Sowing Seeds on North Broad

With the fence down at the new entrance to the Pennsylvania Convention Center and its 13th Street tunnel open to pedestrians, it's becoming more and more tempting to envision a new North Broad. Few people remember this neighborhood prior to the initial construction of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in 1992. Even fewer pictures remain. With the exception of Reading Terminal Market which sat below the rusted Reading Terminal Station next to its derelict head house, few residents strolled the streets just west of Chinatown. Historically this is Philadelphia's red light district, a legacy that continues to this day in its windowless massage parlors.

But is the Renaissance at North Broad and its adjacent blocks already starting to take root? To the naked eye, it's hard to see much more than the Convention Center's newly illuminated facade, particularly when so few are familiar with the surrounding blocks which, with the exception of parking, are all but forgotten by most Center City residents. Despite the fact that developers chose to continue with the center's monotonous Race Street facade which irresponsibly turns its ass to its neighbors, new businesses are already finding their way north of the Convention Center. Considering the transformation the neighborhood underwent following its initial construction in the 1990s, state officials who approved the plans may find themselves regretting the fact that they didn't make the Race Street facade remotely inviting.



Nonetheless, the Sheraton is thriving and a new convenience store is seeing business at 13th and Race. Drexel has dressed up one of its buildings with new windows and an illuminated crown and construction is underway on the Academy of the Arts' Lenfest Plaza. Nearby, construction continues on the infamous graffiti building at 12th and Wood, and even the Watusi Charter School is undergoing improvements. Undoubtedly business franchises are researching locations surrounding the center's North Broad facade which finally gives it a formal entrance. Previously the center felt incomplete, and the retail environment around it reflected its absent presence.

With its main entrance at the unassuming corner of 12th and Arch, it didn't supply as much demand for the larger chains that could benefit from the center's proximity to more than one or two venues. I know many Philadelphians are staunchly opposed to chains, but conventioneers eat them up, and this previously unused neighborhood is the perfect place to contain them. And perhaps if the market can support a number of tourist friendly retail establishments, it can drive the property value up enough to rid this neighborhood of the predatory land hoarders operating the surface lots that litter the surrounding cityscape, or at the very least drive them to build vertically.

Small Development Near the Convention Center

Something's going up on an unassuming corner near the Convention Center. Near Race and Camac, on the corner of Spring and Camac, a warehouse which has been completely gutted for a couple years, has sprouted some hair. I have no idea what it is, who's building it, or what it's going to look like, but it's cool to see something moving, especially in this forgotten little corner of Center City.

20 Years Since the Meridian Plaza Fire

For those who have a hard time remembering City Hall without its neighboring Residences at the Ritz, you probably have an even harder time remember it being eclipsed by the towering charred shell of One Meridian Plaza.

Philly.com posted a number of photos from its archive of the fire and its aftermath in honor of the anniversary of the blaze, which happened 20 years ago today.

Philly.com - February 23, 1991 - One Meridian Plaza Fire

See also on PhillyBricks - One Meridian Plaza

Escher's Waterfall Brought to Life

I spent the better part of a day getting a headache over this. There are a lot of theories online trying to explain how it's done, but he's not coming forth with the truth behind his trick. Obviously an optical illusion, it's nothing short of an amazing feat of carpentry.

Another One Down?

What is up, people? Another one bites the dust? First, Bradley Maule takes our beloved Phillyskyline.com to Oregon, then Philly Brownstoner can't find the $6000 a month they apparently need to log five posts a day, and now Phillyist, our franchise in the the ist chain is "on hiatus"? Is New York the only place people blog anymore?

It's 2011. We need our daily dose of bias ranting from something other than Philly.com.

Lighting Up Market East

Has Mary Tracy, Executive Director of SCRUB (The Society Created to Reduce Urban Blight), ever been to Market East? I often wonder. This is the woman who said of the first serious discussions to improve the decaying corridor in over two decades, "they're talking about taking what could be a really majestic area and totally stigmatizing it with honky-tonk junk."

You would think the last time she walked Market Street from 8th to 12th was 1776 because even since the early 19th Century, Market East has been stigmatized with "honky-tonk junk." It is what it is, and it's how it's succeeded in the past. It's also the street that inspired a nation of Market Streets and Main Streets as the main commercial corridor. What she calls "honky-tonk junk" is what pays a city's bills.

But where is this majestic potential that Mary Tracy envisions? She and SCRUB have only ever played a contrarian thorn, but never offered an alternative solution. Like a lot of Philadelphia's dreamers, I can see a lot in a little. If we couldn't, we'd live in San Francisco or Boston or some boutique city that has already figured out what SCRUB refuses to accept: progress costs money.

But where is the potential in Market East? Is it in the two story Girard Block with its giant McDonald's inspired roof? Is it in the dead Colorforms adorning the vacant Value Plus? No, the potential, while obvious to many may be ironic to SCRUB, is in the blank canvas that is The Gallery.


View Larger Map

Market East's "majestic" 10th and Market, one of a few corners SCRUB routinely ignores in their plight to preserve this stagnant corridor. Why? Because any attention paid to this intersection would prompt the rational opinion: Sure, light it up!
Take a tour.

Illuminated by Hard Rock Cafe's neon guitar and Sole Food's scrolling news feed, Market East succeeds at 12th. While those who think Philadelphia can't sell anything that doesn't have a Liberty Bell on it refuse to accept that Market East's brightly lit corridor of consumerism will carry our tourists from their hotel to Independence Mall, those with a basic understanding of Economics 101 see the ugly mid-century architectural abortions along Market Street being used to capture billions of tourist dollars along their trek to our historic hot spots.

SCRUB claims to fight for a cleaner Philadelphia, billing themselves as an anti-blight organization, but I can't think of a single instance in which it has done anything to fight urban blight, only stifle capitalism. Have they ever cleared a block of vacant row homes or launched a campaign to clear trash from vacant lots?

Advertisements aren't blight. They pay for things like sidewalks and trees. Ultimately they can even pay to develop light rails and renovate historic city-owned buildings. But the primary focus of this group is to attack corporate investment in our city. Then they assume that taxes will pay for our dreamers' visions, while our taxes barely keep our libraries and pools open.

Unless SCRUB has found the secret wardrobe to a world of unlimited public funds, I think we're better off following the model that saved so many other cities' decaying retail corridor. If Mary Tracy knows something that other cities don't, show me the flute playing goat-man from Narnia and I'll shut up.

She doesn't. And if SCRUB's interest lied in removing blight, they would be compromising with City Council on a way to attract business - revenue - to Market East.

Instead, they bullheadedly refuse to accept the basic rules of capitalism under the misguided delusion that this city has one and only one thing to offer: "People are coming to our city to visit the historic areas; that's our brand." -Mary Tracy, Executive Director of S.C.R.U.B.

I'm sorry, SCRUB, but I think we're a little better than that. Maybe you can't envision a better Market East, but I sure can. And it's time to turn the lights back on.

Bryce Mountain Bricks

I love the unpredictable weather patterns of the mid-Atlantic region. I spent four days in the mountains hoping to ski in 70 degree weather, and once home in Philly I wake up to six inches of snow.

Greetings from Shenandoah County, VA

Main Street, New Market