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Showing posts with label
Snellenburg's Department Store.
Show all posts
Showing posts with label
Snellenburg's Department Store.
Show all posts
With the world's largest 80s-era McDonald's roof finally coming down on Market East, a little bit of history is seeing light for the first time in decades.
Most residents probably don't even realize that the two story building on Market East between 11th and 12th wasn't built in the 1980s, but is actually a stump of a building built long, long ago. Once home to Snellenburg's Department Store, the top floors were chopped off a few decades ago and the remaining two floors wrapped in a "modern" skin.
Since then it's been an eyesore along Market East that can only be rivaled by 8th and Market's Disney Hole.
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| What once was |
With the building being demolished for NREA's mixed-use East Market project, the skin is being removed and architectural elements of the grand department store are slowly being exposed. If you look up along 12th Street you can see brick and concrete once hidden behind the facade. And if you look closely you can see at least one stone column and several carved friezes capping the building's bricked up windows.
If you want to see it, look soon. Developers likely had no idea there'd be anything worth salvaging from this building so it probably won't last long.
It looks like Mom's Organic Market will be moving into the 11th Street component of the massive East Market project currently under development on the Girard Trust Block. While it's great that Philadelphia will finally have a supermarket on par with Whole Foods, or even SuperFresh, closer to the core of its residents, what's even more exciting is the facelift the former Family Court Building will receive.
Once a warehouse for Snellenberg's Department Store, the old Family Court Building is faded and its facade is cracked and worn. Rather than restore the building's exterior, developers will be refacing it to include modern elements and large windows.
The new skin could have been as dramatic as that at Goldtex Apartments, but given the sum of the parts of the overall project, it doesn't have to be. The high-rise that will be anchoring 11th and Market looks sexy enough to carry the entire block. By slicing the block bound by Market and Ludlow in half for a pedestrian promenade, East Market isn't afraid of sacrificing land for a quality experience.
They're carrying that theme over to the old Family Court building by opening up a good amount of the building's square footage to the outdoors. Center City's most exciting project (sorry, CITC) keeps getting more exciting.
