19 March 08: 95 on your interstate, #1 in your heart,
or, a lonely night on the lonely highway

My buddy Buck from back home in Tyrone called me at 6 yesterday to ask me how things were looking out on I-95, knowing that I live a whole three blocks from it. I wanted to say "really quiet," but as there were four really loud helicopters hovering above, feeding their local network news live footage of the empty interstate, all I said was "WHAT?" I was at first amused that 95's temporary closure would even make news in western PA, but then I realized that this is the east coast's primary artery, the country's traffic-moving jugular from the Canadian border at Houlton, Maine, 2000 miles south to Miami, Florida, where it defers back to US-1 (the pre-Eisenhower north-south which we know locally as Roosevelt Boulevard and City Line Avenue) on its way to Key Largo and Key West. So its closing is big, and seeing it in USA Today and on CNN is no surprise. All told, it's better that Philly's highways made the national news before a column collapsed than after, and good on PennDOT for doing the right thing, and on the fastest track possible. Around 8 o'clock, the evening foreman said that they were still waiting on the replacement columns towers to be delivered, noting that "well, they have to sit in the same traffic as everyone else just to get here." The Inquirer's Peter Mucha and Joseph Gambardello reported from the scene at 7am that they are there and being installed as we speak. PennDOT still expects to have I-95 reopened late this evening, for a total closure of two days (and four rush hours). Not bad. Recognizing that I'd probably never see I-95 without traffic on it ever again, I thought what the hell, I'm gonna just hop up there and check it out for myself. So I did. This is what I-95 looks like at night with no cars on it. This is looking northward just above the Port Richmond Veterans Memorial on Richmond Street. Walking out onto the silent interstate expressway, devoid of cars and trucks and buses, of people and any noise at all, was half-eerie, half-adrenaline rush. Very much a movie-set moment, the 28 Days Later / I Am Legend post-apocalypse type. As it had just started to drizzle, the road started to glow orange under the snake lights. In the middle of the empty road, I could have headed north toward Bridesburg or south toward the skyline and my home. I mean . . . duh. (Click, enlarge.) I decided to walk south in the northbound lane, because why not? There was freight train activity on the Conrail Yards just below and a police helicopter was shining its spotlight somewhere over Kensington. The Ben Franklin Bridge was changing between red and purple lights, doing that thing where it has a white light follow the Speedline train as it crosses the bridge. As I got up to the crest of the viaduct in the northbound lane, I stopped to take in the view and got the bright idea to take a picture of myself lying down in the middle of the highway, because why not? I switched out to my 11-18mm wide-angle lens and lowered my tripod two notches to focus on the white stripe of the highway. I set the ten second timer and ran over to my spot and sprawled out. I heard the shutter begin and then heard what sounded like a car. I didn't think much of it and tried to stay as still as possible, as it was a long (25 second) exposure, but the sound got louder. OK, I thought, I'll just have to lift my head to see, and HOLY SHIT a state trooper is flying, boy, flying like 80 miles an hour with his red and blues on coming right for me. I jumped up real quick and waved at him like "nah man, I'm cool, I'm good people, really!" Meanwhile, the tripod is still standing in the same place, exposing the picture. (Click, enlarge.) The 30-something officer, the only other person I had seen in an entire hour, rolls his window down and says simply, "Dude. What are you doing?" "Well, clearly I'm pressing my luck, if nothing else," I told him. "Did someone give you permission to be up here?" "Well, no, but I didn't really ask, either . . . I'm sorry man, as a photographer, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to take pictures of an interstate with no cars on it." I handed him my card and told him the photos I took would be on this web site. "All right look," he said, "you know you're not supposed to be here, so do me a favor and just get off the interstate." "Yes sir, can do." "And walk on the shoulder," he said before shaking his head and speeding further south in the northbound lane. So I did. I hopped the median and continued on the southbound shoulder on down to the Girard Ave exit, a mile and a half south of where I'd started. As I was just about at the exit, two more state troopers whizzed by but didn't stop to chat. Gotta say, that was a bit of a rush too. To see more photos of the evening on an empty I-95, please click HERE. –B Love

18 March 08: Philly Skyline vs Penny Postcards:
The Parkway & the Skyline

If anyone got the number of that truck that ran me over last night, please let me know right away. Who said St Patrick's Day in Fishtown was a good idea anyway??? In today's episode of Philly Skyline vs the Penny Postcards, we find ourselves like some Italian Stallion with our arms raised above our heads in triumph. This postcard view used to be the skyline view in all Philadelphia. South Street Bridge really didn't nail it until One Liberty Place came along. The Camden riverfront used to be all industrial. The Plateau has always been regal in its beauty, but it's a little further out (though indeed, a trolley used to loop directly through Fairmount Park). But the top of the steps at the Art Museum -- that has been a destination vista since the museum opened its doors in 1926. From the late 20s to the mid 40s, a large portion of postcards were printed on linen paper stock, which allowed the publishers to enhance and brighten the colors of the subjects. There are loads of Philadelphia postcards that were printed in this era, but the view above is possibly the most popular, and therefore most common. Just about any local antique store or flea market that carries enough postcards that they are sorted (by state or by county) will have the "Parkway from Art Museum, looking towards City Hall". And hey, there's a reason it was so popular. It's within this roaring 20s context that we might actually appreciate what the gentleman's agreement did for the skyline. While modernism changed and streamlined architecture and postmodernism brought back opulence with a futuristic twist, it's hard not to marvel a such a collection of French, Greek, beaux-arts, art deco, and other pre-WWII styles. Of course the Parkway is as much an attraction here as the view. As it was built from the time of World War I through the 1920s, a number of institutions relocated here to make it the 'museum district' it's recognized as today. As the trees which line the Parkway were so young at the time of the original postcard, the Central Library and Franklin Institute are very visible, where today one can see neither from the top of the steps. To make the contemporary view as accurate as possible, the top of the modern skyline had to be lopped off. (The full photo runs at the end of this post, Philly Skyline Philly Skyline stylo.) City Hall and the PSFS Building are pretty much all that are left in the modern view. You can make out the top of 1835 Arch, but that's it. A more tangible difference, though, when comparing the old with the new, is the lower half of the picture, the immediate foreground known today as Eakins Oval. The Washington Monument, the landmark sculpture by Rudolf Siemering in 1897, was moved from its original location at the Green Street entrance to Fairmount Park to its prominent location on the Parkway in 1928. It used to be the center of a simple traffic circle, but with the urban renewal of the 50s and 60s, Eakins Oval was created on the western end of the Parkway to balance the new addition on the eastern end, JFK Plaza (Love Park). Trees were planted within the oval, and over forty years later, they're so tall that they block some of the sightlines that made this view so popular. While Eakins Oval serves its purpose in mitigating traffic from the Parkway, Kelly Drive, MLK Drive, 24th Street and three different parts of Spring Garden Street including the vehicles leaving the Schuylkill Expressway, that it has a surface parking lot with a whopping total of 86 spaces right smack in the middle of what is intentionally modeled after the Champs-Elysée . . . well that is just terrible. What's more, the modern pedestrian is not even permitted to cross traffic from the Washington Monument to the Art Museum steps, which is to say that continuing your natural, visual progression from the Parkway to the Art Museum is illegal. (People do it, but it's technically not legal.) Perhaps when the Art Museum's new parking garage is finished out back, we can jackhammer the Eakins Oval lot and do . . . something. A skating rink? A café? I don't know, but whatever it is will be better than surface parking for 86 cars in the middle of our beloved Ben Franklin Parkway. To compare the 1920s Parkway skyline with the 2000s Parkway skyline, please click HERE. NOTES & SOURCES: • "Parkway from Art Museum" postcard published by Lynn H Boyer, Jr, Philadelphia PA & Wildwood NJ and printed by Genuine Curteich-Chicago • Contemporary photo taken by B Love, 15 March 08 • Postmarked July 7, 1941. • Back of card reads: THE PARKWAY carries the justly famous Fairmount Park right down to the center of the city. This broad avenue is lined with stately structures as the Public Library, Rodin Museum, Franklin Memorial Building and the Board of Education Administration Building and is dominated at its end by the finest Art Museum in the world. The Parkway has no equal outside of Paris. PREVIOUSLY ON PHILLY SKYLINE VS PENNY POSTCARDS: 10 March 08: 1800 Arch Street 27 February 08: New Market 7 March 07: Letitia Street House Finally, a little wallpaper to bring it on home. Bring it on home. –B Love

17 March 08: Luck o' the Irish and so forth

You can pop up to Aramingo & York to buy your Million Mick March shirt (no, really), you can watch the green-jersey Phillies, you can go green by attending the Community College of Philadelphia's lecture on urban vertical farming by Dr. Dickson Despommier of Columbia University (a fascinating concept -- read more at verticalfarm.com and picture the possibilities), or you can pour yourself a nice glass of Jameson/Bushmills/Black Bush/Powers/Tullamore/Michael Collins, kick your feet up and enjoy. Whatever baby, just enjoy your St Patrick's Day. Also enjoy your Philly Skyline Boathouse Skyline above, taken over the weekend amongst a large batch of new Big Four updates: Comcast Center, Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, 10 Rittenhouse Square, Murano. * * * A big thanks to everyone who's emailed over the past several days . . . there is so much of it that I won't be able to get back to it all, so thanks for understanding. Worth noting: comments will be made available on Philly Skyline following installation of blag software. It truly is coming soon. –B Love

16 March 08: American Dreamin'

Hey fellas, have you heard the news? You know that Annie's back in town, and Annie is a fan of yr Philly Skyline and the proposed one thousand, five hundred foot monster jam of a building complex called American Commerce Center. It's the red outline above, moving at the speed of Schuylkill Expressway. There's been one hell of a buzz about town in the three days since the ACC concept went public, but a supertall skyscraper that would replace a dumpy little surface parking lot has the tendency to do that. Following Natalie Kostelni's excellent article for Friday's Philadelphia Business Journal, a sampling of ACC coverage from traditional media looks a little something like: • 6ABC • CBS3 That's it, through 72 hours. Around yonder internet, Philly's finest blogs have weighed in: • Clog • Phillyist • Huge Tiny Mistake • Philebrity • Dovate ACC's also sprouted a Wiki page: • Wikipedia Finally, two discussion boards where news precedes news, and the conversations are quite good: • Phillyblog • Skyscraperpage The 26-story Arche de la Défense-esque hotel and 63 story office tower are planned for completion in 2012, just in time for Darren Daulton's (and the Mayans') end of the world. It will, well, pretty much obliterate this view of the city's tallest building from the middle of 19th Street: American Commerce Center. Philly Skyline will check back in with a follow-up some time in the coming days, so don't stray too far. * * * While our heads are focused on the future, our feet are stuck here in 2008, so let's put em to a pirouette and peruse our progress all proper like . . . Starting with a view across the Northern Liberties, let's get down with a sampling of shapes and shades. (Click to enlarge your Philly Skyline Hey Bart How's It Goin' Skyline.) Mr Blatstein informs me that this second phase of Piazza construction is in fact called Two Hancock Square, after an initial bit of confusion on my end. It'll obviously complement the already-open One Hancock Square, though where One lines 2nd Street, Two will follow Germantown Avenue. In addition to the verticals of St Michael the Archangel's steeple, PSFS' mullions, some crappy cell phone tower, PNB and City Hall and the horizontals of Aramark, PSFS, Centre Square and the Hancock Squares, we see the Residences at the Ritz-Carlton approaching topping off. According to my calculations (which may or may not be accurate), construction is 42 stories high, with six to go before they celebrate. * * * Oh hey, remember Parkway 22, the enormous condo project formerly known as the Barnes Tower? (It would be hard to forget if you've seen the advertising in the Inquirer and Philly Mag.) Welp . . . this here is the sales office of Parkway 22, located at the 21st & Hamilton corner of the ground floor of the Best Western Hotel, catty-corner from the Wawa that will probably close its doors soon like those at 2nd & Christian and 20th & Locust before it. 11th & Arch and 17th & Arch, you're on notice. I mean, how can you expect a convenience store to survive when it's named for the sound inhaling a balloon full of nitrous oxide makes? Wawawawawawawawawawawa. Wha wha? Where was I . . . Ah yes, Parkway 22. Demolition work is scheduled to begin on the structure along 22nd & Spring Garden this week, and the Best Western Hotel and its historic B&W Lounge are to close in August, with demolition immediately to follow. Parkway 22 has four components: sizable rowhouses along Spring Garden (with parking off street in the rear, which is to say the homes meet and greet the street), a six story loft building along 21st Street moving northward from Hamilton, an 18 story hotel building along 22nd St & Pennsylvania Ave that will mimic the height of Parkway House directly across the street, and finally, the handsome 37 story condo tower designed by Burt Hill. Completion is also targeted for YDD (Year Darren Daulton, 2012). * * * Speaking of sneaking a peaking, what we have here is a brand new Zooballoon. If you've noticed that the Zooballoon has not been on the skies for a couple weeks, it's not a mistake; it's been grounded while it's gotten a facelift. With a grand unveiling planned for this Tuesday, the Zooballoon will now wear a Cincinnati Bengals motif presumable permanent nod to Big Cat Falls, replacing the giraffe that has adorned the balloon since it launched in June 2002. Related photo essays from the 2006 archives: Finally, on this 16th day of March, two thousand eight . . . BEER. Tomorrow is St Patrick's Day, so be good to yourself and have a pint of Guinness, not some disgusting Miller Lite with blue food dye in it. But before we even get to the Paddys, we must send off what appears to be an extremely successful first annual Philly Beer Week with one Huzzah. Congrats, Beer Week organizers and Beer Week participants. See you at Fergie's? –B Love

13 March 08: 1,500 feet of Breaking News

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls; friends, Romans, countrymen; members of the press: meet American Commerce Center. Your Philly Skyline is about to change. About to incur a growth spurt. About to shatter any notion of Philadelphian reservedness, about to take A New Day A New Way to a whole other level. The spired skyscraper pictured above and below would like to reclaim for the Central Business District one of its biggest surface parking lots, the one profiled in Monday's Penny Postcard post. Led by its president Garrett Miller, Walnut Street Capital (WSC) has had a vision of major mixed-use for the lot at 1800 Arch Street since it acquired it in October. It brought on world renowed architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) to craft that vision. KPF is not only accustomed to Philadelphia, having recently designed the US Airways terminal at the airport and Huntsman Hall for the Wharton School of Business, but it is indeed well familiar with the very vicinity of 1800 Arch. As Center City watched its skyline be redefined in the 80s, KPF contributed Mellon Bank Center, which was originally to have been as tall as One Liberty Place, as well as Two Logan Square, One Logan Square and its adjacent Four Seasons Hotel. It's also worth mentioning that Gene Kohn, the Kohn of Kohn Pedersen Fox and chairman of the company, is from Philadelphia. He graduated from Penn in the 50s and cut his teeth working for Vincent Kling in the Penn Center 60s. KPF also knows their way around the supertall. As we speak, their designs for new tallest buildings are under construction in skyscraper meccas Shanghai and Hong Kong, the Shanghai World Financial Center (1,588', 100 floors - Skyscraperpage) and International Commerce Center (1,608', 118 floors - Skyscraperpage), respectively. Remember how Comcast Center -- one block away -- transformed the skyline? Well, brace yourself . . . This is American Commerce Center. The vitals: 26 story hotel, 473' to the garden accessible to hotel guests. 3-to-6 stories of street-accessible retail along Arch Street with a public garden facing the dome of the Arch Street Presbyterian Church, and another garden on the sixth floor, between Arch and Cuthbert and overlooking the one below. 63 story office tower, 1,210' to the lower portion of the roof, 1,500' to the top of the spire. All parking is underground, including dedicated bicycle parking. LEED gold. Mayor Michael Nutter, via his Press Secretary Doug Oliver, believes that "it would be a spectacular addition to Philadelphia's skyline. Sustainability efforts and building green continue to be hallmarks of this Administration and the plans for this particular project are consistent with those goals." If we've learned anything over the past five years of Philly's mini building boom, it's that the streetscape trumps all else when surveying a new building's contribution to the city. Garrett Miller knew this going into concept: "it has to be engaging at the street level, or else it is a failure." The pedestrian fabric is as much a part of American Commerce Center (ACC) as is its height. Along 18th Street, following the natural direction of (vehicular) traffic, the pedestrian is greeted with a mini-plaza that will be home to a café and the three-story lobby of the hotel. At 19th & Arch, the main entrance of the office tower amplifies the corner by the tower's massing being sliced -- chamfered -- back from the street corner. Make no mistake, though, the height is very much a part of ACC. That same chamfer is echoed as the tower rises, and at its top, it then angles again back to a large spire. Miller clarifies, "while the vision of the building is to engage the pedestrian -- to engage Philadelphia -- at the street level, we also want the tower to be a symbol of our collective aspiration and hope. We want it to be seen from far away, literally and figuratively." Even in a questionable market, funding does not appear to present a problem, as Miller cites that partners have been established and that the lot was purchased with 100% equity. Put another way: construction could start whenever. Where it becomes a little tricky is with the 125' blanket height limit which Fifth District Councilman Darrell Clarke enacted following the then-Barnes Tower controversy. The site is currently zoned C4, which does not have a height restriction, but with a large FAR (floor area ratio), ACC would need rezoning. Councilman Clarke declined comment on American Commerce Center for the time being. Rob Stuart, president of the Logan Square Neighborhood Association, feels that "the height is less important than how it meets the street," and in that regard, the developer has done his homework. "This is a very serious design, with a well qualified firm," Stuart continues, referring to KPF's track record. For a site that has been a surface parking lot for nearly thirty years, a lot of thought and consideration has been paid to its redevelopment. So much so that it may prove a lot for some neighbors to handle. For this reason, Miller expects WSC to meet with neighbors to hear their concerns and to build a comfort level. Stuart appreciates the thought that has gone into ACC, but says "now we have to evaluate the impact such a large project will have on the neighborhood." In fact, Mayor Nutter encourages it: "through a series of community forums, various stakeholder groups will have an opportunity to voice the concerns that they may have. We don't have a full picture of what that feedback will be, but concerns will be heard and appropriately handled." It will be interesting to see how ACC is exemplified as LSNA and the City Planning Commission continue to develop their neighborhood master plan, which they're already in the middle of. While Logan Square contains elements of an 'urban village', it is also very much the Central Business District, which the Planning Commission sees as Arch Street to Market Street. Our skyline's current shape is no accident. Because the LSNA-PCPC plan-in-progress is so complex, LSNA has a set of design principles to apply in the interim. Stuart says that WSC "has taken account of a number of our principles, notably the street level and sustainability." The recently announced plans for the 12th & Market Girard Estate block present an interesting juxtaposition when compared against ACC's plans, which are of equal endeavor. The Girard site will require not only massive amounts of demolition -- on top of the subway portion of the Market-Frankford El, no less -- but also the demolition of one of Philadelphia's oldest standing skyscrapers, the 1896 Stephen Girard Building by James H Windrim. At 1800 Arch, ACC has only a parking lot attendant's booth in its way. * * * It's very early in the process. A groundbreaking ballpark isn't even until summer 2009. But to weigh the siting, the favorable pedestrian experience, and the choice of an acclaimed (read: expensive) architect is to understand that American Commerce Center is a very serious proposal, a very serious statement about Philadelphia's sense of place. Stay tuned. For further reading: • American Commerce Center • KPF • Walnut Street Capital NOTES: All images courtesy of Walnut Street Capital and Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates. UPDATE: Ah what the hell, howzabout a rudimentary Philly Skyline composite? –B Love

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