Center City's Final Frontier

While the traditional boundaries of Center City lie between Vine and South Streets, it's easy to stray a bit north or south and argue otherwise. "Greater Center City," in fact, is comprised of blocks between Girard and Tasker. That's a stretch, but if you're walking along Spring Garden Avenue, there's no mistake, you are in the city.

But hit Broad and head east, that's another story. Whether it's councilmanic districting or a case of bad development attracting worse development, the neighborhoods of Greater Center City's northeastern quadrant are devoid of anything "central" until you get to Northern Liberties. Strip malls, sterile government facilities, and parking lots line Spring Garden with only an occasional relic to remind us of its industrial and residential roots.

The largest footprint of singular new development is suburban-styled subsidized housing awkwardly flanked by vacant and underutilized warehouses and railroad tracks. Even Callowhill - or the Loft District - with it's proximity to the literal core of the city continues to struggle with an abundance of surface parking, vacant lots, and empty warehouses. Nowhere is the crevasse between east and west more apparent than on North Broad Street, where Gilded Age mansions, churches, and theaters on the westside face unimpressive infill like car washes and auto parts stores. 

Still, the northeastern component of Greater Center City has a few gems waiting to be polished, and the future of this district - however it evolves - may depend on their revitalizations. 

You don't have to be a history or architectural nerd to be concerned with the area's most priceless resource, the Divine Lorraine Hotel. The Willis G. Hale masterpiece is one of the city's most iconic, infamous, and significant buildings, and despite countless promises, proposals, and praise, its future is still largely in question. EB Reality released a unique rendering that looks like a cartoon from Highlights Magazine, and I mean that in a good way.

Just behind the Divine Ms. L., Broad Street Holdings has proposed its own mixed use complex with a residential component. 

For now, this speculation may simply be more hype. EB Reality seems to love the media, and the media is its greatest enabler. Stories about the Divine Lorraine sell ads because we love that building so damn much. But while development has been charging east along Ridge Avenue, it comes to a grinding halt at the Divine Lorraine. It's creeping its way northwest from Callowhill but with a reserved lack of ambition. 

Massive projects are massive risks, even in Center City. But Broad and Fairmount isn't quite Center City, at least not yet, and the Divine Lorraine is a beast. There is no question that a resurrected Divine Lorraine would be a massive boon for the vicinity and certainly spawn additional development, but without that development, EB Reality knows it will have to wait for a handsome return. Right now, Philadelphia is just waiting for someone to make the first move.

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It isn't all uncertainty for this depressed pocket of the city, and it may simply be that the city needs to be the party to make that first move. And it's about to be made. Soon the city will be voting on a bill that will allow it to purchase a quarter mile stretch of the abandoned Reading Viaduct from SEPTA, after which several groups will be working together to convert it into an elevated park. 

Once a pipe dream to many and a hinderance to others, it looks as though the Reading Viaduct Park will be realized. And considering the city's recent investment in parks, and its final recognition that the improvement of public spaces actually encourages development, it could happen sooner than later. 

Sigma Sound Studios

The Sound of Philadelphia is coming down to make way for Carl Dranoff's towering SLS International Hotel and Residences on South Broad Street. Philadelphia International Records was definitely a Philadelphia institutions, and an American one. But uptown in a forgotten pocket of Center City, perhaps the last pocket to be terraformed by new condos and hotels, Sigma Sound Studios is also no-more. 

BizJournals has the skinny.

The small building that gave us Macho Man and Disco Inferno, the latter a song that never seems to end, has been sold and will be converted into apartments. It isn't clear yet whether the building will simply be renovated, grow, or like the Sound of Philadelphia, demolished for something larger. Sigma Sound Studios isn't a huge building, and in an emerging neighborhood literally steps from City Hall, its redevelopment would likely profit from additional space.

This neighborhood - the place I've called home for almost eight years - is a unique one. It's long-gone warehouses once housed films from studios like Warner Brothers and MGM throughout the 30s, 40s, and 50s. But throughout much of the 20th Century, it was also a notorious red light district. Rumor has it, in the early 20th Century, sailors docked on Delaware Avenue were forbidden from walking the streets of what was often called the Furnished Room District, so named for its abundance of flop houses, brothels, and drug dens. 

As late as the early 2000s, XXX book stores occupied Arch Street and loosely named "massage parlors" still play a part in what's left of a neighborhood clinging to its seedy past. Likely because of its history, the district bound by Broad, 11th, Market, and Vine was targeted for reconstruction in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Unfortunately its history - the good, the weird, and the untoward - has been scraped from the historical narrative of Philadelphia with very little record. 

While I'll miss my cheap rent and a garden a stone's throw from City Hall, it will be exciting to see how the neighborhood evolves and how its unique inhabitants choose to remember it. Wedged between the Convention Center and the growing Loft District, change was inevitable. Hopefully it won't soullessly embrace the convention center but also retain a little bit of its heart, however jaded. Things in Philadelphia tend to do just that.

The Other Disney Holes

The Disney Hole at 8th and Market, a surface parking lot once home to Gimbels and the proposed site of a DisneyQuest indoor amusement park, has been a black eye on Market East's already battered face for decades. But in a city that has more parking than it knows what to do with, it isn't Center City's worst example of poor planning that defaulted to the status quo of urban real estate: surface parking.

In the 1980s, when loft living was more akin to starving artistry than wealthy yuppies, the area north of Arch Street between 11th and Broad looked a lot like Old City. It was packed with underutilized warehouses, some providing cheap housing and office space, others vacant. Interspersed with worthless trinity homes, modest row houses, and ample parking, blocks and blocks were razed for the Pennsylvania Convention Center, the Vine Street Expressway's extension, and a Market East Station that allowed trains leaving Suburban Station to connect directly to the Northeast.

Unfortunately these shortsighted projects failed to recognize the potential future of Center City and the neighborhood once referred to as the Furnished Room District. At the time, Market East was lined with triple X theaters and this neighborhood was the backwater of Philadelphia's sex industry. The collateral damage was welcome, a neighborhood so disdained that little history was ever even recorded. Many buildings demolished without the posterity of a photograph.

The Pennsylvania Convention Center, despite its woes, did pull this neighborhood up. Reading Terminal Market has handsomely reaped the rewards. But its attractions and hotels cater to those who come to the city in cars, and the equal and opposite reaction to the area's success has been the Disney Holes along Vine Street that continue to chip away at what's left.

Vine Street has been a wide avenue since the 1930s, and has long since detached Callowhill from its right to truly call itself Center City. It was likely perceived that the Vine Street Expressway would be no worse. But a lack of insight and a loathing for the Furnished Room District allowed urban planners to not only introduce a freeway, but also widen Vine's existing surface streets, requiring more demolition along the east bound lanes leaving blocks too narrow to truly develop.

It was a dumb move. Interstate 676 was specifically designed to relieve crosstown traffic on Vine Street. If anything, Vine's surface components should have been narrowed. The street rarely sees the need for its six lanes and those who use it as an exit ramp to New Jersey speed. And for reasons I'll never quite understand, most Jersey bound traffic tends to use Race Street to connect to the Ben Franklin Bridge.

But as the city continues to grow, defying a post-recession logic, little has been said of Center City's final frontier. Have those in City Hall been in office so long that they still turn a blind eye to a neighborhood they fought so hard to erase? Lavish master plans have been proposed to connect Center City and the Delaware River, the Ben Franklin Parkway is still improving, and plans have been proposed as far north as Strawberry Mansion. Why has the Furnished Room District, two blocks form City Hall, been ignored?

Some have suggested capping the Vine Street Expressway, among other things. All fine ideas, but none have gotten attention from those who could make it happen. When you consider the fact that the improvements at the Pennsylvania Convention Center are already beginning to resonate, it seems even odder that this neighborhood remains forgotten. These parking lots are about as relevant to City Hall as those surrounding the Stadium District. 

And perhaps that's why. The state foolishly failed to provide any designated parking for the Convention Center and these lots wildly profit as necessary evil. The center even advertises them. All thirty six of them. Yes, thirty six. Thirty six parking lots and garages that the Pennsylvania Convention Center advertises on its website, not one owned by the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Perhaps soon the center will find enough money to cap its Race Street facade with its own garages. It has the room, and the space would generate money. Can you imagine that? A Pennsylvania Convention Center free from the confines of the Carpenters and Teamsters, with a can't-beat downtown location, and its own designated parking? Wow.

But I digress.

More hotels are coming. Once the last surface lot on Arch Street disappears, hotels will find themselves on North Broad Street, Race Street, and ultimately development will begin to replace the Disney Holes along Vine Street.

The city needs to get out in front of the progress and tackle Vine Street now. Change is happening and it's happening fast. Designating street parking on Vine Street and narrowing each side to two lanes would dramatically slow down traffic, improve pedestrianization, and expand the footprint for potential development. 

Vine Street may not even need to be capped to pull Callowhill closer to Center City. Many cities have highway trenches running through their cores, and those that succeed without a Big Dig succeed because they're surrounded by dense development. Let's start enticing that development with a better Vine Street and finish what the city started thirty years ago. 

Stream_Line

Back in October, the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture announced the winners of the Steel Design Student Competition and not surprisingly, in the Building to Bridge category, local Philadelphia University students took to the Reading Viaduct with Stream_Line.

Stream_Line gracefully extends the Vine Street stump of the Reading Viaduct across the Vine Street Expressway to the sidewalk on the southern side of the street.

Not content with simply curving its way across the canyon with a pedestrian bridge, students Garrow, Martin, and Shenk housed exhibition space and other resources inside the structure itself.

With the neighborhood's investment in local artists, it's easy to imagine gallery space illuminated high above the expressway. Perhaps more importantly, Stream_Line shows us how to architecturally interact with our highways without hiding them under concrete and parks.

Hanover North Broad

With speculations around Girard Square, Kmart's planned closure at the Gallery at Market East, and the proposed Market8 Casino at the Disney Hole, it's hard to forget that Market East isn't the only aging city planning disaster to plague a major Center City thoroughfare.

Lined with parking lots, North Broad Street hosts the scars of massive midcentury demolition and looks a lot like Detroit's Woodward Avenue.

The Parkway Corporation owns the two major parking lots at Broad and Callowhill. With the Hanover Design Collective, Parkway plans to develop the lots with Hanover North Broad, a large mix-use project.

Initial renderings show a sensibly scaled design that looks a lot like University City's Domus and will go before the City Planning Commission. As it is, it won't bring a lot of architectural drama to North Broad Street, although its practicality will probably help it breeze through the approval process.

The success of Tower Place and the proposed conversion of the Inquirer Building, along with the emerging Callowhill/Loft District/Eraserhood neighborhood, North Broad and dare I say North Philadelphia, may soon be part of a whole new city. Now if someone would take on North Broad's most tragic lady in wait, the divine Divine Lorraine.

Is Philadelphia's Chinatown Struggling?

The Atlantic Cities article by Bonnie Tsui brings to light the alarming rate at which America's Chinatowns are changing. Although she only really looks at three cities, New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, she makes some good points. But those points were better made fifty years ago.

Immigrants arriving today arrive with more mobility and many may not even prefer the gritty streets of Philadelphia's Chinatown. As we saw with our own Greektown, when gentrification hits an ethnic enclave full of gainfully employed residents, many embrace the change. Though we still refer to the 9th Street Market as the Italian Market, it's no longer exclusively Italian and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The immigrants who arrived from Greece and Italy a century ago are now successful Americans, not struggling immigrants. That's a good thing. That's why every American came here.

Tsui's article doesn't just miss the mark when it comes to the need for affordable housing, or lack of need, she doesn't even seem to understand the history of Philadelphia's Chinatown. I can't speak for her reference to New York or Boston, but Philadelphia's Chinatown is historically bound by Race and Vine, and 9th and 11th.

Beyond that zone was Market East, Franklin Square, the Furnished Room District, and Callowhill. For half of the last century, Chinatown was boxed in by Market East Station, the Vine Street Expressway, and the Convention Center, an era when Chinatown truly faced its most ruthless and callous transformation, not at the behest of pricy loft dwellers, but the city itself was attempting to eradicate a neighborhood it felt didn't deserve to exist.

Through much effort and the formation of the Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation, Chinatown residents managed to save its historic core, but that core is still bound by history.

The Atlantic City's misunderstanding of Philadelphia's Chinatown

The only luxury apartment buildings in Chinatown are 1010 Race, 1010 Arch, and the Pearl, and the Pearl is very diverse in both its residents and retail. For the past few years the PCDC, and apparently whoever drew the map for Tsui's article, has been trying to rebrand Callowhill as Chinatown North.

That's fine, in fact it's great.

But if you want to claim that gentrification is pushing out Chinese immigrants, you can only consider the part of Chinatown that historically housed immigrants. Callowhill, or Chinatown North, never did. Considering Callowhill is not historically part of Chinatown, you could even make the opposite argument, that Philadelphia's historic Chinatown is not only winning the war against gentrification, but actually growing.

Interestingly, Tsui even mentions our Chinatown's deplorable lack of greenspace and the dire need for parks on behalf of its residents. While the Callowhill Neighborhood Association has been advocating for the conversion of the Reading Viaduct into a park, who's been the park's most vocal adversary? The PCDC.

Eastern Tower wouldn't be on the table in a gentrifying Chinatown.

The hard truth is that property values rise and Center City is getting pricier. While the city provides its share of affordable housing, even in Chinatown, it can't subsidize zones based on ethnicity. That's dangerously close to segregation. In fact it's almost the definition of segregation. 

If the PCDC wants to extend the traditional boundaries of Chinatown all the way to Spring Garden, that's fantastic. The real estate is there and available, but it's available for anyone willing to buy. Philadelphia's historic Chinatown is far from a poster child for gentrification, in fact, our Chinatown is one of the strongest in the country.

Goldtex Apartments' Next Uphill Battle

Now that Goldtex has defied convention and won the war against the region's unions, let's talk about the new apartment building that stands to define the city's latest hip address.

It's certainly grand. Post Brothers brought ambitious design, high end appliances, and the kind of amenities usually reserved for condos to the rental market. But their next challenge could be finding those renters.

Starting at almost $1400 for a little more than 500 square feet, Goldtex must compete with luxury rentals in Rittenhouse and Society Hill. In fact, the main thing more appealing about Goldtex than similar Center City rentals is easy parking and freeway access, and one can find those conveniences in University City or the suburbs for far less. 

Come on, who shaves like that?

But that could all change. Goldtex may be the catalyst Callowhill needs bring the same success found in hip islands like Passyunk Square closer to Center City. Although it's not comparable to the Piazza, more foot traffic at 12th and Wood can encourage other developers to explore the vicinity's vacant warehouses and surface lots, even those across Vine Street.

The nearby State Office Building has already been transformed into Tower Place. With 50% of Post Brothers' Goldtex units rented before their building is even complete, they've given Bart Blatstein the fire he needs to begin converting his nearby Inquirer Building.

Still, Goldtex is unique. Philadelphia is not a transient town. Most renters ultimately want to buy, and are often willing to settle for standard amenities with modest rent in the mean time. Over time the Post Brothers may find themselves regretting the decision to use stainless steel appliances and lavish amenities, amenities that need to be maintained and replaced throughout the years.

Luxury rentals aren't easy to sustain, and where they survive, they're paired with a premier address. Still, while we leap to 18th and Walnut when we think of that premier address, luxury rentals have helped transform Northern Liberties and University City into mighty fine addresses.

Callowhill's grit has always been baffling considering its proximity to Center City. It's dynamic and urban unlike emerging areas of South Philadelphia much farther from City Hall and public transportation. It may take just one, wildly publicized and successful building to remind people how close the neighborhood is to everything.

Viaduct Impossible

After reading about the so called "marriage" of the Friends of the Rail Park and the Reading Viaduct Project I decided to take a look. Like many who live within spitting distance of Callowhill's industrial district, I don't spend a lot of "me time" in the vicinity.

While pricey loft conversions have sprouted up in the neighborhood between 11th and Broad, it's still a very real, working industrial zone. I've been to Prohibition Tap Room, The Trestle Inn, Café Lift, and the wildly pretentious Bufad Pizza boutique, but many in the neighborhood are still struggling to identify with what Callowhill is.

Callowhill is doing what it was designed to do, to work. Currently that's servicing Chinatown's restaurants and grocery stores and harboring outsider artists who like its grit. It's been doing that since the early 1900s.

While some of the louder neighborhood voices are fighting for a Reading Viaduct Park, and now a City Branch Park, they've done little to prove that it would ever be a viable concept.

Part of the problem comes from residents' insular view of their neighborhood. Sure, their lofts are hip and expansive, but they're fortressed behind parking lots and the echo of real estate agents spouting, "you're so close to Center City."

The Reading Viaduct Park is a great vision, but that's what it is, a vision. Aside from the complex ownership of the structure, much of the neighborhood still needs to prove they want to spend their free time there. Right now, its more upscale residents view Callowhill as a gritty Conshohocken. They're detached.

Urban enclaves are more than planned communities surrounded by tax funded freeways and parks. Urban communities, often strapped for cash, are communal.

Locked within a condominium complex in Callowhill, you'll find a lot of like minded people who wonder why the Reading Viaduct hasn't been demolished, turned into a park, or turned back into a transit line. But many of those residents moved to the city with the same resistance to urban realities that maintains a private parking space. In their mind, they're near Center City, not in it.

Callowhill, callously referred to as the Loft District by realtors, isn't that. It's not a dead industrial zone awaiting the salvation of suburban refugees blessing Philadelphia with its next hip neighborhood. Unlike the Northern Liberties' Piazza, Callowhill isn't a blank slate. Its proximity to Center City and industrial infrastructure make it a viable work horse.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in Callowhill's upscale voice is its impression that the neighborhood outside their condo is dysfunctional. Whatever they perceive it to be, that won't change because the neighborhood financially succeeds as it is.

Master plans can't be employed in a neighborhood that already works. As working urban enclave Callowhill will never be a planned community, and that means compromise. That's where advocates are lost. The neighborhood can be improved, but it means working inside the neighborhood, not above it.

Some of the more cynical residents might not see the beauty in Callowhill's gritty diversity, and parks are the canned response of shortsighted design. That's not to say Callowhill couldn't benefit from a splash of green, but starting big isn't just risky, it's illogical.

Callowhill is full of small, unused vacant lots, land on solid ground. Where is the community? Instead of transforming these small, potential oases into community gardens and pocket parks, they're illegally parking their unregistered cars on them.

It's hypocritical to defy the PPA with makeshift parking lots and then ask the city to burden itself with a park for neighbors who rarely spend time outside their own private terraces.
If Callowhill's lofty residents want their neighborhood to be lofty, they've got to do some of the legwork themselves.

Instead of proposing extremely expensive, tax funded park space they should be working to redevelop vacant property, wrangling retail and service business, and trying to make their neighborhood feel more like a neighborhood.

The combined advocacy groups operating under the name Friends of the Rail Park plan on converting the SEPTA spur into a park. Friends is certainly capable of raising the funds to transform and maintain this two block stretch of rail.

But the bulk of the viaduct's ownership is complex and uninvolved, and engineering the truly elevated portions of the rail is complicated. With all the talk from Viaduct advocates over the years, no one has formally addressed the real estate nightmare ahead of them.

For now, unless Callowhill's cushy residents are willing to put their foot to the pavement and grab a broom, this industrial neighborhood will remain unchanged.

As long as the industrial relic provides the neighborhood's backdrop one way or another, Callowhill will always feel exciting. Until Friends figures out how to transform and maintain, or more importantly buy the viaduct, they might want to try encouraging its neighbors to enjoy the neighborhood directly outside their doors.

Pearl Street Painting

Callowhill's Pearl Street got a bit of a facelift the other day. By facelift, I mean it got a fresh coat of paint, and by that, I mean the actual street got painted.

I have no idea where it came from, if it's an art installation, some kind of nod to Callowhill's Viaduct Park ambitions, or a promotional stunt by Post Brothers.

The color is pretty close to the green used in Post Brother's Goldtex Apartments.

Whoever did it and why, it looks pretty damn cool. The street (more like an alley) is mostly unused and lined with nothing of note, so the paint adds a splash of color the way a Favela Painting camouflages the slums of Rio.

But hey, whatever works. Check it.

Friends of the Rail Park

Some new renderings have emerged from OLIN Studio for Callowhill's should-be Reading Viaduct Park as well as some for a City Branch Rail Park, this time opening up City Branch's tunnels to the sky.

Commissioned by Friends of the Rail Park, formerly ViaductGreene, the renderings are highly conceptual, integrating the School District Administration Building and former Inquirer Building.

OLIN Studio

At this stage in the process, this gives us a clever idea of what a rail trail park through our historic industrial district might look like. However, park advocates shouldn't get too excited about the potential reuse of property that private developers don't really control.

Friends of the Rail Trail should be commended for their recent strides, and advocates are finally headed in the right direction. In the past, ViaductGreene has been a loosely knit organization comprised of members with AutoCAD skills and a knack for getting people talking. While they managed to get neighbors involved in the discussion, they never really managed to rally any key decision makers.

Obviously, a large chunk of the neighborhood supports the project. So much so, many were willing to approve a tax increase for the Callowhill neighborhood to support park maintenance well before anything would have happened.

At this point, the property's piece meal ownership poses the biggest obstacle, particularly the portion owned by the mysterious Reading Company. The Reading Company owns the elevated portion that snakes its way through the neighborhood east of Broad. While the company largely exists as a portfolio of defunct rail lines, it's unclear whether ownership even knows of the plans for their property.

OLIN Studio

While the Inquirer Building's owner, Bart Blatstein is open to the idea, he has acknowledged SEPTA's vested interest in the property as well.

The City Planning Commission has expressed some resistance to the concept, citing the potential return of transit to the City Branch portion of the rail. It's a reasonable concern, one Leah Murphy, board member of Friends of the Rail Park acknowledged as well.

Even if it takes fifty years for transit to return to the City Branch line, these lines were established when the surrounding environment was being developed. Subways and dedicated rail lines are hard if not impossible to build in an established city, which is why newer cities opt for surface rails. The City Branch line and even the Reading Viaduct is a unique asset that, despite the fact that we don't use them, would be difficult to reestablish as a rail line after they find alternate use.

OLIN Studio

The Planning Commission has mentioned using the land as a bus line, which Murphy points out could run in tandem with a City Branch park. Park advocates remain optimistic that the line could be used as a park, at least until the city drafts realistic plans to establish some form of transit in the vicinity.

A City Branch Park and a Reading Viaduct Park remain highly speculative, although City Branch's once experimental proposal for an enclosed, underground park, now open to the elements seems more realistic than plans for the Viaduct. Not necessarily because it's more or less desirable, but because it's clear where advocates stand with the land, and who actually owns it.

Until the Reading Company becomes more than a Wikipedia page, the Reading Viaduct, at least its elevated portions east of 12th Street will remain a place reserved for those with a trespassing sense of adventure.

Leah Murphy and Friends of the Rail Trail are moving in the right direction, even if an uphill battle lies before them. Working with adjacent development, the City Planning Commission, and SEPTA, as well as a willingness to work with other potential ideas is the way to go.

Another subway surface line carrying passengers from Center City to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fairmount Park, Centennial Park, and the Philadelphia Zoo is a dreamy proposal, but one that simply isn't in the cards at the moment.

Why not open it up as a park for now? Bring more people to this colorful, sometimes bizarrely forgotten pocket of what is practically Center City, entice residents with something more than parking lots and weeds, and put some pedestrians on the ground who might someday look for a train to take them beyond.

Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption

Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption's new owner is seeking to demolish the decaying relic. After changing hands numerous times since it was sold by the Catholic Church, the landmark cathedral has deteriorated due to neglect, nature, and ineptitude.

The saddest point in the site's fate is the inevitability of its demolition and preservationists' reluctance to accept that. Adaptive reuse has a threshold, and retrofitting churches as anything, particularly ones with such unique and unusable architectural elements, is cost prohibitive and often pointless.

Realistically, the Church of the Assumption has been dying a slow death since its previous owners began gutting it in anticipation of its demolition. At this point, any appeal to save the church will at best simply stave off the demolition for a future date.

It's a shame that the Callowhill Neighborhood Association and preservation advocates are so resistant to compromise because a demolition permit does not have to mean the complete demise of a landmark and another surface parking lot. Ironically the same neighborhood full of industrial relics creatively advocating the reuse of the Reading Viaduct has offered little to no outside-the-box solution to save the Church of the Assumption's presence in their neighborhood.

The ruins of Windsor Plantation near Port Gibson, Mississippi stand among park space.

Across Europe, countless churches and castles have been stripped of all but the necessary masonry to serve as parks. Even in the United States, Windsor Plantation near Acorn State University and Port Gibson, Mississippi remains in ruins as a testament to another time. 39 of the original Capitol Building columns stand at the D.C. Arboretum in Washington, D.C.

Our situation offers Spring Garden, Callowhill, and Philadelphia the unique opportunity to conserve the easily maintainable elements of a condemned relic as urban ruins.

Nothing remains of Tintern Abbey in Monmouthshire but the masonry that once upheld the structure.

The site could be saved - at least in part - as a park frequently used for art exhibits, outdoor theater space, a concert venue, a beer garden, and private events. If you accept the fact that the Church of the Assumption has reached the point at which it cannot be reused as a habitable structure, the creative uses for the site become endless.

Post Brothers Apartments

While a handful of protesters continue to picket the rehabilitation of the infamous "Graffiti Building" at 12th and Wood, Post Brothers has unveiled a sign of their own.


Today, a giant banner hung from one of the top floors of the long neglected warehouse read "Post Brothers Apartments," signifying development is moving full steam ahead unphased by Philadelphia's Union Muscle.


For months, a rotating collection of Colorform laden signage spouted accusations that Post Brothers were "destroying community standards" to commuters along 12th Street.


I'd personally like to say thank you Post Brothers for investing in MY community's standards.

Chinatown Community Center

This is hot. No, it's downright sexy.

Whether or not the neighborhood north of Vine is historically part of Chinatown, its influence is evident.

With Callowhill pushing for the conversion of the Reading Viaduct into a park, Chinatown is the only neighborhood in this enclave attempting to bridge the expressway's divide.

Uninspired caps bridge most of the divides at each intersection, but a beautifully landscaped park has already been installed on 10th Street two blocks north of Chinatown's newly restored gate.

The Philadelphia Chinatown Development Community now plans to build a 23 storey tower including residences, offices, and a community center just above the expressway.

The center will include a parking garage, and although zoning requires 100 spaces, the developer will apply for a reduction. Given the number of parking spaces available in the vicinity, the developer should try to get an exemption.

The Perfect Storm

A turf war is brewing in the neighborhood north of the Vine Street Expressway between Philadelphia's Chinatown community and Callowhill's loft-living yuppies. The s***showdown has spawned so many rumors and so much hostility from both sides, it's impossible to determine what exactly was proposed and where we landed. The only thing that seems to be clear is that it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with marking territory.

The Philadelphia Inquirer lauded Maria and John Yuen for going up against the Callowhill neighborhood and successfully blocking a proposed Neighborhood Improvement District. The NID would have added a 7% tax to the residents in the Callowhill neighborhood in exchange for maintenance services.

Or was it for the maintenance of the proposed but uncertain Reading Viaduct Park? Or did it exempt the park? Both sides are spewing so much propaganda, it wouldn't be clear to anyone signing a petition.

The problem at the center of the entire debate seems to be the park which was used to sell the NID to Callowhill residents, and used to oppose it to Chinatown residents. It's likely the NID would have passed if the park had never been proposed in the first place. Whether for or against to the park, neither side seems willing to admit that it's highly unlikely we'll see the viaduct redeveloped in any way anytime soon.

What is clear is that the Inquirer's headline is misleading if not downright wrong. Callowhill NID Foes Went Up Against Powerful Forces and Won. Obviously the powerful forces at play were those opposed to the NID if they managed to gather enough signatures to kill it.

In NIMBYism on top of NIMBYism, Maria Yuen even created NOVA, the North of Vine Association, to represent the same neighborhood that the Callowhill Neighborhood Association already represents instead of joining the CNA to work with them.

Some opposed to the NID have even claimed the area north of Vine to be historically part of Chinatown that was cut off when the Vine Street Expressway was built. In fact, Vine Street had divided the two neighborhoods prior to the expressway's construction. Historically the neighborhood north of Vine was known as the Tenderloin. Before the expressway divided the two neighborhoods, Chinatown was exponentially smaller. Opposition seems to be attempting to rewrite history to make its case. Chinatown's growth is great, but the direction in which it would have grown is irrelevant to history.

Unfortunately, the reluctance of both sides to compromise will ultimately harm this area. I don't think the NID is the way to clean up Callowhill. We already pay enough taxes, and there's no reason to add another layer on top of federal, state, and city taxes. The money is there to clean up all of our neighborhoods, we just mismanage it. Many in favor of the NID seem to be confusing their property value with how much it costs for it to exist. A NID may raise the resale price of their home, but unless the NID makes some dramatic improvements, the increase will be to cover the new tax, not because their property is more valuable.

Even if we want to create an Improvement District, other neighborhoods have Business Improvement Districts which tax businesses, not residents. Callowhill lacks the business for this to make any realistic impact.

I don't agree with the way this NID was defeated. Was it Democratic? Yes. Did both side abuse the hype over a pipe dream to make their case? Absolutely.

Philadelphia doesn't have to be expensive to be clean. We all want our property value to go up, but we want it to go up because it's more valuable, not more expensive. Unfortunately the voice in Callowhill seems to confuse the two. At the same time, the voice on behalf of Chinatown is willing to engage in the Democratic process, but unwilling to engage in our Capitalistic process, and the conflict at Vine Street seems to be brewing the Perfect Storm of American Ideology.

New Loft for Callowhill Rivals Expectations

For the past decade one couldn't traverse the Vine Street Expressway without noticing the graffiti covered building at 12th and Wood. Kid Agua's tag had almost become synonymous with Philadelphia when a developer finally saw a silver lining in Callowhill's crowned jewel.

I'll be the first to admit that architecture is not without its popular trends, but at the same time, I am a product of my times. Sheathing buildings in a "modern" skin never lasts. It conjures images of South Broad brownstones clad in steeply pitched vinyl faux shingles.

And in all honestly, that's how we'll see the renovations at 12th and Wood in a decade or two.

Still, in a city as architecturally diverse as Philadelphia, the juxtaposition of Brutalism and Classicism often warrants "ugly" architecture a place in the textbooks. More to the point, a building so popularly styled, trendy or not, in a neighborhood all but forgotten is sure to attract not just residents, but businesses and developers.

The Bowery Presents and House of Blues

Great news for the struggling Spring Garden corridor and the former Spaghetti Warehouse. If all goes as planned, the warehouse at 10th and Spring Garden will be reopened as a The Bowery Presents....

The Spring Garden corridor is no stranger to concert venues, although perhaps not as recognizable as The Bowery Presents.... 

Additionally, a House of Blues is slated for the waterfront.

Prediction: Hipsters will criticize the corporate presence, Fishtown will complain about the quality of life in a neighborhood that is arguable theirs, Callowhill will complain about traffic, and a number of Negadelphians will say, "we don't need another concert venue". 

Well, then don't go. 

A successful venue this far west on Spring Garden will inspire local businesses to follow suit, perhaps including a potential solution for the dilapidated - now saved - Church of the Assumption. And Sugarhouse needs something to make it more than an overstuffed slots barn.

Lost in the Squabble

Demanding too much or too little, preservationists have managed to leave at least two historic properties behind in the squabble. Years ago, developer John J. Turchi purchased former Mayor Richardson Dilworth's Washington Square mansion. Intending on restoring the property and converting it into his private residence, that wasn't good enough for the Historical Commission. Denied his attempt to reside on Washington Square, the Historical Commission demanded that it serve the neighborhood as nothing less noble than a museum.

Well nothing that remains of Dilworth House today is noble. Turchi did what developers do best, he went through the back door and filed an application to build a 20 story condo tower on the site of the house, which would have completely demolished Mayor Dilworth's presence in the neighborhood he fought to transform.

Neighborhood organizations did what they do best and tied Turchi up in hearings for years, demanding rendering after rendering, some so absurd that the facade of Dilworth's mansion was sitting in the lobby of the high rise.

Is this the compromise the Historical Commission wanted when they denied Turchi's use of the house as a private residence? Instead of a restored Colonial reproduction gracing Washington Square, Dilworth House, which was once a message to this former slum, now stands as a vacant testament to what the great mayor fought, not what he accomplished.

At the opposite end of well intended meddling, the Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia and the Callowhill Neighborhood Association had their say yesterday in one of the hearings to decide the fate of Spring Garden's Church of the Assumption. The non-profit group, Siloam, was granted the authority by the Historical Commission to demolish the church due to economic hardships. After hearing of the demolition's approval, a board member of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association quickly submitted the church for historic certification.

Amy Hooper, President of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association claims the organization was "caught off guard" by the demolition. Adding "the last thing (needed) is another parking lot". Truer words can't be spoken of Callowhill and Spring Garden, but in a neighborhood with sparse examples of historic properties, how is it that the status of this iconic building ever managed to fly below the radar? Perhaps Spring Garden's most prominent contribution to the skyline, not one voice at the Callowhill Neighborhood Association spoke out on behalf of this historic property until it was under the wrecking ball.

The property has long sat on numerous endangered lists, even catching the attention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Why then, was it not submitted for historic certification until after it was approved for demolition?

Additionally, Hooper noted that the building stands at the "gateway" to the Reading Viaduct which the group wants to convert into a park. But like their absent responsibility for the Church of the Assumption, the neighborhood sits on acres of potential community gardens neglected as urban landfills, and with numerous surface lots and barren concrete walls left from demolition, Callowhill does not have one mural in a city of more than 2000.

It's hard to sympathize with an organization that waited until the 11th hour to wrangle a bevy of witnesses, particularly when they clearly have a habit of neglecting their own potential.

Siloam isn't devoid of their own suspicions. Prominent developers like Alex Generalis have stepped forward to cite how little they knew of the organization's attempt to sell the property in lieu of demolition. Still, in the years that the Church of the Assumption sat vacant no one from the Callowhill Neighborhood Association pointed out the site's deteriorating state of disrepair.

In a neighborhood with no shortage of available land in the way of surface lots and vacant meadows, the last thing that comes to mind when a developer sees a vacant church is going to be "adaptive reuse". This is where neighborhood organizations can shine, by proactively addressing a potential loss in their historic portfolio. Instead, the Callowhill Neighborhood Association is best known for deterring the redevelopment of several surface lots and the fiercely debated reuse of the Reading Viaduct. Meanwhile, many Callowhill residents live in gated fortresses isolating their contribution to the city, and even their own sidewalks.

Sadly, Assistant City Solicitor Leonard Reuter may have made the most apt statement during yesterday's hearing, "Sometimes you have to let it go." And this fact isn't solely due to Siloam's sloppy and inexperienced respect for their property. The loss of the Church of the Assumption, an architecturally and historically significant site, is largely due to those who self-assign themselves watchdogs for our neighborhoods' best interests, and then ignore our neighborhoods' most valuable assets.

Meanwhile, like children caught up in a divorce and awaiting a custody decision, Dilworth House and the Church of the Assumption stand alone, both parents caught up in the squabble, neglecting what's truly at risk because of their own stubborn pride.

Eraserhead

It seems like everyone has been catching David Lynch's cult classic, Eraserhead, On Demand. After hearing that this neighborhood was often referred to as the Eraserhood because of Lynch's residing here in the 60s and 70s, and as a Twin Peaks fan, I figured I'd see what all the fuss was about.

Like a lot of his stuff, it seemed weird for the sake of being weird. A lot of very interesting and eerie stills that might make better photography than cinema, and a story that probably only makes sense to him, if even.

Still, like most of David Lynch's more avante garde films, it's unusual visuals make for good conversation. It's an interesting bit of local flavor too. Lynch has stated that the movie was inspired by his nights in the Callowhill neighborhood in the 60s and 70s.

I would love to see the Callowhill Neighborhood Association organize a public showing of this, perhaps in one of the vacant lots or parking lots around the neighborhood. Maybe even up against the locked entrance to the viaduct.

So many Callowhill residents are always talking about the hidden potential in the Reading Viaduct, but in the mean time rarely go outside. Even if the neighborhood association wasn't interested, I can't imagine it would be that difficult to clean up a lot and power up a projector.

The entrance to the viaduct is used for nothing more than a dog park and could easily be cleaned up for an outdoor mixer. It would be a great way to get people out to meet each other. Most Callowhill residents seem to drive straight to their parking space, go home, and lock the door.

Even if one wouldn't be interested in David Lynch's nightmares, wandering out in the evening and opening their doors to migle with their neighbors would be a welcome change to a neighborhood that's been hiding in its own shadows since long before David Lynch ever set foot here.

Nightmares at 13th and Wood

Those who know me know of my fascination with the Philadelphia before my time. I don't mean Ben Franklin's quaint, Colonial Philadelphia, or the Industrial Revolution's Workshop of the World.

I mean the bleak and dreary Philadelphia that can be caught in the background of Rocky. It's the weird Philadelphia that hatched after suburban flight and before the urban renaissance. This is the Philadelphia I remember visiting as a child.

In a way, the city almost felt more alive. The streets were bustling with people, but not with boutique shoppers and dog walkers. They were bustling with harried employees in a thriving business district, and strange apocalyptic characters prophesying the end of the world.

I'm sure it felt this way because my experience with Philadelphia in the 80's was as a daytime tourist. And I'm sure my farm raised upbringing made every city feel like Manhattan.

Still, there was something unique about Philadelphia. There was a darker side of the city. The city I'd love to relive for just one night.

In 1970, writer and director David Lynch lived on the southeast corner of 13th and Wood, in what is often now pegged as The Loft District, while attending the Academy of the Arts.

13th and Wood, the site of David Lynch's home in 1970 during his time at the Academy of the Arts in Philadelphia.

The site is now a parking lot for the adjacent U-Haul facility, but twenty years ago it was the fantastic nightmare of the writer and director of Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive, and Blue Velvet, and served as the inspiration for his first film, Eraserhead.

His former presence in what Lynch has described as "a very sick, twisted, violent, fear-ridden, decadent, decaying place" has led a number of residents to brand the neighborhood, The Eraserhood.

The Roman Catholic High School's annex was designed as the City Morgue by Philip Johnson in the 1920s. In the 1970's the morgue operated diagonally across from Lynch's home at 13th and Wood.

Although that name is as marketable to a realtor as The Gayborhood, it's also as uniquely Philadelphian. While Lynch, originally from Montana, has mostly negative things to say about Philadelphia and his former neighborhood, anyone who is familiar with his work knows that he finds beauty in the most disturbing images.

"It's decaying but it's fantastically beautiful, filled with violence, hate and filth," he has said of Philadelphia. He found an opening to another world in our city's decay, "it was fear...so magical, like a magnet, that your imagination was always sparking."

With the closure of the Reading Viaduct and the construction of the Vine Street Expressway, I'm sure the corner of 13th and Wood would now be a disappointment to a director known for his dark, sepia toned images of tortured souls and broken windows.

The Eraserhood is now gritty in a 21st Century way. Its soot stained masonry and small alleys are quickly becoming its charm, and it abandonment has become its parking. We may never see that world again, and perhaps that is a good thing.

While the unusual pocket between Broad and the Reading Viaduct, and Vine and Spring Garden may never again be part of Lynch's "sickest, most corrupt, decaying city filled with fear," its legacy will always find its place in his bizarre, dark, and beautiful films.

North Broad's Bagel Train

North Broad's Bagel Train is finally open once again at Noble Street, just across from the Inquirer Building.

Built in 1922, car 1186 was once a dining car for the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad. The railroad sold the car in the 1970's and it found itself idle at its current location.

Immigration and Naturalization Services used the car as a Passport Photo Express in the 1980's. Later a diner and painted a drab green, the Philly Steak and Bagel Train was closed in 1996 and has since sat vacant.

Ibrahim Aly recently reopened the venue as The Philly Express Steak and Bagel Train, repainting it in a patriotic red, white, and blue.

I have yet to find myself dining on the abandoned car. Pointed downhill to the east, I would advise anyone with vertigo to call in a delivery.

More information on the Reading Railroad and the history of Car 1186 can be found at the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum.

Hitching a ride on a 20th century dining car