Old City is its Own Worst Enemy

You don't need to be a history buff to know that Old City was once Philadelphia's central core. From the city's beginnings as the second largest in the British Empire to our last days as an industrial powerhouse, Old City housed everything from commerce to manufacturing to shipping to residents - both wealthy and not. 

Between its final days as a slum and its rebirth as a haven for moderately wealthy New Philadelphians, Old City essentially sat dormant, essentially suffering a Cold War identity crisis. In the 80s and 90s, the birth of the yuppy gave renewed purpose to Old City and similar neighborhoods throughout the nation. Young urban professionals bought affordable homes in struggling neighborhoods chock full of the ample parking they enjoyed in the suburbs. With commerce and industry relocated to the far ends of freeways, the concept of urban living in Philadelphia's most urban address began to shift again.

Over the last three decades, our most historic neighborhood has been adding to its ongoing historic narrative, evident in the fact that Old City is home to some of the city's most argumentative and seemingly misaligned advocacy groups. 

A modest, 6-10 story residential project has been proposed on Arch Street near 2nd, technically on Arch and a small street called Little Boys Court. In any other neighborhood, such a proposals would be humble, and residents might even be asking for more. Even in the small streets of Washington Square West and Rittenhouse, neighborhoods consisting of much greater architectural and historic cohesion, Stephen Varenhorst's collection of lofts would be an end concession, not a point of contention. 

If it weren't a rendering, you'd assume it had been there all along.

But in Old City, its residents still clinging to the Thirty-Somthing era in which they set down their carpeted bags, any development without 1:1 parking is bad development. I typically don't delve into the comments section below articles, but PhiladelphiaSpeaks' Cro Brunham lifted a gem from a recent Philly.com article on this proposal that really exposes the hypocritical mindset of some of Old City's most absentminded residents. 

One Philly.com user asked, "Where are these people supposed to park?" continuing, "Someone needs to put in regulations similar to...the suburbs...Philadelphia is starting to look like a hodgepodge of crappy looking buildings. All of the historical aspects are going away."

Sure, the author can't be personally faulted for an off-the-cuff remark made in the comments below a Philly.com article. But the comment echoes a common theme throughout neighborhoods riddled with suburban theory. In any city, the first question should never be about parking. But for these people, it's not a question of parking, it's a question of change. People go to parking the way readers go to the comments section: they want to complain but they're not exactly sure what to complain about. They want to be heard, but they're not quite sure what to say. They know they don't like the impending change, but they're not yet sure why.

Does the naggingly irrelevant question of parking rear its head in other Center City neighborhoods? Of course it does. But even in more congested neighborhoods like Market East, Washington Square West, and Rittenhouse, the conversation has begun to evolve. From the redevelopment of the Boyd Theater site to East Market and East Chestnut, the discussion of style and design has finally begun to trump the tired parking debate. But where other Center City residents learn to embrace the urban life they chose, Old City residents refuse to acknowledge the fact that they are at first, Center City residents, opting to fight for ample parking and to stagnate any change, however progressive. 

City living is a compromise. For those who want suburbanized concessions, the suburbs exist exclusively for those who enjoy the luxury of isolation. But the city is as much a melting pot of people as it is of ideals, and your opinion will - or should - never carry the same weight beyond your front door as it does throughout a planned community in Cherry Hill. 

If you need a car to get to work, Old City has an abundance of parking garages. If you insist on parking on the street and need to get to King of Prussia by 9am on Monday, rent a space in a garage. If you can't afford it, look for another neighborhood. Philadelphia is growing, especially Center City, and it will continue to do so. As it grows, its' economic demographics will change, the cost of living will rise, and its build environment will evolve. 

What's perhaps most unnerving about the Old City parking debate is that Old City is not a low-rent neighborhood. Second only to Rittenhouse Square, Old City is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Center City. We're not talking about the Gayborhood or Chinatown where people are spending $750 a month for a studio in a converted brownstone, we're talking about a neighborhood building new $850,000 brownstones for one family.

For those spending $2000 a month in rent or mortgaging a million dollar condo, what parking crisis are they talking about? It's entitlement, plain and simple. They have it all but want perfection, as they see it, and that is exactly the suburban mentality. But - perhaps with the exception of those living along Delancey Street or in penthouses overlooking Rittenhouse Square - entitlement has no place in an urban environment. And even Philadelphia's oldest money seems to understand that parking comes at a cost. 

No urban neighborhood from Old City to Passyunk Square to North Broad Street will ever indefinitely exist in a vacuum. Old City lived in that vacuum throughout its' mid-20th Century identity crisis and no one but the slumlords and the pawnshops wanted a piece of it. Old City's suburban crusaders are no different than the land hoarders who fought to keep their property values low enough to avoid inspection, only today's residents are fighting to preserve another kind of blight: the suburbanization of Philadelphia's most urban address.

The Slums of Center City

If you've lived in Philadelphia for a while, you might not see them. But look up. Pretend you've never been here before. Or visit a city like Savannah, soak up its manicured blocks, its considerable lack of surface parking, then return to Philadelphia and stroll through neighborhoods like Old City and Midtown Village. 

You'll see it, the slums of Center City. Along East Chestnut Street and throughout Old City, it's everywhere. Seemingly abandoned buildings in the heart of the city. Often, at best, a building is only as good as its ground floor. An Old City gallery capped with boarded up or broken windows, sometimes gaping maws open to the elements.

How has this happened? As the outer rung blossoms from Passyunk Square to Northern Liberties to University City, Philadelphia's heart - Center City - is perplexingly clotted. 

It's hard to complain. We're not Detroit. But we need to stop comparing ourselves to the worst. That's what got us here. 

In South Philadelphia and Fishtown, neighborhoods are so congested that cars take to the median to find parking and save spots with lawn chairs. But in Center City, where land usage begs for the most stringent of requirements, parking lots surround garages, across the street from even more. 

A surface lot faces City Hall, the geographic center of our city. New Philadelphians look at our city's smile and wonder why its missing so many teeth. But those at the source of the problem are looking at a city in disdain. Dinosaurs, whether they're in bed with City Hall or not, whether they're in City Hall or not, see another Philadelphia. One that is Detroit.

They acquired now-prime property when the city was on death's door. And now fifty plus years into their investment, these properties are monthly checks from a city they forgot about while they play shuffleboard in Palm Beach.

Unfortunately the slumlords and the surface parking lot owners enable each other, and City Hall grants them a pass. Slowly these properties are being passed down to their children, children inheriting the burden of a city they don't know is trying to thrive. From California to Texas to Boston, Center City is owned by the unfamiliar.

With some of the lowest parking taxes in the nation, our density begs for us to have the highest. But not just parking tax, land usage tax. Have you ever strolled down East Chestnut and looked up at the dramatic bay windows, empty and cracked, and thought, "If no one want to live there, I will!"

How can the city allow this? Because these owners took a chance on Philadelphia when no one else would? That would be like saying I took a chance on Detroit if I snatched up a few of their $5000 houses and let them rot for the next fifty years. 

What's worse, developers that actually develop routine avoid these properties, likely because they know they're owned by cranky old-timers hoarding land to pass down to their kids. Perhaps as some of these buildings manage to outlive their owners, their children will take an ounce of pride in their part of a new Philadelphia. Unfortunately, if the city doesn't take strides to discourage land hoarding and slumlording throughout the city, particularly at the foundation of its skyscrapers, inherited land will inherit its blighted mentality. 

Is Old City Lost?

With NREA's East Market steadily demolishing the Snellenberg stump for its exciting mixed use project, and the Gallery at Market East booting tenants for its upcoming renovation, urbania is rolling towards Old City for a 7-10 split.

But what about Old City? At the height of the building boom, riding the coattails of Sex and the City, this neighborhood was the "it" place to live, work, and be seen. Once Philadelphia's "downtown," Old City was ripe with the walkups, warehouses, and refined urban grit that defined the American City.

With our collective attention transitioning its fix towards neighborhoods like Midtown Village, Market East, and University City; Old City is starting to feel like a has-been. It's Sex and the City, and Philadelphia is busy binge-watching Friends on Netflix.

Please, stop. We're done. Friends is on Netflix. We want to know how to get Monica's apartment on a caterer's salary, not splurge on a pair of Manolos for a night Bleu Martini. McGlinchey's and flannel are back. 

"So it's a show about three hookers and their mom?" -Brian Griffin, on Sex and the City.

Despite the fact that Old City was once the hub of Philadelphia's commerce and industry, it is now one of those neighborhoods on the fringe of our city's core. And like many of those neighborhoods - Society Hill, Fitler Square, Logan Square - it comes with its own built-in identity crisis.

While Midtown Village and Market East are focused on enhancing the "downtown" experience with mixed used projects, some of the largest since Liberty Place redefined our skyline, Old City seems stuck in the 90s. Or at best, it's focused on competing as if it were plunked down in Northern Liberties or Passyunk Square.

Unlike Society Hill, or at least unlike what Society Hill has become, Old City has never been a next-door-neighbor neighborhood. It is the city's last vestige of our oldest urbanism. It was mixed use 300 years before mixed use was cool.

This isn't Center City thinking.

But with several row-homes under construction on the 200 blocks of Arch and Race, Old City's rigid desire to embrace a quaintness it never had may soon come back to bite it in the ass. When is the last time a single-family row-home was built in Old City? Aside from Elfreth's Alley, the Betsy Ross House may be its last notable example. 

Investing in residential land in a neighborhood that is primarily condo may be both a wise and poor investment. If Center City continues to grow and develop at its current pace, Old City will truly become Philadelphia's East Village equivalent. These row-homes will surely escalate in value, but will anyone be willing to pay the price for a home built in 2015 a decade from now, especially when they could get an historic mansion in Society Hill for the same price? 

Old City is a dense neighborhood, but their rigid stance against added density and love of parking is going to be a thorn when its residents are forced to face the fact that they live in a very urban neighborhood. While developers are just kowtowing to the neighborhood's demands, those demands aren't thinking of the neighborhood's future. A future where these now-sleek row-homes are subdivided into apartments with useless curb-cut sidewalks facing gerrymandered studios.

We're a big city. New row-homes belong above Vine and below South. In Center City, we need to be looking up.

What's Next for the Shirt Corner?

Four months after the dust settled at the site of Old City's Shirt Corner fire at Third and Market, we finally have our sidewalk back. 

Great. 

But the question now is, "what's next?"

The restoration and reconstruction of the Suit Corner across the street was supposed to help the corner transition into a handsomely quaint Old City intersection. 

But the end result of the fire has traded cheap yellow suits at one corner for scorched abandonment at another.

Despite Old City's pricy lofts and upscale restaurants, the neighborhood is no stranger to abandoned buildings and empty lots. It may be some time before this property changes hands, but the soon-to-be vacant lot entered the real estate market by accident. When derelict property vanishes in Philadelphia, the fallout often makes way for a surface parking lot.

But six decades into Old City's love affair with parking lots, can we finally know better? Old City has been one of the most vocal voices when it comes to opposing new development, but when it comes to screaming "Not In My Back Yard," parking lots are rarely mentioned until after they've been laid. 

Six decades later, the city still looks at parking lots as an acceptedly interim use for vacant land, but six decades in we know that "interim" is defined by a parking corporation's bloated asking price. 

Sadly, in Philadelphia, it costs less to level a building to build something new than it does to acquire a ready-to-build parking lot for the same project. 

Just look at the Disney Hole at 8th and Market. 

In a city full of bike lanes and park improvements, residents are telling City Hall, "we don't need more parking." Old City has fought tooth and nail to stop the development of a vacant lot at 2nd and Race citing shadows and traffic. Pressuring property owners to smart-sell their vacant land is long overdo. Basically, find someone with a plan to build or be burdened with the property tax until you do.

Unfortunately neighboring voices tend to be reactionary. They'll oppose development but won't proactively seek an alternative. This mentality is detrimental to the growth of any city, not because it stymies development, but because it settles for the status quo. And in Center City, the status quo is a parking lot or a vacant building.

It's interesting that those actively advocating against potential development are doing so in what they perceive to be their neighborhood's best interests, while not actively seeking ways to make their neighborhoods better. Old City in particular, full of new residents, shouldn't be a neighborhood saddled with Negadelphians who assume the worst in every proposal.

It may seem odd that I'm harping on NIMBYs because community activists haven't said one word about the future of the site of the Shirt Corner. But that lack of involvement is exactly why I'm harping on those allegedly invested in their neighborhoods. 

Where are they?

Anyone concerned with the future of Old City should be actively trying to block the sale of the Shirt Corner site as a surface lot now, not after a deal is in place. But that's the flaw in Philadelphia's abundance of neighborhood organizations and their reactionary approach. It's easy to throw a wrench in the development of a building we'll see, but a noble effort would include a voice that attempts to groom a growing neighborhood into what it should be through developing vacant land. 

And in a neighborhood with ample parking for both residents and visitors, that starts with derailing more designated private parking.

Ample Parking, Day or Night

When I first moved to Washington, D.C. almost twenty years ago, my large studio cost a modest $450 a month, development was stale, and the internet was for nerds. Today my first apartment - untouched and still teeming with more roaches than Joe's Apartment - asks a whopping $1200 a month. And that's considered affordable.

Twenty years old and raised on a farm, I was just tiptoeing my way into urban life. Put your license and cash in your sock at night, but leave a few bucks in your wallet in case you get mugged. Don't make eye contact with the beggars. And don't go in Meridian Hill Park after sundown unless you're buying drugs or a blow job. 

The neighborhood once home to abandoned embassies, one of them torched, is now full of microbrews, new families, and strollers extending all the way to Maryland.

But one thing hasn't changed, a frustrating urban ill I learned to deal with very early on: You will never find a parking space at your door. 

In Washington and many other cities, parking hassles are acceptedly traded for the luxury of living downtown. If you have to own a car for work, circling your block, even the surrounding blocks for twenty minutes is just something you have to do. 

But in Philadelphia, a city three times the size of Washington, D.C., having a car isn't largely perceived to be a privilege or unfortunate necessity, many view door front parking as a right. That attitude is expected in some emerging neighborhoods where long time Philadelphia residents spent the better part of the 20th Century living amongst abandonment when parking was a breeze. 

As the city's built environment grows, so does its population. Neighborhoods in North and South Philadelphia once vacant enough to accommodate a car for every member of the family parked along their block are quickly discovering what cities a fraction of the size have known for decades. 

Gone are the days of saving your spot with a piece of rusted lawn furniture. South Philadelphia residents may soon even find themselves faced with the fact that median parking is illegal, a law currently overlooked that will inevitably be enforced, further exasperating the parking within nearby neighborhoods.

Dead for no good reason

But where the parking gripes are even more quizzical is in the city's core. Not only do an over abundance of surface lots and parking garages adequately accommodate those living and working in Center City, the individuals who live and work here knowingly chose apartments and accepted jobs in one of the nation's densest downtowns within one of its biggest cities.

Ironically the same voices in Center City that champion better pedestrianization, urbanism, and bike lanes are the same ones who pipe up when a developer proposes a new apartment or office building, citing traffic and parking as a concern. 

Old City, a neighborhood once densely packed with warehouses and factories is now a high priced neighborhood full of charming alleyways broken up by small surface lots to accommodate both unnecessary cars brought in from New Jersey for nightlife as well as the community's reluctance to allow larger development that might bring with it a parking garage. 

But an even greater hypocrisy occurs across town near Rittenhouse Square where the Center City Residents' Association blocked the development of a sky scraping apartment tower at 19th and Chestnut. Despite a half dozen nearby high-rises, the CCRA claimed that spot zoning should not allow a building so tall, yammering from buildings that spot zoning allowed.

The larger complaint apparent in community meetings, on message boards, and the online comment Rabbit Hole regarded parking and traffic. With streets in the vicinity overwhelmingly metered, the parking grief is a nonstarter. Wealthy tenants who would inexplicably want to park on the street would need to hunt for spaces well below Rittenhouse Square. But more realistically, most who even owned a car would likely rent a space in one of the dozens of lots and garages in the area, many just a block away.

Despite being an American powerhouse that continues to grow taller and spread wider, Philadelphia's old habits dictate development in our densest pockets. The ongoing spot zoning argument doesn't validate the concerns of resident activists, rather it exposes an outdated zoning map, one that allows the tallest building between New York in Chicago on Arch Street, but nixes a high-rise apartment building a few blocks south.

Our current zoning in Center City refuses to accept the fact that the city between Vine and South is fusing into a cohesively proper downtown. There are places where height is relevant, notably in the Independence Historic District. But spot zoning in and around Rittenhouse has already set a precedent, and any debate about shadows and wind tunnels should be moot. And parking should never be considered in any debate regarding development downtown. 

The only regions within our city where development seems free to do its job is where the Atlanta-ization of our city is possible, where vast disjoined apartment complexes can provide ample parking near the Philadelphia Museum of Art and University City. Meanwhile hypocrisy and entitlement are stymying development in the one region within the city where common sense says it should touch the sky.

The day will come when logic, reason, and the quest to truly become an advanced and competitive city will supersede the lost cause of revisiting a Philadelphia that died in the 1950s, a lost cause that quells its agitation simply through the posterity of quiet streets and quaint architecture. We're a big city primed to be the next New York. Let's start acting like it.

A Proactive Approach to Blight and Neglect

After the collapse of the Shirt Corner and the fire that destroyed the Suit Corner, much of Old City's blighted neglect is being called into question. Of course blight is nothing new to Philadelphia, even Center City. On April 11, a glass panel fell from City Blue's façade near 11th and Chestnut, an intersection home to more than a few nearly abandoned and possibly dangerous buildings.

Many of the problems seem to stem from interagency miscommunication. L&I, the Historical Commission, and the city's 311 response service tend to address sites after the damage is done. Property owners are saddled with the responsibility of connecting the dots between agencies that don't talk to each other, while less concerned slumlords are free to sit on their properties until L&I is forced to control the damage.

Old City has become the poster child for potentially dangerous situations, possibly because this prime and expensive address is still structurally an in-progress neighborhood.

Philadelphians tend to have blinders when it comes to architectural neglect. But if you really look at Old City, you begin to wonder why it commands rents nearly as high as Rittenhouse. You'll find several pricy loft conversions sharing a blocks with even more vacant and weathered buildings. Many of those that host galleries and boutiques in their storefronts are capped with unkempt façades of broken glass, upper floors riddled with black mold and dry rot.

Bureaucracy in any city's government is expected, although perhaps in Philadelphia it is more pronounced. But that begs the question, why are we and our city's own non-profit organizations so content with hindsight?

Perhaps it's not the job of organizations like the Preservation Alliance or the Historical Society to address blight amongst our aging buildings, but when those within the historical community vocally react to demolition permits, collapses, and fires, they open themselves up to scrutiny. I have to ask, "well ,where were you?"

Cataloging historic properties on a flashy website is a great preliminary step, especially those potentially threatened. It's a marketing move that raises awareness but it doesn't actively provide anything.

Where is the arm of these organizations with an inside track to the city's bureaucracy? Where are the local lobbyists that speak City Hall's unique language?

Waiting for the city to get its act together is a futile effort. All cities deal with poor communication, bureaucracy, and a staff of administrators who know that a job done well is a job that isn't secure. That won't change.

Whether it's a small neighborhood organization vested in safety or a larger non-profit that charges itself with saving our city's historic landmarks, no one can expect to operate successfully until they work with the city, not against it. Knowing that the city won't change, at least not anytime soon, enables these groups and organizations to take a proactive approach to addressing safety concerns and vacant or underutilized historic sites.

But across the board, they're reactionary in every effort and provide an absent alternative or solution. Where are we with the Dilworth House? Society Hill's neighborhood organization successfully blocked an effort to renovate, then demolish the arguably historic building, but that success is eradicated by its complete lack of resolve. Almost ten years after their efforts began, the building is still empty.

citypaper.net

Perhaps this isn't the mission of these groups. Perhaps neighborhood groups are only capable of addressing immediate situations. Maybe larger non-profits aren't designed to proactively address the fate of the historic sites they catalog.

But likewise, it isn't the Historical Commission's job to save them. They're in charge of reviewing construction and demolition permits. Their bottom line is how these landmarks immediately and financially benefit the city. They stamp paper. Meanwhile L&I has proven itself incapable of addressing dangerous buildings across the city at large. They can respond to one hazardous site while another collapses, surrounding them in a cloud of ineptitude while they figure out how to do their job.

We're left with no authority, public or private, truly vested in securing the safety of aging and vacant buildings or saving our blighted, historically registered landmarks. If organizations like the Preservation Alliance and the Historical Society aren't prepared to watchdog our history, something needs to emerge. Otherwise buildings will continue to fall, deliberately or not.

The region needs a proactive preservation organization, one which understands the headaches the city poses, one with an inside voice. It needs an organization connecting owners of blighted and abandoned buildings to prospective buyers interested in unique and historic properties. Until then buildings will continue to fall for parking lots, history will be lost to paperwork, and we'll all keep scratching our heads in hindsight wondering, "how did this happen?"

More Brick

The redevelopment at Old City's iconic Shirt Corner at 3rd and Market looks as though it will go through without protest. It's not surprising. Alterra Property's more-of-the-same approach to Old City's identity offers little to criticize. While the Shirt Corner may be more in line with what Old City's Market East was, the reality is that there's no market in the posh neighborhood for $50 canary yellow suits and alligator skin beatle boots.

Many in the neighborhood have come to regard the Shirt Corner as blight, largely because it's been closed for so long. Improvements to the site can certainly bring in more profitable retail, even though that prime corner retail appears to be going to yet another CVS.

CVS? Come on. We can do better.

 

What's interesting is Old City's wealthy residents have embraced the businesses of their neighborhood's past, restoring signage on many of their renovated condo complexes, even naming those addresses after those defunct businesses. Perhaps the Shirt Corner's overwhelming red, white, and blue signage crosses the line between a subtle nod to the neighborhood's history and garishness.

I still find it unfortunate. Much of what makes Philadelphia so visually dramatic is in its harshly contrasting styles, vibrant colors, and unusual history, even in Old City. From the PSFS Building to the Divine Lorraine, rogue murals, and Brutalist masterpieces, Philadelphia's true history is anything but brick and beige trim.

Alterra's Shirt Corner is what America thinks Philadelphia is and what Old City's transplants thinks Philadelphia should be, but it isn't Philadelphia. The Shirt Corner will go away and probably should, but the Colonial restoration and recreation that will follow pays no tribute to the neighborhood, or the city's history.

Say what you will about the Shirt Corner, when someone asked to meet you there, you knew where you were going. "Meet me at CVS" is as boring as this building. It will simply be there and that's all anyone will ever say about it.

The Shirt Corner

You don't like The Shirt Corner. Yes, you. I know that.

Well, you're reading Philly Bricks, so you might actually like The Shirt Corner. In fact if you've stuck with my rants since 2009 you might even own a couple of their two-for-$99 canary yellow suits. My dad does.

Whatever the case, you have an opinion on The Shirt Corner.

No one looks at it and says, "Meh."

Well, for fans of The Shirt Corner, get down there and take some pictures. And for the foes, you can look forward to Olde City inching towards earing that unnecessary "e."

Closed since 2009, everyone knew The Shirt Corner was closed, and whatever its fate, we all knew its tacky red, white, and blue signage was going to go away, either by wrecking ball or turpentine.

Turns out, it's a combination of the two.

Alterra Property Group and the historic restoration firm, Powers and Company have pitched an idea to the Historical Commission, and the commission likes what it sees.

It looks like Coscia Moos Architects will be restoring four of the buildings and reconstructing a fifth, while demolishing three that don't contribute to the Old City Historic District. Of course by "contribute," they mean red brick and beige trim.

The Shirt Corner isn't architecture, it's branding. The only thing academically historic about the building is buried under layers of paint. But at Philly Bricks, I talk a lot about significant design and how it almost always offends as many as it inspires. I also talk a lot about the historic significance in things not academically perceived to be significant.

There is a psychological and sociological significance to The Shirt Corner that is often ignored by preservationists until they realize what's lost. While you can't compare demolishing a part of The Shirt Corner to the demolition of Frank Furness's Penn National Bank for the Declaration House at 7th and Market, the same meme is at play.

Old City has become a hot bed of two things: history and high end apartments. But the history being recreated here is as false as it is at the Declaration House, and completely ignores an era in Philadelphia's history that - while most would like to forget - is more significant than the buildings Alterra, Powers, and Coscia Moos intend to resurrect.

I'm not saying that The Shirt Corner is as significant as Franklin Court, but it is more significant than what's being rebuilt. And if you're going to demolish something that is indicative of an era, a gritty era that Old City truly was a part of much longer than Franklin's time, replace it with something that represents who we are today.

From Williamsburg to Boston, the nation is full of Colonial restorations, recreations, and revivals. Philadelphia's Old City's loss of post-Colonial architecture and design is unmatched. Just as midcentury developers demolished the works of Furness, Decker, and Eyre for Colonial recreations and park space, our contemporaries are demolishing and replacing the nostalgia of our recent history.

Again, you can't compare The Shirt Corner to the Divine Lorraine, but as architecture becomes less of an art and more of a marketing scheme, these iconic locales become more important.

Philadelphia is a unique, dynamic city, full of history. But when did we decide that history is our brand?

We've proudly spent decades defying the Colonial cliché that so many have pegged us. The Shirt Corner doesn't need to be saved, but Old City is a colorful and diverse neighborhood that doesn't need to creep further into what the rest of the country thinks of Philadelphia.

We're more than that.

Don't erase history to recreate a false one. If The Shirt Corner has to make way for progress, make sure it progresses. Build something exciting, indicative of the people who live there and make Old City what it is.

Otherwise, twenty years from now, we'll be looking back and wondering why we rebuilt several old buildings with no historic significance and thinking, "Damn, those must have been fun times."

205 Race Street

Back in 2004, when funky little firms like CREI were using up and coming urban neighborhoods as their architectural playground for experimental and pricy designs, Brown-Hill proposed its own avant-garde condo development for a forlorn bucolic meadow at 2nd and Race.

It didn't happen, but the sign promising the redevelopment of this inexplicably vacant lot remained for years, reminding pedestrians that a small group of idiots with nothing but idle time and the arrogance to dictate their irrational opinions really can make a difference.

At a sensibly scaled 9 to 10 stories and respectful ground floor relationship, it was good design; and adjacent to the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, a noisy interstate, and a high speed rail line, it was a good opportunity to develop an unlikely location for residences. But in the heyday of financial optimism, it wasn't good enough for the Old City Civic Association and they managed to keep their beloved vacant lot vacant for another eight years.

Well Brown-Hill is back and, in the wake of the financial crisis and a more realistic outlook on construction opportunities, hoping that the OCCA has a new outlook of their own.

Brown-Hill's new design keeps the same interaction with the sidewalk that  it did in it's 2004 design, but proposes and additional six floors. At 198 feet tall it would be the tallest building in Old City. Not that height in any Center City neighborhood is a rational deterrent to development given precedents have been set in much more historically picturesque locations across the city, including Society Hill and Independence Mall. One could even argue that a high rise's presence next to a busy highway insulates the existing real estate from noisy traffic.

We'll find out the fate of the lot tomorrow at the Zoning Board of Adjustment's Hearing.

Ridic Listing of the Month - May

Real estate agents toss around a lot of terms, make up terms, and try to re-brand neighborhoods to make them sound less sinister. Ever heard of the Devil's Pocket? Maybe. But you've definitely heard of Graduate Hospital, even though the boundaries of the neighborhood have far exceeded the reach of the hospital itself.

Sometimes a twin and a duplex are the same thing, sometimes a triplex is a three story house even if it's a single unit. One of my favorite misnomers is when a row home is listed as a "detached house" simply because it's the only house left standing on a block of vacant lots.

This month's overrated listing comes from Old City. Although the neighborhood's inflated ego is finally succumbing to the pressures of the new economy, condo owners desperate to cover their mortgage are still seeking clueless New York transplants, hoping to catch them before they realize what's available in Callowhill or Northern Liberties for a fraction of the cost.

Old City's Wireworks Building might be home to the world's first microloft. The Philly Apartment Company is trying to unload this 460 square foot studio at 3rd and Race for almost $1100 a month. That's about the size of your first dorm room. 

In what world is that a loft, and in what universe should the word loft be paired with micro?

It's partially furnished, which means the last tenant didn't want to keep their crappy furniture, and the owner didn't want to move it. 

But it gives the studio, I mean microloft, the one element that allows the agent to list it as a loft, however micro. To make it feel even more like that first dorm room, a "loft", which is simply a bunk bed without a lower bunk, was left behind as well. 

$1095 MicroLoft space w/ HW flrs, seperate kit @ WireWorks (Old City)

Our Thriving Independence Mall

As a new attraction opens on our Independence Mall to mixed reviews, some more hateful than others, the Mall's history, and the potential its real estate once had, has found its way under the critics' magnifying glasses.

One can't deny that the Mall separates Center City from Old City anymore than one can deny that Old City's relatively new Renaissance has yet to find a way to attach itself to the city's core. Whether you view the Mall as a mistake or a success, the 50 year old park is not solely responsible for dividing the urban landscape of the city.

The Gallery and a suburbanized Market East, the asphalt prairies and cold windowless government buildings between Chinatown and the Constitution Center, and the Vine Street Expressway all serve to sever the newly bustling streets of Old City from what is conventionally perceived to be Center City. Even if the Mall was a mistake, it was one of a number of mistakes inspired by a mid-century vision of suburbanization. It would be short sighted to blame all of Market East's civic woes and Old City's urban detachment on what was perhaps the most successful - or at least the most aesthetically pleasing - mistake.

Even throughout the Mall's various incarnations, it has been dealt with better than the concrete canyons that separate Center City from the waterfront and the blocks north of Vine Street.

The Mall is there and isn't going anywhere. How it progresses will depend on the surrounding cityscape, not on the patches of grass between 5th and 6th Streets.

Public parks are supplemental. Rittenhouse succeeds due to its proximity to shopping and resources, while apartment buildings fight for a view. The Mall is not Central Park and I don't think it ever should be. We have Washington and Rittenhouse squares to service the needs of our residents.

Independence Mall is our answer to the National Mall. People don't go to DC to visit the Mall. Even if they say they do, they go to visit the museums that line the Mall and the monuments on it.

A lot was torn down to create the Mall and a lot of potential was lost. But we can't move forward by getting people worked up over what could have been 50 years ago. In the last decade Independence Mall has become significantly more popular, with 3M visitors up from just over 600,000 in the 1990s, in large part due to attractions surrounding the mall and an improved cityscape in the neighborhoods surrounding the historic area.

Focusing on further improvements to the vicinity between City Hall and 6th Street, the bridge between our hotels and our tourist attractions, will enable our Mall to become even more popular. We're never going to see Philadelphians sunbathing on Independence Mall and that is fine. But as a tourist destination to supplement the surrounding attractions, it is beginning to thrive, and perhaps with an increased focus on what could be, instead of what could have been, we may see even more fanny packs and cameras dropping their Euros around our quaint Colonial Green.