Insignificant Significance: Dock Street's Ritz 5 Theater

A common concern brought about by the possible demolition of the Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden is that it's highly unlikely that anything as architecturally significant will ever stand on the site again. It's a valid concern. The church is old and simply really, really cool looking.

It's easy to browse the "Then & Now" picture books and recoil in horror over the landmarks we've demolished for freeways, parking lots, and other architectural eyesores. Those books profit on a longing for another time but fail to showcase the progress of time, ignoring countless modern marvels that have replaced poorly built or just plain ugly buildings. In short, not everything built yesterday is good.

Philadelphia sits on a balance between slow development trends and a portfolio of priceless history that allows preservationists the luxury to save buildings that would be lost to booms in New York or Chicago, but also to get a little carried away with regard to what constitutes historical significance.

That awkward situation is already teetering at the Ritz 5 on Dock Street and nothing has even been proposed. Landmark Theaters has only suggested an expansion of its Dock Street location, admitting that it's highly likely nothing will happen. That hasn't stopped Lorna Katz Larson of the Zoning and Historic Preservation Committee from lauding the alleged historical significance of the 1970s theater, citing it as "a very modern response to the historic district."

Landmark Theaters' Ritz 5 on Dock Street

Is it? Or is it just a cheaply built theater from the 1970s? If you can interpret little more than bricks and metal as "a response" then why not interpret a parking lot as a response to the American love affair with the car? The Ritz 5 is as architecturally significant as a Safeway.

Another "response" to Philadelphia's historic district. Is it significant?

When Society Hill was redeveloped in the mid 1900s, preservationists criticized the loss of countless Victorian masterpieces and Colonial history. Dock Street was a thriving, albeit dirty, local resource to the residents of Philadelphia, and although the revitalization of the neighborhood ultimately attracted the wealthy residents of today's Society Hill, the loss of the markets on Dock Street and those accessible on Delaware Avenue before I-95 was not met without protest.

Dock Street was once a thriving market place, entirely razed in the mid 1900s to make way for modern development projects including the Ritz 5.

The Ritz 5 Theater is not a significant landmark. Like the fate of so many Victorian masterpieces, The Ritz 5 is the same inconsiderate aftermath we worry will come from the Church of the Assumption's demolition.

It's easy to imagine the residents of Center City looking across the razed prairies of Society Hill in the 1960s and 70s wondering - much like the neighbors of the Church of the Assumption - when anything as significant would stand there again. Even since the neighborhood's revitalization, only Society Hill Towers stands as a significant testament to midcentury design, and I. M. Pei's apartment project still pales in comparison to the Victorian high rises that once graced Walnut and Chestnut.

Society Hill at the height of demolition

Although Landmark Theater's plans for the Ritz 5, however preliminary, may never find a place in the annals of history, the redevelopment of this insignificant property is an opportunity for Society Hill residents to respect the concerns of their predecessors that shopped the markets and filled the offices of another Society Hill.

Karma can be ugly...and it's covered in vinyl siding

In what now seems to be the age of Yore and Yesteryear, in 2008 Philadelphia's architectural development was booming. So much so I actually had stuff to write about. Neighborhood associations were brutal, and slammed the iron fist of NIMBYism on a potentially new skyline.

As irrational as some of their arguments against Mandeville Place, Bridgemans View, and dynamically planned entertainment and casino complexes may have been, none were more perplexing than the Society Hill Civic Association's opposition to H2L2's Stamper Square.

Center City's most picturesque neighborhood is hoarding an ugly truth behind its mahogany doors. Tucked behind 200 years of history and decades of blue haired entitlement sits a concrete slab that has been eyed by developers since the small tourist mall New Market was torn down 20 years ago.

After H2L2 proposed an interactive, midrise hotel for this trash strewn lot, some residents were relieved. Many more were stractching their heads wondering where exactly this site near Headhouse Square actually was.

What seemed most certain was that Stamper Square had the green light. And why wouldn't they? H2L2 not only designed an engaging complex with ground floor retail at scale with the history of the neighborhood, developers were reaching out to the community, altering design after design to accommodate even the most absurd requests.

Then the SHCA decided on behalf of this entire neighborhood, one that belongs as much to every Philadelphian and tourist as it does those who live there, that we were all be better off with a vacant lot. And they won.

Well, in spite of a bad economy, some developers still manage to thrive, and this ugly lot is still on their radars. Unfortunately for the SHCA, and Philadelphia, the developer is nationally renowned McMansion designer Toll Brothers. Not only is Toll Brothers proposing a gated development at this undeniably urban location, but they have the weight of a massively powerful public company to make it happen.

The SHCA isn't happy, and reasonably so this time. I'm no fan of the McMansions that now rise above the Virginia farm I grew up on, and I certainly don't like the prospect of them taking up valuable real estate in Philadelphia's most iconically Philadelphian neighborhood.

That said, how many opportunities should the SHCA be allowed to dictate what happens in a lot it doesn't own? If Toll Brothers moves forward with this project, it wouldn't be the first time the SHCA dragged its feet to secure the status quo.

When developer John Turchi bought Dilworth House, planning to restore the home and make it his private residence, the SHCA demanded this vacant home be restored and turned into a museum. Turchi then applied to have the home demolished. It still stands - for now - but what could have been a beautifully restored Colonial reproduction on one of our city's most beautiful squares, it still sits vacant.

How much weight can these neighborhood associations reasonably demand? It's one thing to request compromising details: brick, trees, store fronts. But allowing them to demand a compromising developer hit the road with no alternatives in sight, allowing them to keep a valuable piece of property vacant and unused for two decades neighboring some of the city's most prominent addresses, that's irresponsible.

Well, SHCA, here's your silver metal. And unfortunately for all of us, the economic climate is no longer affording the kind of idealism that keeps lots vacant.