranger for a degree he doesn't have, for criticizing someone's job done and done well, all while premier products sit on the assembly line as customers wait, that doesn't sound like a particularly smart person. While Jarrett Walker is vested in his job, in SEPTA, and the people of Philadelphia, Elon Musk is trolling Twitter like a teenager with way, way, way too much money for his own good.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2907973584782999976.post-37866042220483603692017-12-19T22:37:00.000-05:002017-12-19T22:37:01.072-05:00Jeweler's Row: What's Next?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Despite the best hopes of preservationists, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/business/real_estate/commercial/toll-bros-gets-permit-for-jewelers-row-tower-philly-20171219.html">we all knew this was going to happen</a>. Toll Brothers received a permit to build a 24 story apartment building on historic Jeweler's Row. Under the permit, six properties will be combined, five of which will be demolished. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">While Jeweler's Row is largely synonymous with the 700 block of Sansom Street, it is essentially a district of its own, albeit a small one. Many jewelry shops line 8th Street and a few spill over to Sansom's 800 block. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The demolition is an architectural loss, and the proposed building's height and vaguely modern design are a jarring juxtaposition to the eclectic row we know now. But Toll Brothers is a publicly traded company, and a successful one at that. It doesn't build what the market doesn't demand, especially after the Housing Crash of 2007. Toll Brothers isn't the problem, it's a symptom of a changing mentality in city residents towards our history and heritage, change that the historic community hasn't figured out how to deal with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Although Toll Brothers' high-rise will stand out, its impact on the district will be more cultural than architectural. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">85 units will be available in the tower and it will find tenants willing to pay top dollar. Those are at least 85 Center City residents who don't quite look at Philadelphia the way many of us do, especially those of us who look at places like Jeweler's Row as points of nostalgia and adored relics of another era. To Toll Brothers' clients, Jeweler's Row is outdated. They want the address and the cache of living in the historic diamond district, but they only want the name, a name that will undoubtedly be appropriated by Toll Brothers and affixed to a building that has nothing to do the row's history.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">If you stroll the blocks of Jeweler's Row, you'll notice something curious. Most of the jewelers host signs in favor of Toll Brothers and its construction. Property owners know the reality of high end apartments on their block. Real estate values and rents will go up, something property owners want on a street that is still relatively cheap for Center City. It's a harsh truism in a city on the rise, and one preservationists haven't yet grappled. Not everyone looks at Jeweler's Row and appreciates the time machine, and these are the people driving the city's transformation. These are the people who'd rather see the 700 block of Sansom house a Chipotle, Starbucks, and a few gastropubs instead of the independent jewelry shops they'll never enter. These are the people who have sanitized Northern Liberties and Kensington and tried renaming the Gayborhood and Callowhill purely out of spite for the past.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In some ways, Toll Brothers presence on Jeweler's Row is a poetically perfect metaphor for what's taking place throughout Philadelphia, and what's already happened in Washington, DC and New York City. The construction company's banal architecture and squarely status quo approach to development is exactly where new urbanites find comfort, those who'd rather drive to Whole Foods than set foot in Reading Terminal Market, those who laud Target's blitz on Center City never knowing how many corner stores have shuttered in the process. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">To borrow a youthful parlance: they're basic. We've listened to seasoned New Yorkers bemoan the onslaught of corporate development for the last two decades, and yet our City Hall continues to grant any new developer carte blanche. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The ordeal on Jeweler's Row has been ongoing for a year now, and while t-shirts and Facebook pages and Instagram accounts do wonders for visibility, their chances of staving off Toll Brothers was nil. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Property owners don't care for historic designations that dictate how they develop and sell their properties, which is why it's important for the historic community to get in front of redevelopment long before it's proposed. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In the last year, though, what have preservationists done to curb the next loss? What about our equally unique Fabric Row? Surely there are crops of urban pioneers who view a district so dated with the same disregard they have for Jeweler's Row. We'll likely lose Robinson's Department Store's midcentury facade as the Fashion District begins to chip away at what's left of Market East. The Art Deco interior of the 9th Street Post Office remains unprotected. The Church of the Assumption continues to deteriorate in wait for a developer with a profitable plan, and it seems not a week goes by that another church isn't lost to shoddy new construction throughout South Philadelphia, Northern Liberties, and Kensington.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Ride the El towards Allegheny and you'll see parking lots along Front Street and Kensington Avenue that have metastasized overnight. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">In a city known for an architectural legacy, one miraculously in tact, the only buildings we're good at truly saving are warehouses too expensive to demolish that just so happen to make great, expensive lofts. What else the Historical Commission and the Preservation Alliance do manage to save is by pure happenstance, simply for the fact that no developer has come to the site with a wad of cash and a wrecking ball. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">We lost the fight at Jeweler's Row, but we're going to lose the war if those charged with protecting our historic heritage don't begin to understand why it's under attack. We need to do more than catalog threatened properties and assume that all Philadelphians regard landmarks with the same esteem we do, because they don't. We need to begin convincing new Philadelphians that we're more than a city to be remade in their own image, but one with worthy institutions and districts already in place. </span><br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0