Pod Hotel

The hospitality industry is no joke. But it's also one that, at least for the last fifty or so years, has been steeped in the expected. That works for me. I'm more interested in the destination than the stay, so any clean bed will do.

Yet with the upcoming W Hotel and several Kimptons, it's clear that those visiting Philadelphia, or perhaps just spending a night in town, are looking for something more dynamic than the flagship name of a major national chain. 

So bring on the Pod Hotel. Occupying a vacant parcel on 19th Street and a parking lot along Ludlow, the Pod by Modus Hotels and Parkway Corporation won't win any awards for its exterior design, but it will be welcome infill for this long gaping property smack in the middle of the business district. 

While there's no shortage of entertainment in the area, one curious venue stands a few doors down from the proposed hotel's Ludlow entrance. If you think the XXX Forum Theater was gone you'd be wrong. It simply moved a few blocks to this tony address. It will be interesting to see how the hip and trendy guests of the Pod Hotel decide to interact with the sex club next door. 

Parkway's 709 Chestnut

If you aren't high enough on all the skyscraping (heh, get it?) proposals and construction taking place throughout the city, Parkway Corporation has proposed a 32 story apartment building to replace a surface parking lot at 709 Chestnut Street near Washington Square.

Parkway needs approval from three organizations: the Washington Square West Civic Association, the Historical Commission, and the Civic Design Review Committee. 

At 45 stories, The Saint James is the tallest building in the vicinity. Although its situation on Washington Square would seem to have set a precedent for the neighborhood, its construction called for the near-complete demolition of a row of handsome Colonial townhouses that left preservationists none too happy. 

While replacing a surface lot with...anything...seems like a no-brainer, neighbors are likely suspicious of any residential development that comes with such height. 

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.

Scottish Rite "Town Hall"

1966

Another North Broad treasure lost to the parking craze of the 1980's was the Scottish Rite Temple or Town Hall at Broad and Race, built in 1926 and designed by Horace W. Castor. The bizarre, stone walls of the secret society unceremoniously met the wrecking ball in 1983 to make way for Parkway Corporation's poorly designed garage and headquarters.

During demolition in 1983

Broadwood Hotel

At one time, and now again, South Broad Street is spotted with the grand homes to Philadelphia's performing arts community. However North Broad Street was at once the post industrial home to the new, 20th century art world and briefly experienced the decadence afforded by the Industrial Revolution with massive entertainment venues never attempted in the historically stuffy and bourgeois theaters on and surrounding South Broad Street.

One of the most monolithic - and recent - architectural losses of North Broad Street's Golden Age was the Broadwood Hotel which also served as the Elk's Lodge and Philadelphia Athletic Club. Completed in 1924 by Ballinger Company and Andrew J. Samuel, it housed a ballroom that hosted the Eugene Ormandy Orchestra and saw many outstanding and historically relevant performances through its life. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 yet like many other gems of North Broad Street met the wrecking ball a short time later. Like many victims of Philadelphia's "renaissance", it is now the site of an uninspired parking garage - next and adjacent to three other large surface parking lots - operated by the parasitic Parkway Corporation. It's history is hazy, it's loss all but forgotten, along with countless other North Broad Street masterpieces.