Rebranding 30th Street Station

With University City becoming Center City's western skyline, 30th Street Station's soot stained and aging facade is finding itself a relic amongst sleek skyscrapers, enhanced pedestrianization, and a neighborhood that's finally starting to look like the city it should be. 

But it's not all bad. Philadelphia's 30th Street Station is unique. Unlike New York's Penn Station or D.C.'s Union Station, 30th Street is still exactly what it was when it was built in 1933. 

Commuters are mesmerized by 30th Street Station's historical uniqueness, whereas Manhattan and Washington greet them with sterile pragmatism that echoes an early 90s Greyhound Station. 30th Street Station is a train station first, its retail presence second. 

But that could soon change. Senator Bob Casey recognized 30th Street Station as the welcome mat it will become during the city's upcoming Papal visit and Democratic National Convention, and its need for a makeover. Unfortunately he did so with a nod to Washington's Union Station, a train station both loved and hated for the same reason. 

Union Station is by no means subtle. Its grand in the most European or Gilded Age of ways. But it's also been reinvented. It is a grand shopping mall with an incidental train station at its uninspired rear. 

There is no question that 30th Street Station could benefit from better - even more - retail. The retail experience is basic, it serves the needs of those looking for fast food and a newspaper. But it doesn't do much more than that. 

Is Union Station's mall-like experience the answer to 30th Street's necessary improvements, or is the suggestion a dated quest to fill a need that died thirty years ago? Union Station succeeds, thrives even, because commuters are stuck with an infrastructure established three decades ago. They shop at its stores because they're saddled with what's in front of them.

But people - especially savvy rail commuters - aren't looking for Express and Barnes & Noble on their layovers. They're walking outside to soak up the skyline and the local flavors. Downtown train stations like 30th Street, Penn Station, and Union Station offer that. But inside, if 30th Street wants to maximize its potential, the answer isn't a shopping mall full of predictable chains. It's a train station that happens to be full of the retail synonymous with Philadelphia. 

New York did this.

Here, that means a nostalgic shoeshine stand with an Urban Outfitters backdrop. It's a Rosa Blanca express and kiosks full of local vendors. Maybe even an Amish pretzel stand. 

Turning 30th Street Station into just another Amtrak mall is a shortsighted solution to an urgent need, and it doesn't need to be. If you want to generate revenue by enhancing the retail experience at 30th Street Station, great, it needs it. But there are enough innovative businesses and entrepreneurs in Philadelphia to offer commuters a truly unique experience. 

Let's be honest, the only reason people shop the shops at Union Station is because they're waiting for their train. If we want to do the same, why not offer them a uniquely local experience?

Alexander Johnston Cassatt and his Influence on Philadelphia & New York City

Contributed by Mike Gaines

The concept of historic preservation has been around for a long time, though not always to the degree that it is today. One of the first public acts of preservation was when a group of women got together in the 1850’s and formed the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in an effort to save and restore George Washington’s Virginia estate.

Over the years, numerous other cases of preservation issues have been highlighted and pushed the movement into the public’s conscious, including the 1963 demolition of New York City’s famed Pennsylvania Railroad Station. As rail travel succumbed to the advancing air travel phenomenon, Pennsylvania Railroad found itself with a colossal, under-utilized station in the heart of New York City. By optioning the “air rights” to the station to developers, Pennsylvania Railroad would get a brand new, air conditioned station at no cost to them, as well as a 25% stake in the new Madison Square Garden Complex, to be built on the site of the demolished station.

Waiting Room at New York's Penn Station

The public around the world was in absolute shock that such a structure could even be considered up for demolition. Contrary to their own designs, modernist architects rushed to save the structure, often chanting “Don’t Amputate – Renovate” at rallies to save the building. Unfortunately no one’s efforts could stop the movement and the pink granite, block-sized mammoth came crumbling down.

Some of the sculptures, fortunately, were saved: a sculpted clock surround modeled after Audrey Munson survives as part of a fountain in Missouri; a caryatid stands in the sculpture garden of the Brooklyn Museum; and 14 of the 22 eagles still exist, including five in Philadelphia – one at the Philadelphia Zoo and four that were donated to the city by the Pennsylvania Railroad and positioned on the east and west approaches of the Market Street Bridge (opposite 30^th Street Station, formerly owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad).

Eagle and lamp from Penn Station on Philadelphia's Market Street bridge, approaching 30th Street Station.

All of this would not have come about had it not been for Alexander Johnston Cassatt. Often called “A.J.” by his friends and associates, Cassatt was born in 1839 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His familiar connections were filled with many famous people, including his sister, renowned painter Mary Cassatt, and his wife, Lois Buchanan, niece of President James Buchanan and songwriter Stephen Foster.

From 1899 until his death in 1906, Cassatt was employed as the 7^th president of the Pennsylvania Railroad. It was under his direction that the railroad doubled its assets ($276 million to $594 million); made improvements in every possible category; initiated an electrification program that would ultimately lead to the PRR being the nation’s most electrified railroad system; and was finally able to get a station in New York City – Pennsylvania Station.

He employed McKim, Mead and White as architects and they created a station that was not only striking in its shear size and appearance, but through its design being influenced on historic structures such as Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate and the Roman Baths of Caracalla. Unfortunately Cassatt would die before this project was be completed. In tribute of the man who invested so much into the company, a statue was erected in Pennsylvania Station in his honor (it has since been moved to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania).

The statue of Alexander Johnston Cassatt at Penn Station now resides at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania.

His legacy did not stop with Penn Station, though. Cassatt had numerous residences including a house on Rittenhouse Square designed by Frank Furness, a country home in Haverford he called Cheswold , and a farm in Berwyn he named Chesterbrook Farm. It is from here that his other lasting legacy emerged.

Cassat's Rittenhouse home, designed by Frank Furness, seen in 1969.

Cassatt was an avid horse enthusiast and fox hunter, and it was on his Chesterbrook Farm that he raised thoroughbred racehorses. His farm produced the 1886 Preakness winner The Bard, the 1889 Belmont Stakes winner Eric, and winners of the 1875, ’76, ’78, and ’80 Preakness Stakes. Cassatt also helped establish the National Steeplechase Association, introducing the Hackney pony to America (ideal for carriage driving), and founding the American Hackney Horse Society.

After all of that, it makes one wonder what else this man might have accomplished had he lived any longer than his 67 years. Unfortunately, there is very little physical evidence left of Cassatt’s life and influences. As noted before, Penn Station was demolished in 1963, his Rittenhouse Square townhouse was demolished in 1972 to make way for the Rittenhouse Hotel, and his country home Cheswold burned in 1935 and was demolished shortly thereafter.

Cheswold in Haverford

Today the 600-acre Chesterbrook Farm is the site of a subdivision and office park which still retains the ‘Chesterbrook Farm’ name. And though all of the buildings are long since gone, the main barn of the farm, designed by Frank Furness, has been maintained and restored.

In an act of sheer coincidence (or someone doing some very thorough research), a high tea parlor opened in the lobby of the Rittenhouse Hotel in 1988 – the Mary Cassatt Tea Room & Garden – and is still in business today.