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?

Mobile Phone Invasion

I was at The Gallery yesterday and noticed a new T-Mobile store. Then I noticed a T-Mobile kiosk. Then I noticed another T-Mobile kiosk. Then I recalled, there is a T-Mobile store at 12th and Market just outside.

Why does it seem that every time a vacant retail space is finally rented, it is another mobile phone store? True, everyone has a phone so the business is, well, potentially 100% of the public. And the purest of mobile phone junkies will replaced their device on a monthly basis, and there is no shortage of encouragement to do so.

I'm fine with my flip phone. I've got it duct taped together because I am hell bent on it finally lasting a year and getting my contractually promised "Free Phone".

But still, shopping is starting to feel like flipping through 500 channels and finding 500 incarnations of the same reality TV show. I get so excited when I finally see light coming from that shuttered space and turn the corner to see another Cricket logo, two employees, and no customers.

And does it really bring business and taxes to the city? Do these stores stay open on revenue from subscribers that aren't shopping here? When a customer visits the store to pay a bill or purchase a new phone, are taxes from that payment registered in Philadelphia, or based on the subscriber's postal code?

I guess the biggest thing that cheese's me off is the fact that these businesses put minimal effort into transforming their retail space. After a while, they start to make their surrounding properties look a little like Market East.

Surviving Sex and the City

It's a relatively new philosophy, the idea that a successful urban core must be a meticulously maintained playground for the rich and trendy. I blame Sex and the City. I don't think most people who live in big cities necessarily share this attitude, but many of the vocal ones blogging from their Macs at Starbucks sure do. The condo craze transplanted so many urban newbies from homogenized suburbs, as well as the most recent generation just now entering the work force who are cultural products of the Roaring 90's, it makes complete sense that these two archetypes cringe at the thought of returning to the days of Woolworth and a society at harmony with economic diversity.

The Sex and the City phenomena isn't necessarily good or bad. It renewed an interest in our cities and brought life to the streets, restaurants, and boutiques. It saved priceless architecture, expanded neighborhoods, and renewed downtown living as a valid option. This was particularly beneficial to the larger cities like New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, who although they lost considerable population during this nation's urban dark ages they were able to maintain a viable population at the urban heart unlike places like Baltimore or Pittsburgh.

What hurt Baltimore and Pittsburgh's downtowns is the disconnect between residential areas and their downtowns. Ed Bacon, at the opposite end of the Sex and the City philosophy, is often credited with saving Philadelphia's urban population. While he may have dictated all of Philadelphia's mid-century development, he viewed the city as a massive office park. Bacon was a product of his time. Like the vision employed in every other mid-century city, Bacon wanted to chop up Center City into urban islands, focusing on office development and freeways to get commuters in and out. Philadelphia maintained a residential core for the same reason New York and Chicago did. Bacon's vision didn't save Philadelphia's downtown population, but like New York and Chicago we had enough people to survive his vision.

Unfortunately his philosophy left us with suburban amenities far outweighing those of the city. Urban retail in Philadelphia is impractical. It is all or nothing. You can have your dog dyed pink or find a dollar store, but you can't walk to a decent grocery store. While many urban newbies want to make Center City the Delaware Valley's go-to shopping destination, maintaining it as Philadelphia's primary shopping destination is far more important. The suburbs are more than welcome to service the suburbs, but they should not be serving as Philadelphia's primary shopping resource.

While Philadelphia may be responsible as our region's cultural center, accepting this responsibility comes with more than 50 years of economic decline, corruption, and poverty. A city can't just accommodate the wealthy or you wind up with the fallout San Francisco, DC, and Boston are currently experiencing from attempting to maintain the illusion of extremely high standards. We do have a responsibility as the region's cultural representative to set extremely high cultural standards but that is not synonymous with high end shopping. To truly embrace these high cultural standards, a culture must acknowledge and accommodate all of its demographics. Sadly cultures that preach tolerance from a soap box are often the same cultures that sweep their economic diversity under the rug...or ship it to Oakland.

Realistically, retail on Chestnut Street and Market East mirror a large part of Philadelphia's population and thus generate a large chunk of tax revenue. Walnut Street represents the idealistic philosophy that has left other major cities in the red as it is afforded by a much smaller part of Philadelphia's population. Both have their place and balance is vital.

The idea that a city should be on the high end of everything is completely at odds with what the American city is and has always been. The worn storefronts on Chestnut Street and Market East serve as Philadelphia's downtown staples because the Sex and the City set has convinced us that they should be Starr restaurants or nothing, leaving us in the middle to drive to the suburbs for paper towels because this small population of vocal snobs thinks Center City is too good for a Target. A city can't sustain itself on luxuries and the upper-middle class. To succeed we need to accommodate, and tolerate, everyone.