skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Despite its approval by the Historical Commission, Baywood Hotels' proposed addition to the historic NFL Films headquarters has drawn the attention of preservationists to a forgotten pocket of Center City, perhaps the district's Final Frontier.
Inga Saffron's recent Inquirer article regarding the project paints a colorful depiction of this neighborhood - my neighborhood - and focuses on the liveliness of an area few know without dwelling on our overabundance of unwanted surface parking lots.
Unfortunately the piece sinks into the bystander effect of architectural journalism, praising the area for its quaintness and charm without really understanding anything about those of us who call it home.
While it's true that little has changed in this neighborhood's built environment since the early 20th Century, it's the unbuilt environment that has scarred it irreparably. While two or three streets managed to survive midcentury demolition, it's hard to say if the district's potential survived as well. Trinity courtyards and narrow alleys that once looked like those in Washington Square and Society Hill now stare blankly at surface lots or towering windowless walls.
In a city addicted to its history, this may be one case where reality is all that remains.
But having lived in the neighborhood bound by Chinatown, Broad Street, the Vine Street Expressway, and the Convention Center for more than five years I've come to understand that reality is what my neighbors want. We will never be the extension of Old City we could have been before the I-676 and the Convention Center eradicated our lofty potential. We're ruins of what could have been stuck between being a towering extension of Philadelphia's true downtown and a fight to preserve a sinking vessel preservationists don't understand.
Just two blocks from City Hall, we're neither quaint nor relevant. The Chinatown Drift of the Expressway keeps us up at night because there is no architecture to buffer the noise. Surface lots create endless garbage that finds its way into our community gardens. A lack of late night business and our minimal population means absent security and an abundance of prostitution and open air drug use.
It's easy to look at quaint alleys like Winter Court and see potential in the provincial charm. But what I see are used heroin needles in my flowerbeds.
Baywood Hotels' proposed tower near 13th and Vine has been contested by local historians, most notably the Friends of the Boyd because of the building's historic status as the first home of NFL Films. While many, including Saffron, have accused it of being a "not-so-subtle" interpretation of the PSFS Building, the most recently released rendering looks more like 1706 Rittenhouse plated in materials that echo the original Streamlined Moderne office building.
 |
| Deja Vu |
Truth be told, neighbors are also concerned about the project. Another hotel means more parking. In any other neighborhood I'd say the claim is absurd, but in this neighborhood we understand just how expendable our buildings are, and just how much the asphalt prairie can expand.
The fact that Baywood Hotels is interested in preserving the facade of the existing office building is astounding in a neighborhood where row homes disappear overnight without so much as a whisper. While the hotel may bring more surface lots in the near future, it will also increase the value of those lots and attract the attention of future developers.
Improved work rules at the Pennsylvania Convention Center are already evident in the droves of conventioneers mingling around 12th and Arch and future development is exactly what we asked for when the center first expanded. This neighborhood was always expected to be its collateral damage.
Still, Philadelphia has managed to do a great job of juxtaposing sky scraping towers with Colonial charm. There's plenty of room to grow, to fill in the gaps, for towers to sidle up to courtyards. Baywood Hotel, dull as it may be, is a catalyst this neighborhood needs to truly be the part of Center City that it is.
The historic Big Brothers Big Sisters Building near 13th and Race may get an addition. In a sign that changes at the Pennsylvania Convention Center are resonating within the exhibition industry, we might start seeing all those hotels the center's expansion once promised.
The building that was home to a Warner Brothers film distribution center is more commonly known for its most recent tenant, the national headquarters for Big Brothers Big Sisters, was historically designated as the first home of NFL Films, a motion picture association founded in 1962 affiliated with the National Football League.
The Philadelphia Historical Commission approved the addition of a modest hotel tower much to the dismay of Friends of the Boyd, who've aired frustration with the commission comparing it to the loss of the Boyd's most lavish asset, its auditorium.
But unlike the Boyd, Center City's last historic movie theater, the most significant architectural elements of 238 North 13th Street are its Art Deco facade and lobby. While the addition of a high-rise will require the demolition of much of the building's interior, the facade will be saved and perhaps even its lobby.
Although dismayed by the decision, preservationists have won a compromise, a decision could have easily led to the demolition of a building perceived to be insignificant, even ugly, to many.
Images of the proposed tower are hard to find, but rumors imply that it may echo the PSFS Building, an odd choice given the clash Art Deco and International Style may pose. A simple glass tower would allow the two floors of history to shine on their own merit without gunking up the building's gears with something so retro.
Once home to a film company, 238 North 13th Street is known to most Philadelphians as the former national office for Big Brothers Big Sisters, if it's known at all.
Vacant for a few years now, the small art deco building stands less than a block from the Pennsylvania Convention Center, and as with much of the property between Vine and Race, developers are likely eyeing it for a potential hotel.
But the building is only two floors and stands on a small footprint. Yesterday, the city's Historical Commission voted to deny and unnamed developer's proposal for a tower atop the historic building.
Howard B. Haas, a Philadelphia lawyer and prominent voice in the campaign to save the Boyd Theater's auditorium, had this to say on his Friends of the Boyd Facebook page:
Good news! Today, the Philadelphia Historical Commission's Architectural Committee unanimously recommended against allowing a hotel tower that would poorly fit in with the former Warner Brothers Film Exchange at 238 North 13th Street. It was designed in 1946 by William Howard Lee, one of our best movie theater architects and was later offices for the NFL. I wrote a letter of opposition for today's hearing. In 2007, I had assisted with the research & testified for the succesful historic designation of this lovely Art Moderne building. Thanks to the Preservation Alliance's Ben Leech & architect Rich Thom for leading the opposition.
Hopefully we won't see the Boyd's fate replay itself. Considering the building's proximity to the Convention Center and Center City itself, the property is likely too expensive to be sustained as a modest office building.
As development tends to go when faced with the Historical Commission, the developer will probably return with a more appropriate design for its tower component. It's bound entirely by 13th Street and three smaller streets, so the only direction to add square footage is up. It's encouraging that developers are again considering the area north of the Convention Center for new hotels
