Majestic Hotel

Past the theaters and clubs, at the gateway to North Broad's indulgent residential end, was the Majestic Hotel at Broad and Girard. A grand hotel which conjures up images of a new era of wealth and society brought about by the early 1900s and immortaliozed by Hollywood, the Majestic was another jewel unceremoniously demolished in 1971. Even in it's dilapidated state in the 1960s one can't help but wonder why on earth this wouldn't have been saved. It was designed by Stanford B. Lewis. Currently a suburban style McDonalds sits on the site with it's own surface parking.

Odd Fellow's Temple

Arguably one of the biggest losses of the Convention Center expansion was the Odd Fellows' Temple, or Sweeten Auto Company building on North Broad Street. During the site preparation for the expansion, there was much debate over the Race Street Fire House and the illegally demolished Philadelphia Life Insurance Company buildings on North Broad, but very little mention was made of the most massive loss. The Odd Fellows' Temple design was submitted in 1892 by Hazlehurst & Huckel and built in 1893. As originally built, the Odd Fellow's Temple contained smaller windows than the North Broad building we all came to know which was demolished in 2008.

Scottish Rite "Town Hall"

1966

Another North Broad treasure lost to the parking craze of the 1980's was the Scottish Rite Temple or Town Hall at Broad and Race, built in 1926 and designed by Horace W. Castor. The bizarre, stone walls of the secret society unceremoniously met the wrecking ball in 1983 to make way for Parkway Corporation's poorly designed garage and headquarters.

During demolition in 1983

Broadwood Hotel

At one time, and now again, South Broad Street is spotted with the grand homes to Philadelphia's performing arts community. However North Broad Street was at once the post industrial home to the new, 20th century art world and briefly experienced the decadence afforded by the Industrial Revolution with massive entertainment venues never attempted in the historically stuffy and bourgeois theaters on and surrounding South Broad Street.

One of the most monolithic - and recent - architectural losses of North Broad Street's Golden Age was the Broadwood Hotel which also served as the Elk's Lodge and Philadelphia Athletic Club. Completed in 1924 by Ballinger Company and Andrew J. Samuel, it housed a ballroom that hosted the Eugene Ormandy Orchestra and saw many outstanding and historically relevant performances through its life. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 yet like many other gems of North Broad Street met the wrecking ball a short time later. Like many victims of Philadelphia's "renaissance", it is now the site of an uninspired parking garage - next and adjacent to three other large surface parking lots - operated by the parasitic Parkway Corporation. It's history is hazy, it's loss all but forgotten, along with countless other North Broad Street masterpieces.

The Vine Street Expressway Problem

One of our largest lesions of surface parking lots sits in a forgotten corner of Center City. Parking Lot Town is boxed in by the Convention Center, the Vine Street Expressway, and a vibrant Chinatown brimming with authenticity rare to most American Chinatowns - a Chinatown consistently targeted by city officials and predatory developers, loved by locals and long time residents, and abhorred by urban newbies and Yellow Tags. Asian owned businesses continue to thrive not just along Arch and Race, but also north of Vine along Callowhill. Philadelphia's Chinatown may be one of the few which continues to grow as a traditional immigrant neighborhood while relatively untouched by development geared toward gentrification or an attempt to attract a homogenized upper-middle class market, all in spite of the casm the Vine Street Expressway cuts through this neighborhood, and the parking holes that litter it's perimeter.

Much has been said regarding the Vine Street Expressway. As one of the nation's shortest interstate highways, many simply question the need for it at all. Prior to its construction which took the better half of a century, Vine Street was a significantly large avenue. Though it carried drivers across the city much slower than the VSE, considering the width of Center City, is it absolutely necessary to carry them across it at 55 miles per hour, particularly since most will be traveling it during rush hour traffic?

But whether you like it or not, it's here to stay. The question is how does it remain, and what responsibility do we have to the surrounding communities it divided? Boston's "Big Dig" often comes up as a solution. Boston's I-95 cut through the literal core of the city and spanned a much larger distance and was ripe with problems. Philadelphia's VSE is much shorter, straighter, and not surrounded by the kind of large scale, modern development that lines Boston's I-95 so capping it between 10th and Broad would be relatively simple. Relatively.

Unfortunately capping it might only produce more parking. Look at the area that caps the regional rail lines leading from Market East Station. One thing Philadelphia doesn't seem to undertsand is that it's pointless (unless you want more parking) to cap something if you never plan on building anything above it. If we capped the VSE it could be nothing but parking lots. Philadelphia seems obsessed with parking. Too much is never, ever enough. We're one of the densest city's in the US, and in most neighborhoods where the average home is about as wide as a midsized sedan, residents feel entitled to at least two cars. While people in Los Angeles work towards creating public trasit options and reducing the need for cars, Philadelphia wants more parking. I'll save that for another time.

As for the VSE, why not look at it this way? Why was it built as a recessed freeway in the first place? There's really no reason. Recessed it is less obtrusive and less visible. Why not cover the VSE with Vine Street, probably what should have been done in the first place. Move the south side of the actual street on top of the VSE, reunite it with it's northern brother, open up the sea of parking lots that the south side demolition created, and give developers a wider plain to work with between Vine and Summer. This increases the room for parking garages to service Conventioneers and hotel guests, making the remaining surface lots unfriendly, ugly, and unecessary. With the VSE underground you unite the Loft District with Chinatown, remove the eyesore of a freeway in your backyard and give investors incentive to create a whole new neighborhood.

Philadelphia Story

La Ronda has been torn down but what about Ardrossan - inspiration for the 1940 classic Philadelphia Story starring Katharine Hepburn and James Stewart? Nothing more than speculation has been discussed since it went on the market. The Villanova mansion was designed by the famed Horace Trumbauer, but regardless of its history it seems to get less attention than some of his less influential and reverred homes.

Dilworth Plaza

Is the Dilworth Plaza redesign really that great, or does it look so good because it's clean? Renderings often conceal bad design, especially when you take a desolate, dirty public space and airbrush in pedestrians, trees, and shiny new pavement. If two designs were given to someone unfamiliar with Dilworth Plaza, would a rendering of a new Dilworth Plaza look any more impressive than a rendering of a cleaned and bustling Dilworth Plaza as it exists today? Probably not. But Dilworth Plaza doesn't lack design and good design isn't going to save it. What a new design will do - good or bad - is remind us all that Dilworth Plaza is here.

No matter what plan is put forth, naysayers will always argue any public space will become a concrete landfill collecting trash from commuters and a gathering place for homeless and pigeons. It took half a century to make the more seasoned Philadelphians realize that Independence Mall wasn't our Hooverville. And plenty who still use that term refuse to accept it as the successful public space it has become.

But Dilworth Plaza isn't about them, it doesn't have to be about them, and in a fitting honor commemorating its namesake, Richardson Dilworth wouldn't have want it to be about them. Dilworth Plaza is about the new life surrounding City Hall. Once closed at five on Friday, overlooked by a macabre and charred One Meridian Place, this forgotten gem in the shadow of one of the most impressive and architecturally revered buildings in the world has the potential to attract those who have made Center City Philadelphia what it has become in the past two decades.

Overlooked by the new Residences at the Ritz, surrounded by a growing number of hotels, adjacent to the new entrance of the Convention Center, Dilworth Plaza's reinvention isn't about architecture and design, it's about attracting activity to the literal heart of our city.

The unintrusive glass entrances, similar to the entrance across the street and the east entrance to Suburban Station - both underrated and undercelebrated improvements to the overall City Hall/Suburban Station transportation complex - don't overwhelm this natural space. In the overall design we see a lot of the same concrete but we also see a lot of grass. Given the advantages growing around it, this square has the potential to become a twilight enclave of Bohemia much like Rittenhouse and Washington Squares. Add to it a large shallow pool outfitted for fountains and easily transformed into an ice skating rink, it draws even more activity by attracting families, friends, and couples seeking unique evening or weekend afternoon activities that don't require a car.

As it exists, Dilworth Plaza doesn't need a lot of work. What it needs is a simple facelift - seen here - a good scrubdown with Lysol, and more than anything a reminder to all of us that it is here and that is exactly what this plan does.